YWAM is the acronym for Youth With a Mission – a mission organization that trains and sends out youth on mission trips.
They have been accepting of contemplative practices in the past, but only recently came out and directly encouraged their trainees to practice contemplative prayer.
What is the danger in any Christian, including missionaries, using contemplative prayer?
As Ray Yungen, who researched the contemplative prayer movement for over twenty years, often stated, when one begins practicing this mystical form of prayer, one’s views on the Cross, on salvation, and on God’s Word begin to be altered. In time, the contemplative practitioner begins to embrace a more panentheistic(God in all), interspiritual (all paths lead to God) view. (Lighthouse Trails)
A May/June 2000 issue of Watchman’s Trumpet magazine explains what this new missiology really entails:
“Several international missions organizations, including Youth With a Mission (YWAM), are testing a new approach to missionary work in areas where Christianity is unwelcome. A March 24, 2000, Charisma News Service report said some missionaries are now making converts but are allowing them to “hold on to many of their traditional religious beliefs and practices” so as to refrain from offending others within their culture.”
The Charisma article in which Watchman’s Trumpet reports elaborates:
“’Messianic Muslims’ who continue to read the Koran, visit the mosque and say their daily prayers but accept Christ as their Savior, are the products of the strategy, which is being tried in several countries, according to Youth With a Mission (YWAM), one of the organizations involved.”
The Charisma story reports that a YWAM staff newsletter notes the new converts’ lifestyle changes (or lack thereof):
“They [the new converts] continued a life of following the Islamic requirements, including mosque attendance, fasting and Koranic reading, besides getting together as a fellowship of Muslims who acknowledge Christ as the source of God’s mercy for them.”
When one of the largest missionary societies (YWAM) becomes a proponent of the new missiology, telling converts they can remain in their own religious traditions, the disastrous results should be quite sobering for any discerning Christian. (source)
{quote from Roger Oakland in Faith Undone}
You can read more about this advertisement by YWAM on their website here. But this is one short quote that lists what they promote:
A few of these contemplative practices involve: breath prayers, which consist of praying a short phrase with your in- and your out-breath; lectio devina, which is a meditative way of reading short passages of scripture; and silent prayer such as Centering Prayer. (YWAM site)
And we have already listed a couple excerpts from an article by Lighthouse Trails which we will link below. We highly recommend anyone with youth involved in this organization to take a discerning look at the teachings they are using in the training of their youth.
“YWAM – Wants Every YWAMer to Practice Contemplative Prayer!”
{article excerpt}
YWAM (Youth With a Mission), an evangelical missions organization (founded in 1960 by Loren Cunningham) that trains about 25,000 people every year for world-wide mission trips, has issued an announcement regarding its commitment to teaching contemplative prayer. On Saturday, a reader alerted Lighthouse Trails to a June 2018 YWAM promotional audio piece on the YWAM website promoting contemplative prayer practices. While Lighthouse Trails has known about YWAM’s propensity toward contemplative prayer for over a decade, this month’s promo is one of the more blatant ministry-wide efforts YWAM has taken in bringing the organization’s participants fully on board with the New Age/New Spirituality contemplative prayer movement. The promo begins:
Thank you for joining us this month as we take up “The Invitation” and join together with thousands of YWAMers from around the world as we pray and hear from God about Contemplative Prayer.1
It was in 2006 that Lighthouse Trails first alerted our readers to YWAM’s interest in contemplative prayer and the emergent church in an article titled, “Red Moon Rising: An Army for God with a “Violent Reaction.”2 That article revealed that YWAM had partnered with the UK contemplative group 24/7 Prayer with Pete Greig and his mystical boiler rooms that were becoming part of many churches’ youth programs.
Over the years, Lighthouse Trails has observed that YWAM has seen nothing wrong with contemplative spirituality. As we saw with other organizations that have gone in this direction, we witnessed YWAM changing their philosophy on how to do missions (what we call “the new missiology”).
You can read the full article at Lighthouse Trails.
We believe in the inerrancy and sufficiency of the Scriptures. Jesus said, “Thy Word is truth.” And so we not only believe it, we also base our worldview upon it.
Regina S says
This does not make me happy at all. My oldest daughter who is 23 has been involved in YWAM since she 18 years old. The people that run the one she is involved in have been our friends since all our children were little. I’ve heard disturbing things in the past about YWAM and it’s involvement with the cult International House of Prayer aka IHOP.
Thank you for the heads up on what’s happening with YWAM. This is very upsetting indeed.
The Editors says
This is definitely starting to hit close home for many of us. It is indeed disturbing!