A bold new discipleship strategy spearheaded by youth leaders from across Asia aims to transform the spiritual landscape by equipping young people to mentor and disciple their peers on an unprecedented scale. The plan was unveiled at the Asia Evangelical Leadership Forum (AELF), held recently in Seoul from June 11 to 13.
The youth-led initiative is driven by the conviction that young believers, when given proper training and leadership opportunities, can catalyse a grassroots revival of faith across diverse Asian contexts. Jerome Yashodhan Rasiah, a key strategist from Sri Lanka, framed the movement around a powerful call: “Give us the 20, and we will give you the 500,000.” This refers to mobilizing just 20 committed youth disciples per participating country to mentor others, sparking a multiplication effect that could result in 500,000 disciples over an eight-year period.
The proposed discipleship model is built around three foundational pillars: the Head, the Heart, and the Hand.
The Head represents the intellectual and theological grounding necessary to convince church leaders and institutions that discipleship multiplication is not merely desirable but imperative. It involves cultivating biblical literacy and strategic awareness so that leaders embrace and prioritize disciple-making.
The Heart emphasizes emotional engagement through sharing stories and testimonies from existing youth discipleship movements. This humanizes the call and inspires personal commitment by demonstrating tangible impacts.
The Hand focuses on equipping and empowering young leaders with practical tools, such as mentor training curricula, leadership development frameworks, and resources to identify and nurture emerging leaders within their communities.
The strategy’s strength lies in its simplicity and scalability. Initial calculations show that if 20 youth initiators in 20 Asian countries each disciple just one peer annually, more than 100,000 new disciples could be raised in eight years. Expanding the base to 50 or even 100 youth mentors per country could realistically multiply this impact to 500,000 or beyond, creating a new generation of committed followers of Christ deeply embedded in their cultural contexts.
This youth discipleship proposal is one of four key focus areas at AELF 2025. Alongside it are initiatives targeting children and family discipleship, accelerating missions outreach, and integrating artificial intelligence into kingdom work. Each project team will work to present their plans to national evangelical alliances, local churches, and ministry networks throughout Asia to foster wide adoption and collaboration.
Participants at the forum stressed that today’s young people are eager to engage in meaningful spiritual leadership, but they require intentional investment, mentorship, and recognition. As one young Christian leader said, “The best time to start is now. God can still use this generation for His glory.” This optimistic sentiment encapsulates the hope and urgency that animate the movement.
The vision laid out at AELF offers a fresh and hopeful path forward, especially at a time when many churches face challenges of declining engagement among youth. By empowering young believers to disciple others, this strategy aims to spark a sustainable revival that honors Asia’s rich diversity and honors God’s calling for disciple-making as commanded in the Great Commission.
This article draws upon the original report by Christian Daily International.
