Youth With A Mission and the spread of an evangelical missional ecumenism

Introduction

The youth that are involved will come from many denominations. We usually have about 30 denominations involved and represented on our teams at any given year. [. . .] World-wide we work with all evangelical denominations at a local level, who are open to cooperate with such a group as ours. (Cunningham, 1968:1)

In his letter to Mr. Donald H. Gill of World Vision Magazine, Loren Cunningham described Youth With A Mission’s (YWAM) upcoming summer evangelistic campaign in the Canadian province of Quebec to be held from June to August of 1968. Cunningham, writing from one independent parachurch mission ministry to another, penned a rough sketch of YWAM’s non-denominational approach, or what this paper calls their “evangelical missional ecumenism.” Uniting around the broadly shared set of beliefs and practices of modern evangelicalism and a mutual commitment to world evangelization, YWAM forged diverse global partnerships first with Pentecostals and evangelicals and then with other Christians who were “open to cooperate with such a group as” theirs (Cunningham, 1968:1).

Founded in December of 1960 in Southern California, Youth With A Mission (YWAM) was the dream of a third generation Pentecostal preacher and itinerant evangelist, Loren Cunningham. Raised in a family committed to spreading the message of Pentecost, Cunningham believed that any Spirit-filled Christian was qualified to preach the gospel. With the full support of his Assemblies of God district leadership, Loren started YWAM to challenge what he perceived as the restless young people of his generation with the eternal purpose of missionary evangelism (Benge and Benge, 2004: 93–96). While mobilizing students and youth in world evangelization had deep roots in the Protestant tradition through the YMCA and Student Volunteer Movement, Loren and Darlene Cunningham’s vision for YWAM was shaped by their Pentecostal faith, practice, and experience that itself was part of the post-war evangelical movement in the United States. On a global scale, YWAM’s growth was aided by its belonging to rapidly expanding Pentecostal and evangelical mission networks, a phenomenon of the 1960s that coincided with the recession and redirection of conciliar Protestant mission efforts (Anderson, 1974: 43–45; Coote, 1995).

While the global missionary enterprise was undergoing an evangelical revolution, many evangelical mission organizations, YWAM being one, sought collaboration with others who shared their commitment to the missionary imperative. YWAM’s unapologetic mission to evangelize and convert the world to Christ coupled with a desire to work with those “open to cooperate” acted as a unifying force in its global ministry. YWAM’s interdenominational disposition led to collaboration among evangelicals, the creation of new cooperative mission ventures, and, at times, unlikely partnerships between confessional adversaries and religious competitors. This paper highlights several of the cooperative transnational relationships, partnerships, and networks that fostered YWAM’s global growth during the 1960s. YWAM became one of the world’s largest and most influential missionary organizations of the second half of the 20th century, in part, because of its commitment to evangelical cooperation and an evolving form of missional ecumenism.

Collaboration among emerging evangelical “start-ups”

In its first decade, YWAM’s primary partnerships were a result of belonging to North American Classical Pentecostal denominations. Both founders, Loren Cunningham and Darlene (Scratch) Cunningham, came from generational Pentecostal families who were itinerant evangelists, pioneering church planters, and pastors from the early 1920s. Loren’s roots were in the Southwestern US and Darlene’s in Canada. Together, the Pentecostal family networks they represented anchored and accelerated YWAM’s early growth through the Assemblies of God (AG), Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC), and both denominations’ global missionary programs and personnel.

