Last week I was asked to do some debriefing for 28 people who have just finished their time with YWAM and are now heading back to the real world. We talked about how to understand what happened and Plant it in the short term at the next place they were going. The second area was Growing through developing your identity over the medium term. Finally, we discussed how to Bear fruit that will remain into the next generation.
I recorded the sessions and afterwards one of the staff members mentioned to me that it was the best debriefing session he had ever been in. Taking the encouragement, I thought I would make it available to a larger audience and have created a page called Life After YWAM.
Please share this with people you know who have been through YWAM and may need a little encouragement in this difficult transition.
If you don’t mind, would you take a minute and answer at least one of the questions below for discussion?
1. Can you describe how the transition went from YWAM to your real world? Smooth? Did people ‘get you’?
2. What was significant about your time in YWAM and did that stick in the next phase of your life?
3. Are you dissapointed with how you living now compared to what you hoped would happen?
4. Did you move into an encouraging environement that supported your aspirations?
5. What advice would you give to YWAM or present DTS students to prepare them for life after YWAM?
Great stuff! I’ve only listened to the Relationships one, but will get the others soon.
You mentioned how people enjoy being in your home in that session. I know it was true for me in Germany. I miss being able to sit down with you and the family and talk about all kinds of things. Those were good times.
So until I can sit and chat with you again face-to-face, audio sessions like this will have to suffice.
— Chris Aug 15, 10:16 AM #
Well, you know where we live… the door is open Chris if you feel like visiting the most beautiful country in the world (according to Peter Jackson anyway).
— Patrick Aug 15, 05:15 PM #
Yea, it’s a real cool subject you are bringing up here.
I will try to come with some inputs for question nr 1.
Even though I am in the middle transition from YWAM into the real world I still think it has been a success in many areas of my transition. I have been back for 8 months, but my transition started at least 11 months before I moved back and I think that is one of the reasons for my success. I am very surprised how smooth it went and still is.
Does that mean that people get me? No, not even close, but that is not my goal either, I want to know where they are, before I will show them where I am. I got to know their understanding before I can make myself understood. If that means that I will be in my transition an other year then that’s fine with me.
— Mogens Aug 21, 07:37 AM #
Patrick,
as i mentioned in my email to you, thanks for the reminder about such beauty and experience. and thanks for reminding me how the DTS isn’t a fix-all surgical procedure that sets things right—it provided me the chance to get back in the game, as you put it. yes i am quite disappointed with the years following YWAM, as what i dreamt would be immediately following still seems ahead. patience and planning and process do get the best of me. i’ve consequently found the 700 club eschatology rather appealing these days. just end this already God: Christ descending at the 2000 Olympics, atop the Harbour Bridge in Sydney (still one of your finest jokes, by the way).
Zadok
— Zadok Aug 21, 08:59 AM #
(1) Smooth, busy and with mixed feelings! Or possibly smooth because of being busy. After the DTS I stayed some more days around (not at) the base with other students of my DTS, hanging around, enjoying the beach and the location (Cape Town), saying goodbye, .... I guess it was important not to leave head over heels. But once I was back home I was busy for almost one year (I still had to finish my diploma thesis of my studies and to find a job). During that time I kept in touch with a lot of people which I met during the DTS – and with some of them I still have contact, what is really great. (4) Besides this I attended a new church which fit best to what I experienced during the DTS and what God was changing in my life. Here I got the best support to grow – more teaching, more truth, more deepening of my relationship with God. Afterwards I stumbled over a church planting project in my town where I got (and am still) involved. Here I got challenged and encouraged thanks to the quite young leader there. He helped me to give and to put into practice what I have learned over the last months/years.
(2) Relationship – to God and other people! Closeness to God! The Holy Spirit!
(3) No not disappointed, but it took me some time to find out that extraordinary calls are very rare (which I probably expected within 2-3 years after DTS :-)) and God wanted me to live my life in “the real world” and not in the bushbush (at least for the time being?).
