Cultish: Looking Into YWAM (Youth With A Mission) - Part 3

YWAM’s Decentralized Structure and Cult Allegations

Alright, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I am one of the co-hosts here. I am joined Unfortunately, not in studio this time, but with my trusted co-host Sidekick partner in crime my favorite super sleuth in the world Andrew the super sleuth of the show back in Harriman, Utah.

Andrew, how are you doing, man? I'm doing well, but yes sad I'm not with you in the studio, but I am doing well, and I'm excited to finish up this series, right? Like this is this has been one of the most requested series that we have ever had and we have a very special guest with us today, so I couldn't be happier and Thank you.

Thank you Jerry for that introduction. As always one time I need to introduce you because you always give me this like restless wrestlers. Introduction. Yeah, and I need to I need to give it back dude.

I need to bless okay back with that.

Well, we'll take it all to all cash in that rain check very very soon. But I appreciate the kind the kind words that it says let the pray it let any praise view come from like another person I think it says something like that.

So yeah very much appreciated. So I am super excited. We are. This is chapter sort of chapter two of our series on why wham? Aka youth with a mission and so we are here with.

Dairy, how are you doing, man? I'm doing great y 'all. Thanks for having me on the show. Awesome, man.

So just the reason why we had you on I'm really excited to talk to you because you know from our initial Us initially looking at youth with a mission I really believe that this is something that we want to get, you know.

Some distinct and unique vantage points when it says, you know, there's a you know, the scriptures that talk about. You know hearing both sides of the story any matter has to be established by two to three independent lines of testimony and witness.

In fact, there's a thing in Proverbs 18 and talks about you know, when what somebody makes his case, you know. He seems to be right until another one comes and cross-examines him. So I think it's also good to kind of look at The conversation regarding you through the mission and to be able to talk with someone such as yourself.

So just tell everyone's very quickly Just a little bit about yourself and your involvement with you through the mission.

Yeah, first I want to say thank you guys again so much for having me on the way. I've seen you guys conduct yourselves in your exploration of this topic has been one with that has a lot of integrity. Honestly, and so yeah, I'm really excited for this and I'm excited you guys are even doing this.

I followed you guys for probably two years now or something. Awesome. Love the show and honestly, it's a dream to be here. So I've been in YOM for about five years now a little under five years. I originally did my DTS in 2017 and then did a school of missions and evangelism after that and then went on staff Directly after that.

I've been overseas all over the place. Yeah multiple years and now I'm staffing permanently at a base. Mm-hmm that I've been at for three years. Okay. Excellent. So you're currently on YOM staff.

You have a lot of experience and I think that's the real one. The reason why I want to get you on is because every person regardless of how they feel about youth with a mission. They'll always say you just don't understand unless you're on the inside.

Neither Andrew and I have ever been at a youth with a mission base. We don't have a formulated opinion. We're kind of really asking the question almost like I was telling you early before the show almost like a detective.

You have a detective someone like lays a bunch of papers at your desk. You know about a particular case or a particular person. Hey talk about this group. And so I guess the question would be like, okay.

Why why are people reaching out to us on cultish a show that talks about cults to talk about youth with a mission? So let's just jump right into it. So the very what we did a post a while back and you gave some perspective on it.

We had posted and this is from the 1990s Rick Allen Ross. He's kind of one of those people who's a notable cult expert, especially even before the 90s. He was involved in a lot of Deprogramming and it was you know, super intense stuff or the you know, someone would get involved in the cult.

They would try and they can't do this anymore because legally it's like you can't it actually involved actual like kidnapping. But they would hold someone against their will to try and get the to to program them to try and you know.

And it was just a you can look up a whole lot a lot about him. That's crazy. You look up online and where if you if you look at our social media, you can look at the post that. Where Rick Rick Allen Ross was giving his opinion on?

Youth with a mission. So if you want to start off the get-go. Tell us your thoughts on that statement that Rick Allen Ross made about youth with a mission. And that's that's the real and what do you think is and even like the responses that people gave?

We was like almost 900 to a thousand comments. Yeah, like yeah, give us your thoughts in that. Like why do you think there's so much emotion behind this conversation? I would love to hear your thoughts man.