Keeping these Pentecostal family relationships and the tight-knit global networks they sustained in mind, this section reconstructs the development of YWAM’s partnership outside of Pentecostalism. After 1965, YWAM’s growth came largely through partnership with post-war parachurch organizations and independent evangelistic ministries – what historian Noll (2009: 85, 116) calls US-based evangelical “rapid start-ups”. With Loren Cunningham’s formal departure from the Assemblies of God in 1965, YWAM joined the emerging movement of US-based entrepreneurial evangelical organizations that reshaped evangelical activism, influence, and alliances at home and abroad. Thanks to his vast friendship networks with many “Pentecostals–turned–independents” and an array of mission oriented evangelicals, Loren Cunningham’s YWAM was hosted, supported, and propelled by “start-ups” like TL Osborn Ministries, Oral Roberts Ministries, Christ for the Nations, Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International, Life Messengers, Teen Challenge, Every Home for Christ, and Operation Mobilization (Kach-Yawnghwe, 2025: 114–126). Not only did the leaders of these emerging ministries support the Cunninghams’ vision for youth in world mission, but they became friends, partners, and collaborators. Independent evangelistic ministries provided YWAM with financial support, ministry resources like evangelistic literature and sound systems, free promotion to their support base, and perhaps, most importantly, a welcome into their own expanding global networks. Collaborators like David Wilkerson of Teen Challenge became especially influential in endorsing YWAM and accelerating its global proliferation.

YWAM’s relationship with Teen Challenge illustrates how these collaborative and supportive partnerships between independent evangelistic ministries led to global evangelical cooperation and mutual expansion. Founded in 1958 by a generational Pentecostal preacher, David Wilkerson, Teen Challenge gained widespread popularity through Wilkerson’s autobiographical book The Cross and the Switchblade first published in 1962. Wilkerson and Loren Cunningham’s friendship began in 1955 when Cunningham, a student at Central Pentecostal Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, served as a guest preacher at Wilkerson’s Assemblies of God church in Pennsylvania (Poulsen, 2021). One year later, Loren Cunningham befriended David’s uncle, John Wilkerson, an AG missionary who hosted Loren and his gospel quartet the King’s Magnifiers in the Bahamas. Cunningham’s Bahamas trip was central to YWAM’s founding narrative – it was there that Loren received the spiritual vision that inspired his founding of YWAM. Loren’s trip also marked the beginning of his lifelong friendship with John Wilkerson, a partnership that offered constant support to a growing YWAM and strengthened YWAM’s connection to the Wilkerson family more broadly.

Specific details of how Loren and David Wilkerson’s friendship developed between 1955 and 1965 remain uncertain, but John Wilkerson’s role as an interlocutor is clear. In addition to their shared Pentecostal pedigree, Loren and David were committed to their mutual, yet unique, ministries of evangelizing and mobilizing youth. Both Teen Challenge and YWAM initially recruited from the same Assemblies of God churches and received support from the same North American Pentecostal constituency. By 1965, however, both men were no longer formally credentialed with the AG and were leading their own independent ministries. It was in this transitional post-denominational moment that David Wilkerson and Loren Cunningham’s friendship acted as a stabilizing force for YWAM.

In April of 1965, Wilkerson became YWAM’s featured evangelist and headlining speaker at an evangelistic campaign in Las Vegas. This pattern was repeated in various locations over the next few years. Likewise, teams of YWAM volunteers offered their ministry at Teen Challenge centers across North America beginning in YWAM’s early ministry across Canada in 1967. The team of 85 young people “held streetmeetings [sic], witnessed to people on the street or in the parks, held services in the sponsoring PAOC churches at night, worked in rescue missions and Teen Challenge,” (Wilson, 1967: 2). One of YWAM’s first Canadian hosts, Rev. Eugene Opheim, was a PAOC pastor and Bible College instructor who also served as the director for Teen Challenge’s Edmonton center by the mid-1970s (The Pentecostal Testimony, 1974). Both YWAM and Teen Challenge were embedded in North American Pentecostal networks, albeit in different ways.

YWAM’s relationship with the Assemblies of God changed when Loren Cunningham withdrew his credentials in the spring of 1965. In Canada, YWAM remained an active partner with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada until the spring of 1971 (Kach-Yawnghwe, 2025: 184). In both cases, local Pentecostal pastors and districts continued to support and partner with YWAM despite clear denominational direction to the contrary. Interestingly, Wilkerson who had developed an independent ministry outside of the AG, was still able to maintain viable partnerships and full-fledged support from both the AG and the PAOC. Thus, Wilkerson’s personal friendship with Loren Cunningham and his public presence at YWAM events offered the mission some indirect credibility with Pentecostal denominations and relational stability in the independent evangelical world during a vulnerable period of their organizational development. Not one to offer his public support of other ministries freely, Wilkerson’s respect for YWAM is on full display in the following endorsement given to promote YWAM’s first School of Evangelism in Switzerland in 1969:

