Where We Are
Youth With A Mission is a family of centers and ministries with the same vision and values. In the future, YWAM hopes to expand to other locations and develop new areas of ministry to further contribute to the growth of God's kingdom in the French-speaking part of Switzerland and beyond.
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DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SCHOOL (DTS)
Seeking God (lecture phase)
Being Active (outreach phase)
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Follow your desire for a more intimate relationship with God.
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YWAM's Discipleship Training School (DTS) gives you the opportunity to discover your passions and the role you can play in God's plans for the world. It is for those who long to follow Jesus in a new way, with a different perspective.
The DTS is a five- or six-month program that combines classroom learning, small group activities, personal reflection, practical service and community living. Most often, the training is in two parts: a theoretical phase and a practical phase.
Seeking God
Lecture phase - Getting to know God better
In the lecture phase, you will focus on getting to know God, his Word and his world. You will seek transformation, a renewed mind and personal growth. You will learn not only from the teachers but also from community life and practical training.
Being Active
Outreach Phase - Making Him known
During the outreach phase, your class will be divided into teams to serve God in a region of the world. You will have the opportunity to discover your abilities by serving local people and sharing the good news of Jesus.
How do I choose a DTS?
YWAM's Discipleship Training School (DTS) offers you a unique time in your life to focus on God, who He wants you to be, and what He wants you to do.
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But YWAM offers a wide variety of options when it comes to choosing your DTS. How do you narrow down your choices?
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Here are some questions to ask yourself, pray about, and discuss with your parents, pastor, and counselors. These tips will help you find the right YWAM center for you:
Here are some questions to ask yourself, pray about, and discuss with your parents, pastor, and counselors. These tips will help you find the right YWAM center for you.
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1) What kind of cultural experience do you want to have? Do you want to stay in your own nation? Are you open to a totally different cultural experience?
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The DTS normally consists of a three-month course phase in one location, followed by a two- or three-month assignment in another location. You can choose to do the classroom phase close to home or on the other side of the world. If you decide to enroll in a DTS in a different culture, keep in mind that it can be stressful to live in a completely foreign environment with unfamiliar food, sleeping conditions and cultural expectations. Some people welcome this. Others may find the challenge of DTS teaching enough and prefer to stay in a more familiar culture.
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2) Would you prefer to join a large, established YWAM community or join a smaller, pioneering location?
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Some DTS have 100 students or more. Others have less than 10. Which do you prefer? You can be part of a large center that is already doing many different things, or a small center that is starting new ministries and initiatives.
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3) Are you looking for training with a particular emphasis?
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Some DTS programs focus on a particular type of activity in addition to the curriculum. It may be sports, the arts, a particular geographic area, or a particular cause. Are you passionate about justice or human trafficking prevention? Or snowboarding, surfing or soccer? Photography or dance? There may be a DTS with a particular focus in that area.
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4) Talk to others who have been to that YWAM center!
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The best way to find out what a particular YWAM school or location is like is to ask other people who have been there! Many YWAM sites have a Facebook page. You can call or email most sites and talk to the staff, who will be happy to answer your questions. Keep in mind that time zones and hours may be different!
Training We Offer
The University of the Nations is the training arm of Youth With A Mission. It is an international academic institution, decentralized, present in 600 locations on all continents, in nearly 180 different nations. It trains nearly 25,000 students each year.
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The goal of U of N is to form people with a missionary mentality for the spheres of society in order to make disciples of all nations according to the command of Jesus. The mandatory gateway to any training with U of N is the Discipleship Training School with an outreach phase.
The UofN offers dozens of different schools and courses in seven faculties:
After your DTS, it is possible to follow a course that interests you and can prepare you for your vocation. It is also possible to follow a track and get a degree (Associate, Bachelor or Master) by attending several schools. To learn more, visit: www.uofn.edu/fr. Here are the schools you can find in French-part of Switzerland with a short description and their location. To get more info, please visit the base website.