Yeah, absolutely. I think The process of intercession. Especially that why one has where we we are more charismatic. We believe that you can hear from the Lord. Most of the the things that I heard in the comment section and even from his post was about how that can be used as Manipulation and I totally agree.

It can and has in the past for sure and maybe in some basis now, too. Um, that's not my experience necessarily when I was reading his His own document the post that he made. Honestly, I laughed a couple times I'm gonna be honest just because it's so different from the experience that I've had.

I've been to different intercession meetings. From probably close to 20 different bases if not more. All over the world from different parts of Asia to different parts in the continental United States and other places.

And it just wasn't necessarily my experience he went over different criteria of what how he was sort of describing the way the steps of intercession right that why I'm does and Putting myself in his shoes as someone who's never been in a YOM intercession time I can understand how if you're if your end goal in your thought process is trying to get something to be called the cult or not even inferring that that kind of motivation but if you're investigating something and trying to see if it is a cult and you're doing all these statements up against like the H criteria that he Had to say if it is a cult or isn't the cult and the cult like like language I can totally see how he would start to put things together and think that it is very cult sounding.

Yeah.

But I assure you like I could explain all the steps of intercession and it's completely normal to what any Non-denominational church would do as a process of intercession. So I laughed a little bit because I could see how things were being misconstrued in his Exemplification of what the steps of intercession were but I did understand sort of his thought process and what he was trying to achieve.

By understanding them. Yeah, gotcha. Gotcha. What would be some examples? So when you're looking at Like the definition of a cult like for you I mean you said because you mentioned we were talking before in a zoom call you you know, you're into apologetics.

You're kind of into a lot of that. I mean you're a fan of Walter Martin a lot of you know. His different work and counterculture apologetics when you look at it Like how would you we want to define terms like from your perspective?

Like how do we how do we define like a cult?

Yeah, I think the most at least in my my assumption. The first thing that I go to when someone says is this thing a cult? I deal mostly with cults that come off of Christianity because that's the realm that I'm in especially in Asia.

And so as soon as someone attacks the deity of Christ the hypocite Union That's immediately what I start to think about when I think about what is the definition of a cult, right? And of course, I think you can go into like there's one leader usually more charismatic starts to isolate people from a community.

You can go into all of those sort of criteria. But for me when I immediately think of cults I think of Getting rid of the deity of Christ and that's where you see a lot of the ones that we have in our world today.

Around around the Judeo-Christianity, right? So in other words, just it would be primarily the theological manipulation and the distortion. Yeah, yeah, and I would definitely agree with you. And in fact a lot of times when you look at you know Pete even people like Rick Allen Ross and people like Stephen Hassan.

They are they do a good job sort of looking at Aspects of the the the sociological and psychological manipulation. Yeah. Yeah, you look at Steve Hassan's bite model, for example behavior control information control control thought control emotional control and.

You look at you know the way they describe that I think they do a good job. But they can't give a full accounting because all that goes from the theology. They're all the sociological and psychological manipulation stones from the theological manipulation but when it comes to Like what we see as far as one of the complex and nuanced things about this just from our perspective again we're outsiders looking at this is that The issue of what we can see with YWAM is that usually when we look at a cult it usually evolves around sent like exact centralization around around a charismatic figure or centralized around an organization specifically what we see though is that We see YWAM as being decentralized.

Not centralized, but now that doesn't mean that there's Around decentralization there can be disorganization. Dysfunction in which spiritual hurt and abuse can still happen because a lot of times we have disorganization decentralization like that's the issue.

Would you kind of see when you look at just YWAM as a whole being decentralized? Is that how you define it or just explain to them how how the YWAM organization actually works from your perspective?

Versus like centralized versus decentralized. Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing to understand the beginning is we are decentralized and it's important to understand what that means because for us Decentralization doesn't mean disorder and disunity.

We're still all very connected but YWAM was founded not as an organization, but as people to have relationships with each other so a lot of our Structure originated from relationship people just wanting to go and spread the gospel to all of the nations around in the 80s.

