...for your letters and reports and especially for
praying during the recent operation I had.
It'll probably be a long time before I'm
able to sing hymns.
If I'm going to be able to conserve
my voice, I can't do both, preaching and
talking all day long and also sing hymns
on top.
So when you see me in the future,
I probably won't be singing much anymore for
a while.
That's quite an interesting challenge.
I have a couple of things on my
heart.
I have some things planned and I have
some things that perhaps just came.
In my attempt to get voice rest, I
sometimes just sit and read and think.
I've had this book with me for some
time.
Is That Really You, God?
by Lauren Cunningham.
A book that is getting very wide distribution
at present in the United States.
And I just picked it up and started
reading a little more.
Just these words I thought would be just
a ministry to us and a challenge.
As some of you know, Lauren Cunningham, the
founder and leader of YWAM, was with us
in 1963 in that great summer campaign.
We became very close friends, though we've not
been able to keep that going on a
practical level.
We do through correspondence and just had a
letter from him.
In fact, I think he sent this because
it says, Blessings, Lauren Cunningham.
And this is a very honest book.
And I think it has a message for
us at this time.
It's what he's learned about guidance.
And the summary is in the back section,
which I've already studied.
I have a funny approach to books, learned
it from my wife.
But you may not agree with all of
his ideas about guidance, but you can't help
but be ministered unto.
In fact, I've been made very aware that
their ship ministry has been going for 10
years since they lost the first ship, which
he tells about very honestly in his book.
That meeting in which they all stood up
and cheered that God had given them a
ship.
And they were jumping around, praising the Lord.
A number of things happened, and they suddenly,
within a short time, realized that their eyes
were on the ship, and that they were
proud, and a lot of other things.
And they began to just repent, weep.
And within those coming weeks, God took the
ship away from them and the deposit, which
is a story pretty well known to the
Christian public.
The story behind the story is not probably
known so well, and it's dealt with in
quite an amazing way in this book.
But the point I wanted to read goes
long back before that, because Warren Cunningham was
originally part of the Assemblies of God movement
under a man named Zimmerman, a very large
denomination.
And he went through quite an awesome experience
with Zimmerman when he was asked to lead
the team they had for summer work with
young people.
And it was sometime after that, I haven't
got the chronology, but sometime after that, this
experience that I'm just going to read to
you took place, when Warren decided to spend
a week in waiting upon God in prayer
and in fasting.
Where should I start?
The first two days were uneventful.
I would get down on my knees and
pray, walk around the room and pray, sit
down and pray, stretch full length on the
floor and pray.
There were also lots of leisure for reading
my Bible.
But most of the time I was just
waiting.
I just waited.
Sometimes God would speak a word or two,
and other times we enjoyed a companionable silence.
It was the third day of the fast
before the breakthrough came.
The only word I can use to describe
what happened to me is surgery.
It was like soul surgery.
I was lying face down on the carpet
waiting on God.
Suddenly a sharp scalpel of conscience probed.
Remember Springfield?
That's the center of the Assembly of God
movement.
Faster than I could imagine, attitudes began to
surface, critical feelings and resentment toward my own
denomination and my denominational leaders who hadn't seen
the vision of YWAM the way I did,
especially my brother Thomas Zimmerman.
For two years now, since I reported to
Springfield after the Bahamas, I had been smarting
under that rejection, and in my heart I
had begun to deny my own roots.
I suddenly saw all the time I had
wasted trying to defend myself and my ideas.
That time was robbed from the real work
that needed to be done, talking to people
about Jesus Christ.
Crying, I asked for mercy.
From now on I'd speak out in real
praise for my former leaders.
Grateful again for them and for my heritage,
I let God defend the vision if it
was his or was from him.
Lying there on the green carpet, I knew
that God had heard me and forgiven me.
The scalpel probed again and again.
Throughout the day, hour after hour, my pride
suddenly loomed before me.
I saw the times I had acted for
the recognition of men rather than God.
Mom's words in my bedroom turned office, dropped
into my mind.
Son, if you get proud, God cannot use
you.
Then God put his finger on sins of
the mind, sexual fantasies.
As each sin of thought or attitude or
action came to my mind, I confessed it
and asked God to forgive me and help
me to turn away from it.
When I knew the soul surgery was over,
there was one more thing to be done.
I found stationery and a pen and began
the first of several letters I knew I
had to write making things right with people.
Dear Brother Zimmerman, it was excruciating, but that
night I settled back into bed with a
brand new feeling of cleanness.
On my desk in the little room was
a tidy pile of letters.
The one on the top was addressed Springfield,
Missouri.
Let's just have a moment of prayer, especially
for youth with a mission who God has
mightily blessed and who have been through tremendous
traumas and who again, even at this moment,
are in great trauma in their ship ministry,
though that's only one of a great network
of ministries.
Lord, we thank you for the power of
the printed page.
We thank you for Lauren who came in
our midst in such a humble way and
just took charge of the literature warehouse in
the summer of 1963.
Many didn't even notice it.
We thank you for those times together and
the fellowship that YWAM and OM has been
able to have now for over 20-some
years.
And we pray for them in their hour
of need.
We pray for Lauren as he's got so
many responsibilities, for Don Stevens, Captain Applegate, Floyd
McClung, many others who we know.
And we thank you that as parallel movements
we have the privilege of laboring together in
world evangelism.
Lord, search our own hearts in these days.
Help us when this conference is over to
get along with you in prayer and fasting.
Help us even now in these woods to
really be honest and open and to allow
you to put the scalpel to any roots
of bitterness, any unforgiveness, any duplicity, anything that's
not sweet with the fragrance, the personality and
the life of your son Jesus Christ.
Lord, we trust you that you will speak
to us and you will be honest with
us as we wait upon you.
We will not confess for the sake of
confessing.
We're aware of situations where people confess things
only for the sake of seemingly being able
to confess something.
But Lord, especially as tomorrow we spend time
around your table in prayer, sharing, may we
be willing and ready for the scalpel of
your Holy Word.
Lord, we thank you for the wealth of
knowledge we have.
Keep us from spiritual gluttony.
That by your grace we may take these
books, these tapes, this truth that so burns
in our hearts and give it out across
the world generously with pure and clean and
proper motives.
For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
I really long to be able to have
more time with all of you, sharing different
things.
And I'm thankful when I hear of some
of you that actually listen to a Verwer
tape and write me maybe with a question
or a burden or something you may not
agree with.
As you know, we now have a jumbo
series, not all Verwer, a mixture of Nigel
Lee and Hans Strom and George Miley.
I don't know how we missed getting Peter
Maiden in here, but we'll have to produce
just the Maiden series alone one of these
days.
But believe me, I have found an enormous,
unbelievable interest and hunger in the material that's
on these tapes.
And I hope that you will at least
try to listen to some of it, contextualize
it in your own situation, use what you
can, throw out the rest.
Now, I'm going to...
You know, it's ten times harder to speak
now to O.M. than it was 15
years ago.
You know, you're all so much wiser and
smarter and you've all got formal theology and
eschatology and you've all read the management books
and you've got a lot.
And I can see how these pastors in
America with 16 PhDs sitting in their congregation
get a little nervous.
And I've been listening to a number of
the pastors who have lots of PhDs sitting
in their congregations.
Very interesting.
But I'm not going to be, by God's
grace, intimidated tonight and just open up and
give you a triple header and trust that
the Lord will use it.
First, I want to share something I shared
at the area leaders' meetings that immediately everybody
demanded photocopies of and that I shared with
the new recruits' leaders' training the other day.
It's called The Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership by
Howard Ferguson.
I think this will really minister to your
hearts.
It's really helped me because...
You know, I think one of the things
that can intimidate us the most and make
us so vulnerable to extremes is our own
failures.
Many men at moments of failure have committed
sins they would never, never commit when they
were motivated, from immorality to many things.
And I think this will just help keep
your motivation up in the midst of a
battle.
You don't have to agree with everything.
It's not going to become policy.
I just throw it out.
You can chew it over.
Number one.
Ten commandments.
People are illogical.
You probably discover that in these days.
Unreasonable and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
First commandment.
Number two.
If you do good, people will accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
Three.
If you are successful, you win false friends
and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
Four.
The good you do today will be forgotten
tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Five.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
Number six.
The biggest man or men with the biggest
ideas can be shot down by the smallest
men with the smallest ideas or the smallest
minds.
Think big anyway.
Seven.
People favor underdogs, but they follow top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
I know sometimes those who are not having
English as their first language get a little
bit confused on this.
Especially when they know that the Verwer family
now has a dog.
What you spend years building may be destroyed
overnight.
Think of Alfie Frank's testimony about the fire.
Build anyway.
Nine.
There are some people really needing help that
may attack you if you do help them.
Help them anyway.
And ten.
Give the world the best you have and
you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
Now, maybe you'll say that needs to be
brought into balance.
You can, of course, work on that in
your leisure time.
The second part.
See how short that was?
That wasn't too painful.
The second part is just the outline of
this message that the Holy Spirit seems to
be using that I first gave on the
ship.
I think it was on the ship.
On why it is becoming increasingly hard in
our culture.
And many pastors are finding this true.
Many Christian leaders I've talked to.
To win the loyalty of people.
Now this is very, very important for O
.M. because O.M. has been built on
relationships, on loyalty, and yet without double talk
and manipulation and painting a picture in which
people feel that really O.M. is the
only thing they could ever work with.
Lauren, in another section of this book, brings
out when God just brought them and YWAM
to their knees and they confessed that they
thought they were the greatest spiritual movement in
the world.
And God just humbled them and they just
repented about that.
But I don't have time to give this
message.
I'm not even sure where copies are, but
if you write perhaps after all the hustle
and bustle is over we could trace one
down.
Some feel we should put this into print.
I don't know if that's going to happen.
Let me just give you the outline.
Why it's so hard to win and maintain.
It's harder to maintain than win, oftentimes.
We see so many groups.
People jump.
Away they go.
Two years later, they're divided.
The divisions that I have come across again
this year in churches are just staggering.
Just staggering.
Anyway, these are fairly simple things, but let
me share them.
Number one, the wide range of strong emphases
among God's people today.
This is so true.
If you read Christian periodicals, I try to
follow very spasmodically about 25 Christian periodicals, 30,
40, depending on...
I dropped a lot of them in the
cutback magazine subscription.
Then I borrow some of them.
For example, the unbelievable controversy raging right now
in America about Robert Shuler.
I mean, it's amazing.
One man.
I mean, he's got a whole theology member.
Robert Shuler, theology.
And Christianity Today just interviewed him.
And their article, I'll tell you, is a
lot more positive than the attacks that I've
been listening to before that.
And just to try to find out the
truth on any of these things, it's not
so simple.
It's not so simple.
And I just stand amazed at the range
of controversies the church and mission groups.
We saw this at the ACMC conference, the
Association for Church Missions Committee in North America.
The number of areas where top missionary leaders
are absolutely at loggerheads.
One writes a book.
If you wait around a year, another one
writes a book against it.
Quite amazing.
Television, videocassette, even the audio cassette, has greatly
changed things today.
And we live in what people describe as
a very highly pluralistic society.
And each one of us here, though we
like to believe we're loyal to the OM
vision and the way that God has led
us, we are all tremendously influenced by a
wide range of things.
And I think, personally, it's good.
And OM has opened the door to that.
The books we introduce you to.
The endless different guest speakers that come through
OM.
And I think it's a great mistake when
groups, I know a group, a very strong
group in America right now, they pull back,
close the doors.
