Youth With A Mission (YWAM, generally pronounced as "why-wam") is an international, inter-denominational, non-profit Christian, short-term missionary organization. Founded by Loren Cunningham in 1960, YWAM's stated purpose is to "know God and to make Him known".
YWAM now includes people from over 150 countries and a large number of Christian denominations, with over half of the organization's staff coming from "non-western" countries even despite the fact that overwhelming majority of the top leadership and middle management are still Western. YWAM currently has over 16,049 full-time volunteer workers in over 1,000 operating locations in 180 nations and trains 25,000 short-term missions volunteers annually.
Read more about Youth With A Mission: History, Structure, Doctrine and Practices, Associations and Working Relationships, 2007 Shooting Event, Political Affiliation and Involvement, Criticism and Controversy, Responses To Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words youth and/or mission:
“The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.”
—Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)
“I cannot be a materialist—but Oh, how is it possible that a God who speaks to all hearts can let Belgravia go laughing to a vicious luxury, and Whitechapel cursing to a filthy debauchery—such suffering, such dreadful suffering—and shall the short years of Christ’s mission atone for it all?”
—D.H. (David Herbert)