Become a Missionary – The YWAM Way

There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of different ways that you could become a Christian Missionary. Rather than looking today at how you can be a missionary in your home town or work I’ll look at how you can become a cross-cultural Christian missionary through Youth With A Mission.

I am also going to avoid for the moment the discussion about short-term missionaries and the value that actually comes from that. There are some good discussions and debates from both sides of that topic, so I will include short term and longer term opportunities through YWAM.

Youth With A Mission has many ways that people can become involved in Cross Cultural missions. Every year over 200,000 mostly young people go through YWAM missions programs around the world. Here are a few options that are available:

• Mission Adventures
• Discipleship Training School
• Business as Missions
• School of Frontier Missions
• Joining YWAM Staff

Mission Adventures

Mission Adventures is a popular very short term missionary opportunity with YWAM. It is usually a 1 – 4 week opportunity that is usually geared towards a youth group or school group.

There are two phases to a typical mission adventures program, the training phase and the outreach phase.

Training

The training phase of Mission Adventures includes worship, teaching and training on who God is and how to share about Him.

Outreach

The outreach phase consists of a cross cultural missions experience organized by the YWAM staff for the group. This phase gives opportunity for the individual and group to put into practice what they learned during their training phase.

Many different opportunities are available during the outreach. This may include:

• Evangelism
• Prison Ministry
• Construction Projects
• Children’s Ministry

To find out more about Mission Adventures you can visit their primary web-site here.

Discipleship Training School

The Discipleship Training School (YWAM DTS) is probably the cornerstone school for YWAM training around the world. Over a third of YWAM locations around the world focus on delivering quality Christian training programs, and most of them would be offering the YWAM DTS.

20 – 24 weeks is the usual duration for a YWAM DTS. The first 12-weeks of so of the school is spent in lectures. The primary topics covered during the lecture phase of the Discipleship Training School are:

1. The Nature and Character of God
2. God’s Plan for individuals, nations and the world
3. Sin and Redemption through the Cross
4. The Church
5. The Great Commission

A live & learn type environment is employed at most YWAM locations for the DTS. This means that  not only are the participants learning in a classroom, but by living with their staff and students they are having to live out what they are learning. It can be challenging, especially living with people from other cultures and denominational backgrounds, but it is an exciting time.

After the lecture phase the last half of the school is spent on a cross cultural outreach. Like Mission Adventures there are a lot of different opportunities available during the outreach, and because it lasts much longer, there is a much greater chance to engage in more of them.

My own YWAM DTS outreach experiences, as staff and students, have included:

• Rebuilding homes in Dili, East Timor
• Living in a Village in Mele, Vanuatu
• Praying for the sick in a hospital in Port Vila, Vanuatu
• Door Knocking in Nadi, Fiji
• Sharing my Testimony in a High School in Darwin, Australia

The YWAM DTS is the gateway to more involvement in Youth With A Mission, including the second level schools and joining staff.

Learn more about the YWAM DTS, and where you can do one, here.

Business as Missions

I’ve decided to include Business as Missions as an opportunity here because:

1. One of my best mates is doing a course in it right now
2. It is a fantastic opportunity for cross cultural missions

Business as Missions (BAM) is a unique opportunity to learn how to use a gift and calling to business and use it to open doors not available to “traditional” styles of missions. Running and setting up a business can allow access to areas usually out of reach to normal forms of missions. Business as Missions initiatives could look like:

• Coffee shop in a Muslim Country
• Textile factory in a Communist Country
• Import / Export Business in a Hindu Area

There are unlimited possibilities of where Business in Missions could lead someone if that is where God has called them.

Youth With A Mission offers a Business as Missions course that covers areas of business as well as Christian character to help people interested in it. I’ve read some of the material used and it’s pretty interesting stuff. You can find out more about this course here.

School of Frontier Missions

Youth With A Mission offers dozens of “second level” courses at their various locations around the world. To participate in any of these schools in YWAM the first port of call is the Discipleship Training School. After that most of the other courses are available to be pursued.

The goal of the School of Frontier Missions is to equip Christians to live and work amongst those forgotten people groups who have had little or no exposure to the message of God’s grace in Christ Jesus. This is pretty much THE course to take in YWAM if you are wanting to engage in long term cross cultural missionary work. The course covers:

• History and Biblical Basis for Missions
• Understanding World View and Culture
• Church Planting Principles and Methods
• Cross-Cultural Preparation
• Support Raising
• Language
• Prayer

After the lecture phase there is then the Field Placement. This is more than a short term outreach as the goal is for long term missions work in the cross cultural setting.

You can search for locations that offer the school here.

Joining YWAM Staff

Joining staff with Youth With A Mission can be an amazingly rewarding experience in missions. It is different for every person who does it and can be a 3-month experience, or a lifetime experience.

If you can think of a career, then you can probably do it in YWAM. The pre-requisite for joining staff with Youth With A Mission is to complete a Discipleship Training School. After that some locations have introductory courses that you need to do before becoming full time staff (Basic Leadership School (BLS), Phase 2, School of Evangelism (SOE), etc), but the YWAM DTS is the launching point.

YWAM does not pay a wage and everyone in YWAM is responsible for raising their own support for the work that they do. This goes for everyone from the brand new staff member to the International Chairman.

You can read more about what staff opportunities are available in Youth With A Mission at their web-site here.

You can read about my personal journey to where I am now as a missionary for the last 10-years in my last article, How I Became a Christian Missionary.

* This post is a part of the Missionary Blog Carnival on “Advice for People Wanting to be Missionaries”.