YWAM & Boot Camp Christianity? A Former Insider Speaks Out

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-Brandom.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Paul Hibbs, formerly involved with Y-WAM.

Paul, it's good to have you on and to talk about youth with a mission and all of the intricate details within. You probably know this, I've been communicating with Jenny and a couple of others who have escaped Y-WAM, and it's a broad array of stories. I have some people who say it was devastating to their lives, and their experience is their experience. I can't argue with that, but I have other people contacting me who say, no, it wasn't that bad on our base. There's a wide variety of things. I'm trying to unpack that.

How do you make sense of that? You give another view into this, so I'm very glad to have you on if you could just take a moment and introduce yourself. Yes, I'm Paul Hibbs, I'm relating in Greenmouth, New Zealand, which is on the South Island West Coast, and I've been a Christian since I was a young kid, really. I grew up in what's called the end of the church, and the states will be closest to that, would be the probably Episcopalian church.

I had a solid upbringing in Christianity. From young age, we were saying our prayers, but I would say that I became a Christian about the age of nine, or my own accord. I wouldn't want anyone pushing me to go to church or anything like that.

Mainly, I ended up reading some Bible story books for kids that were actually put out and turned out later on. I found out that it was through the seventh Adventists, but we actually used them in the Sunday school that I went to with them in church. They were very good, I thought, and I believe by reading those.

I went through my teenage years in youth group at the church. After that, I went off to Lewand Wellington and New Zealand, and went to a Baptist church there. I didn't consider anyone's nomination as being the true one.

We knew about Y-Wam in the churches. This was back in the 80s, so it's a while ago and an hour, quite a while ago. But Y-Wam was quite well known in New Zealand. It was actually I understand from what I've read about the mid-60s. They started bases overseas. New Zealand was one of the first to have bases.

So I knew about Y-Wam from my early years. Bloomo pl阒 it 책d and you would be so you knew you were probably going to get a bit of ask to do things you wouldn't want to do necessarily.

Not bad, but there were some stories that you'd hear back of how leaders could be a little bit heavy-handed. And also there were things like you'd sign up when you signed up if you were single, you would just agree to the time that you were on the school that you would not form romantic relationships with other people on the school.

And to me that was, you knew that ahead of time, it wasn't to me, it wasn't controlling. And you were basically, if you thought it through, you were setting yourself apart to set the Lord and to change and grow in the Lord and learn.

And the school that I went to, I didn't, for me, I didn't find anything to untoward. I found the people personable, the leaders were fine. I'm not the, I didn't come from the rebellious background.

That's some did. Just the personalities. So, but there were some things I felt with hindsight. We're a little bit, we're the best way of doing things. I suppose we've talked often about hearing from God and some of the practices of confession of some of that sort of thing.

I think that would have been handled better. So that's a basic summary of my involvement with WOM. And then what happened was I stayed on after the school, because what happened was my mother took Elle with cancer and I flew back from the outreach early to support her in Christchurch.

She was living here on Greenmouth and they had gone across the Christchurch for hospital work. And the base staff were very helpful, very supportive. And I stayed on with what was called support work.

We would go then off and got a factory job for a while and paid the money into the base and they gave me allowance and free ball and food. You'd help out still with duties and stuff.

And then I was time went by. I moved on to living in a normal, you know, I might call it, just an exited WOM involvement, kept in contact with some people. So that's a basic summary of what my involvement with WOM was.

I did go later on to visit a friend in India and she was based in Calcutta. We're now called a Calcutta think it is, or Calcutta to change the name. Um, that was an experience. She was doing what was called primary health care. Um, and I got to see some of the work that we're doing, which I thought was very good.

They went down to a couple of slums where they were helping with particularly with children, yet proper nutrition. Um, I don't know how effective it was long term, but um, it was, was quite impressive what they were doing.

So, yeah, that was a basic summary of my involvement with Wawe. It was not a huge long time and I was certainly not in leadership or working for them for many years. We're having to, um, get support, you know, because you had to, you had to pay your own way.

And some people were, you know, base fees could be quite expensive. So, there was a lot of people who had to, if they were a full time Wawe and staff, they had to fundraise and keep a base going with their finances.

One of the reasons I was really excited to have you on, you are still Pentecostal, but you have read your email correctly. You're not into some of the more extreme forms of Pentecostalism. I have friends who are, I'm not Pentecostal. I'm no longer of that belief set, but I have friends who are and we get along fine.

You know, you can have a conversation with somebody and you can talk about things that both people can come together on. And so I have really, really good conversations, but when you talk to somebody who's in one of those extremist forms, it's almost like you've got to pick fights because they're going to fight you over something if you disagree with the way they believe.

So, very excited to have somebody on who has a different opinion than me, but also somebody I can talk to freely and openly. And one of the things that I'm curious about, I really wanted to know how somebody who is in the Pentecostal movement, not in one of the extreme forms, how they would have viewed youth with a mission, both doctrinally, operationally from a mission standpoint.

What does this look like to a Pentecostal? Well, I think a lot of the Pentecostal side effect was miracles were supposed to happen. And you're supposed to be able to hear from God and get directions. So all that stuff we have been taught before and went away.

So, in many ways, it wasn't that far different from what I believed. And I'd like to say, because I actually wasn't involved with the charismatic movement as a teenager, you know, we believed in speaking in tongues, believed in prophecies and healings, we didn't see that many in hindsight.

So, I've mentioned in my email, I have come to question a lot of the teachings we've had. But it wasn't that far removed while I'm teaching and what their practices when I was there, we were not that dissimilar to what I was used to.

And like I said, I'm not the extreme Pentecostal side of things. Yes, so that it is not. a lot of difference in my view for what I found when I was there and what I've heard when I've listened to some other podcasts on people's experience with YOM.

Some of them, it doesn't seem to be that much different if you go to a DTS of what I experienced nearly 40 years ago. So yeah, they're very similar, I think. Yeah. And we should probably define that.

I was just thinking as you were talking, what if somebody's in this? Well, how would they even know? Is it extreme? How would you define an extreme Pentecostal group? Well, I would say that people that are shaking and falling on the floor.

I know there was about 995, there was a Toronto blessing came sweeping through it. When I was in WOM, we didn't have that, although we had people who would fall over on the ground when they were being prayed for when I was in the WOM school.

But I just want to ask all of that in church services, before I went to WOM in the 80s, even in the 70s. So but in the extreme, I was very, very skeptical of the people barking like dogs and plucking like chucks and jumping around in one foot.

There's absolutely ridiculous. And I think it's, first of all, it's an insult to a Hollisborough absolute total insult to God, that sort of stuff. When you hear stories of a lot of people shaking, you get that out here, you get that in Hindu faith as well, religion, that's what you've got to ask, and that's what I've had to ask over the years, is what really is, if you have a manifestation of something that seems to be a miracle, what's for it, is it?

Do you mind if I give a story of healing I went to once or so? No, absolutely. In fact, I was hoping that you would, because you and I are of the same opinion in this, you can see many of those things happening in other religions.

So sure, go ahead. Yeah. Well, I went, probably about 2001, I had quite a bad back issue, I must have pulled it when I was living in Monmouth, because I'm an IT IT, and in those days the monitors were big chunky, hefty things, and I had a bad back for a few months, and I was walking around, I used to joke, I was walking around like, because it was at the time that the reboot of Planet of the Apes came out, and I was walking around like an extra from Planet of the Apes in pain, but sort of trying to keep myself going.

So I went to a healing meeting with these people that come from Florida, they were lovely, a lovely couple, older couple, and they were into the healing ministry stuff, and before I went out to pray, I was quite praying that I'd be healed, went along, and he got me up, because I said, you don't want anyone up, what do I get healed, I can't be exact question asked, but I went up from my back to get healed.

So he says, I want you to put your stretch arms out, I won't demonstrate too much with the camera, I'm a little bit strange, but I'll stretch my arms out, and in front of me, with my fingers pointed aligned up.

And of course, naturally, he had one shorter than the other, not shorter than the other, but pulled back. And he commanded in the name of Jesus every bone, ligament, muscle, tendon, to align itself in the name of Jesus.

And I was a little bit skeptical of that sort of stuff anyway, because I knew there had been fake half-safe healers but trucked things like slept the show, I thought, was he a league they were trying to extend?

But I would testify on a court of law over the clear confidence that my shoulder rotated on its own accord. And I saw my left arm move out, come back, move back past the tips of my finger, and it was like a rotating action on my left arm.

And no one was touching me, and it was just quite a weird sensation physically. So in my view, I mean, someone might say I was an auto suggestion, it was like I thought it happened.

But yeah, I doubt that very much. So I believe something spiritual happened. But I used to be, I used to talk to people and say, oh, isn't it happened to me? And I felt it quite funny how when you go to groups that believed in miracles and I'd be sitting around talking about, oh, I've got a car park, I've prayed to look at my car park today.

I'd tell that story, and it would be quite quiet, and no one would say anything, and then I move on. So it seems a bit weird when you tell about what would be a quite a physical miracle, people would sort of not believe you.

But I put in that aside, I questioned, was that spirit of God? What I staggered out of the meeting still with the saw back. And in all fairness, that was six weeks into the back injury.

And after about a week and a half, I started walking upright and got better. So people would say maybe there was a healing took place, but it delayed. But I now don't assume, I don't know what I meant, it assumed that that was actually the spirit of God. I just don't know.

Exactly. I've mentioned this maybe one time, but I had a job one time where I was working with a bunch of people from India. And some of them were quite religious. I encountered one Hindu who had accepted Jesus as one of his gods.

And I'm scratching my head, thinking, wait a minute, how is that possible? How do you accept Jesus as one of your plural gods? But this man was very religious, he knew his Bible inside and out. In fact, I became a little bit embarrassed at how little I knew compared to him.

He studied the word like a Christian should, but he would get into talking about some of the experiences he had, not just with the Jesus God, but some of the other gods. And what he's describing is not that unusual if you look at the charismatic movement.

And it made me pause to think, can we, there's this ambition in some of the movements to say, because we have these experiences, that means that God is with us. that's vindication goddess with us.

But my question is, well, vindication of which God, because there are multiple religions that do this, right? And so whenever you, when I'm talking to a Pentecostal, I always want to bring that up to see what they think.

And it's odd that you and I seem to be a lot more aligned than even some of the friends that I have that are Pentecostal in that area at least. So it makes me value your insight look into youth with a mission, because it's grounded in the reality that you can't trust the emotions and you can't trust the experiences, you really have to go back to the doctrine.

And that's what I think it's, I look at the miracles that you hear about in the Pentecostal circles and like my, something they have in my arm. I call them carcass and trinket miracles.

I mean, what is the point of the lot of them? I mean, can we have a raising of the dead please? Can we have a, like in the early church, actually apostles, the whole cities were turned upside down because they helped town.

And it was all done very publicly. And even even, you know, when Lazarus was raised from the dead when Jesus, it was, the grave was smelling. It was a undeniable miracle and it was a big one.

I mean, I'm not trying to say we're looking for a big show, but I'm kind of thinking, you know, our poor went to a meeting in his arm, rotated around on his left arm, rotated around on the shoulder.

Wow, you know, is that really anything to write home about? And as you say, it could be done in other religions too. Absolutely. So when you were working with youth with a mission, you're on the basis.

Did you witness anything that people were claiming were this type of experience? Did they, in other words, were they leaning more towards the Pentecostal experiences than, say, the church that you were attending at the time?

I would say much the same. I mean, the Baptist church I was going to was charismatic. And then that sort of dove toes into Pentecostalism, I think, to a similar thing. So to me, it wasn't that foreign what was going on in the school, but it wasn't too extreme either.

I mean, we didn't have anyone running around like a back and like a dog and dropping up and down on my neck either. And many people were just trying, I suppose they were trying to, you know, it was more of a focus on inner healing.

And that was one of the things I think back now, maybe two intents. It gets very intense with that. And he is very self-focused. And sometimes you just got to get out and forget about yourself.

I know it might be a bit gloomy to say that, but I wondered now whether it gets a bit, just a bit too, of a hot house with the inner healing. I don't know what it's like so much now.

I think it maybe much the same. But yeah, it wasn't. It was a hand that I put it. It wasn't too extreme, but there was certainly people coming in from ministry, I've come up and get prayed for and delivered and people getting emotional and I sometimes, in one other criticism now would be, I think you need to be a bit of, they're not trained psychiatrists or psychologists and it's a dangerous ground to start trying to delve into people's inner trauma and stuff like that without proper training and I think that's where back in the day when I went there was a lot of attitude and rate even in the mainstream

churches of gods beyond the medical side of things, you know, men is inherently flawed so all the doctors and the psychiatrists who really got it wrong and they really just need to get healing from God and I'm not saying I can't, other people have probably have had healing, you know, have been prayed for and a major release from former, I never experienced that, it's just for me it's just been a life goes through your one foot in front of the other and you get on with it and you choose to believe and I've found some ways relief from sexuality or whatever by just singing songs to the Lord.

So in talking with Jenny and some of the other people from youth with a mission, there were several things that they say made life very difficult. In some cases there were people who they didn't have proper food, some had a martyrdom complex where they felt like the suffering that they were having on the base was something that God had directed them towards, Jenny actually, Jenny mentioned that a lot because it led her down a path of wanting to be, to work with people in the psychology of recovery.

So what did you experience or witness if anything with that regards, were there people that were well taken care of or did you see people that might have needed a little bit more than they had?

