Values

Getting Aggressive about Youth
--by Danny Lehmann

Value Six: Champion Young People


YWAM stands for YOUTH With A Mission. Take the Youth out of YWAM and we are in for a serious identity crisis. In short; no youth--no YWAM!

YWAM's roots reach back to a vision placed in the heart of a young Loren Cunningham by a youth-championing God. Even before the vision of the waves of young people going into all the world with the gospel, an even younger Loren was championed by his mother, Jewel. When her son (then a scant 12 years old) announced that God was calling him to preach, she immediately marched him down to the shoe store to confirm God's call on his young heart. Her reasoning: we need to fit those young feet with shoes because the Bible says, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news" (Rom 10:15).

God has always used young people. Joseph, David, Esther, Daniel, Mary, and all of Jesus' disciples were young when God used them in a significant way. In our time, nations have been transformed by the courage, creativity and determination of those who were called at a young age. Missionary heroes William Carey, Hudson Taylor and Amy Carmichael all went to the field when they were in their early twenties.

YWAM's value of championing young people is rooted not only in the Bible, missions history and the Word of the Lord, but also in an understanding expressed in a phrase coined by Dale Kauffman, "the spiritual capacity of young people." It was this understanding that helped Dale to launch King's Kids in 1976. The amazing growth of this worldwide ministry has demonstrated that God uses teenagers, and even pre-teens, in missions.

Young people are also our primary mission field. Statistics show that most people who come to Christ do so before age 20 (some say as high as 80 percent). YWAM's Impact World Tour folks are a great example of targeting the early teens in their campaigns.

Championing the young among us is essential for our very life as a mission. They bring new life and fresh vision which helps us avoid slipping into the comfortable rut of doing what we've always done, which leads to stagnation.

How then do we champion young people? First of all we must truly believe in them and serve them. Young people are not YWAM's future, they are YWAM!

Championing even one young person can impact the nations through many generations. Loren and Darlene have always led us this way; back in the early years they believed in a 19-year-old Islander, Kalafi Moala. He then championed a new generation of pioneers, releasing young people across Southeast Asia into Nepal, India and Bangladesh where their ministry continues today. These young people continued to champion those who came after them, seeing works birthed in China and beyond. I was one of those young people, and remembering Kalafi's trust in me in those early days keeps the fire burning to champion the youth the Lord has called me to serve. One 21-year-old from our base in Honolulu recently began a new work in Central Asia. These are the people close to me, but this pattern has been repeated all over the world as a result of Loren and Dar's commitment to champion young people.

We must be intentional in championing young people. As Paul chose his disciples, we must seek out the "reliable" young men and women among us (2 Tim 2:2) and challenge them to greatness as servants of the Lord. Generational studies have shown that this present group of "millenials" long for relationships with spiritual father and mothers. I find that going surfing or shooting pool with a young disciple can sometimes be more effective than a Bible study. We must spend time with them, listening to their God-given dreams and aggressively serve them in the fulfillment of those dreams.

Finally, a word to the young in our midst: we must get hungry and stay hungry for this championing. Don't wait for someone to champion you. The Lord urges us, "Ask your fathers, they will show you…ask your elders, and they will explain it to you" (Deut 32:7). Go and literally bang on the door of your YWAM leaders and ask them to impart to you what God has deposited in them.

We must all be aggressive! The stakes are too high to be passive! This generation is ready to be called, discipled and released to do great things for God.

--Danny Lehmann is the director of YWAM Hawaii
International YWAMer, June-Sept 2006. Topics: