After a disussion I had with some other members of the YWAM ICT I setup a simple YWAM news site. The goal for the site is to help communicate what is happening around YWAM to anyone who is interested.

The site is built on Wordpress, a free open source CMS / blog engine. I used Google Feedburner to deliver the news via email because it was easy and free. There are many different free themes available for use with Wordpress, so I played around with a few and finally settled on the one that is currently running on the site.

To help with the functionality of the news site I added a few Wordpress plugins to it. Most are available for free (all the plugins I used were free) and are easy to install on the site. I’ll put a list of my current plugins, the template and the other resources used for the site at the end of this post.

Right now the site is really more of a prototype or proof of concept news site. Trying to gather stories by myself is a very time consuming job (hence why there is not too much up there). To really make the site or concept work would require either a lot more time on my part, or more people doing it. I would also want the site to do more than just aggrigate the news (Planet YWAM already does some of that), there needs to be some editorial work involved, and a simple script or plugin can not do that.

Have a look at the YWAM News site and tell me what you think.

Here is the list of resources, plugins and the template that I used:

CMS / Blog Engine

• Wordpress

Template

• WP Premium theme by WP Remix - Nice and clean theme with the e-mail subscription built right in. Available in three different colour variations.

Plugins:

• Contact Form 7 - for contact, feeback and submit story form
• Dragon Design Sitemap Generator - Generate sitemap
• Digg Digg - The Digg button on each post to submit the story to Digg
• Google Analyticator - Plugin used to tie in with Google Analytics, which allows me to see the stats for the site (about 10 visits a day right now)
• Google XML Sitemaps - Create an XML sitemap for submission to the search engines
• Redirection - Mostly for when I mispell something in the URL and then change it. This plugin lets the old URL still work
• Social Bookmarking RELOADED - Makes it easier for readers to submit the stories to social networks and bookmarking sites
• WordPress Database Backup - Allows automated backups of the database to be e-mailed to me every day or week
• WP-SpamFree - Eliminate annoying spam comments
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin - Adds related stories that are already on the site to the individual stories, and the RSS feed and daily news e-mail

Other Resources

• Feedburner - Used for the e-mail function to send out the stories daily to anyone who subscribes in the top right of the page
• Google Analytics - Package for the web-site to help me see the stats about what’s happening on the site
• Host Gator - My web-site hosting, which is the only thing that I pay for on the site

Seth asked a few good questions, and made some good points, and I have a few of them below:

1. Who are you upsetting (if you aren’t upsetting someone you are not challenging the status quo)?
2. Who are you connecting?
3. Who are you leading?

He also made some good points about leaders within the tribe and what they do:

1. Tribe leaders challenge the status quo
2. They build a culture
3. They have curiosity about people inside and outside the crowd
4. They connect people
5. They are committed to the cause / tribe / people

YWAM has often been referred to as a tribe of people, and I reckon that Seth’s talk about it gives a great discussion point as we look at how we can as a mission continue to draw people to us who have a passion “To Know God and to Make Him Known”.

In the last week or so we have seen God provide for us in two rather unique ways…

A few friends of friends heard that we had just moved to Calgary from Australia and were setting up our house from scratch. They contacted us through our friend with offers to go through their surplus stuff and take all that we wanted! It was amazingly generous and we ended up with a van full of quality stuff to help set up our new home.

Through another friend we got invited to their church garage sale with a difference. The difference was that it was open to families in need, and everything was free! Wow! We filled the back of a pickup truck and my dad’s sedan with gear to help us out even more in setting up our house.

God is good…

We take posession of our house here in Calgary on Monday, June 1. The house is about 120 years newer than the one we left in Australia, and needs WAY less work done to it. I am looking forward to seeing how God continues to provide in His own unique way.

Everyone who has done a YWAM Discipleship Training School has walked away with their own unique stories. I thought that it would be fun to gather some of those stories stories together in a “YWAM DTS Blog Carnival“.

So how does the YWAM DTS Blog Carnival work?

To participate in this carnival all you need to do is write your DTS story on your own blog, with a link to this post. If you already have a story written then you can just add a link to this post and you can submit it. After you have written your story make a comment below on this post to let me know you have written it.

On July 1 2009, I will close submissions to the carnival and start to put all the posts together. I will be linking to all the stories that meet the criteria (true stories from your own YWAM DTS) in a final post and highlighting some of my personal favourites.