Bible Core Course (BCC):
The BCC is a three month school designed to help you study God’s Word and apply it practically into your everyday life. Experienced Bible teachers will instruct you on how to study Scripture on your own, using the inductive study method, and teach you ways that will open up the Bible in a new and deeper way. Six days a week, you will read, explore and dig into the Bible from what it meant to the original hearers and readers to what we can receive from it today. It is an intense school, but you will be astonished by how much God will show you in these three months; how He will open up this “old book” to you and enlarge your understanding of who He is. (Burtigny – French/English)
Bible Core Course On Location (BCCOL):
Be transported to the past, and ground yourself in biblical lands as you study God’s word where it was written. Learn to study the Bible for yourself, and encounter God through His word. This unique YWAM BCC begins in Lausanne and moves to Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. (Lausanne – English)
School of Biblical Studies (SBS):
Spend nine months committed to growing and strengthening your foundation of the Bible by studying all 66 books in great depth with a community full of people seeking after the heart of God. (Lausanne – English)
Discipleship Bible School (DBS):
In this sequel to the Discipleship Training School, the 3 month Discipleship Bible School will take you on a journey through Genesis to Revelation. It will give you tools to study the Bible effectively for the rest of your life. Revolutionize your understanding of the Bible and be enlightened by the truth it speaks! (Lausanne – English, Yverdon – French)
Oral Bible Translation School (OBT):
We recognize that the great majority of those who speak a bible-less language are oral learners. Therefore, we value an oral approach to Bible translation. While it is not the only valid approach, we consider it to be a good and desirable one – especially in the initial stages of Bible translation. The OBT school will train trainers who want to multiply oral Bible translation projects and schools in YWAM while equipping people to be oral translation facilitators. (Lausanne – English)
Create & Communicate Course (CCC):
Learn to communicate God in a relevant way through the means of today. Activate your calling into the sphere of media and communications. We love to train and equip young people to understand the Biblical worldview and foundations for communications. Why, what, and how does God want us to create and communicate? We wish to engage the next generation to use media as a tool to communicate God's story. (Lausanne - English)
Community Development School (CDS):
The Community Development School provides an overview of the issues involved in walking with communities to be transformed toward God’s intentions. CDS focuses on a Biblical understanding of the root causes of poverty, underdevelopment, and the strategies needed to enable people to overcome the hurdles to their community’s transformation. (Lausanne – English)
English Learning for Missions (ELM):
Improve your English quickly by immersing yourself in the language, gain the confidence to share your faith using English, experience spiritual growth and know God more intimately through the process of learning the language, be equipped with effective communication skills and be empowered to be released into your potential. (Lausanne – English)
Foundations for Counseling Ministry (FCM):
This 12-week course equips you to minister to the hurting, heal the broken, & restore the lost by first looking deep into your own heart. The process of being able to help others begins with becoming whole ourselves. (Lausanne – English, Châtel – English)
Advanced Training for Counseling Ministry (ATCM):
Training and Equipping You to minister Healing and Restoration. This is an intermediate course, focusing on a deeper understanding of relationships and looking at how to strengthen our true self and eliminating what blocks us from developing a healthy Christian identity. It introduces different counseling models and tools to fight dysfunctional lifestyles and false beliefs. This school will challenge you in how you see God, yourself and others and equip you with tools and insights of how to develop the full potential of what God has put in each one of us. You will be challenged to develop and practice your personal integrated counseling approach. (Châtel – English)
Addictive Behavior Counseling School (ABC):
Helping others discover freedom from addictions and other destructive lifestyles. The main skills taught in the ABCS are: understanding and leading support and process groups (Basic Psychotherapy Groups), Trauma resolution (how to deal with the roots), and addiction counseling skills. While learning these skills each student will also have the opportunity to work on their personal issues of recovery from childhood trauma, addictions, or other problems. Our focus is to train counselors who then may train others or work in a recovery type of mercy ministry. The school is not for individuals that primarily need therapy for personal issues. (Châtel – English)
Ministry and Leadership Development School (MLD):
