Change can create questions. It can also create opportunities.
Beginning in September 2026, Hyfi Students will introduce several important updates designed to better support the realities of modern student ministry. These changes are the result of ongoing conversations with student pastors, customer feedback, research, and careful evaluation of how churches are using resources today.
While some aspects of the experience will look different, the heart behind Hyfi Students remains unchanged: helping students discover their identity in Christ through biblical truth, meaningful relationships, and engaging experiences.
Why We Made These Changes
Student ministry continues to evolve. Across the country, churches are finding that their primary discipleship environment is often no longer Sunday morning. Instead, many students are engaging through midweek gatherings that combine teaching, worship, discussion, and community.
As we listened to student leaders, a consistent theme emerged: they wanted resources that better support the way student ministers want to teach today. Leaders asked for more flexibility, greater ownership of teaching, and tools that help students move beyond simply hearing biblical truth to actively living it out.
These updates are our response to that feedback.
The Biggest Change: Teaching Is Back in the Leader’s Hands
The most significant update is a shift away from video-led teaching and toward leader-led teaching. Hyfi Students will no longer include Tell the Story teaching videos. Instead, leaders will receive easy-to-customize teaching outlines designed to be taught live by the student pastor or ministry leader. Why the change? We want Hyfi Students to be more teachable and preachable. Rather than asking leaders to press play, we’re equipping them to open God’s Word, engage students personally, and teach with confidence in their own voice.
Why make this change? Because we heard you.
Student pastors consistently told us they wanted to teach students in their own voice. They wanted a resource that supported their calling. Many leaders expressed, and research supports, that students respond best when biblical truth is communicated by someone who knows them personally and walks with them weekly.
The goal is to provide the support, structure, and resources needed to make teaching preparation easier while allowing leaders to remain the primary voice in their ministries.
More Media. More Energy. More Ministry Possibilities.
Alongside the teaching updates, Hyfi Students is expanding its collection of media resources to help leaders create engaging, memorable environments for students.
Beginning this fall, Hyfi Students will include new sermon bumpers, worship media, stage games, and themed countdowns designed to support the overall worship experience. These additions allow leaders to create a more cohesive gathering from the moment students walk into the room until the final conversation in small groups.
Together, these additions reinforce a key goal behind the fall 2026 updates: equipping churches with a complete Large Group experience that is engaging, flexible, and easy to implement. Whether your ministry meets on a weeknight, Sunday evening, or another schedule entirely, Hyfi Students now provides more program elements than ever to help you create an environment where students are excited to gather, engage with Scripture, and find belonging in the church and identity in Christ.
A Stronger Large Group/Small Group Experience
Along with the teaching updates, Hyfi Students is refining the overall flow of the student ministry experience.
The updated model is intentionally designed around a Large Group/Small Group strategy. Students gather together for connection, worship, teaching, and gospel-centered engagement before moving into smaller environments where discussion can take place.
Students first hear biblical truth in a larger setting. Then they process that truth with trusted leaders and peers. Instead of ending with information, the experience moves toward transformation through conversation, accountability, and personal application.
Updated Identity Language
You will also notice some updates to Hyfi’s identity language.
Two of the Simple Truth statements have been refreshed. Specifically:
“I Am Uniquely Designed” becomes “I Am Valued.”
“I Am Broken” becomes “I Am Made New.”
These adjustments are not changes to theology. They are refinements in language.
The truth of sin, forgiveness, redemption, and salvation remains central to Hyfi. However, the updated wording places greater emphasis on the transforming work of Jesus and the new identity believers receive through Him.
We want students to understand how sin separates them from God and what God has done to renew them.
Better Tools for Leaders
In addition to resource updates, Hyfi Students is becoming easier to learn, navigate, and implement.
Leaders will see improvements in file organization, advance planning resources, onboarding experiences, and training pathways. New launch resources will help churches understand the philosophy, structure, and practical implementation of Hyfi Students.
The new Launch Toolbox and training resources are designed to help leaders:
Understand the heart and philosophy behind Hyfi Students.
Learn how the Large Group/Small Group model works.
Customize sessions for their unique ministry context.
Equip volunteers effectively.
Launch and lead with confidence.
In short, we want you to spend less time searching for information and more time investing in students.
What Is Staying the Same?
Although several important updates are arriving this fall, the foundation of Hyfi is not changing.
Hyfi Students will continue to:
Focus on Jesus.
Help students discover their identity in Christ.
Create environments where belonging and biblical truth work together.
Provide flexibility for different ministry contexts.
Equip leaders to disciple students effectively.
Hyfi will guide every student to find biblical belonging in the church and discover identity in Christ as they learn how to see God’s purpose for their lives in the Bible.
Everything Lifeway Students does is built on the conviction that students need more than information. They need relationships, community, truth, and opportunities to encounter Jesus through God’s Word.
Welcome to the next chapter of Hyfi Students. We’re excited to take it with you.
Beginning in September 2026, Hyfi Students will introduce several important updates designed to better support the realities of modern student ministry. These changes are the result of ongoing conversations with student pastors, customer feedback, research, and careful evaluation of how churches are using resources today.
