Ministry Spotlight: Firestarters

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Being on staff with YWAM Scotland looks quite different for each of our team members in our different locations. Our staff are able to tailor their staff responsibilities according to their skills and passions, which is part of what makes staff life here so fulfilling! We love partnering with local ministries as well. To take a closer look at one such opportunity, I asked YWAM Seamill staff member Taylor some questions about her work with Firestarters.

How long have you been involved with YWAM Scotland?
I’ve been here for about a year and a half, moving on towards 2 now. I’m also re-applying for my visa soon, so yay!

And how long have you been involved with Firestarters?
Since January of last year but really became a part of their ministry back in September.

What is Firestarters?
Firestarters is a youth program, based on King’s Kids principles. We gather for one weekend a month and bring the young people into an atmosphere of worship, teaching, outreach, prayer, and of course, fun. The idea is to show them that they are extremely capable of feeling and walking in the presence of God and also that they are able to make a huge impact in the world around them because of that.

Why did you get involved with Firestarters initially?
I have always had a heart for youth ministry, and when I got to Scotland I got to know some of our staff’s teenagers. They were the ones who invited me to check it out initially.

What has surprised you about working with Firestarters?
I originally was off-put by the idea of Firestarters and giving up a weekend when I thought about all of the energy it would take. But I tried it out anyway, and I found that I was more energized by the end of the weekend than when I started. When I was pouring out to the youth, God was constantly pouring into me so I was never empty or drained.

What inspires you about the young people?
I have seen growth and change from a majority of them over the past few months, and a few in particular have grasped the idea of “I can worship God with complete abandon and not be afraid of being judged.” It’s fantastic to be able to see that in folks so young. You get to see these leaders in their developing stages and help them along, whether it’s through their spiritual journey with God, or sussing out what they are passionate about, and inspiring them to step out and pursue both.

Why do you think youth ministry is important?
Without the influence from the youth ministry when I was a teen, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I might not even be here in Scotland! Whether in the small or large things, it helps shape the lives of these young people into the leaders and world changers that God has called them to be in the future. If our generation isn’t calling them up and speaking life into them, then who is?

Oban //

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YWAM Ignite: a team of passionate people, from different countries with different cultures and languages. Together they form a YWAM family with their mission focus on Oban, Scotland. Rolinke Bremer shares a look at who they are, and where this new pioneering project is going:

“A smaller town on the West Coast of Scotland, Oban has about 9,000 inhabitants. In summer though this amount can triple! Many tourists and travelers come through Oban making it a lively place. Our vision is to reach out to the people of Oban and beyond. To show them God’s way for their lives, to launch them into the Kingdom and to be a resource for training and growth.
We are pioneering which means starting from scratch. This makes it sometimes difficult, but always interesting. The last few months we have learned to really wait on the Lord for the many steps we need to take. All we want is to follow His lead, because He knows exactly what He wants for Oban and its people, and also for our team. Coming back to His heart for Oban and acting upon what he says has been one of our primary goals. We want to build on this solid foundation, so that each team member knows who they are in Christ and what they are called to. This means we start every day with prayer and listening to God, and then simply doing what He ask us to do.

A key value for our team is hospitality. We want to open up our house and our lives to the people around us, to meet them where they are at and let them leave better than they came. We believe hospitality and being relational are parts of the new evangelism – ways of reaching out to the people around us whether they are in our house or on the streets.

Some ministries God has highlighted to us are developing an expression of prayer & intercession, with prayer walks, 24/7 prayer, practicing the prophetic and ministering to each other and the churches in Oban. WTeam Ignite2e also have a heart for evangelism, through hospitality and other creative, artistic and prophetic ways. Being relational is – again – the key. Two big areas of focus are reaching children and youth through sports, and travellers and pilgrims through hospitality, nature and the arts. There is a lot to develop with this, but for now we are planning to run a Sports DTS in September 2015. We are very excited about that!!

Currently we are waiting for the right housing in Oban, but are longing to move very soon. Pray with us as we are in the midst of a negotiation for a wonderful house!

Pioneering is hard. It is also fun; because, in all of it, we are so dependent on God. Its like a big adventure, or roller coaster. As we lay down our rights and put our focus on God’s heart in all of this, then faith, peace, and great joy are the fruits. If you have a pioneering heart, or if you are willing to step into this unknown adventure with God, feel free to apply! We might be small now, but we want to grow into a larger, faith-filled, radical family. Not because of us, but because of God’s kingdom here in Oban, Scotland.

Check out our website and join in!

Welcome to Tribe!

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Matt Whitlock, who started the Tribe (a network for YWAM alumni/friends to gather to be missional communities all over the world and work out the Great Commission in their spheres of society together) is coming to Scotland this week! We would love for you to come along to listen to him and connect in with YWAM Scotland in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Check out these links for more info about the Tribe: https://ywamtribe.com/
And this link for more info about Matt Whitlock: https://www.matthewwhitlock.com/sample-page/
or if you want to watch some of his messages you can see some of them here: https://www.matthewwhitlock.com/speaking/watch-matt/
If you are able to get to listen to Matt – it will be really worth going.
Tuesday 21st April 6.30-9pm Tribe Gathering in Edinburgh at Bristo Baptist Church
Tribe Edinburgh - April
Wednesday 22nd April 6.30-8.30pm Tribe Gathering in Glasgow at Champion Life Church
 tribe glasgow april 2015
Please spread to word to anyone you know in Glasgow who are interested in YWAM, have been connected with YWAM in the past, etc – ANYONE that is interested in missions is welcome to come!

Meet Lee

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Here’s a short interview with Lee, our centre manager at YWAM Seamill. Maybe grab a coffee and have a read!