I didn't see any lack from what I could tell, well my base, the food was, well it was just a pretty average and well I felt we were well provided for, it wasn't like we were missing out in any other area.

Like I say I think my experience was fairly normal or ordinary, I didn't have any really bad experiences myself and like I even, I suppose on the on the outreach, I could have thought maybe their leadership wasn't as strong as they could have been, but I don't know on the whole you, I mean from my point of view I'd say well there are only humans as well and a lot of them were probably only, like I said, like people said, they might have only been Christian in a couple of years and there are, there was natural leadership ability

which I think people have and I think that's what you know you're naturally a leader you can learn a bit of leadership but I think it's a bit miss at times with the leadership quality but ours weren't too bad so overall I think it was really really good in terms of being provided for there was no lack I think yeah I think in some ways some people did say maybe the food was a bit stodgy and you know you put on weight stuff like that you know but again you expect you know you just go well

that's I'm only here for a short time I'm not making a career out of this I didn't plan to stay away from him for years on end unless I've got a call to do so but it didn't happen how the food relates to the experience for the youth it's it's kind of a big deal if you go and they're going to give you a lot of chocolate chip cookies the younger crowds gonna best say hey this is great some of the older crowds gonna say hey this is making me fat and so you can't yeah I guess what I'm trying to say is you can't please everybody you know what I mean

all right we certainly weren't being fed bad bad food I would say it was it was okay like I say it might not have been the fanciest um but one I think one lady did say that she tended to put on a bit of weight when she was a worum because it was a bit stodgy at times um but even when I when I stayed with my friend over in um worum and kill kill cutter uh it wasn't the food wasn't too bad in my view yeah that's kind of the way that I interpret it you're not going to send a bunch of

people to a base and then just not feed them they'd never come back and word would quickly spread through the world hey this is a bad idea yeah so yeah the other thing people have talked about and I'm I'm going to try to handle this delicately because this is a for me it's a little bit of a serious issue there are some people that contact me and I'm trying very hard not to give details to out those people but what they describe basically how how can I say a good way to explain it is it's almost as though it's like boot camp in the army you go and the training is it's more

rigorous than you then should be and I I have friends who are in the army I have friends who um had some issues with the way that the sergeants would try to break you but there's a reason why the sergeant would break the people in the army you break them down you build them back up better and that's the army mentality I've had people who have contacted me with youth with a mission saying similar things I'm not going to say the exact same thing but similar things and I'm trying to put it into perspective how much of that is just their experience how much of it is a shared

experience what would you say in that aspect well yeah there was I do remember having one of the leaders saying that the the William school was designed to break you because their their idea was that people would come from standard churches and And the general attitude in a way was that most churches weren't discipling people, which was the phrase they used.

And that gets into, you know, discipling movement, shepherding movement stuff, I suppose. But their view was that by a lot of questions, but a skirt of church were warming up here. Attitudes weren't changing, ideas weren't changing, and there was not much difference from them when they went out into the world.

Because I think that can be true, and not all words. And I do think if you're born as a sprue of a guide, you're going to change anyway. But the way I ideology was to put you through, like a book camp, as you say, and in various bases I understand of schools that can be harder or softer, I thought ours was in the middle.

And it's just just being given jobs to do and wanting to do them and doing work around the base and helping out. Being asked to do stuff, I understand that there was an attitude and why there could be difficult, deliberately difficult, to make it hard for you.

And we were always prepared for that when I went, because I heard stories of that happening. But and again, it's hilarious from base to base, like my son, my friend, who went there to India, she said she only had one set of leaders that she found difficult.

Nothing else was fine for her, she didn't have much trouble with anything. Yet other people on the base I was with in my school, one lady who was in the army before a few years before the school, she said it was why we were worse than the army.

She found that they treated you better than the army than of why we were. That was how she took it. And yeah, I think it can be sometimes, if you're trying to do the boot camp thing, maybe a backfires on you, on sometimes with people.

And I don't know, I don't know what you mean with the army side of things. I heard stories of a friends of mine who were older, back in the UK, in the 40s and 50s, the boys had the guys had to go off to army training for three months.

And she said they were women, boys, and came out men. So the ladies and the day missed it when they stopped it. And you know, I don't know, is there a place for deliberately putting yourself into position where you're tested to build character?

And that's what the idea and why the DTS was to do it was to try and build character. But unfortunately some people came away feeling they've been feeling a bit damaged by it. You know, and I'm 50 years old, and so my mentality matches what I grew up with.

And we were of a culture that was different than the culture today. You were expected to be hard. You were expected to be broken down and built back up. And so it would not be that out of the ordinary.

