| Letter from Loren |
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Dear YWAM global family… Darlene and I greet you, as we lean forward toward 2010, our YWAM Jubilee. This will be a great year of opportunity, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Youth With A Mission around the globe. You may have heard that Darlene and I will be making six “Founders’ Journeys” to meet together with our YWAM family in approximately 40 locations on every continent throughout 2010. These will be 3-day events, and at the end of this letter, I’ll tell you how to find out when and where the closest event to you is planned to take place. But this letter is not about our small part; it’s about YOU taking advantage to use this 50th year—the WHOLE year—to create opportunities to bring people together around our Great Commission calling and “go until it’s done.” Use it to highlight our mandate, not only to reach every creature with the Gospel, but to disciple whole nations through the spheres of society. I would like to encourage you to create multiple events throughout 2010 with your team…at your campus/center…in your nation…in your region. You may want to consider a group to focus on each month of the year. Here are some ideas: 1) Bring together YWAM alumni—people who have participated with you anytime in your history. 2) Bring together donors—those who have given and prayed so that you could exist and thrive. Create a banquet of gratefulness, just to say “thank you for obeying God.” 3) Do a similar event for parents of YWAMers, to say “thank you for giving/sending your greatest treasures, your children.” Gather people according to their sphere of calling: 4) yes, of course pastors and leaders within the sphere of the Church, but also 5) marketplace Christians involved in business, 6) civic leaders, both local and national, 7) those involved in education, 8) the arts and other areas of interest/calling. You can easily come up with 12 gatherings—one for each month of the year! At each event, provide people with information about YWAM worldwide as well as your local ministry. Share with them encouraging updates on major trends, moving the completion of the Great Commission forward (for ideas and updates, go to www.call2all.org). Don’t try to do just a “one size fits all” event and clump all the categories of people together; rather, we would encourage you to create many smaller events throughout the year as suggested above, so that you can really focus on meeting together with specific groups of people and having more personal interaction, hearing their stories, praying with them, and encouraging them too to “go until it’s done.” This will draw you into serving other Christians, helping them to disciple their sphere, and it will expand your own discipleship ministries. Don’t wait for some central YWAM office to organize all these 50th events! YOU do it at the grassroots level—with your team, at your location, in your nation, within your region. Remember YWAM Foundational Value #7: YWAM is called to “be broad-structured and decentralized.” This is how we thrive and multiply. And this is how YWAM’s 50th anniversary celebrations will be the most productive--by encouraging, championing and equipping people to go forward through lots of decentralized events and opportunities. Within your region, you may want to take advantage of Darlene’s and my Founders’ Journey visit and organize one or two of these events on either side of our 3-day module. We would especially encourage the possibility of a YWAM alumni gathering around that time, so that the participants can flow right into or out of the Founders’ 50th Event. But none of the specific events I have mentioned above will be the focus DURING our modules. Our purpose is to have a “family reunion” and spend time together specifically with our YWAM family members, as well as casting vision for the way forward. The Founders’ 50th Events will have three parts: on the first evening, we will CELEBRATE God’s goodness to our mission over the PAST 50 years. The second morning, Darlene will lead us in a time of rehearsing with gratitude the history and values of YWAM. That afternoon, we will rejoice in God’s faithfulness in the PRESENT—with a special focus on the host nation/region. The local organizers will need to have pulled together the local/regional history timeline, along with videos and photos so you can present to God and to us your current ministries and fruitfulness. Then, that second night I will share exciting vision for the FUTURE. The third day, we will move into a time of COMMITMENT & COMMISSIONING, praying over new ministries to be born, new ventures for God, and for fruit that remains through our individual and corporate Great Commission efforts. Together we will re-commit to “go forward until it’s done.” We will not be posting one international calendar with all the dates and locations of the Founders’ 50th Events. We feel that this would not be wise security-wise, due to the number of our precious YWAMers who will be traveling to each location in this age of increasing persecution and anti-Christ activities (see 1 John 2). In order to find out which Founders’ 50th Event will be nearest to you, contact your Regional Director. He/she has been provided with the dates and locations of the Founders’ 50th Event nearest to you, and should also be aware of other 50th events being organized within your region. We are creating a YWAM 50th anniversary website. It is currently under construction, but will soon be available at: www.YWAM50.com Here too, you will be able to find basic information on the Founders’ 50th Event in your nation/region. And as the Founders’ Journeys begin to circle the globe next January, we will start posting exciting updates on the site. Details will also unfold on this website for the culminating 50th Anniversary Event, which you’re ALL invited to in Kona, Hawaii November 29 – December 4, 2010. For more information, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it We are looking forward to being with you next year! We expect that the Founders’ 50th Event in each location will be very unique. Yours will be the story of how God has proven Himself in your past and present--expressed through your culture, ethnicity and diversity--and what He envisions for your future. We have great anticipation in our hearts that this will be a catalytic year for Great Commission purposes. The best is yet to come! Your brother and co-worker, Loren |
