The story of the Adventist Youth Society (AYS) began over 125 years ago along a dusty country lane in Michigan with two young boys kneeling in prayer. Today that dusty lane has become a world-wide web of highways that links over 10 million Seventh-day Adventist young people in nearly every political entity on every continent of the globe.
The young people’s organizations, senior and junior, in the local Seventh-day Adventist churches, called Adventist Youth (AY) or Adventist Junior Youth (AJY) Societies, sponsored and guided by the General Conference and union and local conference youth directors. Prior to deriving at its current name, AY was called Missionary volunteer (MV) Societies. Youth ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist Church has gone through several phases, always evolving into a more specialized ministry to a narrower segment of the church’s population. This evolution has taken the church from the early beginnings, when youth work was blended with Sabbath school, to the present, when youth ministry is divided into clearly defined areas of interest but pursues the same goals.