Whether you are leaving YWAM because of a painful experience and seeking a place of refuge on the ‘outside’, or leaving to join the world again, it is a painful transition.
Many of my friends who have left YWAM over the years found the journey back into regular society harder than expected, fraught with false starts and unfinished plans. The sheer culture shock can be overwhelming to the point that many, including myself, find it difficult to find a place in the world sans YWAM.
Discipleship Training school (DTS) is often called a “honeymoon with God” and that YWAMers who complete the DTS are “ruined for the ordinary”. Being ruined for the so-called ordinary can truly ruin what one can and cannot accomplish outside of YWAM. –Over the years, I have kept in contact with my YWAM friends and have been able to see how their YWAM experience affected how they viewed the world and how they made their way into non-communal life. My closest friends in YWAM were so negatively affected by their time in the organization that to this day- nearly 10 years after DTS- they do not know who they are or what they are ‘meant’ to do. College was not attended, plans were not followed through, floundering around was the mainstay. I found this to be true for myself as well.
My time in YWAM permanently burned an image in my mind of who I should be; I was told that the only reason for being was to know God and to make Him known. If I were not involved in missions, my life was worthless, because being a missionary –especially a destitute one- was a holy calling. Leaving YWAM was the most painful emotional time in my life. Although my time in YWAM was filled with tremendous spiritual abuse, I was utterly lost, no direction, no idea of what to do next.
Most YWAM bases have a debriefing at the end of DTS for those going back to their lives, and I went through this debriefing after my DTS as well. When I returned home, I found that I had changes, whereas my friends, church and pastor had remained the same. It was difficult for my friends to adjust to the ‘new’ me and I was on such a spiritual high after DTS, I had problems relating to them. I thought, “Why aren’t they winning souls? Reaching out to the lost?” Remember, my whole reason for being was to be a missionary, so I could not understand why everyone else didn’t drop everything to go.
I did what many after DTS do. I applied to yet another YWAM school, because that was what I was encouraged to do. I applied for a School of Frontier Missions (SOFM) and I was accepted, however, the financial support never came through. People promised money for my career as a destitute, un-college educated missionary, but they never came through. I was absolutely devastated. What was I to do? All my self-worth was in missions.
Eventually I found a job, but I floundered for years, not knowing what to do with my time in YWAM. I worked off and on with short term YWAM projects, but always felt that something was lacking. I attempted college, but failed at that. All I could think of was going back to YWAM – being a missionary.
My friends from YWAM had a similar path over the last 9 years. I’ve talked to many others who served with YWAM who felt lost as well. What does one do after YWAM?
Thankfully, after my latest brush with YWAM, I was able to make a clean break and remove the doctrine I learned in DTS from my mind. Finally, I can separate myself from what I learned in YWAM and find myself, reconnect with family and friends and belong in the ‘real’ world. It took time and a lot of painful growth, relearning of who I am and what I am truly meant to do.
Thanks Jen for another insightfull blog.
I too struggled / struggle with ‘what to do after YWAM’, as do many others, I know who were also involved with YWAM.
Your blog helps us realise, our journey is not unique when it comes to having the ‘ywam blues’.
Hi Jen,
thank you for this blog.. it’s been 2 years since I did my dts and only now I realize what harm it did to me. And yes, what a culture shock it was to come back to reality. Funny how it took long time to understand that, yes, studying and working are good – my purpose for living can be something else than being a missionary, in YWAM. All my roommates stayed in the base and joined as staff. I felt I was not good enough to stay … not brainwashed enough, I guess.
This is the most honest and truthful website about how it really is and what really happens in this subculture. There is tremendous value in what is contained in this sight, it is very very important what is said here. Truth will set us free. Thank you all so much!
I did my DTS 10 years ago and found it hard to get back in with society afterwards because I was so radically changed from my 3 years in YWAM and it took about 2 years to find a balance of what I’d learnt and how I could apply it to mainstream life without being superspiritual and seeing things in reality. As DTS was so intense it had extreme positives and extreme negatives but the positives definately outwayed the negatives in my life and I saw in so many others lives. It gave me a good foundation to my christian walk and the main problem I find now is finding a church or christians that are like-minded in their passion for God. We were spoilt by great speakers and amazing worship that all the churches around now just dont do it for me the pastors are boring and I want more. It is certain that the devil tries to rob every person who has experienced God through YWAM when they return to the ‘realworld’ but we choose to reflect on the bad or on the good. Life does return to normal and for the better.
