Ministry Plan

2024-2027

Our Great Opportunity

By the Lord’s grace we have been given an unprecedented opportunity to help shape a generation of young Christian adults across the globe.

At this moment, we have interest from over 60 nations.

This level of interest, together with our experience, training programmes, resources and commitment to training local leaders, gives us unprecedented opportunity to nurture those who may shape the world of tomorrow!

Please pray with us to discern how this opportunity fits into the Lord’s plans and purposes for his creation, and to ask him how we might achieve what seems impossible.

Graduation is Critical

For 25 years we have been working with young Christian adults as they transition from student-life to working-life.

Our twin focus is:

1) to equip them for a lifetime of glorifying God, serving Jesus, and making him known in their workplaces; and

2) to help reduce the significant fall-away from faith that occurs at this transition.

Integrity is key

Our research shows that the greatest barrier to living, thinking and speaking for Jesus at work is integrity. Integrity (righteousness) as a Christlike quality is that which allows Christians to be consistent in all parts of their life. In highly secularised societies integrity represents the courage to be known as a Christian at work, in other contexts it is the determination to resist the tide of corruption pervading professional life.

Many Christians struggle with Christian consistency at work because they feel isolated, and they lack Christian accountability. Wherever they feel their integrity is compromised, they lose the courage to speak out for truth and justice and the reality of the Gospel, and the glory of God is somehow obscured.

We exist to help young professionals learn to live, think and speak at work in a way which glorifies God, by:

  1. Forming Communities of Integrity providing support, wisdom and accountability to live out biblically shaped Christianity at work.

  2. Sharing Stories of Hope as they learn to be open about their personal failures and successes in trying to live distinctively for Jesus at work.

  3. Creating Corridors of Trust where the honesty and authenticity of Christians creates places of safety and trust in professional life, for believers and non-believers alike.

  4. Living as Signposts to Jesus - living, working, speaking, thinking in a way which glorifies God, and ready to speak of their hope in Jesus.

Our challenge today

Having concentrated on Europe and Eurasia for the last 25 years, IFES have asked us to respond to global demand for this ministry. We currently have the possibility to work in 60 countries through national IFES student movements, with a further 20 showing expressions of interest. Realistically we could be supporting between 5,000-10,000 young Christian professionals on 5 continents within 5 years.

Responding to need

The burden the Lord has put on our hearts, and the opportunity we face right now, is that of trying to nurture tomorrow’s beacons of light, who can bring Christ’s love and glory with them into all the world.

We are asking the Lord to help us know how to respond to this challenge, to grow a ministry that will provide support for this global ministry over the next decade. Our current agenda of work in progress or planned aims both to grow our depth of expertise in this ministry as well as meet the breadth of opportunity facing us. We will:

    • Launch a new version of Bible and Culture in partnership with Regent College, Vancouver;

    • Pioneer a European Faith and Work conference for our alumni, with the European Evangelical Alliance;

    • Create profession-specific curricula and training materials;

    • Train and support local leaders to run Cross-Current groups in 5 continents;

    • Support translation, adaptation and adoption of Cross-Current resources for local contexts;

    • Pioneer new Cross-Current ministry in strategic locations;

    • Continue authoring articles, books, and eLearning courses to help connect faith and professional life;

    • Facilitate Cross-Current Professional Groups, online networks and cross-disciplinary Think-Tanks.