I do want to share this morning, I'm
not here next Friday as I'm very much
involved with the ship in Merseyside.
We have a very important board meeting on
that day, the Friday, as a little group
of us going up in the old coach
on Thursday evening.
And we won't get back until very late
Sunday night.
So I wanted to just share some thoughts
that are on my heart which are basically
connected with leadership.
Some of you might say, well, I'm not
going to be a leader, that's the last
thing I ever want.
I'm absolutely amazed at people that were not
in responsibility of leadership in OM, but when
they've left, what they get into.
Some people highly esteem you're having a couple
of years, not necessarily even with OM, overseas.
And in any kind of Christian organization, I
think automatically when you come back you're some
kind of a leader or you have some
authority.
And surely one of the greatest problems in
the church is that people gravitate to major
responsibility with weak foundations.
That is one of our problems in operation
mobilization.
You never have enough people to lead or
to be leadership servants, so people get thrust
into responsibility without necessarily having a proper foundation.
Getting a proper foundation isn't a matter of
just hearing what's involved in basic spirituality, basic
leadership.
It's appropriating, it's learning it.
I stand aghast at things that I'm still
trying to learn.
I'd like you to turn to 2 Timothy
chapter 2.
2 Timothy chapter 2, well we'll start at
verse 1.
Thou therefore my son be strong in the
grace that is in Christ Jesus and the
things that thou hast heard from me among
many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful
men who shall be able to teach others
also.
Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier
of Jesus Christ, no man that woreth entangleth
himself with the affairs of this life, that
he may please him who hath chosen him
to be a soldier.
And if a man also strive for masteries
yet he is not crowned except he strive
lawfully the farmer who laboreth must be first
partaker of the fruits.
Consider what I say and the Lord give
thee understanding in all things.
Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of
David was raised from the dead according to
my gospel for which I suffer trouble as
an evildoer even unto bonds but the word
of God is not bound.
Therefore I endure all things for the elect
sake that they may also obtain the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
It is a faithful saying for if we
be dead with him we shall also live
with him.
If we suffer we shall also reign with
him.
If we deny him he will also deny
us.
If we believe not yet he abideth faithful
he cannot deny himself.
Of these things put them in remembrance.
I guess that gives some encouragement to share
with people who have heard these things before
or have been around a long time.
That's why I reread basic books.
These things put them in remembrance charging them
before the Lord that they strive not about
words to no profit.
Seems to me a lot of that's going
on in the church today.
But the subverting of the hearer study to
show thyself approved unto God a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the
word of truth but shun profane and vain
babbling.
They will increase on the more ungodliness and
their word will eat as doth a gangrene
of whom are Hemanaeus and Philetus who concerning
the truth have erred saying that the resurrection
is past already and overthrow the faith of
some.
My mind jumps back almost 25 years ago
a young man I met in Mexico seemed
a nice young lad.
I had a time of fellowship with him.
Next thing I knew he was back in
the states and had joined a cult thing
called the way movement quite well known in
certain parts of the United States.
I remember here in in Bromley I guess
20 years ago one of the leaders of
the navigators within weeks after I got to
know about this man he joined the children
of God and became one of their leaders.
Got a letter a year ago or two
maybe more than that now a young man
came back from OM and became an out
and out Jehovah witness.
The first Englishman I think I almost ever
met his name was Tim.
I met him in Spain he influenced me
to come here in the first place.
He was very much taught under Ian Thomas
in Caponry but he didn't like the eye
he didn't after I got here he sort
of shied off because he wasn't into very
much into doing anything.
He was very much into sort of a
more passive approach to the Christian message waiting
for the Holy Spirit waiting for the whole
what he felt the life in Christ to
do it through it.
At the same time I went to one
of our leading Bible colleges where he became
a very committed Mormon and is to this
day.
There are just a few stories I could
give you many more.
The word of God urges us that if
99 people are going right and one is
going astray that's the one where we should
give attention.