Hi Lee, could you start with reminding us of what Seamill does?
Seamill is a huge 110 year old building on Scotland’s west coast. We have a permanent staff of usually between 20 to 30 people. We are a YWAM centre and most of our work is to run courses for people to further their walk with God. We run two DTSes every year, we also run one bible school per year , we have a course for people who work in some of the tougher nations on the planet and every year we run a retreat – again for frontier missions workers. We also have teams on base reaching out evangelistically into the local community.

And how does your role fit into making all that happen?
My role as part of the leadership team of the community is to basically make sure the building is operating as it should, that we have heat and electric, and comply with what the Government asks us to do to keep the building safe. To make sure we comply with fire regulations. I believe what I do is make sure that we as a community can hold a space open for people to come here and to meet with God.

Tell us about what a regular day looks like!
It’s kind of tricky to describe for me – each day is different. We have a list of the things that each year we have to make sure we do to make sure we comply with what our insurance company, the government and its agencies demand that we have for the building to be safe. I may be looking at getting the asbestos in our building inspected to make sure it is safe (it is), getting someone to inspect our lightening rods, booking trades people to come work on our heating, our gas, our electrics, our building. Looking at our budgets making sure we are spending within what we estimated. I’m also involved with leading our community meetings on base and involved with staff training on our DTSes. So as I said very very diverse.

When and where did your missions journey start?
I had been in a bad relationship which had just ended and I needed something new. I had friends that had done some stuff with YWAM so I went on a short term outreach to St Petersburg, Russia. I did a week’s training at Holmsted first as part of the trip and was given an application form for a DTS. I knew then that I would quit my job the following year and so I came on the DTS in 1995. Those first years God went after me. I had not been in good shape before, but God started working in my life and refining my character.

I staffed a couple of DTSes and met my wife. We got married in ‘98 and led a DTS together in ‘99. We went to Ukraine on outreach and saw God do some amazing things. People got healed, heroin addicts got free from addiction, and lots of people met with Jesus. It was Book of Acts type stuff.

In 2002 we left England to do the Leadership Development School at Seamill and Mariette Louw asked us to stay and lead DTSes with her at Seamill. So we did. I became the DTS team leader and kept working with DTS. Then in 2011 God said to stop being involved with DTS. I love DTS so that was a big deal for me. Two years ago I was asked to be part of the base leadership team, and that brings us to now.

For people that might be interested in doing what you do, what opportunities are there to get involved? (and how can they find out more?)
There are many opportunities here. We are looking for a Centre Manager to do basically a lot of the things that I described above. We are looking for practical people who love God, love the challenge of helping with preserving a beautiful 100 year old building, and love seeing God’s Kingdom advanced, who have a heart for people and seeing them blessed. We are looking for folks who love to serve. You can find out more on our www.ywamseamill.org

It feels alive

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Frank, thank you for making this wonderful website for YWAM Scotland – tell us about it.
A website is a voice that should speak for you, when you are not there in person. There are many elements to it and they all tell the story of Us. We wanted to portray all of YWAM Scotland for this season – we felt it should be warm, welcoming and friendly, yet unique, determined, bold and without “frillyiness”. And though we live in a most beautiful country, we didn’t want to end up with a postcard for tourists. So we worked hard to get the colors, the fonts, the textures, the visuals and the text to all express that and I think we succeeded.

Often people perceive design as making something look pretty; to me it means making something work. “Are we answering the questions that brought people to our site? Do we connect those that have a call to this nation or a certain ministry with the right people? Are we clear about who we are as a mission in this nation and who we are not?

And it has to work on a practical level and be future-forward – adapting to how we take in information and serve the many digital devices with different screen sizes and ways of interacting. The best navigation is the one people don’t have to think about – if they intuitively, with the least amount of clicks, find their answer.

One of the best compliments I had, was: “ It doesn’t feel static, it feels alive.” We hope that it will “live” well out there and promote the heck out of all of that YWAM Scotland has to offer.

Tell us a little about yourself – what do you do? What does being in missions look like for you?
One of the milestones during my DTS (Seamill ‘95) was a huge portion of grace God heaped on me. He called me out as a “man of excellence”. At the time this did not seem such a big deal or unsual – growing up in Germany the expectation to aim for perfection is very high. Only later did I understand that excellence is the near opposite of perfection – one can never be reached and leads to constant failure. The other allows you to do the best you can with the tools and understanding you have right now – and then do it better next time.

That is what I want to do – learn more, get better and serve God. If that is through discipleship, hospitality, leadership, coordinating events or communication – my almost 20 years in mission so far has stretched me, thrown me in uncomfortable situations and been ever so rewarding.

What has the process of getting this website up and running been like?
This project has been going on for just about a year – including finally conquering WordPress; what started out as a software hate relationship is turning into a friendship.

I think our biggest job was to get a grip on what YWAM Scotland is at the moment. We have a new National Leadership Team and they spent a great many hours and cups of coffee to get to know all the different teams and bases. That helped tremendously – one of my biggest fears was that we would forget someone and what kind of message it would send to that person.

And boy is there a lot going on. Our next task was to organise all that into a format that made sense, especially to those not within the YWAM family. Once we had identified some groupings it became a bit easier – it just makes sense that those with an affinity for arts quite like meeting like-minded people, the same for those with a prayer ministry or a heart for families.

It also shows that we are not all things to all people and that is OK. But we are also not limited by it and leave room for pioneers and individuals and teams that carry a particular calling. Scotland has a built in heart for hospitality and we want to welcome them in and look after them and help them do well.

So the site will continue to grow and evolve and I am quite chuffed by what we have accomplished already.