We grew up, I grew up watching. GI joke cartoons where they're doing exactly that. But in today's world, it has changed so significantly. I sometimes wonder if it isn't really just a big adjustment that needs to happen from within the organization to match the times because you're not going to find too many parents that want to send their kid to a sergeant in the army. They simply wouldn't do it. So it could be simply that the signs of the times have the era had changed enough and they haven't changed rapidly enough to match it. I think I think with with YWM2, it depended on how strong willed you were. If you

were the person who'd gone out into the world and rebelled against everything, you would have found it harder in the YWM school. If you were more of the person who'd been straight and followed through and done what was the rebellious type, you probably wouldn't have found it as hard.

But again, I think that we're from base to base and humans, people are human. Even if you're a question, of course, you can be a hard person to deal with and if you have a leader who gets it a bit of a power truck. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Steven Montgomery,

John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. So you mentioned the word power trip and I want to go a

little bit deeper with that. And talking with Jenny and thinking through the Seven Mountains Mandate, from the top, from the global organization structure, there seems to be this ambition of power because you can't, you almost can't have the Seven Mountains Mandate without some sort of an elitist mentality. You're going to take over all of these mountains of conquering government, and so it makes me wonder, I came across a newspaper article where earned backster of the shepherding movement is visiting these bases. So he's bringing with him all of his theology that's based on a hierarchy of authoritarian control, which the shepherd movement was later exposed for.

But if that's coming on to the bases and you find that the top has this agenda of seven the mountains mandate, it makes me wonder how much of this cascade is down and how much of it do you actually see when you're on a base.

Did you experience anything that felt like authoritarian control? Not really. In that area, I didn't feel that. No. And I think when I was there, I was trying to work, I was trying to remember while I was on the, I was still on the base and I got a few meetings when I was doing the support work.

And then he was, they'd gone off to a conference and one of the guys came back and he was, he was about to go to a conference, no, a Waiwan conference in Wellington, I think it was.

And he was talking about the seven mountains mandate ideology. And I thought it would have been rejected by Waiwan New Zealand. I could have got that wrong. So I was surprised to hear that they had that now in their, in their mandates.

So from the, when I was there, it wasn't, that wasn't big at all, as far as I can remember. So no, I didn't feel that. I mean, I just, as I said, my base was not that authoritarian, they put pressure on you to change and develop, but it wasn't, in my view, it wasn't over the top.

So let's talk a little bit about the DNA of the theology, because that's one thing that's really eluded me. When I look at the history of youth with a mission, I see all of these different streams of influence.

And I don't see anything really direct to, like, Brannemism or Laterane. But yet whenever I look at youth with a mission, I see trace elements of those theologies that came from those. So I'm trying to picture how in the world of this development, what type of theology did it develop into?

What would you say, based on your experience on the base, would be the structural DNA of their theology? There would be that you, there would be solid Bible teaching in many ways, of course, I viewed the Bible as a word of God, how would it cover?

But he was moved and we're woven into that. Was the, I would say, charismatic, pentecostal style of hearing from God, being able to be prayed for and have healing. That's the basis of it, and there was that whole ethic of go, you know, as a young person go out and preach the gospel and not necessarily have a hugely deep theological background.

It was probably more enthusiasm, I'd say, in many ways, whether with a shallow Bible teaching, but a layer, you didn't really get into really studying deep into the word of God, it was more of a surface level.

So it was, you know, there was, but it was very much God can speak to you every day, God can tell you what to do every day. Because I think we were all on Cunningham and as Brock, he felt he had visions of...

of ways of youth going across the nation, so very much into the into visions at the top, I suppose. And certainly created a large organization that's very huge. So that would be my summary of what of the theology.

It would, I would say, be a very painter-costal style of things. I think he came out of the IA assemblies of God, I think his church was the assemblies of God, which was painter-costal.

That makes sense because the assemblies rejected Laterane 1949, so you wouldn't find any direct streams, but at the same time, in fact, I just recorded that podcast today, it'll come out before this one, but the assemblies rejected it 1949, but it didn't really get fully rejected all across the board. In fact, it caused a wedge to form and eventually split the assemblies in half. So you had one half of the assemblies, the independent assemblies that just openly accepted Laterane, the other one denounced it, but within the ones that denounced it, it still kind of, you know, it had already made its mark. I'll just say it like that.

