About Us

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 Our mission is to combat biblical illiteracy through Bible Quizzing. 

Our goal is that God's Word will work and pierce the lives of these teens.

•  Teens For Christ is not content to have teens simply profess faith in Christ. 

We’ve seen teens walking intimately with the Lord at remarkably early ages and so we challenge all teens to this high calling. This includes the discipline of daily praying and reading the Word, but goes beyond this to a heart attitude of seeking Him and laying down selfish desires and self-will.

• Teens For Christ develops spiritual leadership.

 We take teens in their high school years and train them to make a difference in the lives of younger teens and to share with their peers what God’s been teaching them in their devotions. We turn the high school social structure on its head by bringing exemplary students into the light instead of loud or popular students.  

• Teens For Christ asks parents to get involved. 

We desire to have all parents involved in the ministry of TFC. We want to see parents involved in and taking responsibility for their teens’ spiritual lives. We want to support them and be a third-party echoing what they’re saying – we don’t want to replace them.

• Teens For Christ is inter-denominational.

 We have teens from a variety of church backgrounds and we believe that’s a good thing. With respect and care, we can study the scriptures and worship together in harmony.  

• Teens For Christ is not about entertainment. 

Sure, we do fun things, but we are not in the entertainment business. We engage teens out of their comfort zone and ask them to pray hard and evangelize with courage. We faithfully preach and teach the Word and expect the teens to read and understand it themselves. Though we occasionally have an event that is simply God-honoring fun, the vast majority of what we do is centered on the Lord with fun activities sprinkled in.

 Teens for Christ Northwest is a 501(c) non-profit religious organization, which is funded entirely by private donations.  TFC has a very small paid staff.  The Executive Director is employed to carry out day-to-day operations, and to provide spiritual leadership for the staff and students.  When funds permit, a Secretary is also employed to help handle administrative tasks.  The Board of Directors provides organizational planning and oversees the spiritual health of the ministry in general. Teens for Christ Northwest has undergone a significant change in purpose in the last two years. We are fundamentally moving away from planning events and raising funds. Instead we are focusing on praying for the teens, the staff, and the director and providing wise counsel regarding the effectiveness of the various aspects of the ministry and the wisdom of potential changes.  Teens for Christ also would not survive without the volunteer efforts of  many parents, interns, and students.   

 In 1961 a junior at Mt. Baker High School named Linda, who was not allowed by her parents to attend church, had a dream of starting a Bible club for the students at Mt. Baker high school. However, all of the Christians that she knew were too busy with sports and other activities to start the club. One day, freshman quarterback, Lowell Bakke, broke his foot walking across the stage at an awards assembly. Suddenly, there was a Christian with some time! Linda approached Lowell with her dream, and Lowell, along with his older brother Dennis, drove to Seattle to pick up the first charter with YFC. After all of her prayers, planning and hard work to get the program going, Linda was allowed by her parents to attend only the first meeting. potential.

 The Whatcom County YFC grew throughout the 60’s and in 1971, Mike French became the director. In 1973, new leadership at Youth For Christ headquarters wanted to make all of the YFC chapters alike. Several ministries, such as Kansas City Youth For Christ, and Tri-State Youth For Christ in Indiana had powerful ministries and did not want to change what they were doing to conform to the new format. They got together and formed Youth Evangelism Association (YEA). YEA would allow individual ministries to be unique for the purpose of reaching teens in their area of ministry. YEA is committed to being aggressively evangelistic, Bible believing and church centered. In 1975, the Board of Whatcom County YFC prayerfully joined Youth Evangelism Association. This brought the eventual name change to Teens For Christ. After over 20 years of service to Christ among teenagers in Whatcom County, Mike French resigned from Teens For Christ in February 1992.