At the heart of our community you will find the live/learn environment.
We are movement committed to growth through radical lifestyle and teaching enriched by experience.
We will never stop trying, never stop risking and never stop learning.
At least 12 weeks of uncompromising, life-changing Biblical teaching. You will be different
Serving your local community is a non-negotiable. Roll up your sleeves and get stuck in.
At least 10 weeks of out-of-your-culture outreach designed to make you rely on God. For everything.
Remember we said we live and learn together? Yeah, we meant it….and you will be a real part of it.
At the heart of all we do is desire to Know God and Make Him Known. We do this through a confident belief that God wants to relate to us and share with us what He is like.
We accomplish that through drawing near to Him in Worship and Prayer. We enjoy all kinds of worship and all sorts of prayer. Quiet, not-so-quiet, expressive, contemplative, artistic, musical and silent. These are just some of the ways you will experience the wonderful presence of God through His Holy Spirit.
Hearing God”s voice means that we can be confident when making choices about what to do with our lives and we will spend enormous chunks of our time together learning to discern His voice. This will be one of the most thrilling parts of your time with us.
Learning within a big group is fun, but the rubber hits the road when you get real with a few others. Being in an environment where everyone else is on the same journey as you means you can go deep knowing that you are not alone in what you are facing.
Our small groups give you a chance to find out how apply what you are learning in an atmosphere of prayer and encouragement. Like the lectures, they are not passive and we will expect you to want to engage.
Of course, you will want someone who will commit to you on a more personal level throughout the school – someone who will walk you through whatever you may be facing. This one-on-one will be someone who you can talk with, pray with and who will help you get the absolute most out of your experience.
12 weeks of hard-core Biblical teaching. All sorts of subjects will covered from Jesus and the Cross, Nature and Character of God, Evangelism, Hearing God’s Voice, the Bible, Spiritual Authority, Identity in Christ and so much more.
All of our lecturers will spend time with you throughout each week, sharing and teaching from their own experiences and life-story. They are all thoroughly grounded in what they teach and are there to help you understand not just what they share but how to actually apply what you are learning to your own life.
Expect the teaching times to be interactive and full of opportunities to make it real. Jesus is our master and our model for life – it is our joy to want to be His disciples.
Your participation is expected.
The lecture phase is the first part of your DTS experience and will last anything from 3 to 7 months depending on the length of the school. Life changing? You bet.
Learning is all very well, but it needs an expression to ground it and make it real. As well as whatever outreach you will do during your Lecture Phase, you will be expected to engage with a 10-12 week Outreach Phase after the Lecture Phase has been successfully completed.
Often overseas, this phase takes you out of your comfort zone and into the place where you have to rely on God. Totally.
The great thing is that you will be doing it together with others and under leadership that will have done this many times before. The Outreach Phase is where God gets to colour in all the wonderful design and beauty you have been adding to your life during the Lecture Phase and many say it is probably the most exciting part of the whole DTS.
Expect to be called on to share your testimony, teach, preach, lead out in groups or Bible studies and basically get stuck in. You won’t be on your own, and we will work with your style and personality, but no one goes on outreach for a holiday.
No sir.
One of the key ways we know that what we are learning is making a difference to our lives it to take away some of the cultural props that we normally rely on. Food, weather, language and customs are just some of stable things that we take for granted when at home.
By ensuring our Outreach Phase operates in a different culture it means that we can be confident that we are relying on God, rather than our own experiences when ministering.
Although this might initially sound challenging, we have literally thousands of testimonies in YWAM of how this phase has cemented in what people have learned during their Lecture Phase. Remember, you will not be alone and have solid leadership around you at every step.
At the end of your Outreach Phase you will return to Wales for your Debrief. Typically lasting 1-2 weeks you will use this time to ensure that your DTS concludes in the best possible fashion.
Typically this phase combines celebration, story-telling and processing what you have experienced. You will be given tools to help you work through what you have accomplished on your DTS and how you can move back to your home ready and able to re-enter and engage with your family, friends, church and community.
Debrief, although the shortest phase, is one that will glue the whole experience together and will set you up ready for whatever the next greatest step of your life that God has for you.
Lasting around 2-3 months, this outward-focused part of your DTS will give you a chance to put what you have learned into practice.
Wrexham is a vibrant town with a huge catchment area. With a university, shops, businesses and a night-time economy to match there are no shortage of ministry opportunities.
Over 25 churches are dotted round the town and we have worked with most of them. Unity is a feature of our town and cooperating with Christ’s body locally will feature in your time with us. Expect to regularly worship at one of our local churches whilst with us – where you may well make some incredible friends.
So, come ready to join in all sorts of ministries, from kids clubs, to evangelism, to social outreach to supernatural endeavours. You will not be bored.
We are profoundly grateful for the fact that God has provided us somewhere to live. ‘Gair y Gwynt’ (or GyG for short) is our home and translated from Welsh means ‘Wind Words’. Taken from The Message, chapters 2 and 3, this is how God speaks to us – through His ‘Wind’ or as we know Him, the Holy Spirit. We have no shortage of testimonies of how the Holy Spirit has lived up to this name – He speaks every day!
We share life together in all its glory and we will have to find ways to live together, eat together, play together and – yes – clean together. GyG will become your sanctuary, your place of study and your place of transformation. Missions is not 9 to 5, but rather a whole of life experience that changes you from the inside out. This so you can always be ready to be useful to God wherever He sends you and with whomever He gives you to share your life with.
You will quickly settle in and thrive through being part of the community at GyG. We love it.
Believe it or not, you will have some free time. Might not be much, but there is some. Wrexham has all sorts of things to do, from most urban experiences to nearby rural delights. For the more adventurous there are mountains not far away and the coast is just over half an hour by car.
We are close friends with most of the other YWAM locations in the UK and as a trainee with us you can visit them and stay there really cheaply. If you are not from the UK we highly recommend a bit of travel whilst with us – it will widely broaden your horizons.
We have lots of other ideas of how to spend your free time and we will happily share ideas and tips on how to get the most out of your time here in Wales. Just ask.
You will contribute to what we do in Wrexham through local outreach and helping to make our community somewhere wonderful to live. No one is exempt.
