Tom Hallas has long been one of our most senior and influential elders in Asia. He is known for his huge “father’s heart” for everyone he meets. He is also a deep thinker. The message that follows, with its horrific opening scene, will provoke any reader to think, reflect, and to wonder at the power of the Truth.
Dear Ones,
Enclosed is a short paper that I wrote to give expression to some of my thoughts after I fell into the ditch in Africa. Waiting for a procedure to open my artery I had some thinking time.
I’m giving you this as I have another paper by another author to send you that more adequately expresses where I have travelled in my thinking to date. This has been a 20 year journey and I am a little more settled now than I was at the beginning with Certificates and Sacrifices.
If you’re interested, I would like to hear from you. Nevertheless, I will pass on to you the other paper in a few weeks.
Dear…. The first calling of YWAM is to send teams of mostly young people to take the Good News about Jesus to those who haven’t heard or understood the life-giving, life-saving message. I am copying two testimonies from teams who are on their Discipleship Training outreach now.
They illustrate how the Holy Spirit works through us when we are doing what He commissioned us to do. The first one is from Madagascar, written by Fiona, who was on staff here at Highfield Oval for several years. The second one is from a DTS team we recently sent from here to Albania. I will add some personal news and requests after these two encouraging stories:
“One of the students who had been heavily involved in witchcraft shared that in the past he would gather people and he would teach, but all he shared was from the kingdom of darkness and led people to death. On the outreach, people gathered to listen to him preach about Jesus and the result was life! Isn’t God amazing? Many students shared how God had healed them from past hurts; one girl said she’d had a very difficult relationship with her mother, but as she was healed and forgave her mother, she could take the first step by telling her mother she loved her.
Their relationship is being restored. One student shared that he was addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs just to cope with traumas he had gone through as a child, but as he was healed from the inside out and delivered, he has been able to break free. “On outreach the students were going door to door and prayed for a lady who had been bedridden for 4 years because of a stroke. She was healed!
A man with a terribly swollen leg, and the pastor’s wife sick with fever were all healed, as were countless others. One of the students who suffered from a debilitating heart condition himself was healed during the DTS. One staff member shared that many Muslims had asked for prayer as they had gone door to door, as a result a number had given their lives to Jesus.
“Many of the villages were going through a drought and needed rain to plant their crops. They asked the students to pray, and when they did, it immediately started raining! Then when the DTS needed to go and do “open airs”
they asked God to stop the rain just until they finished. Once they got home, it started raining again. What a testimony of God’s power!” Here is the team we sent to Albania recently; their update follows.We are now 4 weeks into outreach!
“Last week one of the trainees prayed for a 16-year-old boy, named Klejvis, who said he was a Christian. He had pain in his back which he’d had for over a year. This pain sometimes prevented him from leaving the house. After praying, the pain immediately left his body.
Klejvis then told the team about his friend who was really depressed; she had tried to take her life 3 times; so they prayed for her. When Klejvis got home he received a message saying how happy his friend was feeling!! The trainee maintained contact with Klejvis, meeting him regularly to read the Bible.
Klejvis bought himself a Bible and has been telling his friends in school about how Jesus healed him. In addition, he has been praying for other sick people! He invited them to church the following Sunday and they came! He now sends us messages telling us his favourite Bible verses that he’s read for that day (he reads it at least 3 times a day).
His friends have now also started reading the Bible and are telling him how encouraging they’ve found the gospel of Matthew. Klejvis says he wants to live his life telling people about Jesus like we did for him. The trainee and Klejvis went for ice cream the other day and Klejvis was telling the lady behind the counter how much Jesus loved her! Kleyvis has now asked his pastor if he can meet twice a week to study the Bible with him. God is so good!”
Downs and Ups.
These last few weeks for YWAM Harpenden have been full of “downs and ups”, in that order. Covid restrictions resulted in the fruits of isolation. We stopped meeting together for worship many months ago and, at the time, there were some strained relationships that would have normally been sorted out as a by-product of regular fellowship. Our online meetings were good, but that format is not great for repentance, confession, forgiveness, and restoration. And a discipling missionary community cannot be healthy without the events when God convicts different ones of judging, harsh words, gossip, withdrawing or other offenses against one another.