So that would make sense if he's if he was assemblies. One of the other things that has come up as conversation with multiple members is the idea of the mission itself. We're trying to determine what was the mission. It seems as though the mission is just simply to have a mission, because they bring these people overseas, they say we're going to do all this work for God, and some of them, you know, they don't really, some of them don't even interact with people around the base, you know, in the place where they're going. So you have to wonder, what is the mission?

Did you come in contact with anybody who had any sort of knowledge as to what the mission actually was? Well, when I read it was, the motto was to know God and make him know.

So their idea was that they would train up young people to go out and share their faith, but I'm sure some were. And like I say, my friends was working in India and in a more of a medical base medical help with, with slums. So that was part of what they were trying to do, reach out and a bit of practical help with people.

The idea was that they would be evangelism, as lucky when you went on your outreach, you were supposed to share your faith with people you met and you'd be trying to work out ways of talking to people and get the conversation around to the Lord, which is a bit contrived now.

It wasn't on my way, but while I was trying to do that with somebody in Canada once, the guy just said to me, oh, we had a guy where try and start a conversation about religion.

And he said, I used to be a Catholic, then I became a Christian. He told us a little bit of a joke. So it's like, you know, how do you share your faith out there without being false?

That coming across is contrived. But some sure people do, like my view, we were on the trek, we were trekking actually, we were tramping on the outreach, and we got to meet a few people and talk, but it was on a huge, I think it was good to have chats with people, I don't know what effect we had, if any, overall, and that's the thing, some people would come back from moments, and we had these amazing experiences, and people would meet the Lord, and other people would go, and nothing much happened in that area.

And some people would go to the YM base to do practical work, like I had a friend go to Australia, and he worked on the maintenance side of things, and building maintenance on the base.

So you've got all that infrastructure, physical infrastructure that needs supporting. I suppose it's like an army, you have the people on the front line doing the shooting, and you've got people behind the scenes doing the logistics, and the back-up and fixing things and making things work.

That's how I would see it with YM as well, and probably any organisation like that. And I think there's different school levels, like some people are naturally gifted at sharing their faith directly one-on-one, some people are actually gifted at preaching from the pulpit, and some people are naturally gifted behind the scenes, and they might go to an organisation, or any mission on that organisation, and then be more behind the scenes supporting the operation, rather than being front-line.

And that's where it can look like people who go to these organisations and don't really do any mission work, but just go and have a mission. But I think the start of YM was to share the gospel, where the goal was to share the gospel around the world.

Yeah, that makes sense. I think it had an initial objective, which is not the same objective that they have now. In fact, if you look at the name, youth with a mission, in fact, I'll ask you this question.

So the branding is youth with a mission, and when I hear the word youth, there's a certain picture that comes into my head of the people who are on the base. But each time I interview a person, it's teenagers with a mission, it's late teenagers with a mission, it's 20 years old with a mission, and most people don't call these youth.

What did you see when you're on the base? Was it youth, or was it teenagers or young adults? Well, when I was in Moscow, I asked for, for some reason, it was actually a bit older, I mean, it's that older, 24 to 27, 28.

And that was considered an older DTS, and it was what they call the Crossroads DTS, which you could do if you were in your 40s and you had kids all over the world, because they left home when you were in your 50s.

But yeah, it was very focused on youth, but it was, I asked, or was actually generally older. I think there was a couple of people in there still, about 1718, but generally we were older.

But when I went to the base in Calcutta in 96, there was a lot of young people there. And that's what it was. I remember going even rolling it back a bit back in about 1983, showing my age now. I was in Christchurch in the city square and there was some YLM people doing a sketch and ended up chatting to one of the people that was running it. And she was saying, oh, you know, youth, you know, instead of running off to university and getting a degree and following a career, maybe use the best years, the young years to serve the

Lord. So that's what the objective was was to get the youth and people who were young teenagers. And in some ways they were trying to encourage people not to chase the money, not chase career and family and put that aside for a bit and follow the Lord. Maybe there's a way some people want to go, but I think it was, it was very focused on getting youth to do that. Yeah, that makes sense. And I'm like I said, I'm really excited to have somebody who's Penta Costel who's not in the extremist because there's another aspect and I can hear

it in your voice. I also hear it in the friends that I have that are Pentecostal. They're not really that afraid to think. And whenever there are people who are outside the Pentecostal movement and they see the people falling on the floor, barking like dogs, all of this, the first thought that they have is, well, these people can't critically think. How can you critically think if you're barking like a dog? And the whole movement can't be branded like this, right? So what was it like with regards to critical thinking on the base?

