Written By Holly Pivec

This post is the second in a series on the influential Christian missions organization Youth With a Mission (YWAM). YWAM was founded in 1960 by Loren Cunningham as a way to deploy young people as missionaries throughout the world. It’s now one of the largest Christian missionary organizations in the world, having more than 18,000 staff working in over 180 nations. Many churches financially support YWAM full-time missionaries and young adults who sign up to go on short-term mission trips with YWAM or to attend one of YWAM’s Discipleship Training Schools or other schools. Yet many of these churches would likely be surprised and concerned to learn about some of the unbiblical and spiritually harmful teachings promoted by this organization.In the first post I outlined one significant part of YWAM’s theologically controversial history. The remaining posts in the series focus on YWAM as it currently stands.

Partnering with the New Apostolic Reformation

Many people are unaware that YWAM has come under significant influence from a controversial movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). In this post, I show that YWAM has allied itself with NAR leaders and has adopted many of their questionable teachings and practices.For those who don’t know, NAR is a new religious movement led by men and women who claim to be prophets and apostles. They claim to have extraordinary authority, critical new revelations, and miraculous powers – akin to the Old Testament prophets and Christ’s apostles. To read more about this movement, including its dangers, see my co-authored books here.

YWAM’s display of unity with NAR leaders

Under the leadership of YWAM’s highest leaders, YWAM has forged relational and formal ties with influential NAR leaders and organizations. See, for example, this photo, taken at a NAR event in 2016, led by the NAR “prophet” Lou Engle. At the event, YWAM founder Loren Cunningham shared the stage with three of the most influential NAR leaders – the apostle Bill Johnson (Bethel Church in Redding, California), the prophet Lou Engle (TheCall), and NAR teacher Mike Bickle (International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri). Though some of these leaders deny that they’re NAR or distance themselves from NAR, nevertheless they hold to its core doctrine: that apostles and prophets have a governing role in the church today.Highly orchestrated, this moment was designed to show these leaders’ intention to unite their influence and efforts. Their display of unity was viewed by those in NAR and YWAM as prophetically and historically significant, as can be seen in this comment posted to the Facebook page of a YWAM base in Tyler, Texas. 

YWAM and IHOPKC: A ‘kingdom partnership’

YWAM leaders further solidified their desire to network with NAR leaders, in 2016, by forging an official partnership between YWAM and Mike Bickle’s International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri (IHOPKC). A formal, public announcement of the “kingdom partnership” was made at IHOPKC, following a weeklong gathering of thousands of IHOPKC and YWAM staff. During the announcement, IHOPKC and YWAM leaders summarized the history of unofficial partnership between the two organizations and how they believed God had orchestrated the partnership. Below is a picture of Bickle announcing the official partnership together with YWAM’s Darlene Cunningham (wife of YWAM founder Loren Cunningham) and John Dawson (YWAM International Director of Urban Missions). 

YWAM Australia and ‘Awakening Australia’

YWAM Australia was a “supporting organization” for a large NAR conference held in Melbourne in September 2018, featuring some of the most well-known and controversial NAR leaders, including Bill Johnson, Todd White, and Ben Fitzgerald. An article published by the Gospel Coalition in Australia, titled “At What Price Awakening?”, warned about this event.As an example of why the NAR leaders speaking at this event are so controversial, check out this Youtube video. It shows one of the event’s leaders and speakers – Ben Fitzgerald, a former pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California – promoting a disturbing practice known as “grave sucking.” During this practice, also known as “grave soaking,” individuals have lain on (or leaned against) the graves of well-known miracle-workers – such as the British faith healer Smith Wigglesworth – in an effort to “suck” up their anointings. 

YWAM’s promotion of ‘Treasure Hunting’ evangelism and ‘strategic-level spiritual warfare’

Another example of YWAM, at the institutional level, promoting NAR is its endorsement of distinctive NAR practices, including “Treasure Hunting” evangelism and “strategic-level spiritual warfare.” Both are promoted by YWAM today. This can be seen in current articles featured on the website of YWAM Frontier Missions, one of YWAM’s largest global organizations encompassing 2,000 workers. One article on the YWAM Frontier Missions website, titled “Simple Clues Lead to Treasure,” describes, in positive terms, how YWAM missionaries working among Muslims are employing the problematic practice of Treasure Hunting. To learn more about Treasure Hunting, see my post, “What are the dangers of Treasure Hunting evangelism?”Another article written by Joy Dawson, one of YWAM’s top leaders, is titled “Pray for the Unreached.” Dawson’s article promotes strategic-level spiritual warfare, which is the act of confronting powerful evil spirits that are believed to rule specific geographical regions. Those engaging in this practice believe these spirits must be identified by name and be neutralized, or cast out, before the gospel can go forth with effectiveness in a region. Strategic-level spiritual warfare first entered YWAM, in large part, through the teachings of YWAM leader John Dawson, who later became the international president of YWAM. Dawson popularized strategic-level warfare strategies in YWAM, including “spiritual mapping” and “identificational repentance,” through his 1989 bestselling bookTaking Our Cities for God, which he dedicated to YWAM missionaries around the world.In his book, Dawson recounts stories of YWAM teams engaging in strategic-level spiritual warfare. By 2006, it had become so ingrained in YWAM that one researcher, René Holvast, noted in his dissertation that “It is part of their fabric.” For a more detailed explanation of strategic-level spiritual warfare, along with a biblical response, see chapters 15 and 16 of my co-authored bookA New Apostolic Reformation?: A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement.