Ymca

As an organization that views development as the integration of spirit, mind, and body over the life course, a progressive exposure to skills development is at the heart of the YMCA's program philosophy. You learn to walk before you run and to respect and relate to peers as equals before you assume leadership roles, in life and in organizations. The YMCA considers spiritual and religious development in childhood and adolescence to be a process that is integral to maturation. As such, without being their primary purpose or intent, spiritual and religious development occur through programs and relationships of the YMCA.

While at its founding in 1844 the central focus may have been an evangelical and proselytizing interest in young men moving into the industrial centers of England, the YMCA has survived more than 150 years and spread to more than 130 countries because the scope of its work has expanded and its evangelical goals contracted. The motivation of YMCA work has always had a thread of Christian witness with the underlying principles of the work representing mostly Christian values. But the work is never directed solely to service to Christians and the program does not serve evangelism or orthodoxy of faith.

The YMCA is not intended to serve as a substitute for a church or faith community in the religious and spiritual development of an individual. The YMCA does not offer a catechism or confession as the content or a condition of membership and participation. The YMCA does, to the extent that aspirations can be attributed to institutions, hope to support individuals in their exploration of questions and emotions that become the definitions and practices of beliefs and faith in their lives. It is an explicit part of its stated mission to build a healthy spirit (and mind and body) for all.

There is no definition of the spirit, however, within the YMCA. Broadly speaking, it is understood to correspond to that innate, native, human predisposition to seek the transcendent, and to find meaning and purpose in life, which perhaps is grounded in some higher power. Recent research appears to affirm that the attraction and success of YMCA programs for children and adolescents is due in part because they embody and respect the desire and need to seek a life of purpose. This can be a very powerful need for youth, and a very rewarding area for service to youth by adults.

YMCA staff have virtually no formal training, little experience, and few expectations that they will be confessional mentors to youth in any way except as role models, demonstrating their own continuing spiritual journeys and exhibiting high moral and ethical values. Listening with respect to youth as they seek to define those values for themselves and speak about their life purpose and dreams can be a sufficient basis of powerful relationships with youth.

The YMCA collapses a range of ethical values into a consensually accepted set of four: caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility. The focus on values within the YMCA is part of an orientation to youth work called character development. The YMCA is one of many youth-serving organizations that have selected a subset of a larger universe of values as a way of defining the core precepts of their communities and, in one sense, as definitions of spirit for their members.

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