For decades, the “gold standard” of mission discipleship has been Youth With A Mission’s (YWAM) Discipleship Training School (DTS). The original curriculum was designed by Dave Gustaveson, pretty much universally referred to as Dave G. Now, years later, though there has been wisdom and evolution, the basic pattern continues. Three months of classroom and community building is followed by three months of deployment on overseas mission in what is called the “10-40 Window.” That is the band around the globe from 10ËšNorth to 40ËšNorth in which most of the world’s unreached people groups live. To my knowledge it was first coined by Louis Bush in 1990. Bush, a Christian mission strategist saw the need to target the area because of the religious makeup of the people who lived in that region and the lack of penetration of Christian faith.
The YWAM vision to reach the nations of the world goes back to 1956 when a 20 year old Loren Cunningham was traveling in the Bahamas over Spring Break with a Christian singing group. Here are his words on what happened:…