When some of the restrictions were lifted, we began to get together in teams and then we had a couple of days with the entire community together. The Holy Spirit was faithful to convict me, and others, of the ways we had fallen short of Christlike behaviour. As we confessed to the community, forgiveness was extended and the distances between us were closed. Those days were so fruitful and precious that the whole community decided to meet for another full day to worship and wait on God. I am writing this as our third day together has concluded, and as we hoped, we went deeper still. God has not finished with us and prolonged absence, along with different opinions about how Covid restrictions were applied, have left quite a lot to get sorted out. But we are encouraged that hearts are soft and genuine; honest conversations do have their healing effect. There have been times of repentance and then many sincere words of affirmation. It illustrated again that we don’t expect people to be perfect, but humility paves the way for restoring trust.
My sin was judging others. A couple of people had said or written things that seemed to say that Marti and I and our extended family needed to have less influence in this community. Based upon those few comments, we began to feel unwanted and drew the conclusion that many people were feeling that way. Once we confessed our sin of judging, it helped others to look inside too. What followed were words or notes of encouragement and acceptance. We thank God that we are in a much better frame of mind and emotions now.
All this illustrates that the Lord wants to get his “living stones” sorted out before we make new progress with the physical “stones”. As I have written before, we are at a critical stage of improving this amazing property so that it can be a tool fit for God’s purposes and a “thin place” where residents and visitors experience God’s presence. We have made good progress towards more accommodation but need to see quite a lot of money come in to finish the building, which is known as the Kinahan Lodge, after Peter Kinahan. (Peter worked with me and others for years towards planning improvements and extensions to the capacity of this site before he died of cancer three years ago .) Before we finish the KL, and to enable us to go on and improve the Factory building, we must install a new power supply. That will cost about £400,000 , and without it we are woefully short of electrical energy, so it had to be done now. The foundations have been laid, and the brickwork is starting today.
The last thing we did this morning was to reiterate how God has led us thus far. Then we took up an offering, which came to over £21,000. It was great to see a real sense of sacrificial buy-in from all who live here. However, as of this morning we were still about £120,000 short of the money needed to pay for the new power supply.
Would you please join us in prayer for God’s provision for the remaining £120,000 (about $200,000)? It would be a great encouragement if you would join with us in prayer for this. Completing it will symbolise a breakthrough for training up more ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. If you can think of others who might want to be a part of this, feel free to pass this information along.
The following post is a typical prayer and report letter that I send out every month. If you would like to receive it, please send an email to lgo@oval.com.
It’s early morning and I have just finished a two-hour meeting.My, how life has changed!
This meeting, one in a series of three this week by Zoom, started at 4 a.m.; there were 22 participants and about as many time zones and I was one who “drew the short straw” this time.It was a meeting with the Founders’ Circle of YWAM and we were welcoming and praying over five new couples, from Central America, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and South Africa.Yes, life has changed and YWAM has adapted!
These new members of the group that have been drawn together around Loren and Darlene Cunningham are generally about 20 years younger than Marti and me,but already have around 30 years of YWAM experience on average.I also noticed that most of them spoke of their children and that several of that third generation is already pioneering and leading in missions, via YWAM.
As they each had about 20 minutes to tell their story, we heard of many developments in the spread of the gospel!These are things that few Christians in Europe or North America ever hear about:
YWAM teams have planted 1500 churches amongst the Yao people in Southeast Africa.10, 000 more churches over the past 25 years in Madagascar.
Leadership multiplication on a massive scale.Young Asians pioneering in difficult situations.Africans reaching into the areas where radical Muslims are killing and kidnapping huge numbers.
Darlene had given each of them a few questions so we could get to know them more deeply.I could go on with even more stories and facts we heard this morning…those above are just a few.
About two weeks from now, I will have another series of global meetings, also starting at 4 a.m. GMT, but this time it will be several thousand people convened by a group of our younger leaders mostly in their 20s and 30s, the Malachi Network, so named because of those two verses at the very end of the Old Testament:
Malachi 4:5 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
Marti and I draw great encouragement from seeing these three generations.Each generation is honoring the others and Darlene Cunningham and I have had the privilege of joining and advising the leaders who have catalysed this younger global network in YWAM.
These developments are a fulfillment of a prophetic dream I had about 30 years ago.The dream is recounted on my website at:
Click on the picture
I won’t include a schedule with this newsletter because, though I have quite a few commitments to online meetings, my schedule tends to fill up just a week or two in advance. But my prayer need is that I might keep growing in Christ.I spend such a lot of my time walking and talking with young missionaries here at Highfield Oval and on many Zoom calls each week.Some are in great crises; some are just hungry for God and for revival and some are at turning points in their lives.Our prayer, though, is that all of them would grow in a passionate commitment to follow Christ –wherever, whatever, and forever!