I really believe we should acknowledge that it's
our own sins and our own failures as
a movement and I'm willing to include myself
that is linked with a lack of long
-term recruits that we face this year.
Now one sense we don't lack we're growing
very quickly we've now become one of the
largest missionary agencies in the world but that's
not going to help us to fill the
gaps philosophizing that is to fill the gaps
of needed workers and we need a specific
strategy to see more workers going out into
the harvest field.
We are committed to do that some people
believe we are one of the best groups
involved in doing that but he who is
good at something needs to work to be
better to be the best.
Excellency only begins when you're good that's where
it begins if you're doing something good well
now you can decide to really excel and
that's not so easy that's where I'm spinning
sometimes my wheels.
I think one of the things that hit
me the most this summer was talking to
a leader and just discovering that this person
had been in the work for so many
years he had heard these messages but one
of the most basic aspects of the message
just it just wasn't happening in his life
and he was he was discouraged and actually
it seemed best that he stepped down from
his leadership to a large degree for a
season and that experience that time with him
made a real impact nothing new just that
it hit me very very very hard especially
when I realized that his greatest struggle was
something just very very basic and he just
acknowledged this to me that he just never
followed up on the people that he met
he met people they liked him he has
a fairly good ability to communicate teaching preaching
he said it was because of his temperament
and we discussed that and I just ever
since then I've been wondering how many leaders
are having this difficult difficulty it is possible
once a movement gets rather large it is
possible to to really get away with an
awful lot without sounding proud the lord forgive
me I just say this that if I
had done back in at 17 and 18
some of the things that leaders do now
OM I don't think would exist I mean
let's let's be realistic when a movement is
being born is a tremendous cost if you
make mistakes that's it I could have made
a mistake at Moody I would have been
thrown out I almost got thrown out actually
I went back to the one or two
of the heads of the school and apologized
and put things right I could have actually
ended up in a cult I had that
natural extremism there was a lot of hostility
especially against sin you say well how can
hostility against sin lead you into a cult
many people who get into tangents it's because
they can't stand the sin among God's people
they just they can't understand that one of
our first leading lineup men an outstanding man
left us after a number of years of
ministry and joined the witness lee extremist group
now if you if you say that they're
a cult or I will take you to
court and they've almost taken me to court
they've got a lot of problems right now
so I don't think they're doing too much
but one of my very close friends ended
up joining that group because it had all
the answers and in his lineup work on
the ships he had seen especially after Indonesia
he had seen so much division so much
sin so much carnality among God's people he
just couldn't put that together and there's something
in us isn't there wants to put everything
together and the cults give you that offer
the cults with one sweep say all these
people are apostate all these people are this
or all these people are that and if
they're just a small group under tremendous pressure
they will have to produce a lot of
love and a small persecuted cult will produce
a lot of love when we were more
extreme we had more of that kind of
motivation in those early days we were under
the gun we didn't dare make some of
the mistakes we make now it would have
been in the press and they had a
jerusalem meeting here in england in the early
days when a most high percentage of missionary
leaders were opposed to me and one or
two had mercy on me and they invited
me into this jerusalem meeting the evangelical alliance
I didn't even know what it was and
I sat at the end of this table
with all these big canons of the missionary
world and believe me they shot one or
two praise God and then a few others
stood with us the amazing thing is in
those early days when we were so criticized
very few people would ever come to you
and that's how sometimes pioneers and people trying
to really do something for God can so
easily get hurt and bitter and more hostile
and decide to just go their own way
uh it's it's always a historic moment in
a movement when they decide to either go
their own way even though they may say
well we believe the rest of these people
are part of the body of Christ they
basically go their own way follow some of
the new groups in Britain right now with
their mouth they're saying we believe in the
rest of the body of Christ but in
their practice they basically go their own way
do their own thing and if you study
carefully you'll see they have a one-upmanship
philosophy where they really do believe they're a
little better than the other groups which in
some ways they may well be but the
word of God says take heed lest ye
fall many many years ago I wrote on
