UCB International Blog

UCB Australia realised The Word for Today was not touching the hearts of teens and young adults with the same impact as it was their parents. Yet the message contained in the pages of The Word for Today was no less relevant for their lives.

The solution was to follow the lead of UCB UK with the innovative Word4U2day, based on The Word for Today but with a refreshed text and vivid graphics aimed squarely at the younger generation. 70,000 copies of the undated launch edition were distributed across Australia, starting at the music festival Easterfest in Toowoomba and Planetshakers conference in Melbourne.

15,000 copies of the second edition (August/September/October) were printed—and, one week into August, have already run out! Youth ministers and school chaplains have discovered that it is such a useful tool that demand has been well above expectations. There are over 8 million Australians under 25—so while we thank God for a brilliant start, we recognise how far we have to go.

Working as a School Chaplain in Brisbane I was rapt to receive some copies of word4U2day from UCB. Having distributed them among the Christian students at school I also gave them to the group of students I meet with weekly. These middle school girls are wanting to know who God is and how to connect with Him. I showed them how to use the booklet and gave them New Testaments, then left them to it.

About 5 weeks later one of the girls told me that she wanted to ask Jesus to be her Lord. I told her there was a prayer and some info at the back of the booklet and she …requested that I pray with her during the Lunch break because she wanted that day to be her spiritual birthday. So, using the booklet as our guide another staff member and I ushered her into the Kingdom. It was a really lovely moment—complete with tears of joys! …It’s great to have this booklet as a resource for my students, something they can read at their leisure that is obviously impacting their lives.