How does YWAM relate to the local church?

One of our stated values is that YWAM affirms the importance of the local church and seeks to promote unity among all God's people. We endeavor to work in partnership with other believers, building bridges among Christian leaders, churches and missions for the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

We believe God builds relationally, and so we seek strong relationships with local church leadership. However we distinguish between the mission church and the local church; the mobile church and the planted church. We see models for mission structures in both the Old and New Testaments (schools of the prophets, John the Baptist and his disciples, Jesus and his disciples, Pauls missionary band), none of which had an exclusive relationship with any local synagogue or fellowship; Paul, for example, related to many local churches.

Using the analogy of the Church as the Body of Christ, we see mission structures like YWAM as the arms and legs of the Body, enabling the torso (nurture structures, local churches) to reach out and be mobile. One unfortunate result of the Reformation was the loss of the sort of mission structures that had evangelized Europe in the first millennium. Three centuries had to pass before Protestant churches began to recover the concept of missions structures, when William Carey set up the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792.