A friend recently reached out to me and said a friend of hers was considering YWAM and had some questions. So I’ve decided to answer some of those questions and more here.
I wrote this up fairly quickly and have not edited it, so if you see something that needs editing please comment and let me know.
This is also not an official YWAM statement, it’s just an opinion of a guy who’s been in and out of YWAM over the past 15 years.
What is YWAM?
YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission. You can go to their main website here. www.ywam.org
I explain YWAM as an international, interdenominational Christian missions organization.
We are in over 180 countries.
And each training location is decentralized, meaning each location runs autonomously from one other from a leadership standpoint.
How Do I Get Involved?
The first main step to doing anything with YWAM is to complete a DTS. (Discipleship Training School.)
What’s a DTS?
A DTS is a 5–6 month training school. You will do 3 months of lecture in one location. And then do a 2–3 month cross cultural outreach.
Some of the topics during your lecture phase are: The character and nature of God, Hearing the voice of God, the Father Heart of God, Spiritual Warfare, Prayer and Intercession, Bible Overview, Christian Worldview, Relationships.
Your lecture topics and outreach location will vary based on where you choose to do your DTS.
Community Living?
Uh, what? Haha. We’re not a hippie commune. But if you are single and will be attending a DTS you will be sharing a room with other students. This is part of their live learn philosophy. You might learn more about relationships and conflict resolution by living in community with others than you get out of lecture that day.
Students and some staff also have work duties. Which means cooking, cleaning, yard work and maintenance at most bases will be handled by the staff and students.
Some YWAM locations are new and have awesome facilities, and some… eh, not so much.
What Does Outreach Look Like?
Outreach is a blast. If you’ve never travelled overseas, you’ll see first hand God’s love for the nations and the people He created. You’ll see sights, and smell smells you’ve never experienced before. You’ll eat amazing food, and with a smile to your hosts, eat less than amazing food. You might get sick and get to know a squatty potty real well. And in all of this you will learn to trust God on a new level.
Your outreach location and itinerary will vary based on where you choose to do your DTS but it will most likely expose you to a variety of ministry opportunities. Service projects, children’s ministry, street evangelism, preaching in churches, skits, dance, dramas.
What Has Been Your Experience With YWAM?
I completed my DTS at YWAM Nashville in 2003. I went to a closed country in Asia for outreach. Jess also did her DTS at YWAM Nashville in 2007, and went to Cambodia and Thailand on her outreach.
I’ve been to a few different YWAM bases for various things.
I did a school of worship in 2004 with YWAM Denver. I helped with a Summer Music and Worship Seminar at YWAM Latvia. I did a school of photography at YWAM Kona in 2008, Jess and I did the School of Biblical Studies 1 at YWAM Kona in 2008, I staffed a school of photography in 2009 at YWAM Kona. We’ve led an outreach to a ministry of YWAM in the Philippines. And we volunteered with the School of Biblical studies at YWAM Honolulu and I served on base staff as well and Jess recently restarted the Biblical Core Course here.
Since YWAM locations (sometimes called bases) are all decentralized in leadership, each base is different in how it is run and it’s operating culture. This will also vary greatly on who the leader is at the time. Some bases have had the same leader for a while, whereas some are more transitional.
What’s The Average Age Range?
YWAM stands for YOUTH with a mission. So I would anecdotally say the targeted age range is 18–25. I did my DTS when I was fresh out of high school and turned 19 during my lecture phase. And Jess completed her DTS after she finished her undergrad. So she was 23. And we just had a couple who recently retired be a part of the Fall DTS here. We have a couple living at the YWAM base here serving in accounting and maintenance who are in their 70’s.
Would Your Recommend YWAM?
Absolutely. We have really found that this is our tribe. Jess is currently a full time volunteer (meaning YWAM doesn’t pay her, YWAM doesn’t pay anyone, its completely a volunteer organization) leading two 3 month Biblical Core Courses a year where students read through the whole entire Bible in 3 months and learn inductive study tools to study certain books and interpret the Bible in it’s original context.
Why Do You Recommend YWAM?
I recently came to the conclusion that YWAM is our tribe. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be yours.
Is YWAM perfect? No, no organization with humans is. But I love being surrounded by a group of people who are motivated and have given their lives to advancing the gospel. You show up to a DTS knowing that there is going to be an international outreach, where you will step out of your comfort zone and share the good news of Jesus with people. So the type of person that is attracted to YWAM already has a heart for others and is willing to go DO something about it. And has set apart a season of 6 months of their lives to truly focus on Jesus.
