Chapter One Introductory Overview

CHAPTER ONE

Introductory Overview

If asked why I would pursue writing my thesis on the Cultural Application of our values,

I would have to share my story with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and my relationship with

the values.

I was born and raised in the United States. When I was in Bible school, God led me into

long-term missions and directed me to the Philippines. After I graduated in 1996, I flew to the

Philippines for my Discipleship Training School (DTS) and ended up living and serving with

YWAM in Asia for 20 years.

In 2002, Patti Lee, with a team, came to lead the first Foundational DTS Workshop in the

Philippines. During that time, she spent one morning talking about the importance of YWAM's

Foundational Values. She asked us to sit in small groups based on the locations we served. Once

we did, she asked us to list the top three values that our location was strong in implementing and

the three values we were weak at applying. After that, we shared our strengths and weaknesses in

the whole group and then shared how to strengthen our weaknesses. This was the first time in

YWAM I realized the importance of our mission's values in the way we functioned and lived.

From there, I began to look at YWAM through the lens of our values. In the process, I began to

see some of the strengths and shortcomings in applying the values in every location and how I

applied them in my own life.

In 2007, Darlene Cunningham spoke in my Leadership Training School (LTS) and spent

one day teaching how our values need to align with our location's guidelines, rules, and policies.

During that time, she challenged us to look through our base policies one by one. She

emphasized that we should have as few rules as possible. She then said that the rules we did have

needed to be in line with at least one of our foundational values. She also pointed out that when

something is wrong in a YWAM location, it is usually because they are not functioning in one of

the values. And if they are not operating in two of the values, then things are really

dysfunctional. I was deeply challenged when she shared that. At the time, I was on a leadership

team of a YWAM location and a few months after my LTS, I found myself leading that location.

Why do we do what we do? Where did our policies come from? In what ways do our policies

line up with a specific value? These questions and more caused me to look at how we were

functioning and what areas we needed to change.

Many years later, my family and I moved to the United States to serve in YWAM

Charlotte. Having been born in the Philippines, my wife and my children expected culture shock

moving to the States. I remember the first couple of weeks in Charlotte. As a family, we felt

alone, and no one cared. We wanted to feel connected but struggled. What caused this feeling?

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 started 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" (Youth With A Mission, 2021). How do you do that?

What is the practical expression of that value? We were missing the cultural application of the

value when it came to our situation in our arrival.

In the Philippines, when you welcome someone, 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 are making them feel welcomed 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 thesis.

Our values in YWAM are core to how we live in our mission. It is something we talk

about repeatedly, and it is something I am passionate about. 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 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 teaching on 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. In this thesis, we will look through the cultural lenses of

honor/shame vs. guilt/innocence, individualism vs. collectivism, and power distance in how we

apply three of our foundational values (#10 Function in teams, #11 Exhibit servant leadership,

and #14 Value the individual).

I believe that looking through all of the values through different cultural lenses would be

beneficial for the mission. But due to the scope of the research required for such a task, I had to

limit my scope to make it more attainable. My desire is I, or someone else, would carry this

research and take it to the next level and cover all of the values.

Also, I hope that this topic's study will help our mission to think in these realms when

teaching our values. The more we share these concepts, I hope it would build a climate where

many others can contribute to the discussion. Thus, we would become more effective in

communicating and applying our values in multicultural settings.

Because of the scope of this research, I limited this study to three values. I feel strongly that our

mission needs to focus on all of the values.