“He had grown up around the religious leaders of the day who had taken God’s words and reduced them to a religious system, a system which blocked them from seeing Jesus. Because of this, Paul believed that no other people were worthy of God except the Jews. That changed when he met Jesus and scales fell from his eyes.”

She said that as Paul wrote Colossians, he was thinking of the principalities that were over western Turkey, influencing the Church there. Workshop participants were then asked to consider what worldy ways of thinking were in the regions where they live and minister and how they play out as obstacles to our ministry. She said Paul overcame his wrong thinking through a power encounter with Jesus, and may we need to do the same.

U of N International President Markus Steffen then introduced Dr. Tom Bloomer, International Provost of the U of N, who presented a message titled The Heart of the Father to Teach Us.

Tom continued the theme of the Colossians study. He shared that for many who started YWAM, the understanding was that “God has saved us out of sin, drugs, and university” He said that, “When YWAM founder Loren Cunningham came and said YWAM needed to have a university, many of us didn’t like the idea. We can react so strong to the negative spirit in a word like university that we call into it a religious spirit”.

Tom shared about how precious it is in a Father-Son relationship for the Father to be able to teach his son things and for his son to be able to welcome that teaching in his life. He talked about the heart of our heavenly Father to teach his children, being demonstrated all the way back in the Garden of Eden. He shared about how Christianity is a relationship of the heart, though we’ve made it an intellectual thing.

U of N Vice President David Hamilton opened the first afternoon session declaring that “life requires both change and continuity.” He shared that the U of N is in a process of launching a new “certificate” program to give students credit for earlier career or ministry experience.

David noted that spent the largest and most intimate amounts of his teaching time with his 12 disciples. But he also spent significant, though less intimate time teaching the 5,000. “YWAM’s Discipleship Training Schools have been “teaching the 12”, but have not focused as much on the 5,000. The certificates program will focus on teaching the 5,000, those who want to learn about God and his ways but are not in the place in their lives to do a DTS. Certificates will involve shorter not always continuous, and often online learning portions.”

Whereas current programs involve Full Learning Weeks (FLWs), 50-hour residential weeks complete with intercession and one-on-ones, Learning Component Units (LCUs) will not always be residential and can even be done online. While FLWs have been meeting the thousands, LCUs can meet the needs of the millions and this is a central part of our growth as the U of N, Hamilton shared. Markus Steffen then stated that program is coming from the overflow of our passion to teach all nations.

Following the break, David Hamilton, Maureen Menard, Tom Bloomer, and others shared the three core components to U of N courses: teaching related to the Bible, to worldview, and to communication.

“We want people to know God’s word, His world, and how to communicate to them” David stated. Later he shared that “We must shift our thinking to where after DTS, we encourage students to do further courses such as School of Biblical Studies and humanities schools, things that will cement a Biblical worldview and the direction God has called them to.”

The afternoon continued in highlighting how to move into helping students obtain AAs and MAs at the U of N.

The evening session brought presentations from many working around the world in issues of justice, art, film, and cultural transformation of nations.

Costa Rica’s YWAM leader shared his plan for getting Bibles into every household and an offering was taken for this. Film-maker David Cunningham shared his vision for creating Christian film industry here on the Big Island of Hawaii, and YWAM founder Loren Cunningham shared about new innovations in medical, agricultural and linguistic missions.

Loren also shared what God had shown the U of N earlier this year from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah concerning seeking the welfare of the city where we live. He also spoke about the importance of circuits, focusing on bringing the Gospel message of forgiveness as well as food and helps to those right outside our door as well as those at the farthest reaches in the earth.