Would you say that they were as open as you are or are they more closed thinking? I think there was a reasonable amount of critical thinking. And like I said, the barking like dogs and the jumping on one leg and plucking like a truck stuff didn't happen at our school where that wasn't mean, I wasn't happening there. And I think it came maybe eight or nine years later, eight or seven or eight years later, with that movement from Toronto. And so I understand. So there was a certain level of critical thinking, but there was also very much a push of hearing the Lord in the bane. So again, that's where you can

probably get into trouble with, are you really hearing from the Lord or is it just drumming in your mind? And this is where I found even the outside of Huawei and where my experience is sometimes I'm not, it's not that I'll sit down in the morning and go, Lord speak to me today and tell me what to do. But every now and then I get a prompt.

Internally, I felt like a leading don't do this or do that. And I've got to be honest, that often it turns out to be true. But I'm not going to tell other people to do that.

It's something I've found myself, it's just experiences I've had where I've felt that, a lot of prompting, as you might say, it should be correct. And as the Lord speaking to me, maybe it is. But again, I I think you've got to balance that out with, as you say, critical thinking, and I think if you go to why I am, I think you do need to do it with a rational mind and be prepared if you're prepared to live by faith and live by financially and maybe at the end of your working life or your 60s or 70s, you may not have a house to live in. It's something

you might have to choose to do. But having said that, I think if you do go off to an organisation like why I am, I think it's good to have a think it through and be financially savvy.

I know somebody who's a missionary at another organisation, but she's got a house back home in New Zealand, and she rents it out. So she, when the day comes, when she can no longer be a missionary, she's got somewhere to come back to. I do, and I think when I was looking to go to why I am, we were talking to a rather older ex-pasta who was very astute and he said, just be careful. You know, he said, I've known some people who are missionaries have gone off, they didn't buy a house, they didn't get themselves set up financially

because of that, you know, often that can be trust the Lord. That's one of the things that why I would push, trust the Lord. Don't worry about finances, don't worry about your career, trust the Lord, he'll provide. And this, this guy said, you'd seen other missionaries come back from other organisations too, with nothing. And it's hard and later in life. So that is something you have to be wary of with these groups that you've got to look, you do have to look after yourself long-term, and it doesn't always pan out as though as some of the people who are at the top would say, and I'm one of my amp of

that too, is that you've got to be aware that there's people who are very charismatic and have the ability to speak and talk, and they will probably get a lot more financial support than somebody who may be a bit quieter and not as charismatic. So some stories I did here, we had a person from a rich church in the middle of the United States who was a charismatic, good-looking guy and he'd be basically rolling in money. And the person from Central America was trying to find money for a poster stamp, you know, that happens.

Yeah, and I'm ugly as a box of rocks, I would be the one who didn't make any money. Honestly, that's one of the things that's really worried me about this movement in general, because when I hear the word youth, it paints a different picture. I'm thinking, you know, if they're five, six-year-old, sure, it's okay, but you're taking children in their late teens, early 20s, which aren't youth, they're young adults. You take a young adult during the age when they really should start to be building a foundation for themselves, financially, mentally, worldview, and instead what you're doing is you're giving them

a worldview, the one that you want. And, you know, bye- all accounts, even a little bit we've talked today, the world view they're giving you is dated back years ago. It's not the same world view. Right down to the we're going to break you down mentality. That's something that you heard in the 50s, 60s. That's not something you hear today.

So you have somebody who's brought into this environment and they're not building the foundation for themselves. The reason it pains me is because I spent 37 years of my life in a Doomsday where we didn't look to the future. Why would we? The world's going to end tomorrow.

So I never had, for 37 years, I never put a penny into a retirement account. And at age 37, when I escaped, I'm blindsided because, oh my gosh, I'm the early side of the statistics when they talk about people who will never get a retirement. I'm on the side that I'm so far behind the game that the ones that they're talking about are ahead of me. And I look at youth with a mission where you're doing the same thing to these individuals. Maybe they do get out of the base before age 37, but it's the same problem just maybe to a less extreme extent. So the

retirement worries me. But also there are life skills that you learn just simply by being with people who aren't on a mission. And whenever you escape this and you go suddenly to the workplace and you don't have any life skills, there are people who feel so far out of their element that they lose their jobs because they simply can't take it. They don't know how to deal with people of opposing viewpoints. So part of that worries me. What are your thoughts about that?

Yeah, I feel that if you go to, if you're going to go to a YM or any interventionalization, you've got to take into account that you need to be prepared to suffer financially. And unfortunately, that can be pushed as a suffering for Jesus.

