Cultish: Looking Into YWAM (Youth With A Mission) - Part 1

I was there and God spoke to me in my language, which was waves. I saw a picture of waves and he captured my mind right away.

And I was just, let's see, I was about 20 at the time. And so as I was looking at the waves, the waves started getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And by this time, I was like a topographical map. I was now above looking down at the continents of the world in my visual video going on in my mind.

And I was seeing the waves coming into the continents and they became waves of young people sweeping across every continent of the world.

I was overwhelmed. It was way beyond the ninth wave. It was wave after wave, and then they just swept over the whole world.

As God used that visual, that also is his voice. All right.

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'm here joined in person by Andrew, the superslith of the show.

It's good to see you face to face, man. I've missed you. Yeah, I missed you too, man. It's great to be back in the studio right now, and I'm loving every second of it.

Ba -da -ba -ba -ba, dude, I'm loving it. I know. I've also missed your beard, which apparently is making a comeback finally.

Yes, it's finally covering my double chin. Yes, I know. Thankfully, I don't ever plan on shaving my beard because I don't want to even think about what's under there.

So, yeah. But anyways, I'm super excited because we are finally talking about a topic that is really,

I would say, long -awaited. When we first came about this organization, it was by way of our series

Defecting from Bethel, which came out eons and eons ago, it feels like. But we're going to go and jump into it.

So, what you heard there was some audio by someone named Loren Cunningham. He was the president and founder of YWAM, which is the abbreviation for Youth With a

Mission. So, we're going to unpack that today. So, we are here in studio with Haley. How are you?

Hey, I'm really good. Thank you. Okay. And I'm here with Alex. How are you, man? I'm doing well. Thank you for having us. Awesome.

So, just tell, real quick, both are former YWAM students. And we have some experiences we're going to unravel.

But you also know each other. You're from the same area. Tell us about that a little bit. Kind of introduce everyone to yourselves.

Yeah, for sure. So, I grew up in Minneapolis, born and raised. And Alex did as well.

And we ended up going to high school together and then went and did our YWAM together and went to college together.

So, we've been friends for a number of years now. And yeah, just super thankful that we could do yet another thing together.

Awesome. And so, the reason why we're here is that we wanted to kind of look at the whole issue of Youth With a

Mission really holistically. So, shortly we'll be doing an episode with someone who is on staff at YWAM, both was a student and was at staff at a current base.

And so, this is going to be one where we're going to be giving some critiques and analysis of just of what we've seen.

And so, for the most part, we don't really have a bone to pick here, except that we want to get to the bottom of what the issue is.

When we made posts about YWAM, Youth With a Mission, man, oh man, it was just a plethora of people kind of really, there's a lot of sort of angst, there's a lot of tension, sort of anger in the room.

And so, there's a lot of people by way of Youth With a Mission have experienced a lot of hurt, spiritual abuse.

And through that, people have been reaching up to us as cultists to cover it and wanting us to kind of label it as a cult.

And so, what we want to do, honestly, because we're still new to this, this is a very complex issue for sure.

So, if we're going to kind of look at the issues of, if YWAM is a cult, if you're going to label anything a cult or if you're going to label anyone, for example, as a false teacher, the burden of proof falls in the accuser.

So, I think what we could maybe just do is let's just have a conversation about what are the different areas that do, that are cultish?

And just let's just sort of unpack because I do see things just given our research that are red flags and seeing that could make a case towards that category.

But let's definitely unpack that. So, just off the get -go, we did a post a while back with Rick Allen Ross, who is a very prominent public speaker and someone who's sort of known as a public expert on cults.

He gave his assessment of YWAM. If you guys aren't familiar with that, check out our social media, you'll see that post. Just off the get -go, what's your assessment of what

Rick Allen Ross said in his summary of Youth With A Mission? Let's start from there. I mean,

I think he definitely has a point. If I remember correctly, he mentioned something about it being kind of like a dynasty.

And I think there's definitely a level to that with just how involved

Lauren Cunningham's family is. But at the same time, that can also just be them trying to preserve his legacy.

So, it could also just be, I don't wanna say a family business, but they're like Lauren had a vision from God and then his family just making sure that it's staying within the parameters that he has kind of set.

Yeah, and that's what you saw him trying to, articulating that brief audio clip talking about these breaking waves and that was getting all the youth from all around the world to go all around the world.

And not only that, but be very as cross -denominational as possible. So, what were your thoughts just on that initial post as we kind of just start opening up this whole discussion as a whole?

Yeah, absolutely. I think what I really saw a lot of was, well, the word problematic kind of stood out to me when

I was just reading through that. I think that word in and of itself is a pretty loaded word. And it can bring about eyebrow raises because you're like, okay, problematic is something that can imply that there's past problems and current problems.

And so, I think just while he was trying to articulate it, like you said, this has been a problem that's been so, it's been around for a long time.

And I think there's been a lot of things that have happened over the last few decades. And so, I think problematic is a good word to describe it.

And I also, I think it's, well, yeah, I think problematic.

And the other part about, he mentioned decentralization and just about how he mentioned the multiple, if I'm remembering correctly, he mentioned just the multiple locations and just how big it is and how it's hard to kind of control.

And I think he brought up some really good, strong arguments that even got me to think more than I have in the last few years, so.

Yeah, you read that too. What were your thoughts in it too? Yeah, I wanna reiterate too. Yeah, with regards to it being problematic,

Rick Allen Ross wrote that in 1990, right? So, that's 30 something years ago, right?

So, there have been issues going on for quite some time and it's important that these things do need to be talked about, right?

Especially if your organization and the way it works comes from a vision from God, why would there be disorder?

Is the first question. Yeah, and so, when we look at usually the definition of cult, it's always some sort of organization or just a group of people polarized either around an organization or a certain particular person, or sometimes it's both.

And it's usually some sort of misrepresentation ultimately of the Bible, where they acknowledge that, or they basically will adhere to Christian terminology, but then they'll ultimately deny that Jesus Christ is

God come in human flesh. So, but ultimately it's always centered around an organization or charismatic leaders.

So really, let's just kind of jump at the very beginning, like one of the first points, cause we're gonna look at like really the infrastructure areas and sometimes the theological aspects will interweave in between the two.

So, we look at Lauren Cunningham, like really like how YWAM was built.

I'll just say for myself, I'm still new to looking into this, is that anybody with the best of intentions can be incredibly visionary.