Hi Jen,
YWAM, and YWAM schools only prepare you for YWAM. When you leave the organisation you must start over; a YWAM education is truly worthless.
YWAM is a weird and exclusive world, where people forge a common identity around being God’s little storm-troopers. The over-inflated sense of importance that everyone within YWAM gets from the project is bolstered by constant reminders of what wonderful things God is doing through this cutting edge movement.
When I left, 24 years ago now, I had to reconcile the enormous sense of failure I felt for leaving. Whenever anybody would leave the mood within YYWAM was plain enough, ‘they couldn’t cut it on the front lines’. I met a leader from my time with them about 10 years ago, and they smugly reminded me that I couldn’t cut it. This subtely is powerful, and I am so gratefull that I was young enough when I left (27) to make a new start by God’s grace, get an education and stabalise my Christianity. Many of my contemporaries who stayed in for a few more years have spent their lives doing jobe way below their potential, because they wasted their formative years in YWAM.
The first thing that an ex-YWAMer needs is re-educating, in order to learn about the God of the Bible, and not the God of YWAM’s imagination, and learn how to be normal again in society without ‘big brother’.
Thanks for your site,
One last comment. Loren Cunningham used to go round the world encouraging people to go into YWAM missions – they recruited Keith Green’s memorial tours for this also. There was something that was Loren’s trademark cliche concerning the Great Commission in Matt 28:
“if you don’t go, there is no lo”
By this he implied that you were not a Christian unless you were on the front lines as a missionary (with YWAM no doubt). Kids were encouraged to jettison education because God needed them now!!
Is it any wonder that people left YWAM believing they were leaving God. What a cruel hoax Loren perpetrated on some many vulnerable young people.
Corry,
I completely agree with what you have said. -I was told during my YWAM years that college was not necessary for ministry, in fact Keith Green said that on his tour. Keith Green was a big influence on me, even many years after his death.
There is a lot of regret for my time wasted in YWAM, but that is a reason for writing on this blog. A therapy for my soul that may help others out there.
On a happier note, I am returning to college to finish my degree and I see a college education as a completion of my recovery from YWAM. My hope is that others may recover as well.
Well done Jen! It will bring healing. It takes a long time to recover from feeling duped. Education, I think, is a great way to restore normality.
After YWAM, I started University when I was 28 and I am about to finish a Ph.D. in NT studies. So even though YWAM is a waste of the most useful years, I think we can get back on track. Thankfully, I live in Australia, where education is almost free.
I am well and truly over YWAM; I do have a burden however, for those going in. If a person goes in with a proper theological education, I am quite sure they will not be too damaged – but they won’t be allowed to stay too long.
I had one North American principal of a post grad theological seminary (one of the best on the continent) tell me of his crossroads experience at Hawaii 10 years ago. It is interesting because it sums up the diversity of the bloggers on your site. His wife had a great time, felt she grew in the Lord, and still raves about it. He, on the other hand, said that he almost failed (this guy, unbeknownst to YWAM, was one of America’s finest theologians). He summed up the teaching he received with this short sentence: “every first century heresy revisited’. Something YWAM and YWAMers don’t get is that you can’t be theologically neutral, it is a nonsense. If you don’t work hard at good exegesis and biblical theology you will just get flawed intuition – or the devil’s theology. He wants people to think he is in charge and that God needs help to rescue the world from him – sound familiar??
The senior YWAM leaders know what their theology is, they will just never put it down on paper. They don’t won’t ‘narrow minded’ Christians on to them again. They have had too many bad experiences with orthodox Christians and they have now learnt the art of discretion. 17 year olds will not be able to discern their errors, so they are YWAM’s prime target group. Many will get out unscathed, but, as they used to say, ‘they will be spoilt for the ordinary’ (life without demons around every corner and magical ten dollar note appearances)
I have a lot of background on YWAM, things that most of the current batch of well meaning YWAMers will never hear or probably believe.
Thanks again Jen, if you ever get to Australia, ket me know.
God bless
I remember coming to the end of DTS’ and the options being presented to people: join DTS staff, join another upcoming school, serve in the kitchen or in admin, etc.