No guest speakers.
Read mainly the books that come through the
leadership.
And they go down the road of neo
-exclusivism.
Of course, when we see God blessing mightily
neo-exclusive groups, sometimes we think, well, maybe
we're the ones up the creek.
I forgive the expression.
But, at least for me, it's too late
to go down the neo-exclusive road.
We departed from it two decades ago.
And I, even despite the hypnotic effect of
Buck Singh and others, just decide that that's
not the way for Operation Mobilization.
I personally would rather see it just fold
up.
So, people will be exposed to tremendous ideologies
and theologies.
And you may be surprised at times by
this unity that does exist within OM.
Differences of opinion.
I know some of you are new.
I, after 20 years, am amazed at the
unity that we still have in the light
of so much that's blowing around in these
days.
But it is a factor to keep in
mind with the young people.
There's no way we can get this army
of young people to move for God and
do something specific because we want to do
that without working on winning their loyalty by
your friendship, your love, and by the various
ways that, according to the Bible, are appropriate.
Number two, I need to not get carried
away on each point.
Just give it to you.
That's not easy for me.
But the reaction to the cults.
Jonestown.
A lot of freaky things that are taking
place.
Bob Mumford was one of the leaders of
the modern charismatic movement who led the group
that was always accused of the pyramid leadership,
discipleship thing.
There's an article in Buzz this month about
the Bradford House Fellowships who were really under
attack by many other churches.
Quite a balanced article.
And these people, in the last couple of
years, I read a lot of their material.
Kip Mumford's letter called Plumline.
They have been talking more and more about
balance.
They have acknowledged mistakes.
And I wrote something that's really interesting.
Bob Mumford, Plumline, May, June, 83.
Unfortunately, many who seriously want to believe in
the reality of the charismatic phenomenon are often
unable to do so because of our extremes,
our silliness and confusion when we fail to
keep the balance.
Interesting.
And today, of course, people are overreacting to
the extremes they have seen.
And there are things that when people initially
see a movement like Plum, certain types of
people, they are turned off just like that.
And as we talk a little later, as
we get to the main message on communication,
you'll see a little more.
Number three, many semantic problems.
Different things have different meanings to different people.
I never got in much to fishing, but
I have been very interested in streams in
the church.
And following these different streams, following, for example,
what's been happening lately to the Le Brie
Fellowship, following the ongoing drama of Bill Gothard
and his movement, following the Fort Lauderdale people
that Mumford is linked with.
I guess somewhere or other I've studied and
followed at least 50 different streams.
And in different countries you have whole new
streams, even rivers.
And it's quite amazing.
And the problems that come because different words
mean different things to different people.
Revival to a Southern Baptist in Georgia would
not mean the same as to a Welshman
in Swansea.
And this creates a mass of possible miscommunications.
Number four, many extremist books, many total answer
books, tapes.
My, you know one of the big tapes
going on now is Exodus 2.
Have you heard that tape?
Man has prophesied that all the Jews are
coming out.
They've got the buses ready in Finland.
They've got the food ready in Germany.
People are coming out.
There are people in OM who are caught
into this.
I don't know.
Who am I to say?
I am trying to run a little investigation
on it right now.
I just asked Oscar if he could get
over and look for those buses.
There are just so many things going on.
And of course, it seems that people for
some reason feel that if they could influence
George Verwer a little bit, somehow, you know,
I would influence all of you and you
would influence the whole Christian world and everything
would change.
It's a generalization but you get the point.
And so the endless tapes and books, many
of which you can't sell because we're not
into selling some of this kind of material.
But, you know, we can be very naive
about what these young people have been taught
before they walk into our lovely conference and
now are declared an OMer.
And I had the most critical letter recently
of some of our people, I won't tell
which field, out taking meetings.
This man thought, is it our major teaching
to send the newest, greenest, youngest, ignorant out
to meet with the pastors and take meetings
in the churches?
Now he is a bit of a critical
fellow.
But it's interesting, isn't it?
What people believe in the books they've read.
Number five, of course, super spirituality.
Number six, the cynical society.
That's the other side of the coin, isn't
it?
You know some of the anti-Christian things
that are perpetually coming across the media.
And then we wonder why some of the
people in the town who are trying to
plant a church think we're a cult.
I remember Dr. Schaefer trying to tell us
to have more pre-evangelism.
And I believe he's still right.
Number seven, now let me just say on
that cynical society point, that no matter how
you move, someone will complain, gossip, or drop
a cynical remark.
And it makes it...
And because there have been these leaders who
have tried to dominate people, I believe it
is becoming increasingly more difficult to lead a
team of people or a church in the
work of God.
And many, many pastors have shared that with
me.
Number seven, disobedience to parents and the fact
that many have never learned submission.
You know, I'm sure I wasn't the world's
best son, but you know, I submitted to
my father.
You know, I come from, I guess, that
old-fashioned generation.
My father was boss around the house.
And I just learned to submit.
One of the best things I ever learned
when I went to Moody Bible Institute was
submit.
I didn't like it.
But some people today have never had an
experience of submission, even to their own parents.
Number eight, very important, Satan hates reality, unity.
He hates to see people loving one another.
Becoming like-minded as we're exhorted in 1
Corinthians 1.10. Number nine, pride.
The Bible says, Proverbs 13.10, by pride
come contention.
Number ten, idealism.
And we attract very idealistic people in O
.M. And these people we are discovering are
not easy to keep happy during the year.
And we are getting interesting feedback from some
of them about their leaders.
They expect their leaders to do evangelism.
Expect that he might know how to win
a soul to Christ.
The average recruit, let us understand this well,
cannot comprehend what we are doing here in
this room now.
Some can, praise the Lord for that.
And they don't see us here anyway.
Maybe if they saw us, they'd think, wow,
look at this guy.