And I'm gonna be as fair as I possibly can, but just because you have a great vision and idea, doesn't mean like you have the proper infrastructure that's in place.

So, in the case of Youth with a Mission or really anything, like when

I was reading, Hearing the Voice of God, I was reading how just so emotional experiential about how he's experiencing all these different things.

And it wasn't even until around page 70 is the first time that scripture is quoted. So there'd be a red flag there, but you can have the best of intentions to where someone says, oh,

I'm just, I think I'm called to ministry. God's telling me I need to go into the ministry. Well, that's great. But have you actually had other people cross -examine you to see if you meet the qualifications of an elder?

Are you spiritual? Are you brand new to the faith? There's a lot of variables in play where you could have the best of intentions.

Oh, I just wanna go serve God and do ministry. But if you don't have proper infrastructure and place best case scenarios, there's a case for a lot of spiritual hurt.

Absolutely. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on that, Alex? I mean, as Lauren Cunningham was talking about, like he had this vision of young people going out, which,

I mean, the Bible is very clear. Like, don't let people look down on you for your youth. So like, that is definitely, like, kudos for at least the vision and the idea.

Like, that's good. But I think that we also have to look at the cultural context of that statement in the

Bible. And, you know, it was written specifically towards Timothy. And Timothy was a man who was raised his whole life with the scriptures.

And so he was raised being taught these things from his youth by his mother. And he came to faith and was discipled by Paul.

So it's not like he was like brand new to any of this. And also he lived in a culture where like he was expected to be a man by the age of 13.

And like, he was a young man, but he was expected to take on a lot of responsibilities that, you know, people nowadays just aren't expected to take on.

And I mean, for me, like, it's been an interesting journey just like growing up and be like, okay, well, so my dad died back in 2019.

When he died, that was kind of like, okay, now I need to figure out what it means to be a man because I'm, you know,

I'm the oldest guy here. You know, I'm the oldest son. I need to figure out what it means to be a man. And so I started on this journey.

And at the time I would not have called myself a man. I probably would have only started calling myself a man like a year ago maybe, and still a very young man.

And I still have a long ways to go. And so because of that, it's like, I have a lot to learn still. So like, while it's true that like, how do

I put it? Like, while someone shouldn't be looked down on because of their youth, if you have a lack of experience, lack of knowledge, lack of wisdom and maturity, those are things that should be taken into account because someone who's, you know, half my age could be very mature because they were raised in the faith and raised with wisdom and all these sorts of things, which

I just didn't have. And so because of that, it's two very different things. Like if you send someone like that out onto a mission field, it'd be a very different thing than if you sent me out on a mission field at that age.

And so I think that while, again, the idea is a good idea. You know, we shouldn't look down on people because of their age.

I think we also need to consider the fact that the young people that are raised nowadays are not trained to take the responsibilities that people in the past, in the time of Timothy, were called to take.

And so therefore, I think we should be a little more cautious about sending those people out to represent

Christ and all that. Do you think, with regards to Timothy and the pastorate, so we have like elder qualifications within the pastoral epistles, do you think they would leverage a sense, why

I'm saying, well, these aren't pastors, so not all of these qualifications need to be met in their leaders? I mean,

I can't speak for the whole organization, but I can say that at our base, for example, that wasn't necessarily the case.

I mean, I can't really think of a single time when those were mentioned or when those were given as like an example for something we should try to grow into.

I mean, we basically had our leaders and we were told to respect them. And, you know, I do respect them. I have a lot of love for them. I'm not saying any of them weren't

Christians. I do believe that they were all Christians. But at the same time, like, yeah, there was no mention of these as like, you know, if you guys wanna be a leader at some point, like if you guys wanna stay with YWAM and be a leader, you're gonna have to meet these qualifications.

So like you should start really working on your maturity now to reach that. Like, yeah, that was something that was never discussed. Okay. And just also, just so we define terms when we're talking about YWAM, and this is just what

I'm seeing here, is that I see this as complex just because while usually you look at, you know,

I see the accounts of spiritual abuse, a lot of it's heartbreaking, and we want to unravel that.

But when you look at youth with a mission as a whole, it's the issue is that it's the decentralization, whereas a definitive cult is typically centralized around an organization or a person such as Lauren Cunningham.

And so, and that's ultimately like what I see here. When we're talking about YWAM, there's when you talk about the base,

YWAM consists of bases all around the world. And you could probably let me know this, that what

I've seen is that really a person's experience is indicative of the base that they're on.

And so there can be good leaders, but there also could be bad leaders. And this is one other thought that I have.

I mean, I literally just pulled up on my Kindle, hearing the voice of God by Lauren Cunningham. And the very first thing that I highlighted was right at the very beginning where Lauren Cunningham says, quote, hearing

God is not all that difficult. We know that, we know the Lord. We, if we know the

Lord, we already, we have already heard his voice. After all, it was the inner leading that brought us to him in the first place, but we can hear his voice once and still miss his best if we don't keep on listening.

After the what of guidance comes the when and the how. And so what you're kind of hearing there is sort of this very subjective, like God's just speaking to me through every little happenstance where he can do that, but it's almost a very subjective experience, but somebody can sort of take, a very immature person can take what they believe and be put into leadership in a very fast amount of time and use

God as a catalyst to have their authority. That's what I've kind of seen a little bit. Give me your thoughts on that.

Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, like you said, there are multiple bases all over the world and some classes are bigger than others.

I know our class was probably more on the smaller end that Alex and I went to, and some of them can be in the hundreds, and so really you're looking at some bases having 30 to like 50 different leaders and sometimes there's 10 or six or five, you know, but as far as like leaders go,

I think like you just mentioned, I think it can be really easy to have that whole like immaturity where you're just kind of looking around everywhere to be like, oh, is that God speaking to me or like having different thoughts and whatnot.

And to that quote that you just quoted, I think that can be, I can definitely say like in my experience, there were definitely times where I was like, wow, like I feel like the

Lord's telling me this and this and this and this through my stomach hurting or like through this. And that's not to say necessarily that I can't see him working in everything because I think he does work everything for my good at the end of the day.

But I think there were definitely times where, at least in my experience, I don't know,

Alex, if you can relate, but there were times where something would happen to me, let's say, and I would have a leader come up to me and be like, well, this is happening because of this or God's maybe trying to speak to you through this in this way.

