YWAM Launches New Leadership, Returns to Holiness
Over 1,200 leaders from 90 countries gathered in Chiang Mai and introduced a group of 41 elders from 24 nations.
YWAM launches new global leadership at a delicate moment. In September, more than 1,200 leaders from 90 countries gathered in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for the Global Leadership Gathering, YWAM reported.
A transition that began with repentance
The transition starts with repentance, not applause. The guest speakers were Phil Manginelli, lead pastor of The Square Church in Atlanta, and Allen Hood, founder of Excellencies of Christ. Both focused the gathering on holiness.
Manginelli acknowledged that the movement is going through a major transition: Loren Cunningham, who founded YWAM with his wife Darlene in 1960, died shortly after the previous gathering, in 2023.
«The transition starts with repentance, not applause.»
Manginelli warned that a missionary can become a caricature if they lose their first love, and called for recovering the fear of God. He said the hidden motivations of the heart will one day be exposed, and called for leaving behind the false security of self-sufficiency.
Hood spoke about allegations of sexual misconduct against a leader he had served with. He recalled that having a founder who ended well is an enormous wealth for the next generation, and warned of the danger of thinking you are the answer.
The sessions closed with personal and collective repentance. International leaders admitted they had not always taken reports of poor leadership seriously and committed to strengthening protection protocols.
41 elders from 24 countries
YWAM introduced a Global Eldership of 41 elders from 24 nations and different generations. It replaces the Circle of Founders, which guided the movement alongside Loren and Darlene Cunningham. This group comes alongside the Area Circle Teams, 74 teams that have provided practical leadership by region since 2014.
Garth Gustafson, one of the elders, explained that when a sensitive matter is not resolved locally, an elder who already has a relationship with the people involved steps in. The structure aims to be flatter and to open work in new areas.
The University of the Nations also renewed its presidential team. It includes Faby Ruesga, Garth Gustafson, Edwin Fillies, Giacomo Coghi, and SunAwh Park. Ruesga, coordinator of the gathering, said that serving the least of these leads to the heart of God and that he places the movement in places of influence when it chooses humility.
The Bible that is heard
In the last twelve months, YWAM teams translated 30 complete Bibles and are working on 308 more languages, according to Paul Childers, leader of the oral mother-tongue translation project. That makes the movement the sixth largest Bible translation group in the world, he said.
The method is oral: three people participate—one reads in the bridge language, another records the translation, and another checks it—then the community corrects it and the audio is shared on devices.
In Nigeria, 26 complete Bibles have already been finished. Paul Dangtoumda, national coordinator of YWAM Nigeria, said the New Testament takes three months and the whole Bible, nine. Among the translators are doctors, tribal chiefs, and professors who stay on campuses sleeping in bunk beds. Next year the focus will be on India and South America.
Josh Cole, global elder, summed it up with a simple image: "We have no light of our own. Our only light is Jesus" (Sígueme translation). Like the moon, missionaries only reflect the light of another.
Long before, Paul wrote: "For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Corinthians 4:5, ESV).
Mark Anderson, another elder, recalled that YWAM is a small part of a much larger church. He mentioned that there are about 2.3 billion children and adolescents under 18 in the world, almost one in three people. In addition, a map of unreached peoples was shown: many of the remaining places are not easy to reach.
You don't need a stage to enter that transition. This week you can pray for a people group that still doesn't have the Bible in their language, join an oral translation project, or serve in your city someone no one notices. What transition is yours?
