Our connection to YWAM Idaho & Youth With A Mission International
YWAM Idaho Boise-Cascade
YWAM Utah Campus is a campus of YWAM Idaho Boise-Cascade. YWAM Idaho’s battle cry is: “Equipping pioneers to complete the Great Commission.” And as such they are now equipping us to start this location and Discipleship Training School in Utah. We are grateful for the great connections we have with YWAM Idaho.
Youth With A Mission International
Youth With A Mission International is a movement rather than an organization. We provide eldership to each other and we all follow the same foundational values. Each operating location also has a large level of freedom. As everyone who wants to serve full-time with YWAM starts by taking a 5-6 month training school called the Discipleship Training School (DTS), everyone who serves full-time for YWAM also has the same foundation.
You can read more about the common foundations we take part in by visiting the International DTS Centre to see what DTS is about and teaches, while you can learn more about YWAM worldwide at YWAM.org and you can read each of our 18 foundational values there as well.
The first two foundational values form the common purpose of Youth With A Mission worldwide – To Know God & To Make Him Known.
Check out this video for a quick 1 minute overview of Youth With A Mission International:
The Three Ways YWAM Does Ministry
Evangelism – The side of YWAM that is focused on sharing the good news of Jesus wherever God may send us.
Training – The side of YWAM that is focused on training people to be better equipped to share the good news of Jesus and help those in need. YWAM trains their staff and students, but can also help in training up the wider body of Christ or even communities that may not yet know God.
Mercy Ministries – The side of YWAM that is focused on helping people and on meeting people’s needs. Mercy Ministry focuses on showing Gods love through practical acts of service.
In most cases, these three ways of reaching out to people are combined when actually doing ministry.
History of YWAM International
Youth With A Mission was founded in 1960 by Loren Cunningham and his wife Darlene. They founded the organization after Loren had received a vision from God four years earlier. In this vision he saw waves of young people going throughout the world to do missions work. YWAM was founded in response to this vision, with the focus of getting youth involved in missions. The heart of YWAM is “to worship God, to serve God’s global purpose, and to champion young people” (YWAM); Working together to fulfill Jesus command to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15 NIV)
Since YWAM was founded in 1960, the organization has grown immensely and this has changed the way in which ministry is done. One of the things that has changed over time is that, though we still work a lot with and through young people, “we also involve people aged 8 to 80” (YWAM). In addition, the work of YWAM has expanded throughout the world. YWAM currently has over 1,100 operating locations in over 180 countries, with staff coming from over 130 countries.
From the beginning, Evangelism was an important aspect of Youth With A Mission and soon Training also showed to be a necessity. But according to YWAM Lausanne Switzerland, it was in 1979, almost 20 years after YWAM was founded, that something happened that solidified mercy ministries as a distinct way in which YWAM operates: The Cambodian refugee crisis.
In the aftermath of ten years of war, tens of thousands of Cambodians fled to the border of Thailand. Many were living in poor conditions in camps on the border of Cambodia and Thailand, and even after the Thai government allowed these refugees to stay in designated holding centers inside of Thailand, their situation did not improve much. Organizations like UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) and ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) were allowed in to bring aid to the Cambodian refugees. The need however remained great.
Steve and Marie Goode, two of YWAM’s 1,800 full-time staff at the time, heard about the Cambodian refugee crisis in Thailand and decided to go there for three months to help. They ended up staying in Thailand and they would go on to direct YWAM’s refugee camp ministry.
Since then, YWAM has been involved in mercy ministry in many more ways all over the earth. We hope to step into this by training people inside of Utah to be able to reach out in Truth and in Love, both inside of Utah and throughout the nations of the world.
Would you like to learn more about how you can be a part of YWAM in Utah, Idaho, and the broader family of YWAM?
YWAM Utah Campus 