More than 3,350 young people gathered in Erfurt, Germany, in late May 2026 for BUJU 2026, the Bund Freier Evangelischer Gemeinden (FeG) youth conference held under the theme Love Collides.
The conference brought together teenagers and young adults from FeG congregations across Germany for several days of worship, biblical teaching, community, and what organisers described as "concrete steps in Christian faith." Events like BUJU represent the free evangelical tradition's emphasis on every-member ministry from the youngest generation: faith is not inherited but personally owned, and youth gatherings are where that ownership is nurtured.
The FeG is Germany's largest free evangelical body and one of the most active within the IFFEC family. With over 500 congregations and a national theological university at Ewersbach, it combines a strong confessional identity with an openness to contemporary expression — a combination visible in large gatherings like BUJU.
Youth ministry has been a consistent strength of the FeG, which has long invested in dedicated youth workers, camps, and programming. The scale of BUJU 2026 — comparable to some of Europe's largest evangelical youth gatherings — underscores the continued vitality of the German free-church movement despite the broader context of religious decline in Western Europe.
Source: FeG Deutschland
