Calling something a cult is a big deal! You need to back up that
statement with some solid reasoning. My time in YWAM has led me to
this conclusion. I don't even begin to touch on how their schools are
a sort of multi-level marketing scheme. Nor will I get into all of the many flawed doctrinal issues. Let's just stick to the basics.
In this list I am addressing a list of cult attributes that were publicly posted on a site called "Cultish." This list is worth reviewing as there are multiple churches and ministries that do some of the things on this list. To be sure any entity where ANY of these things are present is a place ripe for Spiritual Abuse. Sadly I saw all of these during my time in YWAM.
While I have to admit that perhaps not EVERY Youth With A Mission missionary base will do all of these, there is a prevalent culture within the organization that lends itself to these characteristics and makes the chance for abuse highly likely. Even if a base is mostly "good", a change in leadership could turn it bad overnight.
1. Isolation: YWAM will discourage students and staff from outside intervention of concerned family and friends who begin to become alarmed at seeing their friends and family abandoning previous dreams and goals for the sake of “giving all” to being involved and absorbed into YWAM.
2. Love Bombing: YWAM creates an extremely tight-nit community of staff all living together communally as a “family.” I’ve often heard YWAMers say that YWAM is their “tribe.” To speak out against or leave this family creates a sense of anxiety. Similarly those who do leave miss the intensity of this connection and when they fail to find it else where, rather than seeing the connection as unhealthy, they see every other community as falling short of this extreme and are in a constant state of dissatisfaction. This happens even within their natural families.
3. Identity Replacement: You become a “YWAMer.” This identity supersedes all others, marriage, children, and extended family included. Your loyalty and self worth become more and more rooted in this, that you are first and foremost, “a YWAMer.” This is justified as “Seek ye first...” but the kingdom is YWAM not heaven.
4. Rapid-fire teaching: Questioning of teachers and YWAM gods, such as Loren Cunningham, is blasphemous and utter rebellion. I’ve witnessed multiple staff and students facing expulsion from the group for bringing up valid Biblically based concerns over core YWAM teaching and practices.
5. Fear and Intimidation over leaving: Oh my! This is SO prevalent I don’t honestly know where to begin. I will try to sum it up in brief but this could be its own blog. Fear over your visa and living situation, you are tied hand and foot to the base. If you are asked to leave you are stranded in a foreign country with no other support system other than the YWAM base. You are told that you are either falling away or abandoning your calling and purpose in life. Nobody wants that! You’ve invested time, money, and emotions into a particular system, leaving puts you at square one. You have no education or real work experience outside of this system, what will you do to survive? Besides you have managed to convince/sell everyone you know to give you money to do this “awesome work of God.” To go against that will bring shame and humiliation. These are the core of this point.
6. Deceptive Recruitment: YWAM’s beloved international reputation is proof of this. When speaking out on YWAM you’re met with shock and awe and complete disbelief. The PR campaign is thick. Their University of the Nations is probably the worst. A degree that is completely worthless and may cost 2-3x more than a legitimate education. “But this degree is for the Lord!” No, it isn’t, it’s for YWAM!
7. Unquestioning Allegiance: One of our DTSes was themed “obedience is better than sacrifice” and boy did we EVER drive that home. This is the theme within all of YWAM. Submission to base authority and their divinely imparted “words from the Lord” is key to surviving within YWAM.
8. Ends justify the means: If you lie or embellish to your supporters, that’s OK, it’s for the greater good. If you admit a student who probably shouldn’t be doing this, it’s OK the base needs the money. If you lie and cover up sin within the base staff, you are walking out forgiveness. Better to hide/lie about/cover up what’s really going on than to “let the enemy get a foot hold or have a victory in seeing the base harmed.”
9. Us vs Them: This was the NUMBER ONE complaint I’ve heard from DTS students from bases everywhere was that the staff created an us vs them environment during their DTS. I have been lectured by DTS leaders about how I needed to maintain the "us vs them" mentality between staff and students and not “get too close to my students.” I saw this play out in our local community too. There was us, and there was them, meaning everyone else in the community that wasn’t directly involved on the base. There was strict protocol in place to manage this. Let’s not pull back the curtain and see what the great and powerful Oz really is. We cloaked ourselves in mystery and mysticism. In so doing created a multi-level priesthood if you will.
10. Submission via guilt: Oh yes. This was frequent. Guilt was a weapon of choice. “One on ones” weaponized counseling sessions for leadership, armed with sensitive personal information for both students and staff, to emotionally black mail. Any detail from your past was encouraged to be shared for your own good and then later used against you and discussed openly with other staff in meetings. “Do you think you are questioning my authority because of those daddy issues of yours?” “You used to be into the occult before you were saved and rebellion is the sin of witchcraft. Be careful your old man isn’t rising up in this spirit of rebellion and questioning my choices for your life.”