Youth With A Mission is one of the most vital ministries today. Its concept is scriptural and its challenge to youth is tremendous. I would like to send everyone [sic] of our converts out into the world through the guidance of Youth With A Mission. It is one of the very few ministries I have ever felt led by God to endorse, and that I do with all my heart. (Wilkerson, 1969: 4) ¹

The cooperation and sharing between the Teen Challenge and YWAM began in the United States, but it was also a global phenomenon. Before the 1969 School of Evangelism, as noted above, YWAM’s arrival in New Zealand was made possible, at least in part, because of Teen Challenge’s pre-existence on the islands. Facilitated by early charismatic leaders in New Zealand, Neville and Dot Winger and Joy and Jim Dawson, Loren Cunningham and Jim and Janice Rogers began recruiting for YWAM’s first domestic evangelistic event in Auckland in January 1967. Two years earlier, the Dawsons had founded Teen Challenge in Auckland and were operating a coffee house under its auspices. Teen Challenge, under the Dawson’s leadership, was an early expression of the charismatic movement in New Zealand. It was a hospitable place for young people to gather for conversation and a cup of coffee in the hope that they would find alternatives to drugs. At Teen Challenge Auckland, some young people found Jesus, some found the Charismatic Renewal, some found YWAM, and others found all three at once.

Teen Challenge Auckland acted as a home base for early YWAM leaders Jim and Janice Rogers. In the same way that a sponsoring church or denominational missionary hosted YWAM teams elsewhere in the world, Teen Challenge’s network and physical location in Auckland allowed Janice and Jim to recruit and mobilize New Zealand youth for YWAM’s first local evangelistic campaign in early 1967. One Teen Challenge Auckland volunteer from 1966-67 who became a life-long YWAM missionary, Barry Austin, described the relationship between YWAM and Teen Challenge like this: “YWAM acted like the overseas arm of Teen Challenge and Teen Challenge the home mission for YWAM. Many of the Teen Challenge workers went on an overseas outreach with YWAM,” (Personal correspondence with author, March 21, 2024). In his email to the author, Barry made a point to express that the relationship between Teen Challenge and YWAM in Auckland carried little to no Pentecostal denominational baggage unlike their North American expressions. Teen Challenge and YWAM together acted as neutral and “non-denominational” place for young Christians, seekers, and addicts to work together in God’s mission. David Wilkerson’s 1969 endorsement for YWAM’s School of Evangelism, was in fact, already well underway by 1967 in New Zealand where Teen Challenge converts were joining YWAM to evangelize the world.

Creation of new cooperative mission ventures

The early charismatic movement in New Zealand catalyzed YWAM’s growing global evangelical cooperation and influenced its gravitation toward a broader ecumenism. Connections to charismatic leaders like Neville and Dot Winger and Joy and Jim Dawson cemented YWAM’s reception in New Zealand and ensured their access to the islands’ network of emerging charismatic churches (Maiden, 2023: 53). The role of the Charismatic Renewal in New Zealand and New Zealanders in YWAM’s success, both in the South Pacific and throughout the English-speaking world as well as in Europe, must not be understated. People like Ross and Margaret Tooley, Barry Austin, Barbara Davy, David Cowie, Jim and Mary Cameron, Kalafi Moala – a Tongan studying at a seminary in Auckland – and countless others extended YWAM’s ministry to Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Australia, England, and beyond and infused YWAM with an undercurrent of charismatic-inspired missional ecumenism as they went.

This influence can be clearly seen through the letters of Jim and Mary Cameron to Loren Cunningham. A New Zealand couple with ties to the Charismatic Renewal, the Camerons became involved with YWAM in 1967 and remained close friends and co-workers in mission. Mary and Jim were a part of YWAM New Zealand’s 1967 Fiji crusade. They joined the first Around-The-World team led by Janice and Jim Rogers in Indonesia in 1969. They ministered in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Southeast Asia, and sometimes partnered with New Zealand-based mission organization World Outreach. Jim and Mary laid the groundwork for the founding of YWAM in England in 1969-1970. They also introduced Loren Cunningham to Presbyterian missionary J. Christy Wilson, a relational connection that led to YWAM’s move into Afghanistan and to Floyd and Sally McClung opening the Dilaram House in Kabul (Marti Green, personal communication with author, October 29, 2024).

The Camerons’ letters indicate a possible history with the Presbyterian church but more importantly, Jim’s words offer important insight into the ways in which they shaped YWAM’s strategy in building new relationships in places with a historic Christian presence. Jim’s vision for YWAM’s success was grounded in his charismatic experience fueled by growing ecumenical partnerships.

On December 12, 1969, Jim Cameron wrote to Loren Cunningham:

I think the best word to describe our London work is “infiltration” we have as best we can joined [sic] in with as many young peoples [sic] groups as we can and imparted the thought of witnessing mainly person to person. Each church contact we have so far had has been to go along to a local church, join the congregation and after the service quickly engage the necessary un-introduced person in a [sic] English run down conversation about Ywan [sic] and then ask if we could talk to his young people. Sometimes it works;–. [sic] In some cases we have felt to develop very close affiliation with some churches. This has been most rewarding as now we have developed a suitable base to run some mini-crusades and maybe soon a domestic. (Cameron, 1969: 1)

On January 16, 1970, Jim wrote to Loren again, saying:

We are thrilled that openings seem to be coming into three Bible Colleges. The Elim one mentioned Before [sic], and now London Bible College and Capernwray. These, along with Elim could yield some great YWAM recruits, should the openings come through.

We are taking a Congregational church service completely this weekend, and showing our slides after the service. A Baptist church has written to us, and we are taking a slide meeting with an after-church social club at another Anglican Church. We also have been asked to take an Anglican Youth Service maybe next month. (Cameron, 1970: 2)

Regarding YWAM’s planned work in East Africa during the upcoming year, Jim wrote:

We have some good contacts, and hope to be able to inform other missions of our coming, as we have just learnt that the Methodist missionaries in Fiji were deeply hurt by the fact that they were totally ignored, and felt the team to be a disrupting influence. This was the Christmas 68-69 crusade. We read the letter of this complaint in the official Presbyterian magazine of NZ. This really disturbs us, and we hope that similar happenings will not occur in further crusades. OM here in Britain is very unpopular, because they have not worked in with missionaries, and we have been saying “Yes, we always try to co-operate with the missionaries”. So we don’t want a similar stigma attached to the work of YWAM. (Cameron, 1970: 4)

Jim and Mary Cameron saw their ministry and YWAM’s role as one of building unity and collaboration with Christians, churches, and missionaries from other denominations for the sake of their shared evangelistic mission. It is not a coincidence that the early New Zealand YWAM participants who found their way into YWAM from the Charismatic Renewal brought with them a respect for the Christian traditions and denominations from which they came. Thus, for Jim and Mary Cameron and a host of other early YWAMers from Presbyterian, Anglican, and Methodist backgrounds, cooperation with other evangelicals and Protestants was a natural part of their global mission. Jim and Mary Cameron’s desire for YWAM to cooperate with missionaries, join established churches, and mobilize the youth from a range of denominations indicates their ecumenical influence on YWAM’s early history in the South Pacific, Asia, Europe, Africa, and England.

Unlikely partnerships and the start of a broader ecumenism

Try as they might to shake off the stigma of sectarianism, Pentecostalism, and proselytism, YWAM made their fair share of enemies as they worked to convert the world’s masses to Christ free of any denomination. Still, their focus on collaboration for evangelism at the “local level” did allow for some unlikely partnerships that pushed past the bounds of evangelicalism, Protestantism, and, in one case, Christianity. Unwavering in their commitment to preach the message of Jesus Christ, YWAM’s primary means of facilitating ecumenical partnerships came through mutual relationship, participation in church life, and a shared mission.