I started to wonder where the “join in long term community development work in Africa or Asia, or serve in your local community and teach English to refugees” was in these presentations?… Where was the “actually get out there and do something beyond the walls of the ‘base?”
It was like we were trained up to serve the big machine that was the ‘base’, or the ‘base’s vision’ – rather than the place serving the people. No one sat down and asked DTS students’ ‘Who are you? What do you love to do? What are your skills? What new skills or things do you want to learn or develop? How could you best use these to serve God in the world? How can we help you in this process?’
I remember this strange, subtle often unspoken belief that existed, that if you hadn’t done a DTS, you probably weren’t really a Christian (or not a very good or serious one at least). And then I realised one day, Jesus never actually did a DTS…. and neither did many amazing Christians throughout history.
Lo and behold, God lives outside of YWAM! It is a beautiful and freeing and expanding thing to discover ….
Far out! I thought it was just me. But how did we all have such an obviously good time during DTS and then suffer so much afterward? I am still having negative thoughts about it nearly 6 months later. One thing I do understand is that I stuffed my guts ( supressed ) several things that I never had time to process or talk about. There was never any debate, never any real dialogue and I ended up so frustrated. Yet, I had fun on adventure with some cool kids and enjoyed the lectures even though I couldnt take them seriously.
> And then I realised one day, Jesus never actually did a DTS….
…. but all of his 12 disciples did (not with YWAM
).
My wife and I did our DTS together. For us it was a positive experience, athough I can certainly see the potential for abuse there. We aren’t interested in YWAM (or any other religious institution) for its own sake. There are some things about the organization that we find attractive and some that we don’t.
Five years after our DTS, we are joining another base as CDTS staff. In the in-between time we have come to our own conclusions, many of which don’t fit with YWAM or the institutional church. We are excited about this move, and we believe that our Heavenly Father has brought us here.
Our biggest challenge will be in dealing with the expectation that will be placed on us to relinquish our family privelege. This isn’t new, we deal with it in everywhere we go, and if there is anything that we will not budge on, it is our children’s well-being.
Recently I have come across a few blogs like this one, and they have given me reason for concern. We will be going in with our eyes wide open this time. If the mentality described here is universal, then there will be some rough sailing ahead.
I have often felt quite alone in my recovery from walking away from YWAM and Evangelical Christianity. Over the years, I have tried many times to connect with past YWAM leaders to process how hard it has been leaving YWAM, but to no avail. I have felt rejected completely from a community I gave 4 years of my life to. It is a grief I carry heavily to this day.
I can really relate to what you have wrote Jen about feeling directionless for years and having this sense of your worth gone since you are no longer living for this huge calling. I’m not quite sure how to recover from that. I have become a nurse since YWAM and plan to continue my education further, but nothing seems to quite fill that gap YWAM left. I do feel worthless at times in light of what my old fellow YWAMers are doing. Infact, I recently had to just delete all of my old YWAM friends off of my facebook page because I could no longer handle reading their updates.
I have to hope and believe those years were not a complete waste, and that in time, I will be able to recover and find peace and direction for my new life.
Thank you for this website.
Y outh W ith A bsent M inds …………shuns those that leave the group ………like the Amish do. I am detested by YWAM for leaving………. discarded like garbage.
Jen, I just visited my daughter (24) for her “graduation” from YWAM in Herrnhut Germany. It was one of the most troubling weeks of my life. Within the first 5 min’s of seeing her I KNEW something wasn’t right. She had changed and become detached from me. We were best of friends and she was filled with love. Now she’s hard and cold and detached. No emotion at all.
I came home in tears and began to research. Many of the things that were said to me while there sent up red flags. So, I began my search and realize how much trouble my dd is in.
How can we get her out? She’s on a “prayer retreat” as I write and plans to stay for the DNA conference. BUT she is out of money with no one supporting her except us. We are not going to give her anymore money. Her plans were to come home for the summer, but I fear that after this retreat she will change her mind.
If you have any suggestions how we can lure her away without disclosing our knowledge of the mind control that is going on, I’d truly be grateful. My heart is broken. I fear that we may never see her again and I just can’t live with that.
Thank you for your disclosure of the truth. Jesus said, we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free.
Susan,
My heart goes out to you. I’m not a counselor or a cult expert, so I am not quite sure how to help you. I can tell you what my thoughts would have been while I was still “under the influence” in my YWAM days.