Or, and it just, it didn't necessarily always sit right. And kind of like Alex said, I have nothing but love for my leaders.

I respected them. I love them, still love them. But there were just different times where I, it was almost like it just didn't sit completely right with me.

And so, yeah. Well, how so? Like what would not sit right with you? Yeah. Because I'm curious about this because really there's a huge emphasis.

I mean, his book is called Hearing the Voice of God. And a lot of times when you hear the stories that people have shared, both on our social media and elsewhere, even private messages, it seems to be always interlaced and interconnected.

So maybe could you maybe expand upon that further? Yeah, absolutely. I'd say like one of the examples, there were some times where I felt really,

I guess, alone in my DTS. There were times where, you know, I just felt like I couldn't really speak out.

Just to just be vulnerable, I guess. And I felt alone. And it was oftentimes said to me, well, you need to trust

God and you need to like be going to God. You can't be dependent on other people. And then other times it would be like, well, this is just part of the process.

This is just part of the journey. Whereas like, I'm like, yes, I understand that. And of course, like I wanted to go to the

Lord first. He became really my foundational piece while I was in YWAM.

But at the same time, I also felt like there was something missing there. I felt like confused because I was taught about the body of Christ.

I was taught that, you know, we're supposed to carry one another's burdens and we're supposed to love one another through different circumstances.

And I just didn't feel that all the time. And not that like I have that expectation, you know, where everyone's human there.

No one's, you know, like God or perfect or anything like that. But at the same time, the things that were said to me and those kinds of moments, it was like, well, you just need to trust

God more. No, you just need to, you're not fully relying on him. You need to have more faith in him. Don't doubt, don't.

And I think another one too, if I may add, when it came to questions, I think that one was a big one too.

I didn't feel like necessarily I could always ask questions while I was there. I felt like I was being assessed anytime

I would. When you say questions, like what sort of questions are you talking about when they're doing the curriculum or when they're just day -to -day operations or expanded?

What do you mean by that? Yeah, kind of both. I felt like there were times where I would have like a general question about, and I know

Alex, you have some things to say about this too. And so I'll finish my thought here. Oh, you're good.

Yeah. Don't worry about it. You know each other for a long time. I'm sure you're working it out, so. Yeah, I know, I need to take some water.

But anyway, there would be times, you know, like I think in both situations where I'd be like, okay, so why do we need to do this?

Or like, why are we doing it this way? And I think, you know, sometimes the responses were met with grace, but a lot of times it was like, well, why are you questioning my authority?

Why are you questioning this? And like, my heart was in a place where I was like, you know. How old were the people that were saying this?

Oh boy. Ages probably ranged from like 20, like 26.

No, like 23, 24 to like, I mean, there's like, so there's people that are like really young. If there's people that had just done their

DTS the year before us, and then now they were staffed. Correct. It's like when we'd gone down for a mission trip the year before, we met them as students.

Right. And then there's, you know, other people that have been there for longer, you know, they're in their 30s or 40s or whatever. Yeah, and it's the way everyone knows too.

We're defining terms, everyone's brand new here. When you say DTS, there's a discipleship training school. So you have the base which you're assigned to, but then you have this training school that lasts for around six months.

Yeah, the training school itself is three months. Then your outreach is like two and a half. Two months, yeah. And does the

DTS take place at the base? Yes, typically. Yeah. And then the outreach. The training, yeah. The training part of it, and then outreach can be in the country or anywhere, yeah.

What were some of the things that you went over during your DTS? Wow. Yeah. Do you wanna take that one?

Yeah, I can. I wanna go back a second though to the thing about the questions though, because there's two distinct examples that come to mind.

There was one time where... For example, there's something where Haley and I were kind of singled out to go do something, and I was like, okay,

I will do this, but can you tell me why? And it was weird, because in the past,

I had asked why are you saying this to me, why are you kind of asking me to do this? And they'd be like, why are you questioning my authority?

You need to just do what I tell you. And so it seemed like they only were willing to give me an answer after I was like, okay,

I will do what you say, regardless of what you tell me, but I'm just curious what's going on. And then also when it comes to questions,

I mean, I became a Christian pretty much in YWAM. So I went down there because I wanted to know about Christianity, I wanted to know

God. And so I went down there and I'm figuring out all this stuff for the first time.

I went down there thinking Christianity was a lifestyle. The idea of Christianity and the Holy Spirit working in you and transforming and regenerating you and bringing you to newness of life,

I had no concept of that at all whatsoever. So all these doctrines, all these ideas, all these different things were like completely new to me.

You know, there's some doctrines that I've been raised with as a kid, but like, so eschatology, like the study of end times, like there's one that I was raised with and then

I'm reading the Bible and I'm like, well, this doesn't really make sense with this. And so I had a different view than them.

And I was kind of like, they basically said that because of my view, I didn't have enough faith in God.

Like I didn't trust God because I was, you know, I had a negative perspective, right?

Like I was playing it safe, you know, like, oh, in case God doesn't come through, I have this view.

Whereas like, no, I just don't see this other way. You know, and then I was kind of chastised and kind of pushed away a little bit for,

I mean, it wasn't like too long, but there was a level of like separation where I was kind of treated as like, I don't know, like not like inferior.

So even though they're cross denominational in a sense and there should be people with different eschatological positions, does it seem like the people that, this is pure speculation, but people that are in leadership would probably more agree with Lauren Cunningham's probably perspective on the end times?

I can't speak to that. I mean, I think a lot of the sort of, a lot of the stuff that we went through,

I know was culture. Like it had to do with the culture of the nation and all of that, which I have a lot of respect for that culture and for that nation.

And I've learned that, I mean, there's parts of their culture that I have adapted to myself and I apply now because I think that they do it, some things better, more biblically, but there are definitely other areas where I disagree.

I don't see those in the Bible. And this is one of them where they seem to just have this kind of like obsession.

They kind of took, I would say that eschatology is almost tertiary. Like it matters, but it has no bearing on at all on your salvation.

As long as you believe that Jesus is coming back and physically, as long as you believe that, and you obviously believe in the resurrection and all the other very important doctrines.

I feel you. Like, yeah. So because of that, it's kind of like this isn't salvific in nature, but it was treated as if I was like attacking the faith and questioning the faith.

And I wasn't, I was just like, I don't know when Jesus is coming back. I get this, this makes sense to me.