Loren and Darlene Cunningham moved to Switzerland in 1969 to run YWAM’s first full-time missionary training school, the School of Evangelism. While the idea to relocate to Switzerland came to the Cunninghams through prayer, it was also confirmed through a prophetic word from travelling evangelist and Cunningham family friend Willard Cantelon (Cunningham et al., 2020: 31–32). Cantelon told Loren that God had told him Loren would open up a school in Switzerland, after which he provided the Cunninghams with the contact information of a Canadian friend, John Owens, a former Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada pastor. Owens left the PAOC when he joined the controversial Latter Rain Movement but maintained friendships within the more orthodox Pentecostal world. Now in Switzerland, Owens owned and operated a chalet in the mountains, Hotel Rosat, while doing some sort of ministry. Owens became an unlikely partner for YWAM’s permanent settlement in Europe, but Loren and Darlene proved that they were open to work with people who may been considered theologically divergent if they were relationally connected through trusted mutual friends.

After receiving Owen’s welcome and settling into Switzerland, YWAM fostered interdenominational partnerships in their region and throughout Europe. As a part of the School of Evangelism’s policy, YWAM students were required to attend and participate in the life of established local churches. Each Sunday, the 29 young people could choose to attend the local Swiss Reformed Church, the Salvation Army, and the Brethren Church in and around Chateaux D’Oex. In addition to the YWAM students going out into the local church community to build relationships, they invited their fellow congregants and community members to attend open lectures and weekly community nights at YWAM’s home in the annex of Hotel Rosat. Borrowing the open-door policy practiced by another evangelical ministry in Switzerland – the L’Abri Fellowship, founded by US Presbyterians Francis and Edith Schaefer in 1955 and with whom Loren and Darlene Cunningham cooperated – YWAM fostered informal local friendships that led to mutual relationships and interdenominational partnerships in Switzerland and Europe.

The School of Evangelism’s practical focus fostered formal ecumenical partnerships as they sought churches to place students for language and cultural immersion and to practice evangelism. During the School’s formal lectures in Switzerland, student teams partnered in evangelism with the Swiss Brethren, German Lutherans, German and Swiss Pentecostals, Canadian Mennonite missionaries the Janz Team, and a Spanish church in Geneva in 1969 (Huxley, 1990: 5-13). After the first school finished in the spring of 1969, student teams ministered with missionaries, local churches, and evangelistic ministries in Germany, France, Spain, and Kenya. As the YWAM students scattered to spread the good news, so their partnerships also expanded as they sought to fulfill their goal of evangelism and conversion.

One example of YWAM’s increasing missional ecumenism that stretched beyond the bounds of Protestantism took place during the Spanish Summer of Service in 1969. The small team of young people was composed of students from the first School of Evangelism on their practicum and a new group of North Americas that came to join the second School of Evangelism due to start in the fall of 1969. The Spanish team worked with long-time Italian American AG missionary Daniel Del Vecchio in Torre Molinos and Malaga on the Costa del Sol in Spain. Under Franco, Protestant religion was suppressed and evangelism of any kind was illegal. Given this strict prohibition, the YWAM team worked with Del Vecchio to evangelize among North African refugees and Northern European tourists.

One morning after their group prayer time concluded, the team felt that God directed them to meet with the Roman Catholic Bishop of Marbella (Akimoff and Akimoff, 2024). To their surprise, the Bishop welcomed them and after hearing about their desire to share the message of Jesus Christ with the young people of Spain the Bishop concluded that these young people before him were the “Jesus People” he had heard about. Contrary to the Biship of Marbella’s assumption, the YWAM’s Spanish team members belonged to Pentecostal families, went to Pentecostal Bible colleges, and were active in evangelism and mission. The first cohort of YWAM young people did not come from the masses of hippies in California who converted to evangelical Christianity in the revival movement that became known as the “Jesus People” (Eskridge, 2013). Rather than correct the Bishop and attempt to school him about their religious identity, the team gladly received his blessing. He charged them to do everything they could to win the young people of his bishopric back to Christ. With that, the YWAM team began making friends with local youth on beaches and sharing their faith. They also secured some meetings at Catholic parishes by mentioning that they had met with the Bishop and had his blessing for their ministry.