a piece of paper some of the big
mistakes I felt that uh we were making
in fact I've uh I later transferred this
to my bible I think it was one
of the very first coordinators conferences I don't
even know what we called them then I
think it was in 65 I wrote deal
the conference took place in deal down on
the coast again tied in an amazing way
with a small group who were linked uh
back here Ian Currie's father became the pastor
of that little fellowship for quite a few
years it was there during a summer campaign
when I decided to go down and have
a one-day visit there was a bible
teacher they invited I wasn't quite sure what
what uh what he was about but he
seemed to be a good bible teacher and
we had invited him down to deal this
is a couple years after this conference so
I went down to speak and I met
this character name was Peter Maiden and that
was one of the steps that led us
together in this long-term partnership so deal
has an important place in om's ministry and
I shared just these thoughts the great dangers
that face us as a movement now that's
a long time ago I wonder if some
of these dangers are facing us today I
really believe if om and we as leaders
and it includes everyone these things can be
contextualized into anyone's life they're very very basic
they're tied in with second timothy too the
things that god has given us commit to
others we can all do that I used
to beg people almost on my knees will
you please read how to win friends and
influence people it was a required book it
was in the early part of the leadership
manual I think we'll go down in history
that one of our greatest mistakes was the
phasing out of the leadership manual without bringing
anything in its place I just agonize nightmares
about this and yet I failed to get
this new leadership manual the job has been
delegated off to others I've been on the
phone with the people involved for over three
and a half years this has been discussed
at area level it's uncanny how we have
no leadership manual somebody said to me but
we have a policy manual only a few
people in the movement read the policy manual
and it's very different from a leadership manual
praise god we almost lost the discipleship manual
in the midst of the same confusion but
when I took the survey at the new
recruits conference praise the lord two-thirds had
read the discipleship manual any movement as it
goes forward in some areas will go back
in other areas let us acknowledge that's that's
history because we have so many things we're
attempting to do at once we have a
lot of other better teaching tools and teaching
methods that are going on in a sense
which make up for the missing leadership manual
like for example a lot more teaching within
each national country that's where the big muscle
the big clout the big action generally takes
place a whole conference going on this week
just finishing today training the middle east people
and a lot of the things that were
in the original leadership manual are now in
other manuals middle east manual loop manual so
we're not lacking for manuals but I believe
that if we as leaders and all of
us could just take a few steps of
faith make a few changes the impact would
be enormous now let's be honest some people
on om are basically obnoxious people let's just
be honest about it they're not going to
disciple anybody they never have discipled anybody they
probably never will disciple anybody now praise god
om because it's teamwork that rather obnoxious unfriendly
type of person uh can still play a
vital role if he somehow teams up with
someone else now maybe you feel those words
are too strong but I will tell you
some of the offensive things we have done
in churches are incredible and those churches have
closed their door and they've said om is
not coming back here for many years we
have quite a few christian leaders in this
country who still will not touch us I
could give you names and I'm I'm involved
in because in some cases I said something
I did something that was unkind maybe obnoxious
I've got all the potential for arrogance obnoxious
impatient uh hurtful statements and if we could
just reread that book or something similar say
the sermon on the mount I believe we
could feel the impact the bottom line in
winning people today in the society we're in
is making friends it's making friends it's not
carrying placards down your street it's not sketchboards
praise god for sketchboards it's making friends it's
love europe not george verver that announced this
is the decade of friendship evangelism so what's
with us can't we make some more friends
um different people make friends in different ways
because I had a strong message I had
a message that certain people wanted to hear
including some other hostile people like myself who
were hungry for god desperate for deliverance and
victory I could win people who didn't particularly
like me not everybody has that gift you
see if you're quiet and you don't have
a vision and if you're not sort of
of that kind of temperament you generally won't
win people unless you make friends with them
do you follow me because there's nothing there
to gather that people that couldn't stand me
joined operation mobilization they believed the message they
believed that the world was a bit loud
and he was a little unkind and a
