May 11, 1931 – March 9, 2026
Maybe you’ve never heard of Jerry Kirk, but in Young Life lore he holds a special place in the hearts of countless teenagers, whether they realize it or not! In 2017, Jerry recounted the story of how a couple of work crew kids helped the mission acquire the camp where so many teenagers would eventually meet Jesus.
“There’s a story in Young Life about two teenage kids that saw Round-Up Lodge for Boys and began to pray that God would give it to Young Life, and I’m one of those two kids. I was a one-year-old Christian. We were at Silver Cliff. Cy Burress was a horse wrangler and I was a dishwasher. And we came to these verses in John 14 …
“‘Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.’
“Man, were we excited. I said there’s a camp up the hill. Why don’t we take the horses and go up the hill and see that camp? When I saw the potential of that camp and knowing how Young Life was in touch with thousands and thousands of kids, we said to ourselves, ‘What could God do through Young Life if we got Round-Up Lodge for Boys?’
“I just knew we had to get it. I said, ‘Let’s ask God to give it to Young Life.’ We decided we would meet at 6:30 each morning on a rock to pray. Within nine months, Jim Rayburn had raised the funds necessary to buy Round-Up Lodge for Boys, that has become Frontier Ranch.
“God is so gracious that he can use a bunch of clods like us. We really did not know what God was doing. But we were just beginning to believe that he can do anything.”
This all occurred in 1950. It was but one summer in Jerry’s life, but it encapsulated his entire spiritual life: above everything else, Jerry Kirk was a prayer warrior.
A year prior, a man by the name of Add Sewell showed up at Queen Anne High School in Seattle, Washington. He began the Young Life ministry there, and Jerry was quickly elected president of the club. In his words, “I heard about Jesus Christ for the first time in my life.” Later, Jerry began a relationship with the Savior at Young Life’s first property, Star Ranch, after hearing George Sheffer speak on the cross.
While a student at University of Washington, Jerry helped start two clubs in the area: Bothell and Lincoln high schools. By 1953, he was considering going to Fuller Seminary. Jim Rayburn, the mission’s founder, encouraged Jerry instead to attend Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and try to start the Young Life work in the area.
He did in fact begin the ministry there, met and married his wife Patty, and went into pastorate roles upon his graduation. But the ministry God used to draw Jerry to himself was never far from the minister’s heart. In 1967, God called him to the role of senior pastor in Cincinnati, Ohio. Here he helped Gil Hopkins and his team begin Young Life in “The Queen City.”
All his ministry — both pastoring and pioneering — arose out of his passion for prayer. In 2014, he founded The Prayer Covenant, “a Christ-centered, Scripture-based ministry,” that today exists in five continents, where millions of kids and adults pray daily for the world and the needs around them.
Only our Lord knows Jerry’s vast influence throughout the mission and across the globe, and how greatly indebted we are to him. As for his part, Jerry was grateful for the men and women in the mission who influenced him to become the man he did. “I want to say how much I thank God for Young Life and the way you loved me, reached me, trained me, and then sent me into the life of the church.”
Just one more answered prayer in the life of Jerry Kirk.