To mid-20th-century Pentecostal sensibilities, cooperating with Roman Catholics for the sake of evangelization would have still been suspect. For the Spanish YWAM team, it was a miracle wrought by God. Stepping outside of the increasingly broad Christian tent of the 1960s, YWAM’s New Zealand Summer of Service and second Around-the-World team in 1969 collaborated with a Muslim official in Indonesia. For Christians in Indonesia, this development may not have been anything outside of the normal interreligious cooperation known to many of the Islands’ religious and ethnic groups. The Around-the-World Team led by Sally and Floyd McClung worked in Indonesia with a YWAM group from New Zealand led by Ross and Margaret Tooley for two months. Most of their ministry was done in partnership with evangelical and Pentecostal churches and missionaries. They preached on a local Mennonite radio station and held evangelism trainings for the youth of Christian and Missionary Alliance churches. One story, however, would have blown the minds of the New Zealand, North American, and European YWAM participants and their home churches and families unfamiliar with the tradition of interreligious cooperation in Indonesia.

Ross and Margaret Tooley recounted that their YWAM team was invited by a local Muslim governor to hold open air meetings where they would preach about salvation in Jesus Christ. With the blessing of the Governor, the team reported that of the 400 attendees, many came “forward to receive Christ and others for healing,” (Tooley, 1970: 14). While Margaret Tooley’s account does not provide the complex context of Indonesia’s religious history and current events of 1969 and 1970, the invitation that the YWAM team received from a Muslim governor was celebrated as a work of God enabling the young people to preach to and convert local Muslim Indonesians to Christ. This example from Indonesia in 1969 reveals that YWAM was open to build bridges with anyone, evangelical, Christian, or otherwise, willing to work with them.

Conclusion

Early YWAM teams were eager to cooperate with anyone willing to allow them to preach the message of salvation and healing in Jesus Christ. Even if the majority of YWAM’s global partners and co-workers consisted of evangelical churches, independent ministries, and mission organizations, YWAM exhibited an openness to collaborate with anyone who shared their evangelistic impulse or were passively willing to let them preach and minister. Free from a denominational structure or an explicit doctrinal confession, YWAM’s commitment to world evangelization and mission guided its mission projects, solidified its welcome in historic and emerging global mission networks, expanded its friendships, and fostered new partnerships with Tongan Free Wesleyans, German Lutherans, Canadian Mennonites, and Spanish Roman Catholics.

In addition to the ecumenical impulse of the era, the effect of the Charismatic Renewal in and on YWAM and an increasingly international constituency of young missionary evangelists from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds inspired the Pentecostal-rooted mission to develop lasting relationships and formal collaborations with groups on the fringe of or beyond the evangelical mission world. Evident in the later part of the 1960s, YWAM’s widening ecumenical vision for the sake of world evangelization endeared it to churches, denominations, and organizations that had previously opposed Pentecostal forms of Christianity and loathed uninvited evangelistic competition. YWAM’s commitment to preach a “non-denominational” gospel that focused on “a personal relationship with Jesus that is so real that a person’s life can be changed,” (Wilson, 1967: 4) was the good news many struggling churches and strained pastors had been waiting for. With the youthful zeal of its willing volunteers, YWAM’s evangelical missional ecumenism facilitated the creation of new collaborative mission partnerships and extended its message and ministry beyond the confines of denominational structures and closed networks. Presently with over 18,000 volunteer missionaries from 130 countries working in over 1200 locations around the world (YWAM.org, 2025), YWAM’s ability to mobilize the world’s Christians in voluntary evangelization and pioneering faith mission has made it a household name in modern evangelical Christianity. YWAM’s reliance on cooperation as a mission strategy and its commitment to preach a “non-denominational gospel” have allowed it to befriend confessional adversaries and unite missionary competitors in its efforts to “know God and make Him known.” ³