little insensitive they believe the holy spirit was
with them now let me tell you something
if you can convince people today that the
holy spirit is with you you can get
people to join you who can't stand you
isn't that amazing now they don't always stick
around if later on they discover that you
don't have the reality they don't stick around
why do many people join different groups and
fellowships if there's a major sort of charismatic
type of leader with a vision with a
burden who's going places they join because they
want to do something it's not necessarily friendship
it's not necessarily even godliness so that will
have to be there to some degree the
average person isn't in that situation the average
person doesn't have a chance to stand in
front of people and try to win them
even when i was a student at moody
so young and even before that at my
own high school i was given the opportunity
to speak therefore i could overcome some of
those barriers when i was speaking there was
one pastor in my hometown who really in
a sense didn't like me he was speaking
out a little bit against me especially my
extremes about forsaking all i think back in
those days i didn't even believe in in
drinking things like coca-cola or spending money
and the word came out that this man
didn't agree imagine that this pastor didn't agree
with george verber's teaching on forsaking all that's
when i was only 18 but as we
look at the situation in om today and
our emphasis on friendship surely it should drive
us to rereading such books how to win
friends and influence people and i just say
this this morning my first burden isn't om
as i share this some of you are
going to leave om soon and if you
don't get your act a little more together
you're not going to make it it doesn't
mean you won't exist in fact i'm convinced
some of the marriages break up because we
were insensitive we don't know how to sometimes
communicate to our own wife to our own
children i think of the mistakes i have
made in this area again god's mercy god's
grace the charisma factor god's hand upon me
it's a mystery surely a mystery how and
why god uses some of us but i
do know this that the world out there
is a cruel place some people think om
is cruel when they're on it they're usually
a little naive i have followed xomers for
34 years almost all of them will say
that om was a fairly pleasant time compared
to what hit them when they got out
there that's why some of them are divorced
that's why some of them are in such
terrible situations including completely overthrowing the christian faith
the thing that has shocked me the most
and it's one of the things that pushed
me more and more in the preaching and
living and talking about balance is the people
who united with me in the early years
who were the most outspoken and seemed to
be the most committed to the verbal revolution
which we were hoping was a jesus revolution
when the pressure came they were down i
just stood amazed and then some of my
own failures under pressure one of them i
guess worthy of putting in the gospel gazette
shook me into the reality that balance is
not optional balance is not optional balance is
absolutely basic if we are going to survive
what are a few of those things i
wrote down and shared with those leaders if
anybody could find a copy of this old
tape from the mid-60s i'd be interested
in getting it number one getting set in
our ways praise god he heard our prayers
and by his grace om never got set
in its ways we are of course to
some degree it's a continual area of growth
and the changes we have made over the
past years i believe are as important as
some of the basic principles that we brought
into our movement in those early years beware
in your own life of just getting set
in your ways be willing for change be
willing to read a new book how many
husbands even though they have difficulty in their
marriage never never would read a book on
marriage i believe one of the greatest mistakes
i made in my marriage is not to
read more books i leveled off somewhere in
my early days because i was heavy on
marriage books i just stopped reading it because
the fact my kind of stubborn character needs
to read it two or three times before
it got in some of the great truths
of those books never got into me i
mean they may have got in a little
and i think my wife has had to
suffer before because of that have you read
any of that material by dobson and others
on how to understand your your partner and
how to love your partner that stuff is
so revolutionary uh and and yet so incredibly
uh difficult to put into practice especially when
you're in a movement that makes a lot
of demands on you and on your time
let's not get set in our ways in
our marriages in our witnessing in our discipling
of others let's be willing to grow let's
be willing to change let's keep listening to
others let's keep the l plates on if
those of you have heard me speak many
times get even one thing this morning that
you feel you could use to make some
changes in your life that would enable you
to encourage more people disciple more people build
the kingdom that it's worth stopping for 45
minutes and sharing some of these things number
two failing to keep walking in the light
it's interesting that pauline hymas who's helping lead
the real program shared with me and she
