Ajith Fernando serves as Teaching Director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka after being National Director for 35 years. These days his main responsibilities in YFC are counselling, mentoring and teaching staff and volunteers. With his wife Nelun he is active in a Methodist Church just outside Colombo, most of whose members are recent believers. His grassroots ministry has been and is primarily with the urban poor.
Ajith has a wider counselling and mentoring ministry with Christian leaders and workers and a teaching ministry in conferences and theological schools in Sri Lanka and abroad. He is a regular visiting lecturer at Colombo Theological Seminary.
Ajith and Nelun have a son Asiri who is a Youth for Christ staff worker. His daughter’s Nirmali and daughter-in-Law Cheryl are YFC volunteers, and Nirmali’s husband Refuge is on YFC staff.
For relaxation Ajith likes to walk, listen to different kinds of music, read biographies and mystery stories, watch cricket on TV and enjoy his four grandchildren.
Educational Qualifications: Bachelor of Science (Biological Sciences), Vidyalankara University of Ceylon Master of Divinity, Asbury Theological Seminary, USA
Master of Theology (New Testament), Fuller Theological Seminary, USA Doctor of Divinity (Honorary) from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, USA; Asbury
Theological Seminary, USA; Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, USA and Tyndale University College and Seminary, Canada.
Writings: Ajith has written 16 books and several booklets, and his books have been published in 20 different languages. The Call to Joy and Pain (Crossway) was awarded the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award for church and pastoral leadership. His book Sharing the Truth in Love was a runner-up for the ECPA Gold Medallion award in the missions and evangelism category. Deuteronomy: Loving Obedience to a Loving God (Crossway) was released by Crossway in May 2012 and Reclaiming Love (Zondervan) in April 2013. Acts in the NIV Application Commentary (Zondervan) was published in 1998. His latest book is Discipling in a Multi-Cultural World (Crossway, 2019). He has contributed the entry on “Deuteronomy” and some other articles for the South Asia Bible Commentary. He was the Global Editor of the ESV Global Study Bible. He has also published several chapters in multi-author books and articles in journals and other periodicals. Ajith serves on the translation team of a New Sinhala Bible done by Biblica.
Biographical Articles on Ajith Fernando
- J. D. Douglas, Ed. Twentieth Century Dictionary of Christian Biography (Baker, USA, 1995).
- Mac Pier, Consequential Leadership: 15 Leaders Fighting for our Cities, our Poor, our Youth and our Culture (IVP, USA, 2012).
- Tim Stafford, “Ajith Fernando: On the Anvil of Suffering,” Christianity Today (USA), October 12, 2012. Web version: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/october/the-choice.html
- Bernice Cheng, Ed. An Asian Palette: Personal Journeys of Christian Writers (Armour, Singapore, 1998).
- G. P. V. Somaratne Ed. Methodism in Sri Lanka: Visions and Realities 1814-2014 (Methodist Church, Sri Lanka, 2014).