Essential competencies for Asian YWAM cross-cultural church planters: A critical review of the literature (Youth with a Mission)

Youth With A Mission (YWAM) is committed to evangelize the Asian unreached peoples through church planting. In training aspiring YWAM cross-cultural church planters (CCCPs) for effective ministry, it is vital to identify the competencies essential for the task.; This study attempts to identify competencies essential for CCCPs through a critical review of the literature. Essential competencies are categorized under three elements of "being," "doing," and "knowing." Competency in terms of attitudes, spiritual formation, spiritual authority, "call," skills of stress-coping, relating, culture-crossing, spiritual warfare, spiritual gifts, knowledge of the bible, target people, missiology, one's own culture and sending agency are examined. They are, then, critically applied to the context of YWAM Asia with reference to the School of Frontier Mission (SOFM), Singapore.; This study recommends a list of essential competencies that may be used to evaluate the outgoing SOFM participants.