I recently had breakfast in North Carolina with a former YWAMer and we were talking about the amazing teaching you get during a DTS lecture phase. And because it’s so intense and compact, you get to go deeper on topics than your normal Sunday sermon. Plus they cover topics that were completely new to me as an 18 year old who grew up in church. I never knew that God had a character, and nature that could be known and that He still speaks to His children and I could actually hear His voice.
If there are 15 hours of lecture per week that’s 180 hours of lecture over the course of your lecture phase. That’s the equivalent of 540 twenty minute Sunday sermons. That’s literally 10+ years of sermons. This doesn’t even include weekly worship and intercession times, local outreach, or any of the time you spend overseas where you’re also connecting with God in different ways.
YWAM also values a live, learn teaching style. Which means after the week of teaching on the character and nature of God they might do an exercise where they give you time and space to process that teaching and figure out what lies you believe about God’s character and give you time and space to deal with that.
What Can I Do After MY DTS?
After completing your DTS if you want to stay with YWAM you can do any of their secondary schools or join staff anywhere in the world serving in a variety of ways. Various bases have different requirements for coming on staff, so you may be required to complete a secondary school or a specific secondary school to come on staff. Again, YWAM is a completely volunteer organization so you will not be getting paid for any of this, you will have to raise your own financial support and find donors to partner with you in ministry.
What Is YWAM’s Doctrine?
YWAM is an interdenominational organization so it doesn’t have a specific doctrine. It exists to know God and make God known. It’s an organization that majors on the majors and minors on the minors. Something I so appreciate about YWAM is that it will bring in speakers from various backgrounds who during the course of your lecture phase may contradict one another, which gives you time to wrestle with God about what you believe. (This also proves that we’re not a cult, which I’ll get to next.)
Is YWAM A Cult?
Nope. But if you look online you can find some disgruntled people who have had bad experiences and say it is. In fact if you search the YWAM base I am currently at and include the word cult you can find a website that is dedicated to exposing this location as a cult. The problem with that is this person had a bad experience over 20 years ago, none of those leaders are here anymore, and multiple people have reached out to him to try and reconcile.
Cults are controlling and discourage you leaving. We’ve come and gone from various YWAM bases.
Cults brainwash you into their way of thinking. YWAM is decentralized which means each YWAM location will have it’s own culture and expression. YWAM does have some core values which each location upholds because these are are the values that make the organization what it is, but if you look at them they are very broad and not specific.
YWAM also brings in a variety of speakers from the outside. Some of them are YWAMers and some of them are not, some are local pastors, or Biblical scholars. And at times the speakers will contradict one another. Meaning, YWAM is not trying to brainwash anyone.
Is YWAM Charismatic or Pentecostal?
Again, YWAM is decentralized. So each location will have it’s own culture. I’m sure some of the YWAM bases lean more towards being “Spirit Filled” than others.
All of these words are so loaded, and I don’t know what charismatic, pentecostal, and spirit filled means to you. Are you asking if people flop on the ground and speak in tongues? Or are you asking if people raise their hands during worship?
One of YWAM’s foundational values is that God still speaks today and we can hear His voice. I’m not sure if that counts as charismatic. Honestly when I first got into YWAM the concept of hearing God’s voice was unfamiliar, I had never been taught that in church, but it’s completely changed my life. We serve a God who is ALIVE and loves us. That He reveals Himself as a Father. What good Father would not speak to His children?
One of the first weeks during your DTS lecture phase will most likely be something on the character and nature of God. You will be taught that If what you are hearing, sensing, seeing from God doesn’t line up with His character and nature which we see revealed from the Bible then it probably isn’t God and you should seek wise counsel.
Who Is This Loren Cunningham?
Loren Cunningham is the founder of YWAM. He started YWAM in the 1960’s after seeing a vision of waves of young people crashing on the shores of every nation.
He’s a cool guy, I got to sit down with him for a couple hours the summer of 2017. After we talked he drove us around the YWAM Kona campus and showed us plans for expansion on campus. Loren is a visionary and I love that he’s still dreaming about expanding and planting seeds for things that may not even be planted during his lifetime.
The cool thing is people may or may not know who he is. The organization isn’t about Loren, it’s about Jesus.
Closing Thoughts
Is YWAM right for you? I don’t know. In famous YWAM fashion I would ask you to pray about it and see what God says. Let Him lead you. His plan is best for our lives.
The only other thought I have is I would encourage you to do your training in your first language so you get the most out of it. You can go do your school anywhere in the world, but I think thats my one recommendation.
Where should you choose to do your DTS? That too is something you should pray about 
Was this helpful? Did I miss something? Questions? Comments? Spelling or grammar errors? Comment and let me know.