If someone (especially my parents) would have told me that YWAM was a cult or a dangerous group, I would have been so brainwashed at that point and unwilling to listen. If I had told my leaders, they would have told me Satan was trying to keep me from my calling by using my family to confuse me. Most of the time, YWAM leaders will put their ‘authority’ as the same as G-d’s, and will overrule a student’s personal feelings as being ‘doubt from satan’.
The best thing is to have former YWAMers talk with her or a cult expert like Steven Hassan. He is a former Moonie (I personally think YWAM is very similar to the Moonies) and has helped many people escape cults. YWAM is listed on his site as a possible cult. http://www.freedomofmind.com/
You are in my prayers,
Jen
‘Where do we go from here?’ is a fair question put to us by Jen. I left YWAM 32 years ago after 6 years involved in some of the oft talk-about early developmental stages of the Mission. I was the typical product of what might be called one of the older ‘Jesus Camp’ (see movie of same name – it is a must!) indoctrination processes and was easy pickings for the promises made by YWAM. I revelled in the challenges of the outreaches and deprivation of basic needs when they arose. I saw myself as a modern day disciple of the Master who had to face is ‘cross’ like the original 12. At the same time I witnessed some pretty shoddy leadership by under-educated young men and women, who themselves had mostly come from fundamentalist religious backgrounds. Yes, I became disillusioned with a number of issues in the Mission and decided to leave and go my own way. I guess I was lucky enough to have the emotional strength and common sense to pursue professional training in a country that offered free university education to its citizens at the time. I’ll admit that during the first couple of years at university I struggled with withdrawal from all the hype of the Mission. I can still remember sitting in the university library one particular day, writing one of those seemingly endless compulsory undergraduate essays, hanging out for another Summer of Service ‘fix’. However, I battled on and eventually made it into a worthwhile career as a health professional where I remain til this day as a senior member of staff. Yes, there is a life after YWAM and all I can suggest is that my ‘fellow leavers’ avoid the trap of pursing some type of ‘YWAM-alternative’ after leaving YWAM itself, such as a dead-end career in some other misguided religious organisation, or the like. My opinion might sound harsh and somewhat irreligious, but it is based not only on my own experience as an ‘escapee’, but also based on meeting many others who left YWAM like me, but failed to escape the hum-drum of additional involvement in missions to nowhere. Develop a definite exit plan, exercise flexibility to modify it as needs be, but press on and attain a sensible and rational goal. Shalom
Wow, Jen, thanks for sharing your story. It sounds very similar to what I experienced at another Tyler area ministry – Teen Mania. I’ve been out several years and just started blogging…Its really stunning how much spiritual abuse is going on, especially with young people.
When you guys started did you feel like you wanted to be missionaries? Couldn’t some of the feeling bad stuff come from feeling all connected to God via being with so many others who have a passion for God and then going back to a normal society with some messed up morals, etc. Or is it all like YWAM is really a bad thing?
I never realized that the thoughts and feelings I’ve grappled with for 8 years after leaving YWAM (I was in it for 9 years) were so common.
I especially have had to work hard to get balance and true biblical perspective on guidance/discernment. Both in my own life and in others’ lives, I’ve seen more mistakes (as well as questionable “words from God” ) than I ever saw of the amazing incidents of supernatural guidance so common in YWAM books (not to say I never witnessed it).
What did I really accomplish in those 9 years? It doesn’t seem like very much in retrospect. I just have the hope that the Lord redemeed the time in ways I’m as yet unaware.
I had a college degree before entering YWAM and have since attained a master’s, but it took a long time to shake the idea planted in my psyche that 5-month “schools” led and taught by inexperienced and/or narrowly trained YWAMers somehow had more validity than the far more academically rigorous classes I took in a higher education setting.
But the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. YWAM isn’t all bad and not all YWAMers deal with the spiritual malaise and confusion I walked through as I got re-grounded in “normal” life. YWAMers have stepped out where others were afraid to tread. The lack of structure has allowed them to fly under the radar in places other organizations can’t, and I’m sure there are many believers in the world who found Christ as a result of contact with YWAM efforts.
Not all post-YWAM directionlessness can be blamed on YWAM: personal responsibility is a key element too. And remember, churches of every stripe have been known at times for killing initiative and squandering talent.