And like, I don't know, I'm just trying to think this through. And instead of like just walking me through it and be like, hey, like, you know, like this, like this is important, obviously, because the

Bible does talk about this, but let's focus on the gospel and the fundamental stuff. Like, that's one thing.

That's not what they were doing. They're kind of like, oh, like you're wrong. And, you know. And I would say leadership is just to circle back to your question, you know, do you think that leaders would take the side of whatever

Lauren Cunningham would believe? And I think each base has such a different like leadership staff that I think that question would be almost impossible to answer because I feel like some bases really put a big emphasis on Lauren Cunningham and like his whole vision for YWAM.

I would say our base really didn't, but I've talked to some people where they really took it seriously.

I've talked to a lot of friends. I went to one of my churches up in Minnesota. It has a lot of DTS students.

So people who did like the YWAM program and each person had such a different experience.

Even like some of my friends did in 2006. I have a friend who did in 2012 and each one like, you know, has had a different experience.

But to circle back to your question, I think each base has such a different leadership staff and some of them have gone through training.

Some of them haven't. And some of them like have been more indoctrinized, I guess, with Lauren Cunningham's written stuff.

And some of them have not, like it just depends on the base, I feel. It depends on the director, right? Like the director and how, like,

I think the theology of the director has a very huge impact on the base because,

I mean, you know, they're the one that's in charge. You know, they're like the one that everyone will go to to talk about issues and everything like that.

So they're kind of discipling the whole base. And so depending on the theological views of the lead, of the director and kind of where they stand on different areas, that'll affect how the base is.

So, well, you know, as Haley was mentioning, like, you know, there are gonna be some bases that read more Lauren Cunningham books.

We read the first one because I think that might be part of the curriculum. I don't know, like a general curriculum. But it really does depend on the base.

And I'd say specifically the director and the director's view and what kind of they want to accomplish because different bases have different focuses.

Yeah, so bring us into the DTS, the Discipleship Training School. What is that like?

That's a tongue twister, number one. But bring us into your experience too, specifically. Well, well, oh, did you have something?

You can go first. Give me a second to add my thoughts. Oh, we love that. I would say, yeah.

So there's definitely curriculum. I feel like there's, and I tried to indulge in this a little bit more when it came to like talking with some of my friends about this matter.

And I think there's for the most part, like consistency with some of the topics, but kind of like Alex's point, the director really does,

I feel like, have a big say on how their base is gonna be operated. And so for us, our school had a focus.

Some bases specialize in different focuses. There's sports. Some of them are focused in worship.

Some of them are focused in arts. Ours was one of the arts ones. And so we learned a lot about art and like culture and dance and singing.

But then there was - That was a lot of fun. It was so much fun, yeah. There's some opportunities that I didn't take that I wish I had.

When it comes to like learning to dance, like I just kind of gave up. And I was like, I'm wet, I can't dance. I'm like, I probably could have done it if I actually tried.

I was also too embarrassed. So I feel that. They just, they're so good. Anyway, but yeah, so ours was also in a different language.

So there was some different language barriers with that as well. But I would say, you know, the first couple of parts, like we learned about, you know, just different cultural things, dance and yeah, dance and art, like sculptural stuff at some point.

Acting as well. Acting, yep. And then there was times where we talked about like intercession and like how to hear the voice of God.

And then we would have different speakers come in from everywhere and that would be considered a lesson.

But we very, honestly, like the first couple of weeks, we had like a couple of our leaders talk to us about like different sessions and stuff.

But really we mainly learned from like different evangelists or we went to a lot of different,

I guess, gatherings with different pastors. Yeah, different churches and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, the one consistent thing that I really appreciated was every single morning, like the first thing we would do is we would get up and we'd be assigned to like a chapter in the

Bible. And we tended to go like through a book at a time. Sometimes we'd jump around, but it tended to go like, we'd read a whole book kind of in its context.

And we would go chapter by chapter. And then, so we have an hour to read it and we take notes kind of on our thoughts.

And then we would all gather in the classroom and we would discuss it. And that was great. I love that. I mean, that's something that we even like, we even tried to keep on doing with our class afterwards.

We would still be getting a text message with what the passage is. We would all read it and then we'd send our thoughts and everything.

And that was something that was great. And especially for me, like after just becoming a Christian, having that consistent reading the word day in, day out and just discussing it was huge.

And it's something that I am incredibly grateful for even to this day. That's good. So quick question too, you said the words like intercession and things of that nature.

What is that exactly? And how are you trained in that? That's a good question. Yeah. I have the notebook just over there with the different steps.

And I am now regretting that it is not sitting in front of me but basically there's like four main steps that we really learned about.

And it's like silencing different voices to really hear from God. And I remember this cause it's still like circles in my head today.

One of them is like, you have to silence your own voice in order to like hear from God. Again, this is what's taught in the school.

I have it written down. The second thing you have to silence the voice of others in your head.

The third one is you have to silence the enemy's voice and then you're ready to,

I guess, receive. Hear the voice of God. Yeah. And like that just comes from just being like, Lord, like I really wanna hear from you.

It comes from that like desire to really hear from the Lord, you know? And to just be like, Lord, like I wanna hear.

Like it's more of like a positioning your heart type of ordeal in my opinion. At least that's how

I viewed it. I think the Lord really protected me from a lot of things. Do you think that aspect of that's putting yourselves in those positions to hear the voice of God that while someone could have the best of intentions and you could tell me this, it seems like that could potentially put unnecessary burdens or restrictions on how you have to now hear the voice of God.

Like it's content hearing the voice of God is contingent upon me. It really stressed me out.

Especially like, I knew nothing about Christianity. So I'm like, oh, like God is waiting to, he's just waiting to tell me stuff and I just need to silence it.

But the problem was like I would try to follow all these steps and then I'd start having this conversation in my head, which

I thought was a dialogue with God. Because we were told like, stop the monologue and start the dialogue. And so I'm just trying to like, have a dialogue with God.

But then I'm realizing this is just my brain coming with some random conversation. So it's not that I didn't lack the desire.

You know, I'm like, God, like infinite almighty God is gonna have a conversation with me. Yes, please, you know, like get, talk to me as much as like you want.

I want to hear it. But it ended up, you know, again, I had no discernment. I didn't know anything, but I was like, okay, this like, so I ended up kind of just hiding that fact, you know, like, oh, like,

God's not really talking to me, but I'm like, we're supposed to be talking to God. So I'm not gonna even mention this because everyone else seems to be doing it, you know?