(5) @students: Take some time to say goodbye to the bubble “YWAM base”. Keep in touch with a very few people of your DTS (2-3, more will not work out or you will loose them all). Hang out with other YWAMers at your home town from time to time – cos they really get you – and to share the happiness about the DTS. Keep in touch with classic mission – it doesn’t matter in what way (conferences, support for missionaries, mission builder, short term outreaches). Keep you busy and have already some plans for your time after DTS before you start with the course. Continue/finish what you started before the DTS. And last but not least GROW UP, GET INVOLVED and TAKE OVER RESPONSIBILITY in the local church. If you can’t grow in your “old” environment, look for a better environment. You have changed, your folks back home probably not. They still pigeonhole you unconsciously and you will find it hard to keep out of that “old” box. If you remain in your old environment do not try to change them within a second. Think positive and do not condemn your “bad, old” environment. They did not have such an intense and great time as you had!
@leaders: Keep in mind that classic mission is not the call for everybody.
— Jens Aug 22, 11:17 AM #
1. Can you describe how the transition went from YWAM to your real world? Smooth? Did people ‘get you’?
i had gone to college and worked in a few different jobs already before i finally went to YWAM at the age of 27. so i don’t know if my transition was typical. it was tough to come back only because my time in YWAM had actually undercut my ability to some degree to know what direction to go in life. i was upset because i realized that the tools i had been given were not tools that taught me how to commit well to any particular endeavor. i didn’t know what to do. and so i ended up feeling resentful of YWAM to some degree. there were other things, of course, that played into my emotions, but for about a year after coming back from YWAM, i was really fed up with church in particular and Christianity in general, and i traced it in a large part to my YWAM experience.
i didn’t care about people “getting” me. after all, their lives had gone on while i was away, too, and there was a lot i didn’t know about. it sometimes sucked to find out that other people knew more about what was going on in my family and friends’ lives than i did.
2. What was significant about your time in YWAM and did that stick in the next phase of your life?
probably the most significant POSITIVE thing was that God was really working on my understanding of who he was. i had always had a hard time believing in God’s grace toward me personally. throughout my time in YWAM, and then afterward, God continually reminded me, in very gentle ways, that he loved me… he loved me very much.
it was hard to understand that after YWAM, because of going through my time of frustration with church… i was not involved actively in any sort of service, or anything else. i felt a little like an athlete in a big game, who suddenly got benched due to an injury, and had to watch from the sidelines. but is the athlete any less a part of the team? i struggled with realizing that God still saw me as part of the team, even though i was hurting and couldn’t give to it the way i thought i had been.
3. Are you dissapointed with how you living now compared to what you hoped would happen?
a little bit. not because i thought i would be this world-traveling missionary… but because i don’t know that i have gotten better at exemplifying Christ in my everyday life. i feel like i make more compromises now than i did when i was younger. on the other hand, i know i am much more honest in the way i approach God, through my prayers, etc. i am more aware of my brokennes, and more aware of the ways God extends grace to me. and ultimately, i think, that’s a good thing.
4. Did you move into an encouraging environement that supported your aspirations?
i am blessed to have friends and family who have supported me in pretty much any endeavor i’ve undertaken.
5. What advice would you give to YWAM or present DTS students to prepare them for life after YWAM?
life after YWAM is good. YWAM can be a real bubble, and you can get so caught up in the awesome worship times, the impactful intercessions, etc., that you forget how to cope when the worship times are dry, when life is humdrum and boringg, when prayer is not full of spectacular words or events. what do you do then? do you blame yourself for not being spiritual, or are you willing to say, “Lord, til death do us part, for richer or poorer, in sickness, in health”? because if YWAM is like a honeymoon with God, then life outside of it (or inside of it, if you stay for a long time) is the marriage… and i’m sure any married person will testify to the fact that marriage is not all fun and roses.
i would say, if you are putting your faith and trust in the things that made you feel good about being in YWAM, then you will have problems when you aren’t in YWAM anymore. the trap that we can fall into in YWAM is valuing the gifts more than the giver. be careful about that.
finally, be honest with God about how you feel. if you are going through hard times and you’re disappointed at how things are turning out, tell him! he can handle it. and he can help. just don’t cut those communication lines with him.
— grackyfrogg Sep 2, 11:25 AM #