iMPACT: For Churches

If you have come to this page then it means you are excited about the prospect of reaching out with God's love to children and young people in your community. Mission is not an isolated event but should be part of the ongoing work of your church, striving to serve the community in Jesus' name. Not only can mission change the lives of teenagers and children, it can transform the life of your church.

One of the main ways iMPACT supports churches is through supplying a Summer Mission Team. Typically a team will work in partnership with a congregation for three to five summers in succession. Each summer will entail a week (or fortnight) of mission activities in which the church plays a progressively more involved role. This sustainable model allows the team to relocate (after 3-5 years), whilst the church is enabled to continue its own outreach programme. Unfortunately the number of churches requesting teams currently outweighs iMPACT's ability to meet that demand.

iMPACT is also piloting another approach to working with churches to reach out to young people. This is our Youth-club Planting scheme. This model entails a small Team working in partnership with your church, one night a month over a year, in order to establish a youth club/café/fellowship etc. There is also the possibility of an iMPACT team delivering a mission in your local Secondary School. These usually occur in the Autumn term.

Many churches are finding that, through choice or otherwise, they are able to resource a youth/children's mission themselves. The Mission Co-ordinator can then act in the role of an advisor; assisting with facilitation for meetings, mission information, event planning, creative ideas, resources, policy and procedures, sharing good practice, publicity and support, etc.

iMPACT is part of the new Council of Mission and Discipleship of the Church of Scotland, and is managed by the Task Group for Mission & Evangelism.

iMPACT also seeks to serve churches who are engaged in youth/children's mission through offering training. iMPACT mainly meets this remit by providing training days/conferences in partnership with other Christian mission agencies (Contact Phil Wray for more details of events near you). iMPACT also offers the Mission Leaders Training Programme (MLTP) to any current mission or church volunteers who feel called into a leadership role.

In addition many churches find that encouraging their young people to go on an iMPACT mission makes a huge difference in their lives as young, maturing disciples - a difference they frequently bring back to their host churches!