Yeah, but bring us into what an intercession session looks like being in DTS. Like from my research,

I've heard that there's forms of confession that has to happen in groups, right? Before you're able to hear the voice of God, you also must confess your sins before one another, right?

So talk about - So that was called plumb line week. I actually was just talking with someone about that. And it's just kind of, the idea is like, well, like a plumb line, like it was a line used in ancient architecture where it's just a weight hanging from a rope that makes sure that something is straight.

And so the kind of the idea behind that is that you need to resolve past injuries, past like trauma and all that so that you can actually move forward.

Because otherwise you'll just keep on making the same mistakes is kind of the idea behind it. I've heard other, like some bases do it differently.

For us, it seemed to be more voluntary of like kind of just share the stuff.

But I've also heard plenty of stories about groups where they were basically forced to share incredibly just like personal and things that they just were not comfortable sharing, which that's something

I think you shouldn't do because you're forcing somebody to go against their conscience and that's just not okay. And in a way too, like I think the desire to share,

I remember there was one specific time where we did have one of those like moments. And I kind of like felt like the

Lord was like kind of highlighting something in my heart of like a past situation that occurred.

And like I desired to talk to someone about it. And I can't say necessarily if it was like, because I just wanted to share it with someone.

I am also a verbal processor and I wanna like understand things that come into my head, like everyone else,

I guess. But I can say that like I did feel permission to like approach a leader or I guess even our director.

But I also, I can't say that I really felt forced to do anything that I didn't want to, but I also have heard really horrible situations where people were forced to share vulnerable things.

Yeah, cause that's what I was thinking too. Like this is how I think about it. Like if you think of Scientology, for example, there's someone called an auditor, right?

And the auditor talks to this one person who is trying to get rid of engrams, which are kind of like past sins in their life.

So they can actually get to the level of becoming clear so they can move forward. So what they do with the auditor is they'll go and they'll hold this thing called an e -meter, right?

And they try to erase these engrams because it'll blip when something's going on. But at the same time, the

Church of Scientology retains all of the records of these sins that these people have committed, right?

So when I hear about this intercession, when I've heard the bad side, right?

Of course, I'm just gonna talk about that because that's really what you find when you're looking it up is a lot of the times like leadership, what

I've heard is that they will, they'll hold onto things, right? Your leaders want to hear some of these things and they'll be brought back to you.

That's a scary thing to me. That's a danger, I guess, is what I hear from it. Yeah, no, I mean, if that's happening, yeah, that's an issue.

I mean, thankfully we didn't experience any of that. And I credit just the grace of God and that he protected us from a lot of the worst, because we haven't had issues, but there's people who had experiences that sounded far worse than anything we had to go through.

And so I'm very grateful for God that he protected us from that. But I'm also very sorry for those who had to go through all that.

Yeah, me too. And I think in some levels, like I can say that like some of the different things that I did share,

I think it also was like a cultural thing, but it felt like because I was vulnerable, maybe that there were, and maybe it was in my own head,

I guess I'm just processing out loud, but maybe that there was still like remembering of what I shared and maybe people maybe treated me differently a little bit, but I can't say for sure if that was a result.

And I guess you can't control how people respond to what you're sharing with them. Yeah, and just maybe you can give me your thoughts on this too.

This is something you wrote down, Andrew, about this is an experience similar to this. And again, what we're saying here, this is

YOM is very broad. There's a lot of bases. And so it really, I feel like no matter who we brought on, it's not gonna be able to address all the issues within YOM as a whole, but hopefully we can start some conversations here.

And so this is someone who gave their testimony that Andrew transcribed and I'll read some of it here. This person says, after the lecture delineating the steps of intercession and a five minute break, we regrouped in the lecture room for our first triad.

Exactly what occurred is still hazy in my mind, but I will try and explain it as best I can.

I found a seat near the front and sat clutching the blue card they had handed that listed the magic formula for unlocking the secrets of God.

I bowed my head and closed my eyes and amidst the chorus of the yes lords and thank you Jesuses, I heard

Jack, our director, begin to pray. After a few moments, he prayed and he said, Lord, we ask that the

Holy Spirit would reveal any confessed sin. We continued in a soft voice and I believe that he mentioned various sins, but I can't recall exactly what he said.

I had focused my thoughts on God, but in the background I heard Jack encouraging, speak it out, speak it out.

And the next thing I knew, someone began sobbing out loudly and someone was yelling out, Lord, forgive me.

Again, Jack instructed, speak out. Eventually the sobbing girl confessed that she had been sleeping with her boyfriend before she had left for Hawaii.

She prayed for a few minutes, then several hours offered prayer for her on her behalf. Her confession was soon followed by those who also felt convicted about sins committed prior to their arrival at the

DTS. They went on for several hours and people were crying out and pleading for forgiveness and Jack advised them to speak out.

We finally broke for one o 'clock. And just the one thing he says here, the following two mornings were also filled with hours of crying and confessing and was emotionally drained.

We all had committed, we all committed that we felt we had spent the morning engaging in grueling physical exercise.

I remember feeling confused and frightened during these sessions and guilty for not confessing everything.

I shared my feelings with one of the staff members and would advise to confess my fear as sin and I did.

So I just want to give, this is just one example. Just give me your initial thoughts because you have a lot of friends you've talked, you just, when you hear that, what comes to mind?

Man, I, man, I've heard, unfortunately I've heard this happen to a couple people.

And in some cases, I just, so, okay. When you're doing a

DTS, you're doing school with them and you're also like living with them. So it's not just like you go home after school like you would in high school or in college.

You're doing life with them as well. And that can look very different for a lot of different people.

And I know for me, our class was smaller. And so we all stayed in a span of two different rooms and all of us women live together and we did life together.

And there were different times where I know just in the privacy of our room, where we were kind of like, something would happen.

I just bumped that. Something would happen in the room where I just remember this one time and it will relate to this in a second.

But there was a time where I woke up in the middle of the night. It was actually one of my first months being there.

And there was this giant figure in the room. Okay, it was giant. I felt it. My skin was like crawling.

And we all woke up at the same time and we prayed and we like, it just, it left.

But the thing that was followed was a time of confession.

And it was like, well, why did that show up? And like our leaders, we're trying to like kind of figure that out.