Your story can be about any aspect of your school; lectures, outreach, finance, etc. Here are some story ideas from my own YWAM DTS that instantly come to mind:

• Falling off a cliff while running away from God’s conviction
• Camping in the middle of nowhere and digging our own pit toilets
• Getting high on paint fumes while painting an enclosed room in a Pastor’s house in Charters Towers
• Getting left at the airport when we first arrived in Vanuatu, and no one noticing you were missing for a few hours
• Getting forgotten for a second time while in Fiji, but this time at least knowing how to get to where we were meant to be
• Three weeks of dysentery while on outreach
• Being taught to dance in a small village in Vanuatu
• Experiencing amazing hospitality while door knocking in an Indian neighbourhood in Fiji
• Crashing a billy-cart while on outreach in the Sunshine Coast and driving over my passenger, breaking a few of his ribs

Those are some of my stories, but I would love to hear about some stories from your own school. If you don’t want to write them down, then how about recording it on YouTube or an audio file and putting them in a blog post? We can work with that as well.

So again, here are the steps to participate in the YWAM DTS blog carnival:

1. Write your YWAM DTS story on your own blog
2. Link to this post from your story
3. Leave a comment on this post with a link to your story
4. I will be closing submissions on the 1st of July, so do all the above before then
5. Stay tuned to this blog to find out about all the submitted stories

YWAM Reef to Outback Internet News - 4th Edition - October 2003

Here are the stories that were covered back in October 2003:

• YWAM School of Event Management (SEM)
• October YWAM DTS (Discipleship Training School)
• Discipleship Training School Camping Testimonies
• Role of Intercession in YWAM

I remember making the Monthly Video Podcast was definitely a highlight of my month. We used to keep it short and small, usually under 5MB, as back in 2003 there was still a lot of people on dial-up.

In this episode, and all those before it I would have to write out the news and read it off the paper on my deck. I also thought that my glasses reflected the lights too much, so I always took them off.

Judging by me laughing while trying to start the show I reckon that it was probably David Couper doing the filming. I always had a hard time keeping a straight face when he was around.

YWAM Reef to Outback Internet News - 5th Edition - November 2003

By November 2003 we had started to do the video podcast using a TelePrompTer. It was actually just a PowerPoint slideshow on my laptop, which was propped up under the camera, but it worked.

In November 2003 the news highlights at YWAM - Reef to Outback were:

• Impact Summer
• July and October Discipleship Training School (YWAM DTS) Updates
• The Important Role that Families Play in YWAM
• Birth of Joyous Hope to Luke and Angela Haythorpe

Since then the Video Podcast at YWAM - Reef to Outback has continued on. It’s gone through a few stages of inactivity, but is now running fairly consistently, five and a half years after I started …

Here is the latest YWAM - Reef to Outback Internet News:

YWAM - Reef to Outback inews episode 20

I have no idea where they got the new episode numbers from, I think that they abandoned the episode numbers that I started quite a while ago now. This means you may find a few episodes with the same numbers going.

Reef to Outback also has a lot of Mac lovers / worshippers / cult members. Hence the “i” in inews.

A term used … to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. (source)

The “first place” is defined as your home, the “second place” as your place of work or school, and the “third place” is the informal meeting places that are in between the first and second place. The place where you meet with your friends for social occasions.

Starbucks has tried to position itself as the “Third Place” in peoples lives around the world, and in many regards they have been quite successful at it. Starbucks is the place where people go to hang out, relax, read a book, browse the Internet and of course, and grab a coffee. It’s the stopping point between work and home.

Let’s take another example…

Think of the Television series Friends. Their “Third Pace” was a coffee shop called The Central Perk. It is where, besides the home, most of their interaction with their friends takes place.

Now, imagine if YWAM could position itself as the “Third Place” in the communities they minister into.

I was privileged to spend most of the first 11 - years of my time in YWAM at Reef to Outback in Townsville, Australia. One of the things that I saw develop over my time there was it slowly becoming a “Third Place” to some of the youth in the city.

You would see the young kids hanging around the YWAM base after school, sometimes with the YWAM staff, and sometimes just hanging out with each other. But to them, Reef to Outback had become a place for them to just come, relax and chill out.

This was a fantastic privilege for us at YWAM - Reef to Outback. It gave us input into the lives of these kids that otherwise would definitely not exist. Reef to Outback has become these kid’s “Third Place”, and as they spend time there the ethos of YWAM, and who the staff are, can’t help but rub off onto the kids.

So, what are you doing to make your YWAM ministry into a “Third Place” for those you are called to minister to?

