Hull YFC - Christian youth and community work in Hull

Hull Youth for Christ was established in 1951 when Billy Graham one of the founders of Youth for Christ came and preached in the now closed City Temple on Hessle Road. Hull Youth for Christ predominantly worked city wide mainly on an events and training basis.

In the nineties we realised that this style of working, although valuable, was not reaching the young people living on the margins of society. The realisation of the need to re-engage with these communities in the more deprived areas of Hull brought about a new ethos inspired by Jesus and the incarnation. In 1994, a team of workers moved onto the Boulevard to live, work and worship in the local community. Originally, the whole team lived in one house. As the work grew, staff members working with local teenagers soon realised that to see lasting change, a long-term holistic approach was needed. This meant building relationships with them from a younger age and journeying with them into their twenties and beyond. It also meant supporting their families and caring for their wider community.

In 2018, Hull Youth for Christ Trustees in recognition of the way our work had changed from solely a youth focus to something much broader, decided to end its affiliation with British Youth for Christ. The most obvious change was that we would no longer be known as Hull Youth for Christ. We decided to continue to call ourselves Hull YFC; mainly because 60 year old habits die hard, but also because we want it to remain as a proud nod to our heritage. The accronym however will change and YFC will now stand stand for a broader range of areas, which all begin with Y, F or C including Youth, Children, Faith, Community, Families and Christ. Youth will be a priority, Faith in Christ will continue to stay firmly at the centre of our work, but our name will now reflect our intention to see the Kingdom come in our community as a whole.

The decision to leave was made by our Trustees with the understanding that we would however find a new partner; a partner that could provide more relevant support to working with and sharing Christ with children and families living in a deprived urban community. To that end, we have begun very encouraging conversations with two Christian organisations. They are not well known names like Youth for Christ, but they have numerous projects involved in very similar work to our own, which offers hope they could provide very valuable input including empathy with the challenge of such work and inspiration to help grow and develop our ministry.