Looking Back on 2025 with JV Czech

We invite you to look back on our ministry over the past year.

The main focus of Josiah Venture Czech (JV Czech) activities remains the preparation of young leaders and youth development, with an emphasis on building a missionally open youth culture. We provid this support to young people primarily through personal leadership mentoring, youth leadership program facilitation, educational activities, and outreach. We also continue to work closely with denominational youth departments, with whom we have carried out several larger projects.

In 2025, we focused primarily on the following priorities:

Mental Health Summit, a joint interdenominational event for 680 participants from 14 denominations.
“360°” View of Youth Ministry, a new facilitated development program, was successfully implemented in 15 youth groups.
The Chosen, a program based on the TV show “The Chosen,” has 50 new clubs using the first season and 30 clubs that have continued with the second or third seasons, reaching more than 450 young people.
Representatives from five denominational youth departments and JV Czech created a joint interdenominational training for very young leaders (aged 15-17).

Once again, we were able to participate in several educational and training events organized by individual denominations, and as usual, the UNITED festival.

In 2025, we provided personal coaching to nearly 300 leaders and 120 local churches. This individualized support focused on both the specific needs of each leader and the development of youth as a whole, with an emphasis on fostering a missionally open culture in youth communities.

One of last year’s key developments was the launch of the 360° View of Youth Ministry facilitation program. This program is a key tool for youth/adolescent/outreach ministry teams, etc. With this program, teams can use appropriate questions to find common answers to important questions, such as: Who are we actually doing this ministry for? What results do we expect? Where are we and where do we want to go? To date, the program has been successfully implemented in 15 churches, and interest is growing.

The main educational project of 2025 was the interdenominational event called Summit 2025, organized in cooperation with five denominational youth departments on the topic of mental health. 680 participants attended the event, including youth workers and church leaders from 14 denominations.

As part of the Nedopečeno (Unfinished) podcast, we released 25 new episodes in 2025, including a special leadership series, which were further repurposed as content for our social networks (KAM Facebook and KAM Instagram).

We published a new resource entitled “Before We Begin…,” a collection of 11 short reflections for introductions to youth team meetings or other services.

In 2025, JV Czech and five youth denominational departments formed a working group to develop a concept for an interdenominational educational ecosystem for young people (ages 15-17). The goal is continuous investment that, in the long term, should prepare the next generation for leadership roles in churches, mission services, and organizations. Our common desire is to create an environment where young people can grow in maturity, creativity, and responsibility. Thanks to the cooperation of several entities on this project, we can benefit from each other’s different gifts and resources.

Worship. ko – training worship leaders and their teams

We focused on three areas in which we invested in worship leaders and their teams:
Training: at 8 locations in the Czech Republic for more than 25 worship teams, a drumming workshop in collaboration with Timothy Band.
Conferences: providing worship at the Business Conference in Malenovice, the interdenominational Connect Conference in Nejdek, the Worship and Adoration Conference in Brno, supporting the Summer School of Worship in Ostrava, organized by Evangelical Theological Seminary (ETS), the Hledamboha.cz conference in Olomouc, and Multicamp in Zlín.
Creative tools: Creative weekend with worship songwriting, start of development of a worship song database, worship evenings with a team from Christ Community Church (St. Charles, IL) in cities across the Czech Republic.

Regular contact programs

In 2025, regular outreach programs for young people were operating in 17 locations:

200-300 participants attended Fusion choirs operated in 8 locations across the Czech Republic. We organized a meeting for local Fusion leaders, called InFusion. At the same time, preparations began for the international Fusiondary Festival planned for April 2026.
JV Czech organized the EDGE Ultimate Frisbee sports clubs in 7 locations, two of which were newly established, for 100-120 young athletes. They were able to meet during four tournaments that we organized for them throughout the year.
As part of the Quest experiential program, we offered a weekend LARP (Life Action Role Play) event called CON-QUEST. The experimental Quest Club at one school continues successfully. We also want to continue using experiential elements across various training and educational programs.
The EDGE Gaming club operated at one location, with approximately 20 participants who met in person to play various games (on computers, consoles, mobile phones, and board games). Discussions and introductions to the program are underway with two other churches/interested parties.

In addition to the above, 2025 saw strong growth connected to The Chosen series: another 50 new Chosen Clubs were launched (for season one), and 30 existing clubs continued (for seasons two or three). Just over 40 of these clubs were aimed primarily at young people, reaching around 450 youth. We managed to create online Chosen Clubs in cooperation with Hledamboha.cz which can work with an e-coach or as individual e-learning material. In September, The Chosen Clubs started their journey abroad; an international version is being created, which will be used in other European countries within Josiah Venture and in the USA.

One-off contact programs with follow-up activities

In the summer, we supported 14 churches in organizing 12 camps – from English and Sports camps to Fusion camps and various combinations. In addition, there were 9 interns, 137 mission team members from the USA, and 534 students. The teams organizing the camps took part in two Training Days (in Prague and Ostrava) with more than 100 participants.

In 2025, we assisted three local churches in organizing the EXIT Tour project. Each city hosted student programs at up to five schools. This one-time effort also supported the longstanding FUSION ministry and helped initiate a new EDGE Ultimate Frisbee club. Additionally, in the fall, we backed the ongoing follow-up program, Lavina, which does outstanding work with the local youth community.

Christian Teachers Network

JV Czech oversees the Christian Teachers Network, which currently brings together 549 lecturers and teachers from various types of schools and extracurricular education. Key moments of 2025 were:

Nádech (Breath) – a one-day program for Christian teachers that renews their vocation and allows them to look at education from a new perspective, held in four locations in the Czech Republic for 51 educators.
Daniel Week – an accredited 40-hour DVPP course on “Personal Development in the Teaching Profession” attended by 23 teachers from four countries (the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Great Britain, and the USA).
Transformation projects: Since 2020, students have been able to learn from the vision of J. A. Comenius and work to make a positive impact in their communities. This year, the programs continued under the patronage of the President of the Czech Republic.
Regional meetings of the Christian Teachers Network connect Christian educators throughout the Czech Republic.
The video podcast Dílna lidskosti (Workshop of Humanity) from Via Comenia offers simple advice from experts in psychology, psychotherapy, and pedagogy for parents and teachers who want to improve relationships, communication, and understanding with the younger generation.

Malenovice Conference Center

At the Malenovice Conference Center, we hosted dozens of conferences, church retreats, weekend educational events, and many summer camps.

Over the past year, we have continued renovating the hotel rooms. A volunteer program focused on participants’ personal development through work on the hotel team, coaching, and pastoral guidance became part of the summer season. Next year, we plan to expand this program for youth teams.

This past year we were able to purchase a hotel which sits across the street from our Hotel Malenovice’s cabins. This new addition (Bouda Malenovice) will allow us to offer more accommodation and make stays more affordable.

Closing Words from the Director

I am grateful to all the churches and youth with whom we worked in 2025. And I also thank all our supporters and partners for standing with our missionaries, programs, and projects.

Next year, we plan to focus on interdenominational education for young leaders, use the summer to connect with young people, and keep working with those who started The Chosen Club. We will also continue many other activities to support young leaders and youth.

I sincerely appreciate your role in developing young leaders and fostering healthy youth in Czech churches.