I mean, obviously it's a kind of a freaky thing, but it's like, it was a time where you do feel convicted to share.

I mean, I didn't, but there were definitely times like that where something would occur and you would feel the pressure or the need to like share something that was happening.

Was it like a manifestation of unconfessed sin among the group or something? Is that what they were saying? Yeah, I think it was either that or like someone, oh, you know what?

It was like, oh, okay. Let me just try to remember this correctly. I think it was like the manifest of unconfessed sin.

And then it was also like someone was like, it was like something like the door was open, like kind of for someone.

And it was like also like a fear tactic to try to like get us to be scared. I don't think there ever was a full clear answer, which

I do appreciate. I think there was, to my leader's credit, like there was some discernment and I don't think they would run to conclusions, but there were times where like you would mention something.

Like I had a lot of physical pain. It would be like, well, do you believe that the Lord can heal you and stuff like that?

But how that relates to this, when those kinds of moments would happen, I would get this like sensation like in my heart where I'm like, ooh,

I feel like I should confess something. Like it felt like I needed to like get something out. Like I felt like, I don't know,

I felt like I needed to share in a way. I don't know if you ever had any experiences, but I hate that.

It's like, that's been like the consistent thing where it's like you feel like you have to, it's not necessarily being enforced, but like there's something inside.

There's a social pressure. So, and this is an area why I think, I would say that I can see why some people would call

YWAM a cult if they experienced something like this, because if they go and they read Combating Cult Mind Control by Stephen Hassan, I was telling about him last night, he really talks about what's called like undue influence.

So it's not about, when you look at cult mind control, or you kind of look at the cult sociological and psychological manipulation, it's not like brainwashing, because brainwashing has, that entails that someone is being held against their will.

What you're looking at with undue influence is more like being boiled like a frog.

And so the reality is that we're having a great conversation. And if we had 10 people here in the room that were completely hostile to every single thing that we had to say, and you can label the circumstance, we would be, there would be a lot of social pressure to kind of conform, to fit in.

They did a case study where someone was doing math problems in a high school setting, and they were spelling, they're doing the wrong math equation, a very simple math equation.

And everyone, I think they had already had pre -planned around 70, 80 % of the people were raising their hand. So to the wrong answer.

And the people who are just, were unbeknownst to this experiment, they're either very hesitant, or just some of them wanted to fit in, they're just like, but when it comes to a cultish mindset, when you're in that sort of very emotional situation where you're talking about unconfessed sin, and also, this is the

Lord telling you this. That is an area where, man, you could have the best of intentions, but people can get subjected to a very emotional experience.

I have a couple of other thoughts. What are your guys' thoughts on this as well too? Any other? I mean,

I didn't experience any social pressure in the sense of when it comes to confessing sin, but there were definitely other situations in which

I definitely did experience some social pressure. So there's one time where there was some elder, some person that came in from outside, from,

I think it's from a church or something. And he was laying his hand on people's foreheads and they were getting slain in the spirit.

And he comes up to me and he puts his hand on my forehead and I'm just sitting there waiting for something to happen, hoping something will happen, and nothing did.

And he actually started to push me. I'm like, this isn't legit. But then it just happened, continuous.

It happened all the time where all my classmates are seeming to have this awesome experience with God, and I never experienced anything like that.

So there's one time where I just let him push me over. And so I just laid on the ground for like 30 minutes until my whole body went numb, just waiting, just,

Lord, please show up, wanting something to happen. And nothing ever ended up happening.

And then I never told anyone that nothing happened because what am I gonna say? Oh, he didn't have enough faith? I had no idea how people would respond because everyone's having these experiences, they're crying and having these wonderful times with God.

I'm like, I don't know what to do with this. So that was the time that I experienced social pressure on our base.

How do you differentiate between what is legitimately God moving versus just being a byproduct of suggestion and social pressure?

And then all of a sudden, when you don't, if you end up being a byproduct of suggestion, it's almost as if God lets you down.

So that's an area where even with the best of intentions, the byproduct, the collateral after effect, is a lot of what

I would see would be a lot of spiritual confusion. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. There was a lot of, just with a lot of the experiences that I had down there,

I mean, I guess I'll expand on this later, but there was definitely some repercussions for once I got out of YWAM that were pretty long lasting.

Yeah. And in a situation that's, I'll just say one other thing, and you guys can let me know if you have any thoughts before we move along, but just a compare, this isn't,

I don't know, it's not, by no means is this a direct comparison, but I think it would be important to bring up the fact that just because you have an emotional subjective experience doesn't mean it's from God.

And so there's many other different cults and world religions that will have social, different social, under a social pressure, they'll do something to do like a spiritual awakening.

And so we did an episode, by this time, I'm not sure if we'll have released it by the time we do this episode, but it was called

Gods of the New Age. And we were showing, we were talking about the Rajneesh that was featured in the

Netflix documentary, Wild Wild Country. And they were this Hindu cult that was based in Oregon. And part of what they would do, they would spend 30 minutes just sort of like shaking and convulsing, kind of like to awake their

Kundalini. And finally they got to this point where they would just scream and they would just unravel and just completely just let out every bit of emotion.

And after that, they would sort of feel this, you know, what you call this peace and this tranquility. Euphoria.

That came from, you know, 30 minutes in the sweat lodge of yelling and screaming and also just nothing but quiet.

Yeah. Right. And so that's something when you just, it's an experience, but doesn't mean it's from God, but also it means it could be that.

It also could be something else too. Well, yeah. I just wanna add one thing. There's one time, you know, we're all like standing in a line and like we're praying and one of my friends, he just like falls down and starts convulsing on the ground and be like, oh, he's slain in the spirit.

And I was thinking, well, the fruit of this, one of the fruit of the spirit is self -control. Like that doesn't make sense.

There's no way that you can biblically argue that that is from God because losing control of your body, like even if God did like manifest his

Holy Spirit in you to a greater degree, then you would have greater self -control. You wouldn't lose it because that is what the fruit of the spirit is, is self -control.

And so you're not gonna lose control of your body. To that point, I remember when that happened, he didn't claim that he couldn't control it.

That's true. So it's not like he was saying, well, no, I couldn't have helped it. He just kind of fell.

And they said it was slain in the spirit and stuff, but it was like, I think I would have had my hairs like kind of stand up if they would have been like, well, no, like he can't control it.

