To Lighthouse Trails:
Please make it very clear that Youth With A Mission (YWAM) was helping to head up The Send. In fact, YWAMers went to Lou Engle, and together they formed the idea for The Send.
As a very recent former YWAM staff who was naive to all things NAR and contemplative, I am now horrified to see this and thank God for giving us the discernment to leave. But, we NEED to warn our young people about YWAM. They are heavily involved in Lou Engle, Benny Hinn, IHOP, etc. They are teaching contemplative prayer and corporate imagery prayer. Not every base is, but you cannot be sure which do because they have destructuralized their organization, which means there is little to no accountability of each separate base.
The problem starts at the top. Andy Byrd, one of the main collaborators for The Send, is part of the leadership for the YWAM University of the Nations and YWAM Kona base. He has spoken at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministries : the Summit (Feb) and Bethel Church. Steve Cochran endorses Eugene Peterson, contemplative practices, syncretism and more. And that is just a couple.
YWAM is no longer a place to encourage our young people to get involved with. I would beg Lighthouse trails to research YWAM . . . thousands of people a year are being taught through YWAM . . . and thousands of young people will be deceived, as they already have through The Send and the collaborators that YWAM chose to use.
DW
LTRP Note: Lighthouse Trails has been extremely concerned about YWAM for several years now. Below is a list of some of our past research. If you know someone who is involved with YWAM or parents whose children are involved, please pass the letter above and these links on to them.
YWAM—Wants Every YWAMer to Practice Contemplative Prayer!
“Together 2018” – “A New Jesus Movement” for a Mystical All-Inclusive “Christianity”
A Public Letter From Renovare Reveals Troubling Connection with YWAM
Letter to the Editor: Concerns About Shalem Institute, Vineyard, and YWAM
Are the “Supreme Beings” of the World the True God?
The New Missiology – Doing Missions Without the Gospel
Can Cultures Be Redeemed? – Emerging Church Says “Yes” – Bible Says “No”
Evangelicals and New Agers Together
(painting from bigstockphoto.com; used with permission)
Praying for my daughter S______ and her husband J________. They run the YWAM base in ___________. I’ve been trying to tell her how unbiblical the NAR and WOF movements are. She just ignores me and says I shouldn’t worry about that stuff. Praying God will open her eyes and give her discernment.
Please pray for me and my husband as we plan to talk to our daughter about her impending travel to YWAM Honolulu that is scheduled August 15th. She just completed a 6 months DTS training in March and she came home fired up. She informed us then about her decision to go back for 2 years as a staff.
We really don’t know how to approach this. We read so many negative reports about YWAM that we did not know about and we are troubled.
We appreciate any feedback.
Thank you.
Evelyn
YWAM allows non-evangelicals to teach evangelism in their base at the Philippines. Mitch Metzger, one of he individuals associated with YWAM in the Philippines, is associated with Pelagianism/Finneyism/Moral Government Theology teachers such as Jesse Morrell and Kerrigan Skelly.
Their theology is not evangelical, as original sin, justification by faith alone, and imputed righteousness in a biblical sense are denied by them.
These sorts of teachings have been going on for a long time. I reported the issues regarding them to YWAM. Basically, I was told that I should be evangelizing myself and not to worry about others.
I have been involved in evangelism so their criticism is not valid.
I would suggest looking up Mitch Metzger on Youtube, as well as Jesse Morrell and Kerrigan Skelly.
The issues regarding YWAM’s involvement in these teachings were addressed in the past by E. Calvin Beisner and others.
YWAM lacks doctrinal discernment. It is sad.
I am a former YWAMER and have been enlightened about YWAM about a year ago. I also sent one of my Granddaughters to a DTS training right out of High School. I have been very disturbed about learning not only are they walking with the NAR (many with Bethel Redding) the top leader is involved in joining together with the Catholic Faith. It’s coming directly from the top and I mean Loren Cunningham. I pray for my many wonderful friends deceived as to what is going on. ☹️
Thank you for this. I so appreciate your insights and explanation. I was involved in a prayer group in our community about 20 years ago, it was a “Mothers Who Care” prayer network, mothers from all churches in our city could get together and form small groups to pray, for children and their local schools. Once a year all the groups in our town would get together for a large meeting and the leadership (over all of Canada) would speak. There were some things brought up that disturbed me, visions people were having, and the promotion of a technique for the small group to visual Jesus in their midst. It went like this, when you are gathered together, put out an extra chair for Jesus , then close your eyes and imagine/visual him sitting there with your group.
