Young Leader Programme Lead

Church of England

The Christian Young Leaders Programme is a new workstream focused on equipping, resourcing, and commissioning 4,500 young leaders (school years 9-13) for mission and ministry with children and young people by 2030. These young leaders will join the programme through churches, youth work, and educational settings, contributing to 15% of the overall 30k target by 2030.

At its heart, this programme expresses the conviction that young people are a full part of the Body of Christ, not future members of the Church but active disciples and leaders within the church. Initial design work for the programme has been developed in partnership with colleagues from Vision & Strategy, Education (the National Society), the Ministry Development Team, and a range of parachurch organisations. The programme will build on best practice from dioceses, schools, and local church contexts, ensuring safeguarding and inclusion remain central to every aspect.
The Young Leader Programme Lead will lead this new Christian Young Leaders programme from pioneering pilots through to full scale delivery across the Church of England to enable 4500 young people to grow in their faith and engage in mission and ministry with children and young people by 2030.

The post-holder will lead a national Christian formation programme for young leaders that becomes locally owned which helps young people grow in confident faith and discover their gifts as they contribute to being change-makers in the life of the Church and the wider community.

Key to our approach is a commitment to build upon existing good practice in dioceses, schools, and local church contexts and to ensure that young people’s voices are heard throughout the process. Alongside this, we are committed to ensuring that safeguarding and inclusion are central to every aspect of the programme.

This is a fixed-term position until 31 Dec 2028
Interviews will be held on Monday 02 March

Responsibilities

• Lead the Young Leaders workstream of the 30K Project
• Lead the development of the national Christian leadership formation framework and any accreditation mechanisms for the Young Leaders Programme.
• Recruit an initial 3 pilot diocese, providing training and coordination for early implementation.
• Work closely with the diocesan pilot contexts to shape the programme around existing Christian local young leaders’ initiatives and best practice.
• Co-design the Christian formation programme content with young people, youth practitioners, diocesan teams, leadership parachurch agencies, integrating discipleship and leadership concepts shaping CYP content for CYP.
• Ensure the Christian formation programme is engaging, inspiring, and integrates strong Christian themes and theological threads throughout.
• Co-ordinate and manage national and regional gatherings and networking opportunities to maximise the missional impact of this Christian leadership programme.
• Lead the development of resources, branding, and communications to promote the programme nationally.
• Build collaborative partnerships with dioceses, schools and Christian youth organisations to deliver the programme locally.
• Ensure close coordination with the wider 30k Project, Ministry Development Team, Vision and Strategy, Growing Faith Foundation, and Education Team initiatives.
• Work closely with safeguarding professionals to ensure the programme has safeguarding embedded in its design, delivery and frameworks.
• Address the need to train and support a network of Christian mentors, youth ministers and local leaders to support the Christian formational and missional aims of the programme.
• Lead ongoing evaluation and refinement based on pilot learning to inform national rollout.

About You

Essential

Knowledge/Experience:

• A passionate commitment to the bold outcome of doubling the number of children and young people who are disciples of Jesus Christ by 2030, and specifically to the objectives of the project.
• Able to model and nurture Christian discipleship to children and young people through your own Christian practices such as prayer, reading of Scripture and participation in the worshipping life of the Church.
• A track record of effective delivery as part of a project team, ideally at a national level.
• Demonstratable understanding of safeguarding in work with under 18’s.
• A strong track record of Christian discipleship and leadership formation in young people.
• Experience of working with local and regional partners to build from existing or pilot programmes.
• Personally committed to and passionate about changing the culture of the Church of England.
• Experience of enabling the agency and the voice of children and young people.
• Theology and/or Christian leadership credentials, such as a BA Theology/Diploma or alternative CYPF ministry qualification.

Skills & Abilities:

• High levels of personal organisation.
• Strong written and oral communication.
• Well-developed stakeholder engagement skills to enable the Young Leader workstream to flourish amongst a wide range of stakeholders including parachurch organisations and especially dioceses and Bishops.
• Well-developed emotional intelligence to enable healthy working relationships in a geographically dispersed team/Board.

Personal Attributes:

• This post is subject to an occupational requirement that the holder be a Christian under Part 1 of Schedule 9 to the Equality Act 2010

Desirable

• Knowledge of the Church of England structures and youth discipleship initiatives.
• Experience of co-designing with young people or leading intergenerational ministry.
• Experience commissioning or managing external consultants.