Tremendous gift of sitting there and being silent
for two solid days.
This is the kind of man I could
really relate to.
They don't see us here.
And there seems to be a passing of
a buck going on that somehow we feel
there must be some younger, new set of
people that will be the example to all
these young people.
We are the family people.
We don't expect them to see us.
But of course, if you look around for
the numbers of people you need in a
movement this size, only a few single people
or even a large number of single people
are to set the example that young people
can see with their own eyes.
I think you are going to discover it's
just not enough.
And then 11.
Very basic.
Someone, when I only had 10 points, they
came to me and added the 11.
Our own sins and failures and weaknesses.
That, of course, I think if we respond
properly, brokenness and love, we can make up.
Often great loyalty comes as people see our
weaknesses and failures and sins and how we
deal with it.
Believe me, there's a lot that we could
say on that.
And I hope you'll take it to heart.
Now, let's just get to this little message
I told you about if I can find
it here in my little notebook.
I'm often in a terrific tension to know
what to share.
And I'm just trusting that this is what
the Lord wants and that other things that
I have on my heart will come through
other brothers and other sisters.
And I feel very strongly that if you
only come to this conference, and I know
sometimes that's all you can, then you miss,
generally you miss what God wants to give
us here in this month of waiting on
Him This conference was built on the concept
that prayer was the most important thing in
the work of God.
And it used to be a couple of
hours minimum prayer every single day.
And we can't jam everything into this weekend.
And we've never claimed that this weekend is
primarily for prayer.
And sometimes that praying and waiting upon God
is done best in your own countries with
your own people and in a more restful
situation.
But we do have prayer.
We're going to have prayer tomorrow night.
We're going to have prayer throughout the rest
of the conference and days of prayer.
And waiting on the Lord together and I
just think that's so important.
And maybe you can't do it this year.
But in the future if there's any way,
if the Lord provides the finance, and generally
it doesn't cost so much more to stay
here a few extra days.
The bigger expense is getting here and going
back.
Try to plan to be here a little
longer.
I find many of the young people and
junior level leaders are really craving time and
fellowship with people who are now only a
name on a paper.
Never an easy answer to that.
But there are some answers.
Spread the vision.
God has given us a vision.
I don't think we need to defend that.
An OM is known all over the world
as a movement of tremendous vision.
Pioneer movement.
That's got 37,000 graduates and that's given
the gospel to 300 million people and seen
many, many thousands come to know him.
I think when you're an OM, especially if
you're reading some of these books, you're more
aware of your failures than you are of
your victories.
And again, we have to repent and rise
up and press on.
But I feel it is a time in
the light of things that many people have
said when we consider just some of the
practical ways that we can spread this vision.
Forgive me for using an old text but
those words ring in my mind that the
Lord gave He shall be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the
earth.
You know, in spreading this vision there's still
nothing stronger than the word of God.
And when we use the scriptures and we
teach the biblical basis for missions from the
scriptures, the Holy Spirit uses it.
And I just use Acts 1, 8 again
and again.
Don't be intimidated in your preaching.
So many pastors I talk to are intimidated
because we've got Charles Swindoll on the television
and we've got this guy and that guy
and here's this pastor, you know, this little
congregation.
He feels he doesn't have a great preaching
ministry.
I believe we're going to see a great
turn in the kind of preaching that we
get in some places in the coming years.
We've already seen it if you study preachers
as I try to do.
There's a new book out now.
It's an absolute bombshell.
It should be required reading for every preacher.
It's on inductive preaching.
And it's interesting as you go through that
book you discover that some of the methods
God taught us years ago about communication are
now considered the way to go in really
getting through to the TV generation.
It's considered one of the top books on
preaching right now.
Inductive preaching.
And I was with a fundamentalist pastor who
generally always up to now has used the
old didactic and that form of preaching.
I know you probably want definitions of some
of these terms.
You'll have to read the book.
But he has been really persuaded by this
book to change his preaching style.
Interesting.
God has given us a vision.
God has given us a message.
God has given us experience.
Can you imagine the total experience of the
people that are sitting in this room?
And now we've got to put feet and
we've got to put legs on that which
God has given to us.
I think largely this has to be done
within each country.
We can learn from one another but our
countries are unique.
Pakistan is not India.
India is certainly not Turkey and Turkey is
not France.
And New Zealand is not England and England
is not America.
We can learn through our cross international contact
but we need to study.
We need to study word.
We need to study the people we're trying
to reach.
You know the way I listen to people?
In many of my meetings I ask for
feedback.
Honest feedback, especially negative.
I have read through over one hundred feedback,
one thousand feedback papers from people who have
been in my meetings responding to what I've
said.
Most of it is positive but there are
those negative things.
There are those miscommunications.
And you also ought to learn more from
the negative.
So if some of you want to find
out a little more about what people are
thinking, why don't you just ask them?
Why don't you ask people when you're sharing
in a meeting, even your testimony, to take
out a piece of paper.
You won't always feel free to do this.
And feel free to ask anything you can
even say about O.M. or about what
you've said.
Or I often put a prayer request.
People want to be prayed for.
We're going backward if our main burden is
always just to get people to pray for
us.
If you don't have an intercessory realistic ministry
in praying for others, then I wonder what
your credentials are for asking them to pray
for you.
The Bible says do unto others as you
would have them do unto you.
And I find that when I legitimately tell
people I want to pray for their requests,
and I pray through every request I get
in paper, the response is amazing.
And what I have learned about people in
the past few years since I've been doing
this more is quite staggering.
Anyway, let's move into some specific points.
I've written these things down and some of
them you can even throw out some of
them.
It's not a problem to me.
Take what you can.
Because the last thing I want you to
do is to think that you are to
go and communicate the vision the exact same
way that I would.
Every one of you is original.
Every one of you, through what you study,
what you read, and what you receive, have
to develop your own original package.
