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The Project
A youth minister who stays.
Most churches that want a full-time youth minister cannot yet fund one. The role is real, the young people are there, but the salary is out of reach. So the work falls to someone part-time, or to no one at all.
The Project is how a church takes on that role before it can carry the whole cost, and grows into funding it in full.
A full-time, long-term role in a church that could not reach it alone
The reality
Most churches have no one in the role
0%
of Australian churches have no youth minister0%
have a part-time youth minister0%
of Australian churches have a full-time youth ministerFigures: Stanton & Pepper, Journal of Empirical Theology (2025); 2016 NCLS church base.
Why the gap holds
A gap that widens
Youth ministry in Australia is not short of willing churches. It is short of roles a person can build a life around.
The shortage is not an accident. Because the vast majority of roles are part-time, a youth minister has to choose between the work they are called to and a wage they can live on. Many leave. Churches watch the revolving door and grow slow to invest again, so fewer roles ever become full-time, and youth ministry gets treated as a stepping stone to “proper” ministry rather than the vocation it is.
When an experienced youth minister leaves early, the loss compounds. Years of hard-won knowledge about what actually works with young people walk out with them, and the next church starts again from nothing.
None of this is fixed in the ground. Part-time roles, burnout, and the loss of experienced leaders were built over time, and they can be rebuilt. This is God’s work before it is anyone’s strategy; the church has done it before and can do it again.
The structural problemA church can call, train, and support a good youth minister. But a single church cannot address structural problems that span the whole Australian church.
The vision
A future with youth ministers who stay
Today
A handful of full-time youth ministers, and a revolving door.
thirty years
In thirty years
Hundreds who stay — in cities and country towns, wherever there is a church and a high school.
Picture not one or two full-time youth ministers, but hundreds: across denominations, wherever there is a high school and a church that wants to serve young people. Youth ministry held as a vocation, not a stepping stone; a role a person can give their working life to.
This is a thirty-year picture, not a campaign. The Project is YMF’s “Send” work: the concrete, one-church-at-a-time expression of that vision. Its shape is borrowed from the mission-agency model that has sustained long-term workers overseas for generations. The Project tests whether it holds for youth ministry here at home.
We strive to see long-term vocational youth ministry become a funded, concrete reality — one church at a time.
How a partnership works
The church grows into the role
The Project places a skilled, supported full-time youth minister in a church that wants to invest in young people but cannot yet fund the role on its own. YMF carries more of the cost early; the church takes on more over time. By the midpoint the church funds the role in full — and in the final years a small surplus flows back to seed the next partnership.
IncubationYears 1–3
50%church
YMF 50%
YMF and the church share the cost while the role establishes.
TransitionYears 4–6
75%church
YMF 25%
The church takes on the larger share.
MaturityYears 7–9
100%church
YMF 0%
Seeding (15%)
The church funds the role in full and returns a small % to YMF to seed the next partnership.
IncubationYears 1–3
50%church
YMF 50%
YMF and the church share the cost while the role establishes.
TransitionYears 4–6
75%church
YMF 25%
The church takes on the larger share.
MaturityYears 7–9
100%church
YMF 0%
Seeding (15%)
The church funds the role in full and returns a small % to YMF to seed the next partnership.
The first partnership
Katie Holloway
Youth Minister · Plentylife Anglican Church, Mernda VICOne church, one youth minister who stays. It is the first test of a model we believe can be repeated.
The model is not a thought experiment.
In July 2026 the first partnership began with Katie Holloway, youth minister at Plentylife Anglican Church in Mernda, on Melbourne’s northern edge — a church ready to invest in young people, with YMF standing behind the role while it grows into funding it.
Why it compounds
Each partnership helps fund the next
Because a church takes on a growing share and eventually funds the role in full — with a little to spare — YMF’s early investment in each partnership is recovered and put to work again. Mature partnerships help fund new ones. The Project is built to replicate, not to run on fresh fundraising alone.
One churchat a time
- 1YMF seeds a roleYMF carries the larger share of a full-time salary in a church that could not yet reach it alone.
- 2The church grows its shareOver the partnership the church moves from half the cost to all of it.
- 3A surplus returnsIn the mature years the church funds the role in full and returns a small surplus to YMF.
- 4The next partnership beginsRecovered funds seed the next church, and the cycle turns again.
About one new partnership every two years · surplus ≈ 15% of salary
Self-replicatingThe model is designed to be self-replicating: mature partnerships fund new ones.
The Project
One church, and then the next.
The shortage of youth ministers was built over decades, and it will not be undone in one. But it can be undone. A church in Mernda has a youth minister who intends to stay, and the way that role is funded is designed to help fund the next one.
This is God’s work, and the ground of our confidence is Christ rather than the model. The Project is simply how YMF puts its shoulder to it: one church, one youth minister, one town at a time.