It became a little more organizational by necessity, right? We need to be recognized by governments by medical agencies by all these places. So we can get visas we can become an actual organization all that kind of stuff.

But a lot of our especially the leadership is around peers respecting each other and being able to speak into each other's lives, especially when it comes to things like abuse or Manipulation of power and stuff like that to have accountability.

So when it comes to our decentralization, I Say you've got a base in Kansas and you have another base in Texas. And then you have another base in Thailand, right? All those bases can look very different.

Because we're decentralized the all those places have very different cultures. The one in Texas is gonna be nowhere near like the one in Thailand I think a good example would sort of be if you've ever been overseas.

Yeah, you'll understand that KFC and Like McDonald's are not the same restaurants.

No.

And you go to one in Thailand versus if you go to one in Texas right like if we have the American version of KFC we think oh, it's like the normal stuff I go to KFC anywhere I go. It's probably the same menu, but then you go in Asia and you're like Oh now there's rice here and they they cater to the culture that they're in right?

They don't just move there. The thing that's working well in America and just slap it in Asia and then it's gonna fail if you do that. You know what? I mean so the purpose of us being decentralized is that we can then adapt our ministry to wherever we go so that.

This is so important. We have this whole schools centered around this idea of that. We go to a place as missionaries. We don't want to be like these great white saviors that were the ones bringing Jesus to you.

Yeah for us like Everybody's going to hell all this kind of stuff. You have to follow and do the things we do the way we do. Right, we want to bring the gospel somewhere and then if we were to leave It still runs right people are still Christians.

They know how to do like a biblical version of church. They have a Christian worldview right but contextualized to their culture. So we go somewhere we learn how they like want to use music to worship God.

We don't just bring in our worship songs, right? We learn how they do Relational structures. We learn how they structure organizations. We learn how they interact with their community and we don't just force our versions of evangelism on them.

We don't just force our versions of worship and teaching on them. We still we never never never Disregard what scripture says and what theology says and we never compromise that for culture but in ways of reaching people their culture knows how to do it much better than ours does because Mine isn't their culture, right?

Yeah, so the purpose of being decentralized is that when we show up somewhere we can immediately Become like that culture to reach the culture just like Paul did right? Yeah, I'm all things to all people.

So that's the purpose of our us being decentralized when we talk about decentralization. That doesn't mean there's no communication. There's no accountability. Nothing like that. There is Structure on structure on structure around different bases and even between different bases so that you have accountability for example.

The base that I'm at we have a board and every base has a board and that board can be made up of people from The community it can be made up of police officers. It can be made up of pastors and usually is made up of pastors.

It can be made up of other base leaders so that there's inter base. Communication and accountability and this board is responsible for making sure that the bases are running smoothly, right? It's not someone that is biased because they're in YOM usually people outside of YOM mixed in so that If the base starts going south in whatever way can go south in it can be corrected by this board and even if the board doesn't Doesn't correct it any base literally any base can come in and bring correction and Restore.

Yeah, if it's going let me ask you about that because I'm an Andrew.

I'll let you jump into if you have thoughts as well, too. Yeah, we mentioned like a Base going south just real quick eat. Are you aware of an examples of when a base went south? What actions was actually taken to correct that?

Are you talking to Andrew? Sorry? Oh, I was asking. I was asking you we're on so yeah. Well, you mentioned like going south. It sounds like you might have some familiarity that given that you're on staff.

Like what would be an example, you know, even you don't even have to name the specific base. But just an example because they'll be every basis up for me. Like how did it go south and what was done to correct it?

Yeah.

This happens a Little bit more often I would say in Asia just because it's the mission field, right? There aren't all. There isn't a church on every block to To bring the culture correct theology, right?

And so it can be very easy when you have like a base that's fresh in Asia. You're trying to get people to come and teach the students that you have that are coming to your DTS is the disciples that you're making right it's pretty easy for Someone from America to come over and you know.

Just this white person usually and they sound like they're authoritative and stuff. And if you have like a your leadership doesn't know about them. You do a little bit of research and it seems like they're good.

A lot of times people can slip past the In Asia especially can slip past the means of figuring out if someone's a good teacher and can start to bring incorrect theology. Usually that's caught very quickly and someone will come they'll share in a week in a DTS or in a different school.