11. Divinely revealed truths: THIS IS YWAM NUMBER ONE! There is an emphasis in all of YWAM and even at it’s foundation for “hearing the voice of God.” It is THE core principal and teaching. Here’s the thing, some people hear God better than others. What you hear from God can’t go against what leadership has heard from God, or it can’t be from God. This is the number one way that YWAM spiritually abuses it’s members.
12. Siege Mentality/Dismissing Criticism: It’s everywhere. Whenever anyone speaks out against YWAM, people go on a full scale attack. Any blog, post, YouTube video, anything will be viciously attacked and dismembered. This organization will even be defended by people who have never been a part of it and have ZERO first hand knowledge of it’s key practices and believes.
13. Shunning: I and my husband have been shunned by YWAM and I know of many others. When we began to speak freely about our concerns and questions our former friends and colleagues were told not to speak to us or associate with us because we were gossiping and spreading lies. We were labeled “poisonous.”
14. Elitist Mentality: In SPADES!!! YWAMers are so snooty about being a YWAMer. Not once have I seen a base with a healthy relationship to a local church. The base feels they are above it. More spiritually mature and better teaching. More enlightened. People will go to church but their involvement at the base is so all consuming that churches are neglected. There is a sense that you are better than other Christians because you have sacrificed “worldly pursuits” in favor of “full time ministry.” You are better because you live by “faith” unlike those worldly believers who rely on jobs, you rely on God. Oh yeah and you also rely on all those people with jobs to support you, but hey let’s not think about the fact that you are essentially a spiritual beggar and mooch!
15. Control over personal life: Again, one of YWAM’s biggest! Nothing you do can happen without consent from base leadership. They have to approve any choice you make, whether it be marriage, dating, where you live, your role in leadership, how you spend your money, how you are raising your children. Base leadership gets a say in all of it.
16. Rigid restrictions related to the sleeping habits, food intake, exercise, and leisure times of members: YES!!!! As YWAM student or staff, your time is extremely restricted. Base mealtimes are mandatory and of poor quality. Many YWAM staff suffer from sleep deprivation, weight loss and malnutrition, especially during schools. Leisure time is dictated by base leadership.
In this list I am addressing a list of cult attributes that were publicly posted on a site called "Cultish." This list is worth reviewing as there are multiple churches and ministries that do some of the things on this list. To be sure any entity where ANY of these things are present is a place ripe for Spiritual Abuse. Sadly I saw all of these during my time in YWAM.
While I have to admit that perhaps not EVERY Youth With A Mission missionary base will do all of these, there is a prevalent culture within the organization that lends itself to these characteristics and makes the chance for abuse highly likely. Even if a base is mostly "good", a change in leadership could turn it bad overnight.
1. Isolation: YWAM will discourage students and staff from outside intervention of concerned family and friends who begin to become alarmed at seeing their friends and family abandoning previous dreams and goals for the sake of “giving all” to being involved and absorbed into YWAM.
2. Love Bombing: YWAM creates an extremely tight-nit community of staff all living together communally as a “family.” I’ve often heard YWAMers say that YWAM is their “tribe.” To speak out against or leave this family creates a sense of anxiety. Similarly those who do leave miss the intensity of this connection and when they fail to find it else where, rather than seeing the connection as unhealthy, they see every other community as falling short of this extreme and are in a constant state of dissatisfaction. This happens even within their natural families.
3. Identity Replacement: You become a “YWAMer.” This identity supersedes all others, marriage, children, and extended family included. Your loyalty and self worth become more and more rooted in this, that you are first and foremost, “a YWAMer.” This is justified as “Seek ye first...” but the kingdom is YWAM not heaven.
4. Rapid-fire teaching: Questioning of teachers and YWAM gods, such as Loren Cunningham, is blasphemous and utter rebellion. I’ve witnessed multiple staff and students facing expulsion from the group for bringing up valid Biblically based concerns over core YWAM teaching and practices.
5. Fear and Intimidation over leaving: Oh my! This is SO prevalent I don’t honestly know where to begin. I will try to sum it up in brief but this could be its own blog. Fear over your visa and living situation, you are tied hand and foot to the base. If you are asked to leave you are stranded in a foreign country with no other support system other than the YWAM base. You are told that you are either falling away or abandoning your calling and purpose in life. Nobody wants that! You’ve invested time, money, and emotions into a particular system, leaving puts you at square one. You have no education or real work experience outside of this system, what will you do to survive? Besides you have managed to convince/sell everyone you know to give you money to do this “awesome work of God.” To go against that will bring shame and humiliation. These are the core of this point.