That doesn't mean there won't be things in
that method of communication from others.
There will be, even subconsciously, without knowing it.
And that makes it difficult because again, if
someone says to you, oh, you sound just
like George Burrough, that's probably enough to kill
you for life.
You know, I had somebody, when I preached
at Moody years ago, say something along that
line, you're trying to copy this man of
God because he just about blew me away.
Because that kind of thing sometimes is quite
strong.
I put number one, we sow the seed
and we trust God to bring in the
harvest.
And I really believe that if we could
give a little greater effort in OM to
getting the message out, the tapes, the books,
the cassettes, the materials that we have, I
believe we would see something happen.
Especially if it were bathed with prayer.
Real, consistent prayer.
I'm going to move on from there because
that's something we are doing.
There's no area in OM we can't improve.
No area.
We are doing that.
We need to do it more.
But let's move on.
Number two, we present a definite burden and
a definite vision and it's not the same
for each one of us.
It's not the same.
My first burden is not world missions.
I tried to do that.
I can do that.
It's not me.
My first burden when I face people is
spiritual health.
I want to see them walking with Jesus.
The first thing isn't whether they come on
OM or not.
If you get on OM out of God's
will it can be a cul-de-sac.
And I know that Peter Maiden is this
way.
I know that Nigel Lee is this way.
I know that many of you are this
way.
Your first burden is to see people first
of all being born again and don't presume
everybody in front of you is converted.
Secondly, to see them edified and built up
in Jesus Christ.
There are others you may not feel you
have that anointing and that burden from the
Lord but you want to be able to
present in a very down-to-earth way
the work of OM or the work of
world missions or a vision for China or
a vision for India or a vision for
the Middle East or the Muslim world.
There's terrific scope for a whole range of
burdens.
I hope you don't think this is too
spiritual but get that burden from the Lord.
Get that burden from the Lord on your
knees in the Word and in your reading
of course.
And when God gives the burden and you
then transfer that burden and share that burden
people will see it's real.
And I've had people say well I didn't
agree with that OMer but I could see
it was real.
And that sometimes goes a long way because
enthusiasm is often contagious.
Again, let God bring the results.
There's a line in our manual leadership manual
and I've appreciated the renewed emphasis in reading
that.
And there's a set of five tapes now
based on the leadership manual especially dealing with
the goals and aims of Operation Mobilization the
last couple of chapters the last chapter of
the manual.
And you can have a set of these
tapes if you listen to them and we're
going to as the Lord enables perhaps use
them in our leadership training.
By the way, one of the greatest contributions
OM has been making in Britain has been
the leadership training conference for younger disciples, younger
leaders.
This year, how many came to that?
Seven, eight hundred people were turned away.
And that was very, very exciting.
So the third thing is the best publicity
is a holy life.
Therefore we shouldn't be too surprised if sometimes
a particular ex-OMer or even OMer is
not turning his town upside down for Jesus
because holiness often isn't the order of the
day and it doesn't come overnight or through
just getting an OM summer campaign.
I don't think there's any shortcuts.
Number four, I've said under number four no
shortcuts and I've underlined the words hard work.
I never forget being with a group of
OM leaders many years ago.
The Holy Spirit was dealing in a very
honest way and I said to this group
of leaders because so
often the evangelical church has been very, very
much from a particular segment of society and
therefore unable to understand where so many millions
actually are screaming, crying, praying, hoping that somehow
they can get a job.
Of course, some people quickly write off all
these unemployed as people who really don't know
how to work.
Many of them don't want jobs.
That may be true for some but not
for all.
And I believe God wants OM to continue
to have a work ethic.
I think some people should have a year
off and often when they've been doing the
job of two men for a long, long
period of time I think it needs to
be kept in balance because I'm not sure
how many of our prayer partners working in
offices and factories and farms and some of
them pretty hard are going to be able
to take a year off.
It's a difficult area, isn't it?
I wonder how many have thought of taking
a year off to do a tough, secular
job.
Maybe with the miners in England they could
use some love and help or maybe even
within the work.
I remember once challenging a leader to take
a year off from his primary vision and
work in the warehouse in Bromley with the
boxes and the books.
And it did a lot for him.
I remember the testimony of Lindsay Brown who
after being the big leader of the CU
in Oxford went to Lagos and was mainly
working in the holds with the books.
Now one of the outstanding Christian leaders in
Europe.
Hard work, no shortcuts.
Plotting the extra mile.
So many times I've seen the extra phone
call the extra letter, the extra visit.
Going off to the hospital to visit a
sick person going off to a nursing home
to visit an elderly prayer partner going off
to a relative's house when you didn't want
to and you wanted to do your own
thing and you were tired has produced some
of the greatest breakthroughs and victories that I've
seen.
Number five, in God's work and in the
work of spreading the vision we have to
continually take our motives to the cross.
And in these days, especially when we are
under financial pressure false motivation can easily come
in.
So easily come in.
And we need to acknowledge it and let
our hearts be cleansed and then press on.
Number six, we need to get to know
the harvest.
We need to get to know the facts.
Some people can't even share from the pulpit
the most basic OM facts without making mistakes.
I once saw a slideshow one of these
homemade last minute slideshows miscellaneous slides the person
is not present and I just couldn't believe
it.