feels this is where om is really slipping
a movement that once so emphasized walking in
the light you couldn't even get in the
door without reading calvary road now we have
people in the moment they don't even know
what we're talking about walking in the light
what does this mean working in the daytime
instead of working at night people don't know
what walking in the light is and it's
there is so much gossip at times going
on behind people's backs and unfortunately that is
normal in christian work and i say unfortunately
with a with a capital to you instead
of going to one another and love sharing
what's on our hearts we talk to other
people we got the possibility of that in
the next eight months playing habit with this
team we're not we don't pretend that we're
a perfect team this team sometimes is a
survival operation because we're human beings we're under
pressure we are over committed i am convinced
absolutely biff thomas is over committed i'm convinced
not quite convinced wakely is over committed because
he doesn't seem to indicate that he is
but he's so phlegmatic and laid back but
i'm destined to get him over committed because
it happens to anybody who gets near me
and uh he's got to lead this team
when i'm away he's got nepal growing he's
got bangladesh growing pakistan growing i did see
a few signs last year that he might
be getting over committed but we won't discuss
that at present let's walk in the light
let's not lose that principle in om first
john 1 7 walking in the light number
three not taking time to meet for prayer
can you imagine way back in the mid
-60s where we're already getting upset about the
lack of prayer in operation mobilization and of
course i believe that this is where a
lot of the enemy effort comes do you
think satan knows that there's a book called
um his present darkness do you think satan
knows do you think he's read that does
satan read it's one of the fastest selling
books in the history of the christian church
did you know that one of the fastest
selling but now there'll be a major blockbuster
movie coming out of hollywood on that book
now christians are divided on that book mike
wakely's written two pages uh explaining the weaknesses
of the book i was with dean sherman
when he was talking on the spiritual warfare
uh i'm not picking on you this morning
uh spiritual warfare message and i think he
had his hesitancy anybody with a brain will
have some hesitancy about the book but uh
he said at least the book is making
god's people aware that there are forces of
spiritual darkness at least people are being made
aware but satan is so subtle people are
so locked into habit that people are reading
that book and it is not necessarily changing
their prayer life how can it be how
can it be that we could actually say
we believe in evil forces we believe these
these powers are are there and around and
it's prayer the book makes it very clear
prayer and now we've got this new teaching
on territorial spirits i mean when we have
these marches this weekend different people will be
doing different things for me it'll be a
survival march and i believe in praying against
the forces of darkness i'm not going to
get into a semantic jungle i'm not sure
what this territorial spirits is all about but
i believe in just praying let's pray for
maggie let's pray for the white house not
the house but the people in it and
if somebody else next to me is praying
that something up above gets out of the
way though i find it a little bit
uneasy i'm not going to have a fight
with them i got too many other things
to do but i know that's becoming a
big issue around great britain and other parts
of the world long before you arrived here
in brownlee most of you i sort of
gave up on hardlining on evangelism i think
jack was the last to make the big
ditch stand to lead evangelism i can't believe
anything could be so difficult so complicated so
exasperating as trying to lead people out in
the more old-fashioned kind of om evangelism
door to door in the streets and i
finally i guess in the name of balance
or survival delegated this off to others no
longer set the pace i was so extreme
on setting the pace uh the pressure that
brought my family into the time it took
me away from my own children is quite
quite uncanny and saturday was the day we
did it yet saturday was the best day
to try to be with our families i
would drag my children out in every kind
of evangelism you could think of when they
were real little they loved it but as
they got older like around eight or ten
or whatever they weren't so keen and so
evangelism in the past years of the more
old-style traditional evangelism om was known for
has been very weak in brownlee i guess
it was in the name of survival it
was in the name of whatever i can
honestly say and i i trust you ken
as well that i have never hardly a
day lost my evangelistic seal but i have
found that i so quickly get involved with
people that i lead to christ that it
just becomes overwhelming i meet people on the
train at brownlee south i'd have them in
the house in the early days in the
east end of london we we had people
out of uh right off the the embankment
drunks drug addicts we'd have them living out
in the om place we have tried everything
in the name of trying to obey the
sermon on the mouth that you can imagine
