By Ryan Bean, Archivist at the Kautz Family YMCA Archive at the University of Minnesota, USA
On 19-25 July 2026 at the 21st YMCA World Council, a multitude of people representing nearly half the world’s nations will convene, as their predecessors have done for generations, ostensibly to discuss, debate, and (for some) attempt to define the essential nature of the YMCA. Votes will be cast, positions taken, and new bonds will be formed. That’s what will happen. But why do we gather?
One source with tremendous perspective on this question is the YMCA’s own history, which I’m responsible for stewarding – specifically that of the American YMCA Movement. I’ve been connected to the Kautz Family YMCA Archives, a part of the University of Minnesota Libraries, for half my life. My job, as the archivist, is to support individuals as they navigate the collections. I preserve the records. I provide access. I often interpret the YMCA for those unfamiliar with its wonderful quirks.
The more I learn about the YMCA, both past and present, the more in awe of it I become. The YMCA is incredibly aspirational in its intentions. It is so often pragmatic in its approach. Invariably, it contradicts itself. It is a beautiful expression of the art of being human.
Reflecting on what I’ve learned as it pertains to gathering, the verse of scripture, John 17:21, “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You,” offers a clue as to why we gather. It is used often. It’s presented as if everyone should know the truth of its simplicity. But in my mind, it begs another question: ‘one what’?
When our YMCA predecessors gathered for the first time in 1855, they were cementing something that already existed. They had corresponded with one another and, in the process, discovered the joy that they were not alone in their ambitions. They too had heard the call from London and had formed Young Men’s Christian Associations.
And so, following the example of the founders, Christian unity is regularly lifted up as the ambition for gathering. There is, however, a profound difference between unity and conformity. Too often, when creating space for discourse, the desire is to define surfaces. This dynamic was identified as a core issue in a 1993 mission review conducted by the global Movement. In its charge, the review’s authors observed that “more times than not… we struggle with the complex issues of what we should do as a YMCA – or what we should look like as a YMCA – rather than the much more fundamental and painful struggle of identifying who we are and what we want to be.”
Today, the YMCA is a true global enterprise. This global identity will resist definitions that focus on a single aspect of humanity. That is not to say that in gathering we diminish our differences. Quite the opposite. In gathering, we celebrate our differences and relish in the fact that we gather not in spite of them but because of them. There is so much work to be done, and each of us is a piece of the puzzle.
With Toronto being my fourth World Council, I’ve been privileged to see this firsthand. In 2014, at the YMCA of the Rockies, I absorbed the enthusiasm and optimism that accompanied the launch of the YMCA Change Agents initiative. I also marveled at seeing an auditorium filled with hundreds singing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” in unison.
In 2018, I arrived in Chiang Mai under the banner of “Youth Empowerment 4 Good.” There was a slightly looser agenda this time, and I spent time learning about what YMCAs were like in different places. While I knew about the great variety of work YMCAs have done from a historical perspective, in Thailand I began to appreciate that the YMCA is as much a verb as it is a noun. The YMCA, at its core, is action. And the variety of forms that action takes is beyond impressive.
Vision 2030 was launched in 2022 under the theme “Ignite”. The host city of Aarhus, a university town, provided the perfect backdrop for serious discussion of the four Vision 2030 Pillars of Impact – Community Wellbeing, Meaningful Work, Sustainable Planet, and Just World. I was honored to be asked to provide a keynote for one of the Just World panels [see hyperlink below].
As I reflected on the theme of a Just World, I lingered on what is holding back such a beautiful promise. There are many things, but one aspect I saw as an opportunity to engage with is the past. With the title “Overcoming our Burdens,” I traced the history of the World Alliance and World Councils, looking for patterns and examples that would give voice to the hope for a Just World. I’m grateful for all my experiences, but particularly Aarhus. The gift of digging deep into such an essential question added so much depth and complexity to my understanding of the YMCA. Not just as an agent of change but as an expression of human hope.
In the coming weeks, we will gather in Toronto, a bustling, cosmopolitan city, this time under the theme of “transform”. It will be an opportunity to contemplate what we wish to transform into. And while votes will be cast, positions taken, and new bonds formed, for a week we will transform into something special, though fleeting. We will gather with courage to name the ills of the world. We will gather in the hope that collectively we can make the world more humane. We will gather in defiance, claiming our agency – that we are not victims of circumstance.
Take advantage of the moment and seek to transform your understanding of what is possible, because for a week something miraculous will happen: we will gather as ‘one’.
‘Just World’: Ryan Bean’s reflections on Christianity and the global YMCA (July 2022, February 2023)