A Multicultural Perspective on YWAM Values

I am an American who, at the age of 22, flew to the Philippines to become a missionary with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). After serving in Asia for 20 years, I was married to a fellow YWAMer, and we had three children. My family and I then moved to the United States to continue our work with YWAM. Having been born in the Philippines, my wife and children anticipated experiencing culture shock in the U.S., while I braced myself for reverse culture shock. I vividly remember those first few weeks; as a family, we felt isolated and uncared for. We longed for a sense of connection but struggled to find it. What was the root of this feeling?

The YWAM location wasn’t insensitive. They had taken months to help prepare for our arrival. They helped us get a house and spent time cleaning and preparing it. Their efforts were clear. But regardless, there was a disconnect.

A couple of months later, it would be my son's birthday. Wanting to connect, we decided to invite all the staff to our house to celebrate. We bought lots of food and looked forward to welcoming everyone in. Everyone arrived on time, and we started talking, but after 30 minutes, people began to file out and left. I remember standing in our house looking at my wife in shock, saying, "Well, I guess that's it!" We felt disconnected and alone. What was missing?

One of YWAM's Foundational Values is "Value the Individual." The first sentence reads, "YWAM is called to value each individual.”. How do you do that? What is the practical expression of that value? We missed the cultural application of the value regarding our situation upon our arrival.
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When you welcome someone to the Philippines, you constantly check in with them. Do they know where to go to get food? How are they feeling? Do they need help with something? By being present, you make them feel welcome and are available to help them with any needs. This way, they feel welcomed in the group.

In American culture, you give someone space and time to settle in. The application of valuing the individual means something different in the States than it does in the Philippines. And it is here that we tap into the heart of this article.

Our values in YWAM are core to how we live our mission. We talk about them repeatedly, and I am passionate about them. However, I’m concerned that we don't fully understand the cross-cultural dynamics when communicating and applying our values in a multicultural context. How does a person from one culture read and interpret a value and then apply it in a different cultural context? We can assume that there will be times when a person's intent is misunderstood.

In Darlene Cunningham’s book, Values Matter, she addresses the Belief Tree teaching, which addresses how our beliefs are the roots embedded into the soil of cultural worldview. Our culture silently disciples us through our assumptions, to which we are often blind. These assumptions we inherently believe to be true and rarely question. I never heard of teaching how much that soil affects our beliefs and then, in turn, the application of our values. I believe it affects those beliefs much more than we teach or realize.

For us in YWAM, we need to have a deeper understanding of cultural lenses as we live and work in multicultural communities. How do we see the application of our foundational values through different cultural lenses, such as honor/shame vs. guilt/innocence, individualism vs. collectivism, and power distance?  More importantly, how does our brother or sister from a different culture understand how to apply our values? We need to grow in our understanding so we can be more effective in accomplishing what God is calling us to do. We are called to be international. We are called to work in teams. We need to have a deeper understanding of how to work in multicultural teams, but that will only come if we can see beyond our own assumptions buried deep in our worldview.

I hope that more of us on our mission will study how to apply our values in multicultural teams and teach them. The more we share these concepts, the more I hope it will build a climate where many others can contribute to the discussion, and we can become more effective.

If you want to read more about this, you could start by reading my thesis by clicking here.

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