Youth ministries that train and mobilize students for relational evangelism can increase the total number of Gospel conversations from about 50 per year to about 1,500 per year. They do this by adopting the Gospel Advancing youth ministry mindset.
In 2025, Dare 2 Share commissioned a research report to evaluate the effectiveness of a Gospel Advancing youth ministry philosophy. The results indicated a strong contrast between typical youth groups and those that implemented relational evangelism training and practices into their ministry, which we defined as Gospel Advancing youth ministries.
The research showed that in typical youth groups, 10 teens on average regularly share the Gospel (several times a year). For Gospel Advancing groups, that number jumps to more than 30.
Additionally, in Gospel Advancing groups, teens who were actively sharing their faith had 50 conversations, on average, in the year, while faith-sharing students from typical youth groups had 5 conversations annually.
Number of Gospel conversations annually
By multiplying the number of students who shared a Gospel message by the number of contacts each student shared with, this suggests that typical youth groups saw a total of 50 Gospel conversations from their students in a year, while Gospel Advancing groups averaged 1,500 total conversations in one year.
Total Gospel conversations per year = (number of students who regularly share) × (average conversations per student per year).
That difference represents more students taking ownership of their faith and more peers hearing the Gospel through relationships.
| Typical youth group | Gospel Advancing youth group | |
|---|---|---|
| Students who regularly share the Gospel | 10 | 30 |
| Estimated Gospel conversations per student per year | 5 | 50 |
| Estimated total Gospel conversations per year | 50 | 1500 |
You can learn more about the Gospel Advancing movement here.