When going back to the time I went to YM, there was, even in the churches in general, where I was, there was this view that you shouldn't change finances, you shouldn't change wealth and women, you should just seek the Lord and your head day jobs. But you sort of had this, it was almost like it was soon to want to accumulate wealth. But now on hindsight, I think that wasn't the wisest thing to do. It's not good to be greedy and make wealth your primary goal, but you also got to be savvy about it. But it wouldn't be pushed, I think, in WOM that

God would provide, and you'd have all the stories that people for soccer, corporate life, and gave all the money away, and we'd often follow the Lord. And I remember on our WOM school, there was one of the leaders there talked about CT starting. It was about how I hear.

had inherited a weight equivalent of 3 million pounds in the 1800s and it gave it all away. It went off and be a missionary. And, you know, if you read the story, they had a great legacy in the end. And I think in Africa and China, but they suffered, you know, financially, they didn't have much to eat. This was CD, starting as wife. But that was sort of how it up is something to aspire to almost. And you have to be careful of that. I do remember early 1990s. I think it was a family went off to WOM. They sold their house, family of five,

two mum and dad to the kids. And I don't know what happened, but they were back within a year and having to find accommodation. So, yeah, things, I think something went bad. And, of course, all this money's been spent and they're back to square one. So, I think in the time, as I said before, there was an attitude in the churches that I was involved with of almost despising financial planning. I do remember going to a, when I was with the WOM school, we went off to a seminar over the whole Christchurch and they're in a place called Lictum.

And they're one of the headwaves at the top WOM leaders was talking about how most people are looking to plan for their retirement and they need to, you know, their focuses on how they're going to cope in their retire and it was that the, what he was pushing was for us to forget that and stop thinking about that and think of missions. Another thing that I'm hearing from people who have been on the basis, in fact, one person told me explicitly, I never left the base. I was on the base and that's, that was my life. That was my mission to be on the base. I'm curious,

is that the same experience you notice? Did they go to outside churches? Did they, did they interact with the people in, you know, in the town or the city that they were near? What was it like with regards to those who were on the base and the other Christians? Yeah, but our base was, well, in some ways was a bit isolated and like I know one lady who was there, she used to be on a base and Wellington, which was along the street front and they would actually go out into the street and talk to the people in the red light district and she found, she actually found the base where

we were, was in a suburban area, she found it quite relatively boring to be honest, because we were away from the main centre of town. But we did, we did do, I do remember on the YWAM school going to a boys institute where there's some youth, we had been in trouble with the law and they were trying to teach them how to approach them properly, they had been in trouble, they're probably burglaries and stuff like that. So it wasn't jail, it wasn't Boston, but it was like a youth facility for young boys who were going off the rails and one Saturday night we went

off there and we played basketball with them and and interact with them and it was a very for filling time, I felt that there was, but there was only one incident, I can think of where we actually got out of the base in terms of, in the community.

There was the outreach where we were talking to people, we are in the booth, on the tracks. And then, as I say, it wasn't a base that discouraged you going to other churches. I had heard some podcasts I've listened to since I started thinking about how what I was doing these days, they were discouraged from going to churches, from the base.

What I did notice was there were some people on the base who just had this ear of a bit of a superiority. They viewed churches as full of people who hadn't counted the true cost to follow the Lord.

Because we have gone off, we have forsaken our careers, we have forsaken our homes and we have thrown off the security of a day job and relying on our donation support to live. So we are the ones really counting the cost for the Lord, so there was that energy that I felt on some of the people there.

I also have parents contacting me through, either the comment feeds or I even had a few by email, worried about people that they know of who are on the bases. And I don't really know how yet to answer them, so I answer just very non- in a non-answer.

I hate to do that, but I don't want to give people wrong information. What advice would you give to somebody who is concerned about hearing some of the information about youth with a mission?

What advice would you give them if they were about to send their children to the base? I would just say just investigate the base and investigate what they're teaching. Make sure that you're choosing to go and you're on a court.

Make sure that you're, I would say also if you wanted to go long-term, make sure that they've got financial support to support them and they can not be too destitute at the end of it.

I would say go in with your eyes open and ideally have the ability to leave if you feel it's getting abusive. When I know some people who's daughter's gone to WRM overseas and that she seems to be doing very well and there's no problem, so as I say it's based on base, but I would say just make sure you go in with your eyes open and make sure it's a solid decision you're making, not just a thing of, I don't know what I'm doing now, I've done university, but more of my job, I'll go to WRM, I don't think you should do that.

Make sure it's a different decision you're going and go with your eyes open. Well, that's very good advice. Thank you so much for doing this. You're welcome. I hope it's been on some better benefit.

Absolutely. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William- For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponites Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponite Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponite Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponite Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponite Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.