And we'll realize oh this person doesn't have sound theology at all whether teaching is Heretical or non-biblical and we need to never have them back and probably tell other why on basis to also not have them back.

It happens all the time. Okay, if a speaker is bad, we'll share among different bases and let them know. Hey, don't have a speaker again. They shared this thing. It wasn't biblical and unless they recant their statement or something We should have them again.

Yeah.

So, for example that can happen in some smaller bases where they don't catch the immediate problem and it might catch on with the young staff and then a base can go in that direction and Can make heresy actually pretty popular among certain bases doesn't happen a lot.

But it has happened before that we've had a like more of an isolated base catch on to something like that and then While I'm leadership from around the world has had to come in and correct the theology.

Usually it's just a correction. There have been instances where bases have had to been shut down because of Because of staff that just wouldn't let go of the heresy that they are believing but it's it's so far between.

Right, like the normal is usually correction is totally works is really easy to bring. And we'll have other staff from different bases come in and bring that correction. Yeah. Okay. Why. I appreciate that Andrew.

Do you have any thoughts just real quickly as we kind of start to unravel?

How YWAM Handles Hearing from God and Spiritual Authority

Yeah, all the issues surrounding why I'm here. Yeah, so the decentralization at decentralization I see it kind of like this like we have there is a centralized focus of why wham I kind of think of like a Heart beating in veins and arteries attached to a heart.

Yeah, we have like Lauren right in his vision his purpose of Why wham right and then we have the principles of why wham? Values. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of like the veins the arteries and the decentralization is where do these veins pump to which part?

Of the world right? So there's still a kind of guiding focus. But one of my one of my questions going back to the the cult question and defining a cult is um I'm sure that this is where it can kind of get confusing for people right when and I'm sure you can see the danger in This as well because when we know that people Typically what happens when they distort the deity of Christ is there usually have a word from God like like God spoke to them.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Right. So when people hear why women may not be super familiar with it. They hear that there's a bunch of people being trained to speak to speak with God or hear from God. You see what I'm saying where some of this these like this this interesting mentality comes in where people go.

Well, that's a big a big big red flag and that could actually lead to a lot of danger, right? Because if they're believing something that's coming from God, but if it's not true or doesn't actually end up happening It can cause lots of damage.

What what type of things are in place to try to? To try to counteract that that type of situation if that makes sense. Yeah, fantastic question.

First off to your example of like kind of a heart beating in the veins. I like that. I would only replace Lauren with With our foundational values because those were cut those came up through Groups coming up with them and agreeing on them not necessarily just Lauren.

Lauren started the organization. But those values are our heartbeat. So no base would ever go against those values and we have tons of scripture to back up each value, right? But no base would go against those values.

If they do then they're not a white man base anymore because they've gone against the core. Like the heartbeat of what YM is so that's that's kind of what I've replaced. When it comes to your question of us hearing from the Lord speaking to the Lord.

Yeah, that's definitely something that we do teach people to talk to God and I think if someone had a necessary problem with just that then it would be more of a broad church like theological problem because Every non-denom I ever went to growing up also believed in that.

You know what? I mean, not just like the charismatic churches that I went to. Or that I that I had gone to once or twice. And of course that looks different between different churches and it's the same at YM bases, right?

It looks very different. I would tell you the main things that we have set up and I think the church as a whole has set up and would never go against when it comes to hearing the voice of God is that scripture is our highest authority right and that if you ever Think you hear from the Lord if he ever gives you a vision if he ever speaks to you whether it's in your head or Audibly or whatever if that doesn't line up with what God has spoken through scripture you throw it out immediately.

It's not from God that goes for someone else giving you a word or you getting a word from the Lord. You throw it out immediately if it doesn't go against scripture and every word you think you get you bring up against The Word of God in scripture and you see if it lines up or doesn't line up.

So I think those are the or that's like just one thing that we use to bring accountability to someone saying Oh, I heard from God at least to the base I work at and This has been my general experience at YM too.