Like he can't help it. That was never. I wasn't saying you couldn't help it. The point I'm making is that like the very act of the convulsing was proof of it being slain in the spirit.

And I disagree with that because self -control. Like, again, if you have a powerful manifestation of the

Holy Spirit in you, your action is not going to be convulsion, regardless of whether you control it or not. You would not be convulsing because you would be in complete control of your body.

Yeah. I have a quick question just on the confession situation here or the plumb line. So was there ever times where people, you know, are confessing things, but they're not getting good biblical solid counseling for the sins in their lives, like getting like how you would from a pastor, essentially, you know, confess your sins amongst another so you can be healed.

But at the same time, there's real spiritual trauma that people have faced in their life. And sometimes being forced to be vulnerable, not all the times you're forced, but let's just say someone feels that and they don't get the help they need, right?

Is there like a part to where some people can go, well, I heard the voice of God and it hurt me? Yeah. You know?

I would say like there were definitely times where like even with my classmates, I just remember some of them really struggled with,

I mean, being that we were in a different culture, some of them like had some really heavy stuff that they were working through with family trauma and stuff.

And I felt like because that was maybe a cultural thing, it was kind of met with a, well, you know, like that's normal.

Like it was almost like a normal, normalizing it. And I can't say whether or not that was, that's like a

YWAM thing. I would really hope it wouldn't be, but I would say that there were times where even like when

I would share things, it was more so it wasn't necessarily like counseling.

It was almost like we were good at like sharing what our different root causes were, our different like issues, but it felt like the replacement items at times were not as strong as like the root.

And so it felt like, at least like when I came home, I had like thankfully some of the roots out that I was like working through, like pride and other things that I can say were evident in my life before even

YWAM. I knew that they were, I'd worked on it with my pastor, but I also think that some of the advice that I was given, it was more so like, oh, glory to God, glory to God.

And it was like more so like a push to continue to like figure out different things, but I felt like the solutions or like the things to refill us, that it just wasn't enough.

And I feel like that really messed with some of my classmates. I personally can't speak to that just because I was so new to my faith at the time that I don't remember specific things.

So I can't judge how biblical they were. And I don't have memories of being able to judge them biblically because I had no biblical discernment at the time.

So I have no opinion on that. And you know, the interesting area is that we are doing a, cause we spoke with a couple of different YWAM students, just former

YWAM students and also current active staff. And, but I know that some of the people we were talking about this area of this issue of confession, people had sort of a similar experience to what

I read, but, you know, another area too, when you get into these like group confessional moments is that,

I don't know, I think when it comes to confessing sins to one another, that's all a good thing, but there's parameters in which that should take place.

There's also boundaries. There's levels of confession that are appropriate. And there's ones that are inappropriate.

For example, the relationship with you and your wife, there's levels of confession. Can be gossip. Within that relationship, that's not, you wouldn't go and talk with, you wouldn't confess to anyone else.

Right. That would be problematic. In the same way, just as a whole, just a platonic mutual relationship, brother and sister in the

Lord, there could be a generic, you know, sin or whatever. But when it comes to, there are, you know, deeper issues that are different between what women should confess to women, what men should confess to men.

And I know that as a whole, but you kind of see everything that you know about this type of confession that where that could be problematic.

Yeah. Especially in group stuff. I feel like to our base's credit, they did a pretty good job of keeping it, like women with women, guys with guys.

I feel like that's a big cultural thing though, down there. So I'm thankful for that.

I don't know if, I just know that like, I didn't feel like, actually, I don't even think other than like you,

I really didn't go super deep with a lot of my guy classmates, unless it was like how much

I missed home and stuff. But, and that's again, like I would say, is like an appropriate confessional thing is like talking about homesickness.

But I can't say that I really felt that. Yeah. So I had a different experience, mostly because there was only two guy leaders on the base.

And so it wasn't really an option for me to be confessing or talking, going, you know, processing issues with them, because there's only two of them.

And there was, you know, a bunch of other guys as well that needed to talk to them. And I just like, it wasn't an option.

There was definitely times where I was not comfortable sharing things. And so I didn't share them because I'm like, I'm not sharing this with a girl.

Cause like, this is just, no, like it's just not happening. And there's also times where I think there was things that I did process,

I did, you know, share, and they just didn't really know how to handle it. And so then it was handled poorly just because they didn't know how to handle it.

Yeah. So here's another area where I see this, this is just complex, like this is complex.

So you're, we're dealing with things that are good, but they're misconstrued. And I think that's capable of any organization.

So when you look at a definitive cult structure, you have usually it's a centralized organization and usually everything in regards to the practices, the false teaching, how they carry out, how they recruit people, it all trickles down.

It's all trickles down. But it seems to me just because Lauren Cunningham's vision was to be as cross denominational as possible.

And I was talking, I think I was talking with a gentleman on our Instagram is that there's a lot of false teaching that their infrastructure allows a lot of crazy, false teaching to actually come from within.

So it's a weird, you see what I'm saying? So it's a complicated mixed bag where it's, yeah, there are issues that I see within the theology and some of the things that Lauren Cunningham says, but some of it is a by -product of the decentralization hey, let's just, let's get everyone involved, all the income free.

Like let's get everyone on board. And that's near that's complex. Well, cause

I mean, cause there's a level to which like denominations are useful because there's certain things that are very important convictions to you, things you want to raise your kids with.

So obviously like that's something that's important, but at the same time, we should be able to partner with other people that as long as they agree on the fundamentals of like, you know, of the gospel that we should be able to partner with that.

Absolutely. But at the same time, there are issues that are somewhere in between like first and secondary issues that are important.

And I feel like sometimes those will be put aside when they maybe shouldn't be for the sake of unity and just, you know, allowing, you know, trying to be like trans denominational or whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's just something that I think we'll definitely, you know, explore more at some time.

But I think that's one of the issues that I see this just, again, as being complex because you see it trickling down from the top to the bottom, but also from the bottom up, as far as having, oops, careful, having a free -for -all as far as that goes.

And so knocking over glasses and everything. But another aspect that we kind of talked about is the aspects of really like recruitment.

So one of the areas, if you want to look at a, people will say, oh, that's a cult, is because of deceptive recruiting practices.

And so I guess the question would be too, when it comes to youth with a mission, how is it promoted?

You would say, are there areas where they, what's being advertised like this?

