Young Life Hollywood Area Director Alison Puzio

At church it’s automatic. You arrive, check your kids into their Sunday class, and encourage your teens to join the youth ministry group. Boom, they’re plugged in. But what about the unchurched. How do you seek out and minister to the youth in a regular secular environment? 

Cue the young lady walking up to the school campus loaded down with boxes of pizza. She’s with Young Life, and she’s practicing incarnational ministry, she’s going where the youth are, ready to hang and talk. She knows the power of relationship is transformational and she’s volunteered her time to be present. 

Young Life meets people where they’re at, instead of trying to get them to a church place. It’s a model that has worked well since 1941 and has grown to reach middle schools, high schools, and college students in all 50 states and more than 100 countries. Young Life uses volunteer youth, young adults, and adults to connect with youth in secular places, representing the salt and light of Christ, all through the pursuit of genuine relationship and being present. 

In East Hollywood an amazing Young Life team has been working to bring hope where it is much needed, uncover hope where it already is, and connect to an isolated youth. We chatted with the area director, Alison Puzio, to ask her about what it’s like representing Christ to youth outside the places of church. 

Q. What is Young Life’s influence look like in East Hollywood?

Alison: Young Life is uncovering hope where it already is, it has been buried from the suffering and stress the community and young people have experienced, and most importantly that’s through the power of relationship. One of the things I love most about the model of Young Life is that it’s centered around presence and being with people, meeting them where they’re at, like their school or the community center or even on the street. Jesus’ whole ministry was centered around presence. Through his presence and relationship lives were changed; Jesus was at the well, on their death bed, in the crowd, dining with them, praying with them, partying with them at the wedding. And that’s what incarnational ministry follows— just being with people. God is already in the neighborhood; he’s already working in the lives of young people. For us as staff, our ambassadors, and volunteers it’s following God’s movement from what he’s already doing in the lives of young people. 

Q. How does Young Life do outreach to a secular community? How do you represent Christ in that environment and encourage youth to join in? 

Alison: One of the places where we physically meet and serve is at a community center and gang prevention center. Both of those are secular and yet we’re freely able to bring the spiritual in. I think it’s because of the emphasis on holistically caring for people. We’re embodied beings who have spiritual, mental, and physical needs, and there’s an understanding of those needs and it’s been embraced by the different communities and partners that we’ve collaborated with. And honestly, a lot of that has been God opening different doors. There’s a group home for teen moms in the foster care system and we have our Young Lives program there. What most people can understand is the need for mentorship and that’s what we are really centered on is mentorship and the power of relationship, and that’s attractive for the different organizations, or partners, or schools that we’re collaborating with. And then in terms of maintaining a witness of Christ while also in these secular places that’s where our own walks with Jesus become so important. Where the internal work of knowing and being with Christ enables us to be in the world but not of the world. I honestly think it comes down to our leaders and mentors’ relationships with Christ and how that must be first and foremost.

Q. Are the youth you work with mostly Latino?

Alison: Primarily. It really depends on what school or area we are in. One school that we partner with is 98-99% Latino and another is 60% Latino. I would say multi-ethnic and predominantly Latino.

Q: Do you believe that the next revival will come from the multiethnic urban youth?

Alison: One, I think the pandemic has certainly escalated young people’s own understanding of their need for Christ. In this last year and a half of the pandemic there has been so much fear, suffering, isolation, anxiety, and depression. Also at the same time, especially when we’re talking about East Hollywood, McArthur Park, Koreatown (these are some of the densest towns in Los Angeles which means some of the densest neighborhoods in the country), these neighborhoods are so dense that fear, the fear of mortality, came up a lot during this last year as young people lost people, loved ones, or neighbors. Also, on Tiktok there were a lot of ‘end of the world’ videos, ‘end of time’ videos, and I think that opened up a space for a lot of questions about heaven, salvation, and honestly an openness to Jesus, needing something to cling onto.  So, our weekly Bible study had more people attending this past year over Zoom during the pandemic than we had in person beforehand. It was insane and deeply encouraging. Everything was so heightened this last year and there was so much isolation that it gave young people a lot of time to think about their lives, and again there was a lot of fear and a lot of hope that was needed.  

Q: Has hope been restored?

Alison: Hope is in Jesus. Hope in something greater rather than hoping in good things to happen. I feel like their hope is more secured. And honestly prayer is one of the biggest things that I heard more of our students doing than ever before. It was literally praying that secured their hope because they were so anxious or fearful or lonely or whatever it was that they were talking to Jesus more. We were praying over our group aloud over Zoom for the first time. All our Leaders and I had kids talk about talking to Jesus more than ever. God is using all of this to draw people near to him. I saw that so much last year and for me that gave me hope. That gave me hope in the midst of my own suffering and feelings of the pandemic. Literally seeing God move in young people’s lives, which is such an honor and privilege, is what gave me, and the other mentors hope as well. 

Q. Wow that is so encouraging. In my church right now, we are participating in intercessory prayer Monday-Friday at 6am and 6pm because we received a word that God is calling us to more prayer because His revival is imminent, but we need to be praying for it. If now is the time for prayer and you’ve witnessed your youth’s take it up themselves, going forward are you guys going to do more with encouraging prayer?

Alison: We have from this last year, a really solid core group of young people that have been coming to Bible study every week and talking to Jesus more. I think as we’re moving into this time of returning in person and relaunching our ministries in person, that large core group of students are ready and are all talking about which friends to invite, we’ll see that part of discipleship has come much sooner. Often, we see it junior and senior year, but we have sophomores and juniors who are on fire to invite more people in and bring their friends to Young Life. The discipleship piece, they are in a different place maturity wise than I’ve seen before which is also, I think from building a bridge with our middle school program called WyldLife that starts in 6thgrade. We’re seeing two things happen, one the benefit of long-term discipleship and mentorship, and two, the growth they’ve experienced this last year during the pandemic. And for us, leading them in this next step of discipleship of praying for their friends and praying for schools, our leaders are very excited to invest in them in this way. There is a certain sense of maturity happening. All young people are leaders and developing them with more leadership skills is something we try to do. And again, this group of core students from this last year of the pandemic, where they’re at as leaders, they’re more mature and really eager to bring others in. And so, we actually have a number of them becoming leaders for WyldLife this year, more than we’ve ever had in a year because they’re so excited to go and invest in middle schoolers. Watching them go and give their life away has been extremely encouraging and exciting.

Q: Biggest Need?

Alison: Our biggest need is volunteer mentors. We need adults who love Jesus and love young people to invest in young people in Hollywood and Downtown L.A. Because none of this happens without them and we need leaders. We also need adults to serve on our committee board who don’t want to invest directly in young people but care about the ministry and care about the ministry and want to serve on our committee board who help oversee the area. 

What an encouragement to hear what Young Life is up to in East Hollywood. God is on the move, and he is working all things for good!! Amen! If you want to join in with what God has already been stirring in the hearts of the youth YOU ARE NEEDED! Please reach out to Alison’s team to become a leader or join the committee board, and if you’re looking for community as a youth check out one of their in-person upcoming events! You can also support these kids in their ministry and outreach. 

There is a maturing of the Spirit in our youth, a stirring of the waters, an activating of intercessory prayer and true intimacy with Jesus, and a genuine excitement to disciple peers. I am excited for what this on fire and hungry youth will accomplish in this upcoming year.