THE KERYGMA STORY
Prepare to be surprised by how God birthed aministry that works closely
with Catholics and the Catholic Church, through a predominantly Protestant movement!
And how God might be inviting you to be part of this story that He is bringing about.
Kerygma is part of the international, inter-confessional lay missionary movement ‘Youth With A Mission’. Youth With A Mission is a global movement of Christians from many cultures, age groups, and Christian traditions, dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world. Also known as YWAM (pronounced “WHY wham”), we unite in a common purpose to know God and to make Him known. Kerygma is now active in 14 countries.
You can read testimonials of Catholic and Protestant leaders, about their experience with us here:
*Catholics & Protestants learning together at a Kerygma Discipleship Training School
When YWAM began in 1960, our main focus was to get youth involved in short-term missions. Today, we still focus on youth, and we also involve people aged 8 to 80. Currently thousands participate each year in YWAM through ‘Discipleship Training Schools’ and other courses, as well as through short- and long-term outreaches. Our full-time staff of over 18,000 lay missionaries serves in over 180 countries and more than 1,200 locations worldwide. And they come from over 130 countries, including places like Indonesia, Nepal, Mozambique, and Colombia.
If you are interested you can learn more about YWAM here:
Although it has roots in the Pentecostal movement, YWAM has always nevertheless endeavoured to cultivate a “heart” for all of God’s people. As doors of service opened up with Catholic groups in Spain, Austria, Poland, and elsewhere, it was only logical to walk through these, even if many “YWAMers” had little, in any previous contact with Catholics, much less training on how to sensitively serve them.
Much was learned over the years, and by the early 90’s YWAM not only had an ever-increasing amount of ministry in and with Catholic groups, but also a growing number of Catholics working on staff in some of our ministry centres. As one can imagine, this encouraging development was accompanied by a unique set of challenges. Foremost among them was to create space in this predominantly Protestant mission for Catholics to participate in YWAM’s calling, and at the same time have these Catholics remain rooted in the Catholic Church and be free to express their Catholic faith.
*An international leadership training run by Kerygma.
An international group of 35 Catholic and Protestant YWAM leaders met in Dublin in the summer of 1992 to examine this and other related questions. This “Dublin Consultation on Evangelization in the Catholic World” laid the groundwork for what eventually became Kerygma.
‘Kerygma’ in Greek means ‘proclamation’ and refers to the core message of the gospel in Catholic theology. This name was chosen for our ministry, because we wanted the proclamation of Jesus and drawing people into relationship with him as central to all that we do. Our desire is that all that we do as a ministry will build and support cultures that evangelise.
What is the calling of ‘Kerygma’?
We have 3 ‘distinctives’ which define our unique calling as a YWAM ministry:
Mobilizing Catholics and other Christians to reach the Unreached
Kerygma strongly embraces what Pope John Paul II called the “New Evangelization”, which includes evangelising baptized Catholics.
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In addition, we believe in the importance of reaching out to people who, for one reason or another, have never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel message. Encouraging lay Catholics to be involved in reaching out to those who have never heard the Gospel is relatively new in our era.
All of our activities are meant to directly or indirectly lead to equipping the believer to reach out to the nations.
Facilitating other Christians to serve in the Catholic World
In the past, Catholics have often joined programs and projects initiated by other Christians. We also believe that God desires other Christians to be able to serve some Catholic-initiated endeavours. Kerygma wants to help facilitate this.
Facilitating Catholics & other Christians to build God's Kingdom
We believe that true Christian unity not only entails mutual respect and appreciation but also partnering together to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Part of Kerygma’s bridge-building call is to help facilitate this partnership.
