More than 1,200 leaders of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) from 90 nations gathered in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in September for the mission movement's Global Leadership Gathering, which opened with an emphatic call to holiness and integrity. The meeting came at a sensitive moment: the character failures of some prominent Christian leaders have caused widespread grief, and YWAM is itself navigating the loss of its founder. A leader from the Middle East put the challenge plainly to the assembly: “We need our character to match our call.”
YWAM was founded in 1960 by Loren and Darlene Cunningham, whose vision of waves of young people carrying the message of Jesus across continents still shapes the movement. Loren Cunningham died soon after the previous global gathering in 2023, and the Chiang Mai meeting was the first of its kind since. Over the past two decades the movement has deliberately moved away from a top-down model towards a flatter, more decentralised structure built around Area Circle Teams, which were launched in 2014 and now number 74.
The gathering introduced a new Global Eldership of 41 elders drawn from 24 nations and spanning several generations, replacing the Founders' Circle that had previously advised the movement alongside the Cunninghams. The elders are tasked with strengthening and encouraging YWAM's values, and with stepping in on sensitive matters when local leadership cannot resolve a situation. Guest speakers Allen Hood and Phil Manginelli focused on holiness and keeping Jesus at the centre, and a map of unreached peoples shown during the sessions underlined how many of the remaining places are difficult to reach. The University of the Nations also presented new provost's and presidents' teams. Delegates closed with personal and collective repentance, as senior leaders acknowledged that allegations of poor leadership had not always been taken seriously enough, and committed to strengthening safeguarding protocols.
Source: YWAM / Youth With A Mission — ywam.org/global-leadership-gathering-2026