The MLD (Ministry Leadership Development) is a 6-month long school that focuses on teaching you how to live life as a leader. You will be embedded into our dynamic and diverse missions training community. For your input you will receive theoretical teaching on different core topics that are salient to your leadership. From there you will get to serve practically and discover your strengths and talents. Grow and be inspired by input from experienced missionaries while also putting what you have learned into practice. The skills and knowledge you will gain during this course are applicable in much more than just the missional context. (Lausanne, English). Similar trainings are offered in Burtigny (BLP – French/English) and Yverdon (BLS – French)
School of Worship (SOW):
The School of Worship (SOW) will ignite your passions for worship in all areas. Learn what it means to truly worship the King of kings and Lord of lords. Learn how to write and record original worship music while deepening your existing musical abilities. Understand band dynamics and how to assemble and develop musical groups from individual musicians. Most importantly, bring glory to God and find deep fulfillment in Him. (Lausanne – English, Burtigny – French/English)
School of Strategic Communication (SSC):
The School of Strategic Communication is a three month program designed to teach and equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to be a clear voice of truth in the world. During the school, you will practice how to leverage the power of communication and creativity to influence change in the world. There will be eight weeks of hands-on teaching taught by experts in marketing, branding, research, and creative communication. Weekly assignments and projects will provide you with immediate, practical application throughout the course. In the final two weeks, your class will work in groups to create cutting edge solutions for a selected issue, project or organization. (Burtigny – English)
Advanced Principles of Communication (APC):
This program aims to help students understand the world through a biblical lens and become multi-dimensional thinkers within a range of current issues of the day in all spheres of society. The modular structure of this APC has been designed to achieve two goals; firstly, to broaden and deepen your understanding of the world within the framework of a biblical worldview. And secondly, to provide ample space between learning intensives that encourages the application and expression of the material. (Burtigny – English)
Foundations in Education (FIE):
The aim of this course is to give teachers and those who work with children in all contexts a solid biblical foundation. The course explores how to establish an educational model that makes children disciples in all areas of life (intellectually, spiritually, physically, morally, socially and emotionally). The course also examines the role of education in community development and global mission. The topics covered are as follows: Worldview and Education, Knowledge of the child, History and Spirituality, Pedagogy, methods, Childhood in Distress or Difficulty, Multiplication. (Burtigny – French)
Business Leadership School (BLS):
The Business Leadership School is designed to equip owners, corporate executives, managers, and those aspiring to positions of leadership to engage the workplace from a biblical worldview. Participants will learn how to: Create a Positive Company Climate of Trust and Effectiveness, Effectively bring Correction and Change, Empower People, Skillfully Hire, Review, Promote, and Release, Strategic Plan for long-term success, Create a dynamic Learning Organization, Build Customer Loyalty, Grow multi-generational organizations. (Burtigny – French)
School of Supernatural Ministry (SSM):
This powerful school is designed to train workers to walk in the presence and power of God. As students remove barriers to their intimacy with God, renew their minds, and learn their true identity, they will begin to see God’s supernatural released. It all begins with a community or tribe of believers immersed in God’s love. Students will learn to take risks in moving out in prophecy, the spiritual gifts, healing the sick and the wounded, sharing the gospel, making disciples, and believing for miracles as Jesus told the disciples to do when he left. God’s global vision to see every people reached is central to this school. This school is perfect for leaders or newcomers in any ministry. Do you want to see God show up in your ministry in a powerful way? Come join this powerful school! (Châtel – English)
Principles in Child, Youth and Family Ministry (PCYFM):
This course equips people to work with children, teenagers and their families with the King’s Kids values and approach, in order to care, reach, train and mobilize them. We will address topics like: Stages of human development, working with 0-5 years old, with preteens, with teenagers, leading children in worship, in prayer, in exploring the Word, children evangelism, intergenerational approach, vision and tools to train entire families and help parents take their discipleship role, working with children in church, preparing a teaching, an event, a camp, leading an outreach, building and developing a ministry, … (Yverdon – French/English)