i wonder the end of the day we
decided to work for balance we just we
got into certain teachings like a human factor
and realized how difficult it was to put
all these different challenges into practice at the
same time different people have different amounts of
time and if you can squeeze possibly squeeze
out of your intensive schedule and get out
door-to-door in the streets with tracks
or personal evangelism as we did so often
it was our bread and butter i'm not
talking about the first couple of years talking
first 15 or 20 years until this movement
became so big so complex with emergencies every
day with a backlog of people who have
come to christ through the ministry who are
waiting for one single letter from the person
who led them to christ in the first
place we don't lack people coming to christ
through om right now that may sound funny
but following up on it is is awesome
and we discover that people who profess faith
often it is not a conversion and i
will not give up gently rebuking people when
they just list someone who professed faith as
being a conversion we have not had 300
conversions in jordan in the last few days
i don't think we should use that vocabulary
300 people while they were getting relief work
uh also profess faith it can get a
camera i hope there are many real conversions
out of that there will be as we
pray as we follow up it will happen
number five is the subtle influences of the
lukewarm lukewarmness is so subtle and lukewarmness is
making its way into om it makes its
way into the prayer meetings it makes its
way into into every aspect of our life
we battled it then let's continue to battle
it now number six presumption that we know
the principles well if we were presuming in
the mid 60s that we knew the principles
what do we say now such principles as
forsaking all walking in the light spiritual warfare
unity the old tapes were phased out quite
a few years ago it's unbelievable that that
old orientation series that jonathan dale wrote down
and i gave lasted so many years the
tapes were getting to be a bad quality
the tapes were outdated i fully agree that
they should be replaced unfortunately around that time
the average office gave up its vision for
tapes very few om offices make much use
of cassette tapes stl dropped tapes from their
whole distribution line they're very hard to distribute
some offices continue to use tapes on a
voluntary basis for those who wanted to go
through them a few shortened the tape orientation
to four tapes that was actually very encouraging
an excellent compromise and a lot of people
are saying to me and i think there's
an element of truth that a great percentage
of people come on love europe really do
not know what operation mobilization is actually all
about it is playing havoc on the ships
and in other parts of the work and
though we may have had a lot of
failures in those early days we're not interested
in turning the history pages back sure do
you know that's my feeling we can learn
some lessons and if people know what they're
getting into when they come on om number
one we may lose a few but i
believe we will have less disappointment and bitterness
from people who come and they it is
not what they expected again we wrestled with
that in the early days because even after
hearing those tapes and going through books i
can assure you there were still problems because
especially we couldn't live up to the principles
that we preached on those tapes and there
was not enough balance and the human factor
was there on those tapes but it was
weak and that's another reason perhaps they needed
to be phased out beware of thinking we
know these principles young people come into the
movement and if you've been around it for
a few years they expect that you are
going to be some kind of incarnation of
these dynamic principles of these books or these
messages and most people have heard at least
some challenging message from an om speaker before
they come and they are now looking for
that in some people around them seven choosing
the road of least resistance i was too
strong on that in the early days i
had to compromise because there are times when
you have to choose a road of least
resistance in order to get back on god's
highway you can't always take the hard road
and it gets a little more complicated than
perhaps i thought in those early days with
my strong strong emphasis on the fact that
we were soldiers of jesus christ have you
ever studied the early intensive training program on
lagos you can be sure that after a
few years they did away with that program
why do we have to do away with
that program only one out of ten leaders
can lead that kind of program the secular
people still have that kind of program let's
acknowledge that as we've dropped it in om
the secular people still have that kind of
program and it costs you two and a
half thousand to go on it two and
a half to three thousand to go on
it and top executives go on it and
it's as rough as ours it's absolutely scary
it's called uh schools of adventure or outward
bound we of course couldn't maintain that because
it takes a leader of high giftedness of
high degree of training to lead that if
you don't have the right leadership in that
kind of program who can keep that spirit
of core going who can do all kinds
of things people in outward bound are professionally