Or even, do you want your ministry to be a “Third Place”, is it relevant for what God’s called you to?

When we found out who Caleb’s possible teachers were going to be one of the first things that we did was to go home and “Google” the teachers names. We wanted to find out who they were, what they stood for, what they were involved with and of course, do we want this person teaching our child?

I can guarantee that we were not the only parent’s to do this, and I know that employers are doing the exact same thing with job applicants. Here is a good example of three job applicants, and three bad search results.

When we searched for Caleb’s potential teachers we found that one was heavily involved in their church, and the other one was involved in short term mission trips with her family. Both of which were very encouraging finds for us as parents.

But what if we had found a binge drinking party animal, or someone who was having a whinge about their students on a blog? I reckon we would have been walking into the school and requesting NOT to have that person as our kid’s teacher.

In the days of Facebook, MySpace, camera phones, blogs and an unrelenting desire for exhibitionism in some people I can guarantee that you are being searched for, and found.

What are people finding when they search your name?

Update:

Slashdot has a great ongoing discussion about this exact topic, and the ethics of searching for potential employees here.

The main target audience for Youth With A Mission - YWAM is the young generation, “Generation Y”. Many of our leaders and teachers within YWAM come from the same generation as Louis LK (Baby Boomers), or from Generation X (where I fit in). This leads to challenges as we learn to work together to fulfil what God has called YWAM to.

I can mostly speak for the YWAM base that I have worked with here in Australia, so my views do not represent all YWAM bases, but here they are …

The YWAM staff generational demographic population can be viewed as a pyramid. The boomers at the top (there a smaller number of them), generation X in the middle, and a rapidly growing generation Y at the bottom:

Now, just to make it clear, this pyramid doesn’t represent the leadership structure at the location I was at, only the distribution of age and population. YWAM has many leaders from all three of the generations. One thing that YWAM really seems to excel in is the encouragement of young people into positions of leadership.

I had the privilege of attending a seminar about working with Generation Y. It was very interesting and opened my eyes to the fact that I was working with them as if they had the same motivations as I did, as Generation X. But that doesn’t work …

So how is Youth With A Mission, an organisation founded by boomers, grown by Generation X, and now being joined by Generation Y, to work together toward the goal of “To Know God and to Make Him Known”?

Here are some interesting Generation Y attitudes:

Attitude Towards Training

• “Must entertain me and enable me to do meaningful things with it.”

Attitude Towards Work

• “My work will help to change the world.”

Attitude Towards Changing Jobs

• “I will constantly be changing my job.”

These ideas were taken from Sustainable Employee Motivation here. There are a lot more interesting ideas on that page if you want to check them out.

So, let’s get some input from you now:

1. How are you and your ministry working together with the Generations towards fulfilling the Great Commission?
2. What challenges are you having and how are you overcoming them?

Today however in a recently subscribed to blog I came across a real gem of information.

The International Missions Board is making available a whole boat load of missions and ministry focuses photos available, for free for individuals and churches who need multi-cultural photos for web-sites, presentations, videos, etc.

From reading the original article that I found what you can see in the IMB gallery at the moment is only a bit of what will be made available soon for use.

At the moment you can check out about 160 free photos of people, places and events. The photos are all very high quality and can potentially add a lot to whatever project you are needing them for. Already they are a great resource for Christian Missionary Pictures, and they should be even better once the full gallery has been added.

Unfortunately there are no missions related IT or Communication type photos in the gallery. Those are the type of photos that I am needing right now as I prepare new support materials to help us make up the $1330 budget deficit that we will be shoulder with when we finally make the move to Canada.

You can check out the photo over at the IMB Picasa Web Album.

Source: Mission Leader - Want Great Mission Photos?

I am also going to avoid for the moment the discussion about short-term missionaries and the value that actually comes from that. There are some good discussions and debates from both sides of that topic, so I will include short term and longer term opportunities through YWAM.

Youth With A Mission has many ways that people can become involved in Cross Cultural missions. Every year over 200,000 mostly young people go through YWAM missions programs around the world. Here are a few options that are available:

• Mission Adventures
• Discipleship Training School
• Business as Missions
• School of Frontier Missions
• Joining YWAM Staff

Mission Adventures

Mission Adventures is a popular very short term missionary opportunity with YWAM. It is usually a 1 - 4 week opportunity that is usually geared towards a youth group or school group.

There are two phases to a typical mission adventures program, the training phase and the outreach phase.

Training

The training phase of Mission Adventures includes worship, teaching and training on who God is and how to share about Him.

