David Joel Hamilton, the son of United Methodist missionaries in South America, has served God for about 38 years in Youth With A Mission (YWAM). Having been raised in a bilingual and bi-cultural context, he developed intuitive cross-cultural sensitivity and a deep desire to see many from developing nations released into leadership.
Upon completing his BA in Political Science at Cornell College, David attended the first YWAM School of Evangelism in Heidebeek, Holland in May 1977. In January, 1978 his fiancée, Christine, also completed an SOE. They were married a year later and moved to Santiago, Chile, to help pioneer the work of YWAM and lead the Discipleship Training Schools. In 1987, David pioneered the first School of Biblical Studies in South America. He has received a Masters in Biblical Studies from the University of the Nations.
David served as one of the senior content editors for the Christian Growth Study Bible which was published by Zondervan in conjunction with YWAM. He co-authored the book Courageous Leaders Transforming Their World with Jim Halcomb and Howard Malmstadt and also co-authored the book Why Not Women? with Loren Cunningham. He is a contributing author to His Kingdom Come, and has been published in several different periodicals in multiple languages. He designed and published the SourceView Bible, which helps the reader experience the drama of God’s story and has recently produced the ground-breaking SourceView BibleSuite app for both Android and Apple devices which includes for the first time the SphereView highlight technology.
David serves as the Vice President for Strategic Innovation of the University of the Nations internationally. He also helps represent YWAM on Table 71, the Advisory Board of the OneStory Partnership, and the Pacific Wa’a Partnership.
David has a passion for going to the “all” and reaching the “every” with the Gospel: he is the one who served as the conceptual architect of 4K, the global mapping framework being embraced by many for identifying the most needy and least reached “omega zones” of the world; he is a founding designer of the Global Accreditation Association and helped create the design framework for Uniskript.
Over the years, David and his family have resided in every continent for the cause of spreading the Gospel. Because they have served together in so many nations as a family, the Hamiltons have become very well travelled. Every member of the family has been to at least 100 countries — and David has been to more than 200. David currently resides with his wife, Christine in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. Their four adult children are all married: Jonathan and Sarah, Timothy and Brittany, Sarah and Jason, Matthew and Holly. David and Christine are now the proud grandparents of four: Caleb, Owyn, Wesley and Amelia.
