THE DTS IS YWAM’S FOUNDATION
by Loren Cunningham (International DTS Consultation – January 1998)
The Discipleship Training School is the foundational building block of Youth With A Mission, the cornerstone of the mission. It is our DNA, our genetic code. The DTS gives vision, it gives understanding, it gives people something to hang on to so that they will understand what YWAM is – and isn’t.
DTS is also a bonding time, a time of impartation, of living and learning. It is not only formal but it is non-formal – intentional, planned informality. (Example: Everyone’s mother tongue is learned informally, never in an academic class.) Informal training is one of the most powerful ways of learning. DTS is a "live/learn" 24-hours-a-day experience because of the principles God has given us.
One of the founding principles of U of N is the scripture 2 Peter 1:5, "First take diligent heed to your faith; add to your faith, character (virtue), add to your character, knowledge." There is a sequence involved. If the DTS is anything, it is about faith and character. You BUILD faith and character. So the sequence must be faith THEN character. That’s the DTS. Only afterwards, the knowledge from other courses may be added.
The church is built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. There is no one more important than Jesus. The cornerstone of everything is Jesus – He is our point of reference.
God has given us foundations for YWAM, and the DTS is foundational to the mission. In the beginning of YWAM, God said, "Start a school." Foundations come at the beginning; they are laid at pioneering times, they are laid underground and they are not highly visible. Pioneers (foundation-builders), are "unknowns" at the beginning and they are not understood. They are like the apostles and prophets in the Bible. No one really perceives what is in their hearts, what their vision from God is, or what they are living for. They appear to be just digging a hole in the ground and filling it with concrete and steel. The DTS was foundational for YWAM and it is foundational to each person who joins the mission. There are no exceptions.
After the foundations are secure, then come the floors (teaching), the walls (evangelism) and the roof (pastors – see Eph 4:11-13). The sequence is of key importance. If the foundations that God has given are unstable or have been moved, the whole building becomes suspect, and in a worst case scenario, comes tumbling down. To change the metaphor, "You shall not move the ancient walls, the boundaries that your fathers have set" (Pro 22:28).
The closer we come to our goal for YWAM (the evangelization of the whole world), the more we must go back and check up on our beginnings, our foundations. We must ask questions like ... "Have they moved? Are they crumbling? Do they need repair, renewal or restoration?"
In the early 1990's, the Lausanne base almost closed because of a decrepit building. God often speaks through the "natural" to get our attention about the "spiritual." The foundations of the old five storey hotel were damaged and the whole building was close to being condemned and torn down. In order to rebuild the structure, the foundations had to be restored before renovation could begin above ground. As the physical renewal started, it also became a time of cleansing our hearts – our spiritual foundations – and asking God to show us where we had gone wrong; a time of asking God to show us where the spiritual foundations had been damaged, destroyed or moved; and a time of praying for God to re-anoint our foundations. Now, in 1998, the base is once again fully functioning.
But God was not only speaking to the Lausanne base – He was just speaking there first. He was also speaking to all of us in YWAM internationally. In YWAM, the scope of our ministry is found in Mark 16:15, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Our expressions of that scope are evangelism, training and mercy ministries. These are what we all do, and have been doing since the beginning: they are integral part of our foundation. First we only did evangelism, but then the Lord showed us the need for training. Jesus Himself first studied the word, then He began "to do and to teach" (Act 1:1-2).
Little by little YWAM’s foundations were laid. Yet we didn’t discover until recently, how important the role of training was – specifically in the DTS – for the laying of those foundations; not only for YWAM, but for every YWAM staff member. Each YWAM staff member needs to carry that DNA, that genetic code. This only comes through a life impartation like that which Elisha received from Elijah. That impartation, that anointing, is passed on and imparted to individuals in a DTS. Bonding to YWAM and its vision comes through the DTS. It is only through the DTS that one becomes a true member of YWAM.
Leaders from other major organizations of the world, seeing that there is an anointing on our DTSs, ask, "What is it that you do in them that we can do?" Whatever it is, it is because God said to do it, and He said to do it in a particular way. When we stray from that way, our foundations will crumble.
Likewise, in all of our lives and ministries, when we deviate from what God has said to us, we stand in danger of toppling down. In YWAM’s case, we have learned that we cannot shortcut the DTS. It is absolutely foundational.