The YWAM World I Know

My parents led DTS's when I was a kid from 5 till 11, we as a family were in YWAM. We were in Hawaii for a year and a half of that time the rest in New Zealand. I joined YWAM in Jan 92 doing my DTS in LA and going to Estonia for my outreach. I went back to Estonia a year later with the first DTS I staffed. That is where a huge question was raised for me.

On my DTS our team went from School to school doing our way cool drama's, preaching, tambourine dancing, and testimoning with lots of hands being raised at the end of each meeting. As a team we were totally stocked really it was amazing. But on my return the church hadn't grown at all. What the ... I was not allowed to question this or I was blown off with a very simple "it is in God's hands."

I was at a Mission Adventures network gig in 2001, Danny Lehmann spoke in the morning on evangelism and our need to be doing it, not it, but evangelism. We had a time of repentance following his talk but I just felt mad and frustrated. His talk pissed me off, I didn't understand why I was so mad. That evening Tony Jones of Emergant fame, talked on postmodernism and how the playing field had changed. Evangelism had to be different. It all may sense, I felt liberated. Someone had allowed me to ask questions. So the shift started for me.

As I started to question my YWAM world a lot more questions arose. Is doing evangelism the right question, where did discipleship fit in? Were we living in a way that help people become disciples of Christ? Why did we have such a division between the Christian world and the rest of the world? Discipleship is always relationship based that made relating amongst us as YWAMers of utmost importance, but why were we not very good friends? How could I change Mission Adventures outreaches fit in with the way God was asking me to live? Heaps of questions.