Formation · 01
The nature & character of God
Build lab
What these tools actually are — models, prompts, and honest limits
Know God.Make Him known.Build what's next.
YWAM Endless Summer's Discipleship Training School — in North County San Diego, now built at the intersection of faith and artificial intelligence.
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YWAM Endless Summer · North County San Diego
What does it meanto follow Jesusin the age of AI?
A Discipleship Training School for people who are asking exactly that — whether AI looks to you like a threat, or a tool worth mastering. Twelve weeks rooted in Scripture, hands-on with AI from the absolute basics — one small founding cohort in North County San Diego.
12 weeks · North County San Diego+ 8 weeks outreachSeptember 25, 2026 · Cohort One
Questions we keep hearing
“Can I honor God with AI?”“Is AI the antichrist?”“Should Christians be worried about AI?”“Will my job exist in five years?”“When is it appropriate to use AI — and when isn't it?”“Is AI going to take over the world?”“Can I honor God with AI?”“Is AI the antichrist?”“Should Christians be worried about AI?”“Will my job exist in five years?”“When is it appropriate to use AI — and when isn't it?”“Is AI going to take over the world?”
“Should Christians use AI at all?”“Is it okay to get counsel or therapy from an AI tool?”“Can AI give me spiritual advice?”“Who is discipling me — the Word, or the feed?”“What should we build — and what should we refuse to build?”“What stays human?”“Should Christians use AI at all?”“Is it okay to get counsel or therapy from an AI tool?”“Can AI give me spiritual advice?”“Who is discipling me — the Word, or the feed?”“What should we build — and what should we refuse to build?”“What stays human?”
The hard part
AI is rewriting work, art, war, and childhood.
Some of us see a threat. Some of us see a tool. All of us see the future changing.
There has never been a scarier better time to ask what comes next.
There is hope in the questions.
Not because the answers come easy — but because we bring them to a God who has never once been afraid of a question. Ask them with us. Out loud. For twelve weeks. With your Bible open, your laptop open, and the Pacific down the street. And hold on to this: the power of the tool is magnified by who's operating it — so who you're becoming comes first.
The school
So what exactly is an AI DTS?
A DTS — Discipleship Training School — is YWAM's front door: the school that has launched generations into missions since 1960. You live in community, sit under the Word, and then take what you've learned to the nations.
Ours is built for this moment. We keep the DTS core — Scripture, prayer, worship, evangelism — and use the same season to learn AI from the ground up. No experience required: daily building time, weekly labs, real things shipped. Our team already builds with these tools — comic books, films and animations, websites — and by the end, so will you. Not one narrow product: the ability to walk into any church or business and offer real help, and to build whatever God puts on your heart.
Rooted.
Spiritual formation stays the center — seeking God, the Word, prayer, the classic DTS disciplines. The tech never comes first.
Building.
AI from scratch — no experience needed. Daily hands-on time, learning to actually ship: sites, media, agents, tools.
Together.
Learning AI alone is isolating and endless. Here we seek, build, eat, and live together — community over the solo grind.
Discerning.
A community unafraid to ask when AI is appropriate — and when it isn't, especially spiritually. Convictions alongside skill.
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YWAM founded in Southern California
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nations where YWAM serves today
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weeks, lecture through outreach
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founding cohort — that's you
The rhythm
Twelve weeks. Two threads.
Every DTS teaches the classics. Ours pairs each week of formation with a build lab — ~12 hours of class a week, three worship sessions, three intercessory prayer sets, an evangelism outing or two, daily AI building, and one full free day. Sundays add church, serving alongside local congregations, and adventures. Scroll the semester.
Formation · 01
The nature & character of God
Build lab
What these tools actually are — models, prompts, and honest limits
Formation · 02
Hearing God's voice
Build lab
Discernment by design: when to ask the model, when to be still
Formation · 03
The Father heart of God
Build lab
Build for one person you love — a first tool that serves
Formation · 04
Making Jesus Lord
Build lab
What we refuse to build: ethics, conviction, and safety
Formation · 05
Repentance & grace
Build lab
Agents 101 — automate the repetitive, guard the human
Formation · 06
The Holy Spirit
Build lab
Creative studio: image, film, and story
Formation · 07
Relationships & community
Build lab
Tech that connects vs. tech that isolates
Formation · 08
Worship & intercession
Build lab
Ship week: build something a local ministry will actually use
Formation · 09
Spiritual authority
Build lab
Truth in the feed — deepfakes, discernment, digital witness
Formation · 10
Evangelism
Build lab
The gospel in new mediums
Formation · 11
God's heart for the nations
Build lab
Tools for the field: offline-first, low-bandwidth, translation
Formation · 12
Commissioning
Build lab
Pack the toolkit. Outreach prep. Go.