top trained people it won't work and eventually
we had to drop it we almost had
people killed on the ship rock climbing you
can't play at rock climbing after four or
five years in it myself i dropped it
because i almost got killed and my son
almost got killed and then i felt bad
that i had started that in operation mobilization
now my son ben tells me he wants
to go back to rock climbing his rope
he has is so old that if we
try to repel that might be the end
number i i just insert here sort of
in brackets especially in connection with our own
temperament number eight listening too quickly to evil
reports that was a problem in the mid
60s it's a problem in the beginning of
the 90s you see the movement hasn't changed
that much really the same old sins are
still around we reinvent the wheel number nine
allowing discipline to slip number 10 getting caught
into subtle forms of pride i'm quite amazed
that in the mid 60s we discovered there
were subtle forms of pride i thought we
were only aware of the most overt clear
-cut forms of pride which gets so wonderfully
demonstrated from time to time in the work
of god number 11 failing to keep up
the big battle against lust and number 12
neglecting the home and the wife let me
just make it clear that if any of
us who have children that are not walking
with jesus it is not because om neglected
the home and the family my children don't
believe that om was a new generation movement
there was an extreme emphasis on family and
and that whole area thing because we had
the books in 60s we already had the
books we were one of the first groups
to pioneer the concept that the wife is
firstly a wife and a mother not firstly
a missionary it was radical when we launched
that now it's been accepted by many mission
societies i'm not saying we didn't do enough
i'm not saying we didn't fail but in
understanding the history of om let's not be
intimidated into thinking that our commitment to discipleship
world evangelism meant we naturally neglected our families
and our children because it isn't it isn't
really true it's a little more complicated than
that life i know we like to measure
things in black and white and some of
the most godly people who have never left
the united states and who were mega mega
family-oriented people have children who are away
from jesus christ today if you meet one
of the brothers or sisters who as i
did in a conference recently you ask them
about their brothers and sisters you'll generally find
is it usually one or two that are
away from jesus so that's not a simple
thing to always measure but we felt from
the earliest days here it is written in
the notes beware of neglecting your wife your
home and your family and of course sometimes
we did that and then 13 i'm amazed
that this got written in here beware of
idealism i must have not followed up on
this because idealism did become destructive you know
and it became it's destructive and we ended
up judgmental we ended up legalistic at times
we ended up turning against each other we
couldn't live up to one another's expectations and
those ideals which can be so beautiful under
the control of the spirit we're like a
sewer running through the movement hurting and hindering
what god wanted to do and i thank
him for the grace to learn to repent
to grow and i hope that somehow through
this little unique uh sharing this morning we
can all learn at least something let's pray
father we thank you that we can move
forward on the foundations you gave us in
the very beginning of this work and though
some of us have been around for over
30 years or 20 years and we're working
together with people who have just walked in
the door you can unite us the old
and the new the basic principles redefined the
basic principles expanding being integrated into other biblical
principles and with your strength your power your
holy spirit can enable us to accomplish this
vision this burden we have for world evangelism
and for revival in the church and for
reality lord blessed reality among your people don't
let us who've been around a while presume
of what we have or don't have in
our lives enable us to sharpen up in
this whole area of passing these principles on
to others also so that we can see
this bonding take place with us and the
new generation of disciples we know you use
love europe leaflets we know that you use
video cassettes you use great congresses and great
preaching but none of them i don't believe
can be a substitute for that bonding between
one and another that friendship that heart linking
when we're repenting together we're working together we're
growing together we're learning to walk in the
light together in our marriages on our teams
on this team in this place here we
are from such a wide range of backgrounds
and churches on sunday we scatter to worship
and to meet in different places and we
come in on monday with different ideas and
yet we've got to work together in spiritual
combat much more difficult in a spiritual comparison
to those troops down in saudi arabia who
haven't even begun to fight we're in the
midst of the greatest war in the history
of the universe help us to live in
the light of this and to somehow work
day and night to be better soldiers and
better disciples of your son jesus christ in
whose name we pray amen