6. Deceptive Recruitment: YWAM’s beloved international reputation is proof of this. When speaking out on YWAM you’re met with shock and awe and complete disbelief. The PR campaign is thick. Their University of the Nations is probably the worst. A degree that is completely worthless and may cost 2-3x more than a legitimate education. “But this degree is for the Lord!” No, it isn’t, it’s for YWAM!
7. Unquestioning Allegiance: One of our DTSes was themed “obedience is better than sacrifice” and boy did we EVER drive that home. This is the theme within all of YWAM. Submission to base authority and their divinely imparted “words from the Lord” is key to surviving within YWAM.
8. Ends justify the means: If you lie or embellish to your supporters, that’s OK, it’s for the greater good. If you admit a student who probably shouldn’t be doing this, it’s OK the base needs the money. If you lie and cover up sin within the base staff, you are walking out forgiveness. Better to hide/lie about/cover up what’s really going on than to “let the enemy get a foot hold or have a victory in seeing the base harmed.”
9. Us vs Them: This was the NUMBER ONE complaint I’ve heard from DTS students from bases everywhere was that the staff created an us vs them environment during their DTS. I have been lectured by DTS leaders about how I needed to maintain the "us vs them" mentality between staff and students and not “get too close to my students.” I saw this play out in our local community too. There was us, and there was them, meaning everyone else in the community that wasn’t directly involved on the base. There was strict protocol in place to manage this. Let’s not pull back the curtain and see what the great and powerful Oz really is. We cloaked ourselves in mystery and mysticism. In so doing created a multi-level priesthood if you will.
10. Submission via guilt: Oh yes. This was frequent. Guilt was a weapon of choice. “One on ones” weaponized counseling sessions for leadership, armed with sensitive personal information for both students and staff, to emotionally black mail. Any detail from your past was encouraged to be shared for your own good and then later used against you and discussed openly with other staff in meetings. “Do you think you are questioning my authority because of those daddy issues of yours?” “You used to be into the occult before you were saved and rebellion is the sin of witchcraft. Be careful your old man isn’t rising up in this spirit of rebellion and questioning my choices for your life.”
11. Divinely revealed truths: THIS IS YWAM NUMBER ONE! There is an emphasis in all of YWAM and even at it’s foundation for “hearing the voice of God.” It is THE core principal and teaching. Here’s the thing, some people hear God better than others. What you hear from God can’t go against what leadership has heard from God, or it can’t be from God. This is the number one way that YWAM spiritually abuses it’s members.
12. Siege Mentality/Dismissing Criticism: It’s everywhere. Whenever anyone speaks out against YWAM, people go on a full scale attack. Any blog, post, YouTube video, anything will be viciously attacked and dismembered. This organization will even be defended by people who have never been a part of it and have ZERO first hand knowledge of it’s key practices and believes.
13. Shunning: I and my husband have been shunned by YWAM and I know of many others. When we began to speak freely about our concerns and questions our former friends and colleagues were told not to speak to us or associate with us because we were gossiping and spreading lies. We were labeled “poisonous.”
14. Elitist Mentality: In SPADES!!! YWAMers are so snooty about being a YWAMer. Not once have I seen a base with a healthy relationship to a local church. The base feels they are above it. More spiritually mature and better teaching. More enlightened. People will go to church but their involvement at the base is so all consuming that churches are neglected. There is a sense that you are better than other Christians because you have sacrificed “worldly pursuits” in favor of “full time ministry.” You are better because you live by “faith” unlike those worldly believers who rely on jobs, you rely on God. Oh yeah and you also rely on all those people with jobs to support you, but hey let’s not think about the fact that you are essentially a spiritual beggar and mooch!
15. Control over personal life: Again, one of YWAM’s biggest! Nothing you do can happen without consent from base leadership. They have to approve any choice you make, whether it be marriage, dating, where you live, your role in leadership, how you spend your money, how you are raising your children. Base leadership gets a say in all of it.
16. Rigid restrictions related to the sleeping habits, food intake, exercise, and leisure times of members: YES!!!! As YWAM student or staff, your time is extremely restricted. Base mealtimes are mandatory and of poor quality. Many YWAM staff suffer from sleep deprivation, weight loss and malnutrition, especially during schools. Leisure time is dictated by base leadership.