Formation first, always. The lab serves the discipleship — never the other way around.
A Tuesday, for example
- 06:30Wake up — the sun's barely ahead of you
- 07:00Quiet time with God
- 08:00Breakfast together
- 08:30Worship — some mornings, intercessory prayer
- 10:00Classes — this week's formation topic
- 13:00Lunch, long tables
- 14:00House chores — community is also the dishes
- 15:30AI building — daily, hands on
- 17:30Dinner
- EveningFree — rest, the beach, each other
Then we go
The questions travel well.
After twelve weeks in North County San Diego we take everything — the formation and the toolkit — abroad for eight weeks. Outreach stays true to the DTS basics: evangelism, serving kids, widows, and the poor, the disciplines on the road. And the AI doesn't stop: we keep serving churches, businesses, and people with the tools, keep exploring what's new as a community, and keep shipping our own builds. Locations are prayed over as a cohort; international travel is included in the outreach fee.
Where Cohort One could go — decided together, in prayerMéxico
Where our base already serves — evangelism and practical service alongside local partners
$3,000–3,500
outreach fee, travel included
Chile
Serving churches and communities with YWAM's local teams — and building with them
$3,500–4,500
outreach fee, travel included
Australia
Creative ministry and service with long-term workers across the Pacific
$4,500–5,000
outreach fee, travel included
The outcome
What will you carry out of this?
Formed.
- A rhythm of spiritual disciplines that holds under pressure
- A deeper, tested friendship with God
- A greater understanding of His Word
- Real experience in ministry and evangelism
- Practice hearing God's voice — and the courage to obey it
Equipped.
- A working AI toolkit you built yourself — real things shipped, starting from zero
- The ability to walk into any church or business and offer real value — see the constraint, build the simple thing
- Discernment for what to build, what to use, what to refuse — especially spiritually
- The confidence to build whatever God puts on your heart — the limitations are gone
- A community of fellow builders and seekers who asked the hard questions next to you
The honest numbers
What does it cost?
Most mission schools make you ask. We'd rather you know.
Lecture phase — 12 weeks in North County San Diego
Tuition, housing, and meals
$3,970 after acceptance
Outreach phase — 8 weeks abroad
International travel included; range depends on the field
$3,000–5,000
Application fee
Paid on submission; non-refundable
$25
Not includedAirfare to San Diego, personal spending, and travel documents.
Can't write that check? Almost nobody can.
Most students fundraise all of it — and support-raising is formation too. We coach you through it, from acceptance to arrival.
Parents: we'd love to talk with you directly. Book a call and bring your hardest questions.
Book a call.Cohort One
No alumni. No highlight reel. That's the invitation.
Day one is September 25, 2026 — this school's first cohort. The people who join won't follow a well-worn path — they'll help lay it. And we'll be honest: we're missionaries and fellow builders, not gurus with a formula. What we offer is space, time, and a community to seek with, build with, and wrestle through the hard questions with. If you need a track record to feel safe, wait for Cohort Two. If you'd rather build the thing, keep reading.
01
Apply.
About 15 minutes online. It reads like a story, not a test.
02
Talk with us.
A video call with our team — questions in both directions.
03
Fundraise & arrive.
We coach you through support-raising. You show up in September.
Asked, answered
The questions we get most.
No. We start from the absolute basics — no experience or prior knowledge required. Curiosity beats credentials: plenty of the cohort will arrive never having built anything, and they'll leave having shipped something real. If you already code or create, you'll go deeper, faster.
September 25, 2026 · North County San Diego
Keep asking.Come build.
Twenty weeks. One founding cohort. Build what's next — not from ambition, but from a settled identity in the God who has never been afraid of your questions.
Not ready for a button? Ask us your hardest question instead: dts@ywamendlesssummer.org
AI DTS · Cohort One · YWAM Endless Summer