Every time someone says I think this is from God. It always is with an asterisk and they almost always verbalize that asterisk of saying I think this is from God. You need to take this word that I'm saying to the Lord and to scripture and see if it's correct.

And if it's not was from God, I'll totally admit this not from God. I'm not a prophet all those kind of things, right? Those are kind of the things that we set up when we're talking about hearing the voice of God.

But I don't think it's unique to YM right like most non-denom's that I've ever been to do the same thing. Hmm.

Yeah, yeah fair enough. That's a good. That's a great explanation. Okay, you can. Yeah clearly. Yeah. Did you have another question Andrew?

Yeah, well just another thing too because we're kind of talking about you know the issue of authority and accountability and that's one something that a lot of people were kind of wanting us to ask but This is just something I have a question of too because I mean I read I skimmed through Hearing the voice of God by Lauren Cunningham.

You know and I get I get his passion and his desire of what his initial vision was and kind of saw you know. The waves hitting against the beaches and to have youth from all around the world kind of go.

You know and preach the gospel all throughout the world.

I.

Give me one second here. Is that you know? It's what the issue that I kind of had with the book is that it seemed it was overly Experiential. I mean, I feel like everything was almost as if like you wake up in the morning and you stub you're like and that I'm just sort of giving examples.

Oh you wake up in the morning. Yeah, you stub you like I stubbed my toe. But then someone called me on the phone. This means like God must be talking to me like this way and then I got this call and everything's like super Super experiential it wasn't till around I think even page 70 was the first time that a scripture was quoted.

So it seems to me and this is the issue. We've had to like we've had plenty of other people like Josh Lewis and Rendon radio guy charismatic brothers I get the idea of people having different views of the role prophecy and spiritual gifts.

I do think there is dangers though and having an overemphasis on that where people tend to use experience. But not only but not only that, you know and I think about my mindset of where I was when I was, you know, 20-something years old I thought I knew everything.

I thought I knew everything about everything and now I figure Nothing, but I think when you kind of have that combined with sort of being put in a very unique and different environments or being on a base and even being put into a Position of leadership rather quickly in a relative short amount of time or even being at a young age that can be a precipice for a lot of hurt and a lot of confusion just because You're you're being put, you know in a position of authority when you're not ready for that task yet.

And that to be totally honest I think when people we've had zoom calls we talk with people that have sort of had these Experiences what they will call spiritual abuse. It was matter of someone being put into authority.

Where this person and they're and they are perfectly fair saying this is my experience. This is not representing every single YOM base. This is probably not representing your YOM base. They would say that this was a situation where this person was put into authority in a very quick short amount of time.

And then the way he ran things was He was acting like a cult leader. But then there wasn't any real recourse that I could get to and then again, that's that base but I don't know give me give me your thoughts now because I this is an issue to where I think the theology and Also a lot of time just the sociological infrastructure even from decentralization can create a like a lot of these problems.

So like how do we deal with both of those issues? Love to hear your thoughts there.

Yeah, which one you only address first. The hearing the voice of God part at the beginning, whatever, whatever, whatever.

However, the Lord hates you. Yeah.

First thing I would say to anybody who's experienced those things happening spiritual abuse at YOM. A leader that has not done a good job or has been abusive or abused authority YOM for one has admitted that that does happen and in every instance that it has happened We've tried to like make recompense for those things, right?

We tried to reach out to the people we tried to restore The victims right and tried to heal them and we've also taken action. Or we tried to take action on the people who have been the abusers, right?

I.

Would say that because YOM is the way it is with us trying to champion youth. It's a youth organization the biggest youth organization possibly the biggest missions organization in the world. Yeah, it's a centralized it.

You definitely can't have those problems where? Someone is young and they get put in leadership and the leaders that put them in leadership, maybe we're incorrectly convinced by the person's Level of learning or level of leadership or understanding or however.

They were deceived to put the person leadership and then that person abuses power. I think that as any organization does we learn right? I see this less and less the longer that I'm in YOM because our structures of accountability have grown so much more.

Something I want to explain is the way that YOM's authority structures are set up is that it's a field Jesus is the main leader, right? He is the servant leader the sacrificial leader that we all look to.

