Youth With A Mission

For those familiar with Youth With A Mission, we know that our missions is far more than a young persons missions organization. Our staff and volunteers range in ages across the spectrum. I have had people as me why, then, do we keep the name and not choose one that is more embracive of our larger vision and vocation. It is an excellent question.

From my perspective, beyond recognition of the name (and the obvious and massive cost of reworking the whole mission), I am glad that YWAM has maintained this overt, foundational association with "youth" in our name. In the formation of YWAM as movement of young people responding to God's call to missions, Loren and Darlene Cunningham were moving against the accepted "wisdom", "norms" and even "rules" of their time. They recognized that the Church, often through well intentioned emphasis, had moved away from the dynamic missional community it was called to be into a more limiting culture of institutional and professional religion. For them to promote and mobilize young people into missions was, in fact, a fairly revolutionary move.

As the mission developed, this pattern began to emerge in other areas- championing indigenous leadership; championing leaders regardless of gender; championing redeptmtive ministry in areas that were not embraced by the church in general (i.e. the arts). In many ways, the championing of young people was the flagship move of our mission to call us to champion those on the margins.

To this day, I am excited to be part of a mission that has this emphasis. I am constantly surrounded by passionate young Christians who are excited to discover ways to respond to God's call in their life in new and creative ways. However, I have also seen a potential kink in the line as we mature as a mission. Inevitably, as we expand in size, scope and age, we will be faced with the tension of institutionalization, for which there are necessary aspects, and maintaining our dynamic character as a missional movement. This can specifically impact this value of championing young people.

For some, this value speaks to calling, mobilizing and involving young Christians in the existing structures, programs and direction that are already established in the mission. without a question, this is a significant part of what this value calls for. However, we often miss the significance for the phrases "trust them" and "make space for them". The ramifications of walking out the value that "We commit to follow where they lead, in the will of God" can exact a higher price than we often realize.

If we are to continue to grow and be dynamic as a mission, we must push into this value to the fullest expression of what it is calling us to do. More than just welcoming young people into what we are already doing, this value calls us to sometimes step aside or back to allow them to shape the direction we are moving as communities and an organization. In his excellent piece for the International YWAMer, Tré Sheppard asks us:

"Are we in Youth With A Mission prepared for a great awakening among the young people of the world? If 1,000 young people turned up on a YWAM base, desperate for discipleship, how would we respond? Are we able to help them practically enter into a lifestyle of Christ-likeness and discipleship that transforms and redeems their culture rather than simply rejecting it? Perhaps more pointedly, would we be ready to embrace their extra noise, their strange hours, their bizarre fashions, their different tastes in music, etc? Are we really committed to making the changes necessary to serve this generation in their calling and destiny as the next "waves" of young people that will cover the earth with the gospel?"

This challenge is particularly difficult in this stage in our organizations history. First, due to the age and size of our mission, change is a difficult things to bring on a large scale basis. We have (naturally) somewhat set in our way of doing things, regardless of how "cutting edge" we have been in the past, which can act as a barrier at times. This will require a deep humility and intentionality to process through this and work at resisting this impulse responsibly.

Second, and far more challenging, is the world (especially in the West) is entering into what is being referred to as post-Christendom, meaning that for the first time in centuries, the Christian worldview is no longer to overall governing worldview. It might surprise people to know that, prior to this shift, Christianity still lpayed a great deal of the foundation for how people engaged the world around them, even those who did not identify with Christianity. We are only now beginning to face the realities of what this shift means for the Church and specifically YWAM.

When a global worldview shift occurs, the Church is always faced with a number of incredible challenges to remain faithful, missional and relevant. With these shifts come the inevitable negative values that threaten what we hold to so dearly. For example, the impact of postmodernism has brought with it the significant influences of relativism, individualism and universalism. As Christians (and as YWAMers) we are called to be counter-cultural, reflecting the values and ideals of the Kingdom of God against the values of the world. The threats are real and must be taken seriously.

That being said, we face an equally dangerous threat from over reacting to these challenges. In an attempt to protect against the negative influences, we too often throw the baby out with the bath water. In truth, there are aspects of postmodernism, post-Christendom, etc. that carry with them significant redemptive potential if we are brave enough and willing enough to explore and engage them. While relativism and universalism go too far, their influence helps correct an often too strong and opposite influence of too narrowly defining faith. As the article on YWAM Foundational Value 8 explores, YWAM is intentionally diverse, embracing a community various cultures, traditions and denominations. This means that in a world that is move away from what it perceives as an overly narrow defining of spirituality, YWAM is posed to have a significant voice of authority and acceptance.

It is crucial that we recognize that through familiarity and personal resonance we often attribute absolute or doctrinal authority to beliefs, methods and/or models that, while valuable in a given context, are not necessarily appropriate in others. No matter how objective we try to be, we must first acknowledge that we can never separate ourselves from our cultural, denominational and personal biases. Once this is acknowledged, we can approach change with the necessary humility and openness that is warranted.

Therefore, as we seek to continue to champion young people in every area of the mission, we cannot be satisfied with the lowest common denominator, but open ourselves up to (at least the possibility) of significant change. This is not is call to abandon our foundational values, but rather to see that how those values are embraced and expressed can vary given the context in which they are expressed. Even more so, we must recognize that these changes must be explored on every level of the missions as the overall worldview in which YWAM was born is fading and being replaced with something far different.

As recent years have shown (with the emergence of spiritual eldership, a repentance for "autonomy", etc.), YWAM is on journey that has us drawn more truly and deeply into the missional vocation He has for us. To continue this journey faithfully, it will require a humble and intentional commitment to explore these issue and respond to leading of the Spirit.