Common expressions used within Youth With A Mission:
10/40 Window: a rectangle-shaped geographical area that extends from West Africa across Asia, between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator. Some of the world’s poorest and least evangelized people live in this “window.”
DTS: Discipleship Training Schools aim to prepare messengers of the gospel, helping students to know God in depth. The goal is to form Christian character and establish Biblical principles while developing a daily walk with God. This intensive Christian training course typically begins with an 11 or 12 week classroom phase followed by a 12 week outreach. There are hundreds of DTS programs run internationally.
GLT: YWAM’s Global Leadership Team, consisting of about 45 regional and international leaders that provide oversight and meet once a year to pray, discuss vision, and address major trends and issues.
King’s Kids: trains and mobilizes children, teens and families into missions outreach locally and internationally, using performing arts, service skills and sports.
Long-termers: YWAM staff who give from two years to a lifetime to see specific goals reached in the overall task of world evangelism. They have completed a DTS and serve in a number of areas, including evangelists, receptionists, church planters, teachers, physicians, and carpenters.
Mercy Ministries: ministering to the practical and spiritual needs of the poor and needy people of the world.
Mission Builder: volunteers who use their skills to encourage, support, and work alongside missionaries to help build the kingdom of God.
Outreach: a short-term mission trip during which participants take up to two years of their time to take the gospel to people of the world through work, teaching, art, music, health care, and more.
Schools (DTS, SBS, BCC, SOIP, etc.): A YWAM “school” is usually an intensive learning program in which students concentrate on one subject at a time and combine the learning of theory with practical application. YWAM schools usually last between three and nine months.
Short-termer: a person who gets involved with YWAM, usually on an outreach trip, which lasts from one week to up to a year or two.
Summer of Service (SOS): a short-term summer outreach involving training and evangelism.
Tentmaker: a person who serves within a seemingly closed country by starting a business there, or by taking advantage of other job opportunities. The word comes from the Apostle Paul’s example of working in his profession as a tentmaker on his missionary journeys (see Acts 18:3).
University of the Nations (U of N): YWAM’s global university dedicated to be a multiplier for missions.
Unreached People Groups: ethnic groups that do not have churches in their midst which are capable of evangelizing their own people. Sometimes there is no church at all! There are about 8,000 such groups in the world, totaling two billion people.
YWAM base: a permanent YWAM ministry location.
YWAMer: a staff member, student or outreach participant in YWAM.