You know, slides of Japan and you're talking
about Saudi Arabia slides of...
it doesn't seem to matter where the slide
is from Anyway, I realize sometimes you can
use a different slide to say something that's
not necessarily wrong but many of this man's
facts were just up the creek OM becomes
bigger and bigger the amounts of literature grow
beyond all proportion a thousand becomes a million
ten is a hundred and I get introduced
in meetings with such statistics about OM I
just wonder that's why sometimes I know some
of you feel that I'm a...
is it a stickler?
is that a word that we still use?
when I emphasize that you know, when we
count the numbers would you tell how many
are children and how many are adults?
because otherwise it just gets out that OM
has two thousand workers now I know you
feel your little five year old is a
real worker for Jesus but it would be
better if you know, we could just try
to at times define things we need to
get to know facts there are so many
books this means that in our ministry in
our presentation we need to write things down
especially statistics forgive me if I've led you
astray sometimes in these things but it is
you know, I write down far more than
people might imagine and I just feel it
is important that we know the facts the
facts, the figures, the statistics when we get
information from the Arab world about security things
that we cannot say about the Arab world
that just becomes top priority in our thinking
you know what's really hurt me in OM
in the past couple of years I'll be
really honest seeing one leader belittle another leader
I'm sure they don't mean it but let's
all of us beware of belittling a leader
at his moment of mistake or his moment
of failure or his moment of blunder or
when he comes into the meeting maybe with
two different shoes on I don't think all
humor is belittling by the way I'm not
saying that but we need to edify one
another encourage one another believe the best and
when we hear someone speak if we really
have something on our hearts we feel he
said that is really out to lunch and
really wrong rather than gossiping it among your
little group because at times in OM we
have our little groups we have our closer
friends God knows how human we are how
weak and how vulnerable we are what a
wonderful thing if you go to him and
lovingly you know, what you said there I'm
not really sure that was exactly the truth
I thank God that Dale Roton has done
that to me over the years I'm being
perfect but I tell you in the situations
that I speak in if you even err
a quarter of an inch I tell you
you're going to get it because those kind
of meetings are just that way and there
are people there around so we need to
improve in that area and sometimes when we're
in doubt about something it's better not to
say it number seven get to know your
own get to know OM get to know
OM better I've been encouraging leaders to spend
more time in some of the other offices
of the work you know, I realize you
already have more to do than you can
manage but I don't think we have done
that yet and the number of leaders who
even just pass through some offices I know
at times in Bromley some of our people
have even been offended and I of course
always defend the leader who passes through working
behind a desk and some of the chore
for a particular leader and passes through and
sometimes he doesn't seem to have time even
to say hello you can be sure Jerry
Davey hasn't told me to tell you this
but I've been amazed the lack of interest
in OM and the fantastic work that STL
has done for all of us it's just
old hat now and I just don't know
where we would be if it wasn't for
that service arm of the work I use
that perhaps in the way of example but
tremendous things are happening I only touched the
tip of the iceberg this morning tremendous things
are happening this thing is blazing like a
prairie fire and we need to get to
know our own fellowship by the way you
don't have to travel so much to do
that if you can that's good reading through
those reports and prayer letters and reading them
through at least a second time and just
praying through these things yourself I find it
such a challenge to pray through the prayer
letters and gathering up a file in your
mind in your bible in books of these
powerful stories that people tell of people being
saved on a lamp of answers to prayer
let's not over react to some of the
silly stories perhaps we once told the laying
on of hands of that vehicle in Italy
in 1962 or the gasoline that was provided
that could be an answer to prayer in
an empty tank in Spain in 1963 I
never did get totally convinced on that it
moved me down cynicism lane one step further
but if we over react to some of
the stories remember that they came down the
hill in France and the team didn't have
much to eat I noticed that Lauren Cunningham
used the famous story of the fish jumping
out of the sea in Greece I was
there that day the funniest thing the only
visit I ever had to Anastasis was the
day the fish had just jumped out of
the ocean onto the beach and I had
some of those fish on the Anastasis and
I noticed that's one of the main chapters
in this little book but you know it's
good to have some of these stories it's
good also to find out if they're actually
the truth because one person from YWAM shared
the story with me and in that story
because it had changed the fish jumped out
of the ocean onto the ship and you
see it just gets a little bit more
miraculous each time but a far a
far greater a far greater danger is when
we overreact to some of this and we're
no we're no longer excited about some of
the answers to prayer that God has given
we feel well it's really sort of O
.M. coincidences again in play or something else
and some of the some of the days
when people used to really jump up and
praise the Lord about some miraculous provision of
funds some of us now after living in
the financial pressure that we've been in we
sort of you know we sort of look
at them when they're testifying about this great
breakthrough they've had with the Lord providing their
funds but you know God is still answering
prayer and He is providing and unusual things
are happening and I hope you'll take a
little extra effort perhaps a notebook perhaps some
time study so that when you go to
speak in a meeting the last thing in
all the earth anybody is going to say
is that you were boring I mean that
should be the anathema for any public speaker
I mean even worse than making a mistake
I'd rather have a guy make a mistake
even give wrong statistics anything but boring and
you know I admit I'm an extremist you
know I really can relate with this fellow
Steve Taylor ministering with me at the Christian
Rock Festival in Chicago if you think I
move around on the stage this guy made
me look like an elephant and he's an