Outreach

The outreach phase consists of a cross cultural missions experience organized by the YWAM staff for the group. This phase gives opportunity for the individual and group to put into practice what they learned during their training phase.

Many different opportunities are available during the outreach. This may include:

• Evangelism
• Prison Ministry
• Construction Projects
• Children’s Ministry

To find out more about Mission Adventures you can visit their primary web-site here.

Discipleship Training School

The Discipleship Training School (YWAM DTS) is probably the cornerstone school for YWAM training around the world. Over a third of YWAM locations around the world focus on delivering quality Christian training programs, and most of them would be offering the YWAM DTS.

20 - 24 weeks is the usual duration for a YWAM DTS. The first 12-weeks of so of the school is spent in lectures. The primary topics covered during the lecture phase of the Discipleship Training School are:

1. The Nature and Character of God
2. God’s Plan for individuals, nations and the world
3. Sin and Redemption through the Cross
4. The Church
5. The Great Commission

A live & learn type environment is employed at most YWAM locations for the DTS. This means that  not only are the participants learning in a classroom, but by living with their staff and students they are having to live out what they are learning. It can be challenging, especially living with people from other cultures and denominational backgrounds, but it is an exciting time.

After the lecture phase the last half of the school is spent on a cross cultural outreach. Like Mission Adventures there are a lot of different opportunities available during the outreach, and because it lasts much longer, there is a much greater chance to engage in more of them.

My own YWAM DTS outreach experiences, as staff and students, have included:

• Rebuilding homes in Dili, East Timor
• Living in a Village in Mele, Vanuatu
• Praying for the sick in a hospital in Port Vila, Vanuatu
• Door Knocking in Nadi, Fiji
• Sharing my Testimony in a High School in Darwin, Australia

The YWAM DTS is the gateway to more involvement in Youth With A Mission, including the second level schools and joining staff.

Learn more about the YWAM DTS, and where you can do one, here.

Business as Missions

I’ve decided to include Business as Missions as an opportunity here because:

1. One of my best mates is doing a course in it right now
2. It is a fantastic opportunity for cross cultural missions

Business as Missions (BAM) is a unique opportunity to learn how to use a gift and calling to business and use it to open doors not available to "traditional" styles of missions. Running and setting up a business can allow access to areas usually out of reach to normal forms of missions. Business as Missions initiatives could look like:

• Coffee shop in a Muslim Country
• Textile factory in a Communist Country
• Import / Export Business in a Hindu Area

There are unlimited possibilities of where Business in Missions could lead someone if that is where God has called them.

Youth With A Mission offers a Business as Missions course that covers areas of business as well as Christian character to help people interested in it. I’ve read some of the material used and it’s pretty interesting stuff. You can find out more about this course here.

School of Frontier Missions

Youth With A Mission offers dozens of "second level" courses at their various locations around the world. To participate in any of these schools in YWAM the first port of call is the Discipleship Training School. After that most of the other courses are available to be pursued.

The goal of the School of Frontier Missions is to equip Christians to live and work amongst those forgotten people groups who have had little or no exposure to the message of God’s grace in Christ Jesus. This is pretty much THE course to take in YWAM if you are wanting to engage in long term cross cultural missionary work. The course covers:

• History and Biblical Basis for Missions
• Understanding World View and Culture
• Church Planting Principles and Methods
• Cross-Cultural Preparation
• Support Raising
• Language
• Prayer

After the lecture phase there is then the Field Placement. This is more than a short term outreach as the goal is for long term missions work in the cross cultural setting.

You can search for locations that offer the school here.

Joining YWAM Staff

Joining staff with Youth With A Mission can be an amazingly rewarding experience in missions. It is different for every person who does it and can be a 3-month experience, or a lifetime experience.

If you can think of a career, then you can probably do it in YWAM. The pre-requisite for joining staff with Youth With A Mission is to complete a Discipleship Training School. After that some locations have introductory courses that you need to do before becoming full time staff (Basic Leadership School (BLS), Phase 2, School of Evangelism (SOE), etc), but the YWAM DTS is the launching point.

YWAM does not pay a wage and everyone in YWAM is responsible for raising their own support for the work that they do. This goes for everyone from the brand new staff member to the International Chairman.

You can read more about what staff opportunities are available in Youth With A Mission at their web-site here.

You can read about my personal journey to where I am now as a missionary for the last 10-years in my last article, How I Became a Christian Missionary.

* This post is a part of the Missionary Blog Carnival on "Advice for People Wanting to be Missionaries".