Oh, you're part of the chosen generation. You just want to go save the world and you want to go and have this transcendent experience.

You just want to be part of something bigger than yourself. And I get that. I've been part of mission trips where it's, you're sort of, you're almost sort of chasing the spiritual euphoria and the spiritual narcotic and the spiritual high.

And I've done that. I've done that many a times. And I've been on mission trips that didn't go so well.

And like the detrimental effect is I came out just feeling like I've been thrown through the wood chipper because I didn't get what

I was looking for. So yeah, let's talk about, let's unravel how people are brought in.

Let's, we'll unravel part of that. And we probably got about 10 minutes for the first episode. So maybe we'll carry it over.

Did you get what you were promised? Yeah, let's talk about that. Let's give about 10 minutes to that. Maybe we'll carry it over into part two. Yeah, so I think at least, we were talking about this last night a little bit.

I think for us, YWAM was something that we ended up going with our school to go visit.

I've heard a lot of people, I think at least in my social circles, a lot of people hear by word of mouth.

And that's how they find out about it. As far as like different bases go, I mean, the website is like really kind of interesting.

They have an interactive map that you can go on and select your base and everything like that.

So I think the question in line is like, is it deceptive? I've looked through the website,

I've spent some time. And obviously there's a lot of pictures of youth. That's the main group of people that they're going after.

I mean, it's youth with a mission for a reason. But there's also just like a lot of people working.

In my opinion, at least from what we did on our DTS, I mean, we did go and serve people almost every single day.

And we were going to the people and we were spending time in worship. That's what our rooms look like.

So I would say from like a pictorial standpoint and everything, it does look like that. I would say the deceptive part lies within each base you can click on and you can like read about it.

And I would say, because it's so vast based on like what base is operating with what way and what leaders,

I think your experience can be vastly different because of that aspect. And so I think in some cases, the way that bases are advertised are deceptive because you could have a completely different experience.

And I think it comes down to what kind of leadership is in place and what kind of leaders you actually have on staff.

I think it's very contingent on that. What are your thoughts? Well, I mean, so for the base that we went to, like you can't even find it on like Google Maps or anything.

We were in a dangerous neighborhood. Oh, okay, okay. Anyway, I mean, I can zoom in without like any directions at all and find it just because I've done it so many times.

But like, my parents are trying to figure out like where to send me. They're like, hey, look it up and find it for us. And I couldn't find it anywhere.

And Apple Maps, Google Maps, like I couldn't find it at all. And so I ended up having to reach out to Haley before we were even friends.

I was like, hey, do you have like the application forms? Cause like, I can't find them anywhere. And so then she sent them to me.

But like, and when we were down there, we talked to them and they said, like they specifically said that for them, they wanted to do it, like they didn't want to try to broadcast it because they wanted

God to bring people to the base, the people that he wanted there to be there. And so the base we went to didn't do, like there was no billboards, there was nothing.

There was no like advertisement for that base at all.

Now I know there are advertisements for YWAM. I've never received any of them, so I can't,

I don't know what they're like. But when it comes to being, you know, receiving what you're promised, I never really was promised anything because I just, you know,

I was there. I met the people. And when we were leaving, we were just, I mean, the reason I decided to go back is because we were challenged to, like as our whole senior high school class to just pray together, just as a practice.

And I was like, hey, like they take their faith seriously. So that's why I went back, because it seemed like they took their faith seriously. And they do take their faith seriously.

Now I disagree in a lot of their practice, but they do take their faith seriously. So I guess as far as it comes to like,

I guess promises, they kept up their end of the bargain. Then again, I wasn't even a Christian, so I didn't really know anything about that.

So, you know, my opinion is limited because I'm not really qualified to give an opinion in a lot of this area.

But I think the main thing that I think we both can agree on it's not necessarily, well, actually it kind of is.

On the outside of most bases, it's like youth with a mission and then usually their slogan to know God and to make

Him known is evident there. And so I think that whole idea, I think in a way is kind of a promise.

And in some of the aspects, and this is just kind of coming to me now, I haven't thought about this, is like when you're, like the goal is to know

God and then to make Him known. And so I think that in and of itself is like an implicit expectation.

And so I think we were promised that and I think we could expand on that another time.

Yeah, yeah, and the biggest thing too is that it's visionary versus infrastructure. And that can happen even with the best of intentions saying, hey, you know, this is gonna be, we're gonna have this great transcendent experience.

We're gonna go and work in orphanages and just preach the gospel. It's just gonna be all wonderful and it's gonna be great.

We're all gonna love each other. But then you actually look at the infrastructure. You think about your church plant and all that you're doing.

There's times where you guys are getting each other's nerves or there's sometimes you have to deal with a really difficult situation.

There's difficulty and there's suffering. And sometimes it's like easy to preach the gospel and you're talking about, hey,

Jesus is gonna give you this, this, and this, and this. And then the Christian walk will give you love, joy, love and joy and happiness and give you fulfillment and a sense of purpose and all that.

But is there a conversation about count the cost? And all of a sudden, when all of a sudden when the rubber hits the road and they don't have this, there's no orthodoxy or point of reference for suffering.

That's where a lot of people get jaded. And I've seen that a lot too in the conversation of people who have deconstructed or became an evangelical because of the disorganization.

They got so jaded, they didn't know, they didn't know how to process what they're going through versus what was promised.

So let's save our thoughts. We'll go ahead and end on that cliff note. Man, we covered, we went by so fast.

We went by very fast. But yeah, so we're gonna go and wrap up here. This is our first initial conversation with Aaliyah and Alex.

Thank you guys so much for coming out here and you guys are - Thank you for having us. Yes, and you're from Minnesota, right? Yes, correct.

Okay, awesome. Yeah, I was starting to catch up on the Minnesota accent. I knew you were talking last night. So here's a 10.

Are we that obvious? In the most complimentary sort of way. I didn't hear it at all. Oh, okay, sweet. Perfect. How about this? How about I talk a little?

Wait, no, that's Irish. Hold on. Oh, I gotta go get my tater tot hot dish. Oh, you know, the other day we were going to the

Mall of America and you know, I went to go ice fishing. Oh yeah, for sure. Oh, you betcha.

There you go. Oh yeah, you betcha. That's very excellent. That's great, that's great. Okay, so thank you all for hanging around and we'll talk to you guys in part two of the conversation regarding youth with a mission.