Resources for youth leaders!

Free stuff for you and your group...

We love youth leaders, we respect your heart for young people and know you’re often stretched for time – so we’ve created a load of resources to serve you. Our aim is to inspire young people with stories of costly, brave faith and grow compassion in them so they will stand with their Christian family all over the world.

We’d love to know what you think of these resources and find out what sort of things you’d find helpful for us to produce to engage better with your groups in the future, so do get in touch. We’re also out and about visiting groups and churches quite a bit, so if you’d like to request a youth speaker at a youth event you organise, then do drop us a line using the form below.

Prayer resources

Prayer is the cornerstone of what we do at Open Doors. Each year we produce a series of resources to help you introduce your group to persecution and how to pray with the persecuted church using the latest World Watch List. Download or order the resources below, including a special youth session outline.

World Watch List 2023 Youth Session
A simple session outline to introduce the idea of persecution, the World Watch List with practical and interactive prayer points for the top 11 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution…

Stuff to give your group before the session…
Word Watch List 2023 Map: Map with interactive prayer ideas
 

Get a free Brave Faith journal!

Grow Brave Faith in your youth group! Get our free Brave Faith journals and start a six-week journey that will lead you and your group into a more courageous faith in Jesus. Each week there’s a story of brave faith from the persecuted church, a short Bible reflection, prayers and then challenges to undertake. And it’s all free!

GCSE Schools Lessons

Not strictly a youth leader resource, but these two lesson plans come with PowerPoint presentations and videos to introduce a GCSE class to issues around religious freedom and persecution – both part of the current UK GCSE syllabus…

The Choose to Lose Challenge

Sign up for the Choose to Lose Challenge and get sponsored to lose something you love for a short time to raise money and prayer for Christians who have lost everything because of their choice to follow Jesus. Sign up to get up to 10 awesome packs for you and your group, plus access to a bunch of downloads to help you scale up the challenge to work in a group setting…

Hidden Word

Our innovative resource to help your group learn God’s Word by heart! A series of six weekly devotionals, along with leader guide, challenges and a bunch of awesome memorisation aids!

NANO: Simple, themed youth session material

NANO is a new series of themed youth session material you can use and adapt for your youth and small groups. Every few months we’ll release a new session on a specific theme, exploring the issue through the lens of the persecuted church. First up, we’re launching with a short series on how to pray, including videos from Pete Greig.

Secret Church!

Run a Secret Church session using our bran new resource and experience some of what it’s like to worship, learn from God’s word, pray and do community as a hidden follower of Jesus. The reflections, stories and activities have been designed to work in-person or over video chat!

Sessions

Show. Tell. Change.

Four video sessions with discussion questions on themes from worship to family. Featuring Beth Croft and others...
Writing campaigns

Write a letter

Check out the current writing campaigns and spend time as a group writing a letter or card to a persecuted Christian...
Request a speaker

Invite us to your group

Get in touch to invite one of our team to come to your group or event to share stories of brave and courageous faith!

One Family session and devotional…

A group session and a complimentary devotional guide on the theme of family. The session features a video from Krish Kandiah, stories, prayer ideas and more. A great introduction to why we should care about our persecuted church family…

‘One Family’ devotional resource (Download here…)
‘One Family’ leader session (Download here…)

Ten steps

A devotional guide we created a few years back for young people – use the stories, themes and challenges as inspiration in your own sessions…

Videos to use

We produce a few videos and films to tell the stories of brave, courageous and inspiring christians who know the true cost of following Jesus. Here’s some of our faves – please do share them with your groups and use to generate discussion and prayer.

India: Mohan’s story…
Joy (with Jasper Rutherford)
Worship (with Beth Croft)
Deborah’s story (with S.O)
Be bolder (with Miriam Swaffield)
Radical Faith (North Korea focus)
Risk Taking Christianity
Thankfulness (Eritrea focus)
Worthy (Uganda focus)


Speaker talks and notes

Looking for a ready made talk on persecution? We’ve created a few themed talks with ready made PowerPoint downloads and talk notes that you can use with minimal prep! Everything you need to get a talk on the current World Watch List or something on the themes of guts and courage or prayer are ready to download and use now…

We support people who are beaten, tortured,
imprisoned, falsely accused, and hated simply for following Jesus.