About YWAM

YWAM - What we Believe

Youth With A Mission (YWAM) is an international movement of Christians from many denominations dedicated to presenting Jesus personally to this generation, to mobilizing as many as possible to help in this task, and to the training and equipping of believers for their part in fulfilling the Great Commission. As citizens of God's kingdom, we are called to love, worship, and obey our Lord, to love and serve His Body, the Church, and to present the whole Gospel for the whole person throughout the whole world.

We of Youth With A Mission believe that the Bible is God's inspired and authoritative word, revealing that Jesus Christ is God's son; that people are created in God's image; that He created us to have eternal life through Jesus Christ; that although all people have sinned and come short of God's glory, God has made salvation possible through the death on the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ; that repentance, faith, love and obedience are fitting responses to God's initiative of grace towards us; that God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth; and that the Holy Spirit's power is demonstrated in and through us for the accomplishment of Christ's last commandment, "...Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15)

A Christian Magna Carta

The following Christian Magna Carta, developed in 1981 by YWAM leaders, expresses what we believe is an individual's basic rights implicit in the Gospel.

Because God so loved the world that He gave His own Son, everyone on earth has the right for an opportunity to:

• * Hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
• * Have the Bible available in his own language.
• * Have a Christian fellowship nearby, to be able to meet, have biblical teaching, prayer, and worship with others in the Body of Christ.
• * Have a Christian education available.
• * Have the basic necessities of life: food, water, clothing, shelter, & health care.
• * Lead a productive life of fulfillment spiritually, mentally, socially, emotionally, and physically.

YWAM Explained

Youth With A Mission (YWAM) encompasses thousands of people and hundreds of ministries in almost every country of the world. In every case, our passion is to know God and to make Him known.

We are a mixture of people from all over the world, from 149 countries in fact. In many of our locations, people from a wide variety of nations serve side by side. We come from numerous different Christian denominations and speak hundreds of languages. Nearly half of our staff comes from "non-western" countries, such as Brazil, Korea, Indonesia, India and Nepal.

In addition to our full-time staff, many YWAM locations host short-term outreach teams made up of individuals, youth groups, families and churches who get to participate first-hand in "making God known" through both words and actions. We send out over 25,000 short-term missionaries each year.

There are three strands of ministry weaving throughout all that YWAM does:

Evangelism

Some creative tools used to present the gospel include drama, music, performing arts and sports camps. YWAMers want to share their faith effectively in ways that their audience--whether teenagers, elderly refugees, or an unreached people group--will understand. YWAM also engages in church planting among unreached people groups.

Mercy Ministry

Mercy Ministry is the "hands and feet" of making God known. YWAM helps meet some of the practical and physical needs of about 400,000 people annually. Caring for street children in South America; aiding in the recovery of drug addicts in North America and Western Europe; feeding and housing refugees and women in need in Africa and Asia, and operating ships that declare the good news practically and verbally, are just some of the ways in which helping hands are extended.

Training and Discipleship

Training and Discipleship aim to better equip Christians to serve others in everything from agriculture and health care, to drug rehabilitation and biblical counseling. Through YWAM's University of the Nations (U of N), missionaries can study in specialized areas such as science and technology, linguistics, the humanities, and Christian ministry. Most YWAM schools combine classroom teaching with relationship-centered discipleship and practical service.

The Discipleship Training School (DTS) is a requirement for applying as YWAM staff, and serves as a prerequisite to all other training programs.

Each year some 10,000 students attend a U of N school at one of the 250 different locations.

Go to www.ywam.org to find out more about YWAM International.