The first waves of a rising tide: the early history of Youth With A Mission, 1956 – 1970
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Abstract
This dissertation reconstructs the founding history and early development of the modern global mission organization, Youth With A Mission (YWAM). YWAM emerged as one of many evangelical mission organizations in post-war North America that rapidly spread around the world. As a continuation of revivalist pentecostalism, YWAM sparked a global youth mission movement that mobilized and sent untrained young people as evangelists and missionaries across the street and across the world. Outside of North America, YWAM spread through networks of pentecostal missionaries, historic evangelical mission agencies, established Protestant denominations, and indigenous churches. Through its involvement in global religious networks, YWAM connected interdenominational and international volunteers with an expanding missionary vision that was, by 1970, active on every inhabited continent. YWAM constructed and catalyzed a distinct form of pentecostal-charismatic world Christianity: it pioneered new mission models, adapted evangelism methods in diverse cultures, and partnered with global churches. Founded and developed into a global movement during a historic period known as the long 1960s, YWAM reflected wider social and religious trends in the West and around the world. This dissertation explores YWAM’s continuities, discontinuities, and relationship with revivalist pentecostalism, entrepreneurial evangelicalism, the Charismatic Renewal, world Christianity, youth counter culture, and women’s movements. YWAM expanded because it both continued the past and innovated in dialogue with the youth culture of the day. To date, little research has been done on YWAM and other decentralized world Christian mission movements like it – a surprising fact given the extent of YWAM’s influence on mission history and world Christianity in the modern period. This dissertation recovers and explores the actors, events, and factors involved in YWAM’s early years. It constructs the chronological narrative of YWAM’s complex, transnational social and religious history. The research relies upon a range of archival sources, popular literature, biographies, and oral history interviews that collectively uncover the often- obscure details of the founding generation’s experiences, memories, and recollections. The dissertation represents a first step in the work to recover and chronicle YWAM’s complete history.
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2025