While some aspects of the experience will look different, the heart behind Hyfi Students remains unchanged: helping students discover their identity in Christ through biblical truth, meaningful relationships, and engaging experiences.
Why We Made These Changes
Student ministry continues to evolve. Across the country, churches are finding that their primary discipleship environment is often no longer Sunday morning. Instead, many students are engaging through midweek gatherings that combine teaching, worship, discussion, and community.
As we listened to student leaders, a consistent theme emerged: they wanted resources that better support the way student ministers want to teach today. Leaders asked for more flexibility, greater ownership of teaching, and tools that help students move beyond simply hearing biblical truth to actively living it out.
These updates are our response to that feedback.
The Biggest Change: Teaching Is Back in the Leader’s Hands
The most significant update is a shift away from video-led teaching and toward leader-led teaching. Hyfi Students will no longer include Tell the Story teaching videos. Instead, leaders will receive easy-to-customize teaching outlines designed to be taught live by the student pastor or ministry leader. Why the change? We want Hyfi Students to be more teachable and preachable. Rather than asking leaders to press play, we’re equipping them to open God’s Word, engage students personally, and teach with confidence in their own voice.
Why make this change? Because we heard you.
Student pastors consistently told us they wanted to teach students in their own voice. They wanted a resource that supported their calling. Many leaders expressed, and research supports, that students respond best when biblical truth is communicated by someone who knows them personally and walks with them weekly.
The goal is to provide the support, structure, and resources needed to make teaching preparation easier while allowing leaders to remain the primary voice in their ministries.
More Media. More Energy. More Ministry Possibilities.
Alongside the teaching updates, Hyfi Students is expanding its collection of media resources to help leaders create engaging, memorable environments for students.
Beginning this fall, Hyfi Students will include new sermon bumpers, worship media, stage games, and themed countdowns designed to support the overall worship experience. These additions allow leaders to create a more cohesive gathering from the moment students walk into the room until the final conversation in small groups.
Together, these additions reinforce a key goal behind the fall 2026 updates: equipping churches with a complete Large Group experience that is engaging, flexible, and easy to implement. Whether your ministry meets on a weeknight, Sunday evening, or another schedule entirely, Hyfi Students now provides more program elements than ever to help you create an environment where students are excited to gather, engage with Scripture, and find belonging in the church and identity in Christ.
A Stronger Large Group/Small Group Experience
Along with the teaching updates, Hyfi Students is refining the overall flow of the student ministry experience.
The updated model is intentionally designed around a Large Group/Small Group strategy. Students gather together for connection, worship, teaching, and gospel-centered engagement before moving into smaller environments where discussion can take place.
Students first hear biblical truth in a larger setting. Then they process that truth with trusted leaders and peers. Instead of ending with information, the experience moves toward transformation through conversation, accountability, and personal application.
Updated Identity Language
You will also notice some updates to Hyfi’s identity language.
Two of the Simple Truth statements have been refreshed. Specifically:
“I Am Uniquely Designed” becomes “I Am Valued.”
“I Am Broken” becomes “I Am Made New.”
These adjustments are not changes to theology. They are refinements in language.
The truth of sin, forgiveness, redemption, and salvation remains central to Hyfi. However, the updated wording places greater emphasis on the transforming work of Jesus and the new identity believers receive through Him.
We want students to understand how sin separates them from God and what God has done to renew them.
Better Tools for Leaders
In addition to resource updates, Hyfi Students is becoming easier to learn, navigate, and implement.
Leaders will see improvements in file organization, advance planning resources, onboarding experiences, and training pathways. New launch resources will help churches understand the philosophy, structure, and practical implementation of Hyfi Students.
The new Launch Toolbox and training resources are designed to help leaders:
Understand the heart and philosophy behind Hyfi Students.
Learn how the Large Group/Small Group model works.
Customize sessions for their unique ministry context.
Equip volunteers effectively.
Launch and lead with confidence.
In short, we want you to spend less time searching for information and more time investing in students.
What Is Staying the Same?
Although several important updates are arriving this fall, the foundation of Hyfi is not changing.
Hyfi Students will continue to:
Focus on Jesus.
Help students discover their identity in Christ.
Create environments where belonging and biblical truth work together.
Provide flexibility for different ministry contexts.
Equip leaders to disciple students effectively.
Hyfi will guide every student to find biblical belonging in the church and discover identity in Christ as they learn how to see God’s purpose for their lives in the Bible.
Everything Lifeway Students does is built on the conviction that students need more than information. They need relationships, community, truth, and opportunities to encounter Jesus through God’s Word.
Welcome to the next chapter of Hyfi Students. We’re excited to take it with you.
Brett Buckland is the Manager of Student Ongoing Publishing at Lifeway. He has his Bachelor’s in Religion and Master’s in Christian Education. He lives in Spring Hill, Tennessee with his wife and their eight children.
For more resources like this, check out Hyfi and lifeway.com/students.
