10/17/2026
🌊 So Blessed to be
a part of The Waves 🌊
LOREN CUNNINGHAM: THE VISION OF THE WAVES THAT BECAME MISSIONARIES
In June 1956, a 20-year-old Pentecostal Bible college student named Loren Cunningham traveled to the Bahamas with a small gospel singing group. He had no idea that something extraordinary was about to happen, an experience that would eventually help send millions of young people into Christian missions around the world.
Loren had grown up in a family of Christian ministers and had sensed God's call upon his life from an early age. At just thirteen, while kneeling at the altar during an old-fashioned brush arbor revival meeting in 1948, he believed God had spoken to him through Mark 16:15: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” That call to evangelism remained with him as he grew older, but he had yet to understand how far it would take him.
Eight years later, Loren was staying in the home of a missionary in the Bahamas. It was a Wednesday afternoon, just days before his twenty-first birthday. He was scheduled to speak to a gathering of young people that evening and had gone into his room to pray. Kneeling beside the bed, he asked God to give him a message for the meeting.
As he looked toward the white wall of the room, something completely unexpected happened.
Suddenly, Loren saw what appeared to be a map of the entire world. But this was no ordinary map. The continents were moving, and enormous waves were crashing against their shores. He watched as the waves rolled onto the continents, retreated, and then returned, each time advancing farther inland. Wave after wave continued until the continents were completely covered.
Then the vision changed.
The waves became young people.
Loren watched as countless young men and women, some his own age and others even younger, spread across the continents. They were preaching the Gospel on street corners, speaking to people outside bars, going from house to house, and carrying the message of Jesus Christ throughout the world. They were coming from every direction and going into every nation.
Then, just as suddenly as the vision had appeared, it disappeared.
Loren sat astonished by what he had witnessed. He had entered that room asking God for a message to deliver to a small gathering of young people. Instead, he believed the Lord had shown him something that would change the direction of his entire life.
At the time, the idea of sending large numbers of inexperienced young people into foreign missions was unconventional. Missionary service was generally associated with extensive preparation, denominational appointments, and long-term commitments.
But Loren believed God was showing him that young Christians could be mobilized to carry the Gospel throughout the world, regardless of their age, nationality, or denominational background.
The vision refused to leave him.
After graduating from Central Bible College in 1957, Loren became a youth pastor and music director at Calvary Assembly in Inglewood, California. He continued praying, preaching, and encouraging young believers to become involved in evangelism. The burden for world missions only grew stronger.
In the spring of 1960, Loren led more than one hundred young people on an evangelistic outreach to Hawaii. The experience strengthened his conviction that young Christians could make a genuine difference in spreading the Gospel.
That summer, he resigned his pastoral position, sold his car, and purchased an airline ticket that would take him around the world. He traveled through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, visiting missionaries, meeting Christian leaders, and witnessing the tremendous spiritual needs of the nations. Everywhere he went, he became more convinced that reaching the world would require Christians from many different churches and backgrounds working together.
In 1960, Youth With A Mission was born.
The organization, commonly known as YWAM, began with a revolutionary conviction: young people did not have to wait until they were older to participate in fulfilling the Great Commission. They could be trained, equipped, and sent into the nations to preach the Gospel and demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ.
In 1963, Loren married Darlene Scratch, who became his partner in developing the growing missionary movement. Together, they helped establish training programs, missionary outreaches, and ministries that eventually spread across the globe. YWAM developed its well-known mission statement: “To know God and to make Him known.”
Over the following decades, the organization expanded into evangelism, discipleship training, Bible distribution, humanitarian assistance, and missionary service. Its Discipleship Training Schools equipped generations of young Christians to serve God, while the University of the Nations extended its educational and missionary work.
By the time Loren Cunningham died on October 6, 2023, at the age of eighty-eight, Youth With A Mission had established ministries across the world. Millions had participated in YWAM programs, and generations of missionaries had carried the Gospel into cities, villages, islands, and remote communities.
Loren himself eventually traveled to every sovereign nation on earth in pursuit of the Great Commission.
And it all traced back to an afternoon in June 1956, when a young Pentecostal Bible college student knelt beside a bed in the Bahamas and saw waves crashing upon the continents.
The waves were young people.
And the young people became missionaries.
Revival Press