It's not Lorne. It's not anything else, but Jesus right and we all exist as leaders underneath him to different levels, right? And so we are all like a leadership of Co-equals is kind of what we we talk about it as to where every leader Doesn't have like a lot of power over another leader, but we're all accountable to each other, right?

So if I'm if I start to abuse power with the people that are the students that are under me or the people that I'm Teaching I start teaching something's incorrect or I start. Maybe having one-on-one meetings alone with a girl or something right something that's not good to do especially in private, right?

Other leaders and I've seen this happen all the time correction comes from any place. You could be the kitchen manager. You're a leader and you see a DTS staff who's also a leader do something that's inappropriate or say something.

That's just a little off right that person can then go to that person say hey like this isn't what you should be doing. And if they disagree, then what's the next step you go to a group, right? And if the group disagrees you go to the leadership like as a whole the church, right the biblical model if that doesn't work.

Then there has to be like more serious matters that that have to be made in that situation depending on the the severity of it.

Right, okay, um.

What I don't want to do isn't invalidate anybody's experience because absolutely things. Abuse has happened in the past and I think will probably still happen in the future. Just because we're all human beings and when humans are given power we corrupt it.

It's just what we do, you know what? I mean? Definitely not an excuse for what has happened. I Think though that our organization has set up good structures for accountability. For when that does happen because it will happen to correct it.

Another thing that I want to point out is that University of the Nations, which is the the accredited university that YOM runs under that's in Kona. They have a place where anybody can report any kind of abuse and they'll look into it, right?

So anybody from any base can report abuse to them or can report authority being abused or Incorrect theology being taught and they'll look into it as well as the community like the community is is so interwoven into what YM is.

Every staff in YOM attends a church at least at the bases that I've been to maybe there's some base I've never been to that doesn't have that but every base attends a church and they're under the authority of the pastors of that church.

And the pastors have come to our bases. We invite the pastors all the time to come and speak and these are all different kinds Of bases. We've have people who go to Orthodox churches we have people who go to very charismatic churches and everything in between and we have all the different pastors come and teach to come to our worship Nights they come and share and we all have relationships with them.

So even when they see something going wrong when they see a student or a leader abusing power in some way abusing scripture in some way. They have every right as a leader to step in and use their authority and correct those things so that it's not just one person correcting everybody's theology or everybody's use of power.

But it's the community as a whole like correcting people and for me I think that creates a system where I never feel alone and I know there have been people who have felt alone and have felt isolated and have felt like.

Everybody's kind of against them totally valid and has happened for me when I understand this style of authority I feel like everybody is on my side and the one person who's abusing power is by themselves and They're like the one leader in the mass in like in the midst of a hundred leaders.

That if I go to these other leaders and talk to them they have the exact same amount of power and authority to tell this person what they're doing is incorrect when like a student could come. And correct them that makes sense.

Okay.

No, no, I definitely appreciate that so as a whole though when it comes to like the structure of accountability as a whole. Most is it why from what I understand? Is that why when bases are encouraged to reach out to local churches and to be under the authority of the local church?

But it's not. It's recommended but not required. Is that is that kind of like. What does that look like as far as the relationship with the local church?

Yeah from my understanding. Every staff is responsible for going to a local church and that's part of being on staff. That's what I was told. I'm pretty sure that's a YWAM thing like but as far as.

You're your staff member as far as like a specific base. So like the base that you attend or the base that anybody attends regardless of location. Is They specific base like under the other biblical elders ultimately.

Oh, I get you you get that because there are parachurch ministries that kind of like run on their own. That's a whole nother separate issue. But what about specifically the base in regards to the local church?

Yeah, like I said YWAM has a very relational aspect when it comes to Authority and we invite all of those pastors in to have authority within our base. A more concrete and systematic way we do that is like I described before we have a board a board of elders.

That's over the base. These are people in the community often pastors that are responsible for Decisions that are made and responsible for the health of the base overall.

Okay.

Okay. Awesome. Yes, and I appreciate that because a lot of times when it when it comes to the issues of The relationship there's a lot of parachurch organization. I've seen where it happens where they they operate independently and then if there's if there's a leader being abusive or abusing his authority.