A man with a gun walked into a Youth with a Mission training centre in Denver Colorado and opened fire.

2 people are dead, two are wounded. The man escaped. He is described as a white male in his early 20’s. The shooting took place at Faith Bible Chapel Campus.

The centre is located just outside Denver at Arvada, about 45 people were in the building. According to Denver news sources, Peter Warren, the director of the YWAM facility says a 22-year-old woman from Minnesota and a young man from Alaska were killed. According to the Arvada police, the two wounded are 22 and 23 years of age.
About 300 people train at the centre yearly. 
Faith Bible Chapel is a none-denominational mega church, with 21 staff members and about 4500 attendees, situated on about 30 acres.

Youth with a Mission , founded in the 1960’s has about 1000 centres world wide  and about 11 thousand staff members. The centres are set up for mostly young people who wish to  learn to be Christian missionaries, share their faith or do short term service around the world.
YWAM focuses on evangelism, humanitarian efforts through the Mercy Ships training and youth work. Since the early 1990’s the organization has had a clear statement of faith and a grievance procedure, after earlier complaints of authoritarianism abuses at some of it’s training facilities.
The YWAM website is reporting the two people killed were staff members. The centre has 5 staff and holds 12 week courses. The shooting occurred in one of their Discipleship Training Seminars held for high school and college age students about 12:30 am. These young people are not professional Christians, they are evangelicals who go to YWAM to study and learn. Seminars:

…encourage students to develop in personal character, to cultivate a living relationship with God, and to identify their unique individual gifts and callings in God. Cross-cultural exposure and global awareness are special emphases throughout these courses, preparing the students to reach current and future generations and answer the call to “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations” Matthew 28:19.”

While blogs are beginning to pick up news of this shooting from traditional media, there are no posts yet from YWAM staff or students.

According to The Denver Post, the man came to the door looking for a place to stay. Tiffany Johnson, 26, of Minnesota and 24 year old Philip Crouse of Alaska were killed.

Update: Dan Griebenow,24, of South Dakota, is in stable condition. He sustained a neck wound. 22 year old Charlie Blanch was wounded in his leg. Youth with a Mission statement.

Update: The gunman has been identified as 24 year old Matthew Murray of Denver. He is also being identified by anonymous police sources as a man who ‘hated Christians.’ CP

The Rocky Mountain News
Local resident connected to the church school

Bumped up from the comment section:

Here are some links to the press releases from YWAM to add to your post:

- http://ywam.org/articles/article.asp?AID=493
- http://ywam.org/articles/article.asp?AID=498
- http://ywam.org/articles/article.asp?AID=499

There are also some thoughts about it from Donovan Palmer, the leader of YWAM England:

- http://donovanpalmer.com/

Cheers.

Bill Hutchison
YWAM Staff Member

Thanks Bill.