What disturbed me more, was that I also, around the same time received from a relative in Waterloo, Ontario, some literature describing the same thing. She had it given to her by a Christian in her Bible study group at her church, which was supposed to be a very solid Baptist church. It is no marvel that ministries like YWAM are as brazenly into the new age/new spirituality as they are. I think they went off the rails a long time ago. I left the prayer group and also the church I was attending at the time. My experience in the past, in the charismatic movement, helped me discern what was wrong. Once one is burned as badly as I was, one does not play around when deceptive teachings become evident.
Heidi,
I believe my newness to all things NAR/contemplative has led me to use a phrase perhaps incorrectly or at least somewhat. Forgive me. To clarify what I described as corporate imagery prayer (which was my way of describing what was happening) was: they encouraged the leaders to pray corporately/together to find out God’s plan for the ministry bases. We were to pray together silently asking God for a visual or image. We were to “hold on to that image/thought/concept, remembering it and focusing on it”, as that was God speaking, (no Biblical discernment used as to whether this was just your imagination or a true revelation from the Lord). Then at the end of the silent prayer, each was to share the image/visual that they received. They would accept whatever someone called out and in a few minutes came up with a “word from God” for that base. ex: apple, rain, view from afar of the community that they were ministering in = God was telling them that He would rain down a blessing of a fruitful ministry in their community. It felt shallow and not truly of the Lord. I felt a need to pray for spiritual protection during the prayer times rather than being involved in coming up with an image to share. In regard to the definition you found; two things: 1. when I wrote that, I did not realize that corporate imagery prayer was an actual definition…it was the best description I could use for what they “directed” in the prayer time. 2. we did not end up having a time of “resting in the awareness of God” other than everyone rejoicing that they had received a “word from God”. There was no “class” or specific teaching on imagery prayer as they are encouraging so blatantly now with contemplative prayer.. However, it was definitely not lectio divina. This practice of determining what God is saying is widely used in YWAM as is evident when reading through their books about the history of YWAM.
As to the syncretism: Steve Cochran’s blog recommends the book Jesus Sutras. https://stevecochrane823.com/recommended-books/
He also is very much for Eugene Peterson : check out his facebook . Also, as one of the Provost team (head of YWAM’s University of the Nations ) he endorses YWAM’s new ,since 2017, Centre for Christian Formation that blatantly teaches contemplative/emergent spiritual disciplines
https://centreforchristianformation.com/about-us/ . That alone should be enough for anyone who is Biblically-rooted and discerning to see the danger YWAM is…tens of thousands of young people are being trained by about 18,000 staff EACH year…making it one of the largest “Christian” organizations.
I did a search and got my answers regarding “corporate imagery prayer” and “syncretism”. From a web site that teaches it : “Imagery prayers use the gift of your inner imaginative spirit to communicate with God and rest in the awareness of God.” Examples of how one can visualize or envision Jesus follow. The concept of inner healing is involved. “Visualization” is a powerful occult technique and I saw this come into the church about twenty years ago. I found the definition of “syncretism” on “got questions.org”. “Religious syncretism is the reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief. Foreign beliefs are introduced to an indigenous belief system and the teachings are blended.” The word “reconciliation” stands out here and makes me think of a series of messages I heard from a prominent Christian leader on the Reformation a few years ago, when the 500th anniversary came up. It was cleverly worded to imply that we must all now realize “how much evangelicals and Catholics have in common”, and that it is high time we all come to realize this.
Thank you, Lighthouse Trails, for posting the links above. I wasn’t aware of this content. I will certainly read/study these articles. There are two things in the letter mentioned which I have never heard of before: “corporate imagery prayer” and “syncretism”. Maybe these are just different terms for something I have read about, please clarify. Thanks. (Would corporate imagery prayer be the same as Lectio Divina?)
It is so sad to see organizations that started out for the Lord going so far away from Biblical teachings. My friend stayed overnight at a YWAM leader’s home and saw that their 3 teen-age children were not walking -iwith the Lord. Their rooms were all decorated in black and they were into occult practices. At this moment a former YWAM leader is having severe mental problems and his mom has nowhere to turn for help. He has destroyed her home physically and emotionally, blaming his mom for everything. Please pray for this mom. She is a member of my church. She says his meds changed his personality; he has an auto-immune disease. His wife, also a former YWAM leader left him. He found out that she had affairs with other men before he married her; he did not know this when he married her.