outstanding rock singer and a communicator that the
young people just go bananas by the way
that's Keith Green's definition of being a Christian
bananas for Jesus talk about semantics and Steve
Taylor jumped off the stage and he broke
his ankle and they whisked him off to
the hospital I do believe he appeared at
Greenbelt last week I don't know on crutches
if you don't know Steve Taylor you obviously
aren't into the American Christian music scene we
won't judge you as being a prune and
outdated because of it you know we could
learn a lot from people like like Keith
Green in the area of communication but that's
something for perhaps another message number eight the
place of prayer specific prayer do you pray
for all your prayer partners that should just
be basic it's as basic as having cornflakes
on the summer campaign now I my wife
and I have quite a few people on
that list now not all of our prayer
partners because some of them never got on
the list how many are on our list
now Vera may know about fifteen hundred people
and that's only been started in the last
few years because my original prayer letter became
the international monthly and only got into my
head that I needed something and of course
it's not my wife insists a prayer letter
but a Verwer family newsletter what a joy
even though that's a lot of people to
pray through that list to just immediately dash
off letters you know I know what people
say the moment I mention that oh yeah
guy's got his secretaries type six thousand words
a minute I mean sure he can but
you know I'll tell you a postcard written
with your own hand will sometimes go further
than a dictated letter and some of you
don't have secretaries and some of them don't
always appreciate typing all your personal letters anyway
though I think for leaders it's impossible to
separate personal from spreading the vision so I
would hope they would help you type them
but there's just so much can be done
but prayer for those people for their needs
for their situations specific prayer and when you
write a person this again is just so
basic when you write a person saying you've
just been praying for them and how are
they doing tell me do you think that
means anything to the average guy how many
letters do you think he gets each week
saying I'm praying for you I'm interested in
you let me know what's happening people are
so bombarded with people give me I want
send me when someone writes and shows interest
I'm in the midst of reading another book
right now about communication and I have it
over there and this book emphasizes that today
if we really want to get somewhere in
communication it has to be as personal as
possible a vast percentage of people are not
reading very much at all that doesn't mean
we're not going to use books or tracts
because of course we are if there's only
20% reading let's go for them but
I tell you to pick up that phone
and talk to a man and ask him
how he's doing did he get the prayer
letter and what's his situation I was I
phoned the pastor of one of the girls
very low support and I got some phone
numbers before I left Europe and I phoned
that pastor and it was a church where
it looks very unlikely they're going to support
her denominational situation and I didn't talk at
all about finance but when I asked him
if I could pray at the end of
our conversation for two things I said can
I just pray for two things for you
one for the church and one for you
personally you know what he asked can you
believe that he said would you pray that
we'd increase our missionary budget didn't say anything
about that and I really believe that we
have I'm not saying we can't change our
policy and improve of course but we have
now enough freedom to get on with the
job and then leave the results with God
and I hope that we will do that
and that it will involve specific prayer for
others number nine to love serve and encourage
people try with all your heart not to
see dollar bills and pound notes in people's
eyeballs it can really put them off on
the other hand you're a human being if
you're under tremendous financial pressure and you're talking
to a millionaire who could slip you a
check for a million as quick as he
could sneeze you know you're going to have
a few ripples in your financial diaphragm but
somehow somehow we can we can find the
balance and we can commit ourselves to people
the rich the poor those who give those
who don't give we love people that's the
principle that O.M. was built on I
was reading one of the first prayer letters
I ever wrote just reading it the other
day that you know I asked people to
pray for the ministry we had in a
garbage dump in Mexico O.M. has been
a movement that has for all of its
history a bias toward the poor the forgotten
the neglected the lost but sometimes we need
to realize that that man who may be
rich is more poor than the poor and
we have been guilty of overreacting and running
away from people simply because they were on
the side of the tracks with the big
houses and the big car and the Rolls
Royces and we were afraid if we gave
them a copy of True Discipleship it would
be the end of the line well one
of my closest friends who has poured many
tens and tens of thousands into this work
when he first had True Discipleship the book
so the myth goes he tore it up
and threw it away I think he later
changed his view I don't know maybe when
they changed the cover but to love people
to serve people to encourage people true personal
friendship a great indictment I had against the
Christian leader who was an O.M.er
now an X.O.M.er a brother
came to me and he said you know
this guy said so many tremendous things to
me about how he loved me appreciated me
and all this and he went and he
said to me at that point I haven't
heard from him in three years we've got
to be careful what we say it's all
great to say how we appreciate people and
this and that but then if we forget
them somehow something rings wrong now they need
a message on spiritual balance the human factor
judgmentalism you know but I don't have them
here I have you here and we need
to be straight we need to be straight
let's say what we mean let's mean what
we say let's not expect people to read
between the lines and I know that's a
battle and I'm a learner myself number ten
our burden is the whole counsel of God
don't you find that people just push one
thing to bug you maybe I'm people just
always push the same thing and I know
and I've made funny mistakes there are situations
where I don't talk about O.M. I
don't talk about O.M. and I don't
talk about missions it's not the time God
has got to open the doors I take
an interest in people's children take the dog
for a walk mow the lawn just chat
just shoot the breeze don't come down heavy
on everybody you meet you know are you
an Acts 1.8 disciple?
are you into the prayer cards?
where's your map?