God has clearly spoken to me to “strengthen the steel” in this massive global mission movement and the task seems overwhelming at times.I am so concerned about the power of modern culture to warp and damage young people before they emerge from their teens.We need a deep move of God so that young people are not only redeemed but experience a rapid and thorough change of thinking—the “renewing of their minds” by the Holy Spirit.
Thank you again for your ongoing interest and prayers,
**This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**
In the mid-1970s Loren and Darlene Cunningham were invited to take a few days to stay in a cabin in the beautiful setting of the big Cimarron Valley in Western Colorado. Loren had been instrumental in helping my father to be given a property to steward as a YWAM centre, on which he then established a discipleship project for the many young people giving their lives to Jesus through YWAM teams in Southern California.
While Loren and Darlene were there, Loren was given a very clear word from God about the nature of the Kingdom of God, and how the Gospel message and the Christian values encompassed in it, should be a transforming power for good in all of society. He wrote down the ideas that God was putting in his spirit, and knew that it was a pivotal word, not just for him, but in due course for all of YWAM and, as it turned out, for the Body of Christ.
Later he was in touch with Bill and Vonette Bright, who, as it happened, were also taking a break in Colorado just a short drive away. Loren and Darlene were delighted to have the opportunity to deepen fellowship with the Brights, so Loren put his notes in his pocket, and they drove to a nearby valley to have dinner together.
Later in the evening just as Loren reached for the paper, Bill Bright began to tell him about how God had spoken to him regarding different parts of society and how the Gospel was relevant to all of them. He also had a list, and it was virtually identical to Loren’s list. They knew God was speaking to them, though at the time they didn’t have the language we use now. Loren recognised that these seven areas were the arenas in which our thinking is shaped. So for a time he called them the “mind-moulders”. Others called them “the mountains”, but more widely now in YWAM we call them the “spheres of society”. Both Bill and Loren agreed that there were seven spheres.
They are family, religion, education, economics, government, media and celebration (which includes the arts, entertainment and sports).
Historical Blindness
At that time, Protestant Christian faith, and especially Evangelicals, had been pushed out of the main public square and into the margins of public life. It was widely accepted that religion was a private matter and not a subject for public discourse. However, it was obvious to anyone who read a bit of American or Northern European history that Christian thinkers had articulated the biblical values that undergird the Western world of accountable government and personal freedom. But, it seems that a great blindness had settled on our nations and the values of biblical Christianity had been marginalised. By the 1970s it was clear that those values which had provided freedom and prosperity were being eroded and Christians, especially strongly Bible-believing Christians, had no voice.
A New, Global University
Within two or three years of Loren receiving that word about the seven spheres, it was clear that training in Youth With A Mission was spreading widely and at an exponential rate. Within that context, Loren Cunningham felt that God had spoken to him again, and that YWAM training was, at that stage, the beginnings of a global university. I was one of about 30 YWAM leaders from around the world who gathered for a strategy conference. There Loren asked the question “would you all please take a couple of hours, go away alone, and ask the Lord whether or not He wants us to have a university?” We all came back with the same answer: “yes”. Again we didn’t have all the terminology, so the Pacific and Asia Christian University began in Kona, Hawaii, where Loren and Darlene were just a couple of years into establishing a new YWAM centre.
As we took steps of obedience, reflected on the words God had spoken, and saw extraordinary growth, it became clear that God wanted to train more and more young people to serve in all spheres of society as ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. Personally, when I think back on that I can’t help but recall the Scripture “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Lord will raise up a standard against him”. There was a flood of existential and experimental thinking with a new and entirely subjective approach to values; the idea that there is no such thing as truth was beginning to dominate our universities.
From One to More than 800 in Fifty Years
It seems amazing to me that it is nearly 50 years since that first word about the seven spheres was given to Loren. During that time, well over 1000 YWAM centres have been established, and training courses/schools in the University of the Nations are registered in more than 800 locations.
Though a lot of time has passed, it would still be too early to say that a new reformation has begun, but YWAM is not the only movement working towards the reformation of all seven spheres of society. Many churches and countless other ministries are focusing on one or more of the seven spheres. I am pleased to say that for the most part they understand that this is not about grabbing power, nor is it about the church dominating all seven spheres as it has in some periods of history. It‘s about public service. It’s about excellence in vocations, and it’s about creative communication of God’s ways. You might say it is all about maximizing influence for the common good. Though it is still early days, it now looks feasible, especially with the generation just emerging into adulthood, that we might see a revival of Christian values in all seven spheres of society. This would provide once again a more caring, compassionate, law-abiding, non-discriminatory, equal-opportunity environment in which all people can thrive.
Lynn Green 