One important issue is that YWAM is a big, nebulous organization–the location(s) where a person was involved can make all the difference in whether YWAM meant an experience of true spiritual abuse, a well-intentioned but sloppy “outreach”, or an exciting, fruitful season in Christ.
Having ended on a positive note in my previous post, there is one other negative YWAM issue I feel like venting on–finances. In retrospect I can’t believe how financially irresponsible YWAM can be at times. I totally believe God can provide in amazing ways and sometimes asks us to step out and take risks financially, physically, etc. God always took care of me and I never got in any trouble but I shudder at how foolish I was at times. And I saw some other people do things that were downright irresponsible–living without health insurance for years, having no reliable support for taking care of their families, digging holes for themselves by being behind on “staff fees,” being encouraged by leadership to do crazy things like purchase a home “on faith” without enough support to maintain it, and some vaguely attached, semi-active “staff” members who received support from supporters whom I’m sure had no idea just how little actual “ministry” the people they were supporting were doing.
And the issue I became more resentful over the longer I was in YWAM: not only was I not paid for what I did (which, though sometimes of dubious value, could involve long hours and hard work), I was expected to pay the base for the privilege being there, ostensibly because I was being provided food and shelter (even though the food was often donated by local ministries or paid for by tuition from schools). I believe I understand the spirit in which self-support became the foundation for YWAM, but I knew I didn’t belong when I found myself frequently meditating on the idea that “the worker is worth his wages.”
Wow! My experience in YWAM was very different from those of you who wrote here. Reading this made me realize that not all YWAM centers are the same. I guess some are better than others. I was apparently at a good one. I feel really sorry for those of you who had bad experiences. I guess I lucked out!
In my YWAM years I was taught to stay connected to my family and my home church. The leaders at the Base I was at went out of their way to meet my home church Pastor and to develop relationship with him. They even encouraged me to always include him in all my decision making so that I could have confidence that I was hearing God correctly and following Him in a wholistic way. I was also constantly taught that there is no separation or difference between the secular and the sacred. I was taught that fulltime missions and working in a profession in the marketplace are of equal value to God and that both are equally Kingdom work with no difference in value to God. They encouraged me to believe God for and raise support for health insurance and my latter years. I was always encouraged to get more education both inside and outside YWAM, and in fact, after a couple of years in YWAM I was encouraged by my leader to leave for 4 years to go to university. I really missed YWAM during those years, but I never felt like I was missing out on life or that I was out of God’s plan while I was in university. After graduating, I chose to use my education and skills on the mission field for a few years with YWAM again before re-entering the marketplace here in America.
My experience overall was positive, encouraging, and life-changing. I didn’t experience anything even close to brainwashing or mind control, and I was always encouraged to include my Pastor and seriously weigh his advice and spiritual authority over my life in all the major decisions I made. I’m really sad the rest of you didn’t share my same experience. It shaped me for life in a good way. I pray God’s healing touch on all of you!
Just a thought or two about my experience as an ‘onlooker’.
There was a group of YWMAers renting a house nearby. I became acquainted with them and was invited to supper and to meet them on a personal basis. I was upset for them when I saw their skimpy meal provision; plus no milk or dairy products for group’s children or the expectant mother. As a mother/grandmother, I questioned them about their diet. They were all polite and dare I say pitiful??
I was able to contact someone who had ‘connections’ and provided the group with a 50 lb. sac of powdered milk. Also I went to a local supermarket and begged for vegetables and any commodities they could spare to help my YWAMer friends. This proved providential for them, and they went frequently to pickup supplies afterwards from the supermarket. I felt the ‘provision’ of the YWAM establishment for their members was nonexistent!!
Now I have a friend who is getting ready to join a local YWAM, along with one or two of her teenage children, while leaving her husband alone at home much of the time. She has to “raise support” (a large amount) for the two or three potential members of the group. I will have to direct her to the blogs I have just read, and do my best to discourage her NOT to leave her husband alone (he is ‘not on the same spiritual level as she is’). Having lived for 30 years with an unsaved husband and raising our 5 children the best way I possible, I could write a book about how to live (and survive) with an unsaved husband!! Certainly a challenge. I did type my testimony a while back, “How it all began.” Perhaps I should have added “And how it ended!” For end it did, suddenly. Anyway my heart goes out to those who get taken in by ambitious but well-meaning people.