there can never be a substitute
for true honest down to earth love and
friendship that goes a long way especially in
the world today and I think that's linked
with us sharing and living and preaching the
whole counsel of God number eleven we're interested
in other people churches organizations God has led
us again this year in our leadership training
conference to take a large offering give it
all away to some other group and as
we go into churches and want to communicate
with our churches and we put these things
down in memos and we need to re
-read some of these tremendous memos we must
take interest please please get this today rather
than just thinking how can they become interested
in us and what we're doing it's just
basic it's very important and then number twelve
these are some very practical things really making
use of these tapes and slides films books
you know the people I've talked to obviously
a good gospel tract has not yet been
written I find so many people who say
well you know there's not really any good
gospel tract yet and then sometimes you hear
the same thing about books we don't want
to kill any creativity keep pressing on to
write the best gospel tract and if you
can write stuff better than Charles Colson and
Charles Swindoll some of the books I've been
into lately you're welcome to just blaze the
trail but as for me and my house
we will be distributors of other people's material
you know I just find it so exciting
to take some of these great books the
Lord gave us the privilege this summer of
selling thirty two thousand dollars of Christian books
sometimes I had to weep it was like
taking candy from children but I believe God
uses books I believe God uses books we've
got a warehouse of books in Waynesboro that
is staggering we've got free literature we hope
we can have better free literature more free
literature but I have seen for twenty eight
years the Lord using some of the silliest
things some of the silliest things so my
philosophy is never all the eggs in one
basket you're from many different countries go to
it get your strategy if necessary have a
retreat together on this subject get your strategy
get your materials and go to it and
next year let's hear what you've done and
I believe we'll hear things that will cause
us to jump up on the chairs and
praise the Lord number thirteen get people involved
people want to get involved with OM they
want to help they want to give their
used cars some I believe even want to
give the new cars I haven't met any
of them yet but I'm sure they're there
people want to help people want to help
you know one of the greatest problems in
OM the lack of initiative people aren't going
to call you they're not going to call
you do you have any problems in your
family that I can help you with you
need to get the word around and there
are many ways to do that without breaking
any great OM policy and get yourself in
trouble with the powers to be or the
finance committee or whoever else is carrying the
club in the next decade get people involved
there are many ways to do that I'm
taking what I need a week for and
giving it to you in an evening esteeming
the local church OM has been given much
credit in this area it's won us many
friends let's keep working on it it takes
a high degree of sensitivity we need to
understand these different streams and different denominations we
don't go running into a brethren assembly or
sitting in a Pentecostal church and sometimes
people thanks Dale I needed that number 15
we need to follow up letters phone calls
remembering people's birthdays making sure your have a
letter or a card at their wedding when
the baby is born whatever you
get that through prophecy you just read it
in this book but number 16 I wish
I could talk more about that letter writing
but trust the Holy Spirit he can lead
people as you are taking the initiative you
are talking to people he will lead them
to ask you questions I had a pastor
on the phone of one of the biggest
churches in America few days ago he asked
the lead questions if you ever want to
see George Berber move into orbit it's when
he said how is the financial situation of
operation mobilization and you know he asked now
some of you I know you have a
you have a canny instinct about me and
you are thinking on a journal a memo
26 ways how to get the man to
ask the question that you wanted to ask
you know it's good we can laugh at
some of these things because actually in this
ministry of spreading the vision and trying to
see the Holy Spirit use his word and
use books and use tapes or use you
to touch people's heart for missions and for
souls and for the poor and the hungry
and the lame and that's something we need
to remember we have a cause we don't
have to be ashamed of wanting to see
people give their money to God's work that
is a ridiculous thing we covet their money
for Jesus and the kingdom but we want
to see the Holy Spirit controlling it and
working in a way that will bring glory
not to man but to God as hard
as we know that is in some situations
so trust the Holy Spirit and I think
instead of always just praying Lord touch this
man's heart to give $1000 you might pray
Lord give us a good time of fellowship
together if it's your will help us to
get into the real issue it may not
be money at all it may be something
else it may be that he is sleeping
with a woman around the corner and I
tell you when you get involved in debts
with people you are going to get a
little busier but the Lord can help in
that number 17 show appreciation how can it
be that people are giving gifts to people
and not getting a personal letter I know
if they give it just to the organization
I'm going to wind this down in three
minutes that they don't always get a personal
letter but that shouldn't happen if they give
to you personally we have a lot of
giving my wife and I and we have
a lot of other letters to write but
we know we cannot fail to show appreciation
to these people who have given it does
stretch us and I know the negative factors
in all this but it's ministering to people
and it goes a long way number 18
keep growing keep learning keep expecting and don't
get discouraged number 19 we'll have the constant
struggle between the anointing and we need anointed
men and women and learning ministry and communication
skills don't think it's something new in OM
to learn communication skills we have failed to
emphasize this enough and so it's needed some
resurrection this year and we praise the lord
for that and the visit of David Cummings
and the visit to the church
and the visit to the church and the
visit to the church and
the visit to the church and the visit
to the church and the visit to the
church and the visit to the church and
the visit to the and
the visit to the church and the visit
to the church and the visit to the
church and the visit to the church and
the visit to the and the visit to
the church and the visit to the church
visit to the church and the visit to
the church and the visit to the church
and the visit to the church and the
visit to the church and the visit to
the church and the visit to the church
and the visit to the church and
the visit to the church and
the visit to the church and the visit
to the church and the and the visit
to the church and the visit
to the church and the church and the
visit to the church and the visit to
and the This whole task of spreading the
vision, of ministering to our prayer partners, we've
been called not to be ministered unto, but
to minister, will be done by different people
in different ways.
And believe me, I will greatly respect the
method that God leads you.
I ask you by God's grace to respect
the method God gives me.
Get on your face about this.
Stop thinking this is the other man's job.
The task is huge, the doors are wide
open, but the Macedonian calls are coming.
And you and I are called to spread
this vision on every level.
It will also vary from country to country.
Let's spread the vision in Germany in a
German glass.
Let's spread the vision in Canada, not in
a USA way, but in a Canadian way.
And there's quite a difference.
This means, of course, a lot of study,
a lot of wisdom.
Praise the Lord for the wonderful way He
can use us, sometimes even when we blow
it and fail.
That never ceases to amaze me.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for this time.
You know that this is a seven-day
course that we've crammed into a little more
than an hour.
Help us now to go and do our
homework.
Help us to go to our own countries
and our own teams, and to really develop
a strategy for spreading the vision, for communicating
powerfully the message of your word, the holiness
of life, world missions, your whole counsel.
Different people we know will be led to
emphasize different things.
We thank you for that.
And we're trusting you that as we honor
you in doing this and in providing the
information and the vision and the materials that
you will hear from heaven and you will
touch people's hearts to join us.
We need workers to send of their sons
and daughters, and you will put it on
the hearts of others to become intercessors, and
you will raise up prayer groups because there's
no greater need in this area than for
more prayer groups that really do pray.
And then you will touch some hearts to
give, and to give funds that will astonish
every one of us.
We come with a spirit of expectation.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Coffee is now available downstairs.
Let's try and be back at 9.30.
And we won't attempt the agenda on your
paper.
We won't move into new grounds at such
a late hour.
But we'll go back over unresolved issues earlier
in the day and try and bring them
to some conclusion.
So if you can be back at 9
.30, it'll be for no more than one
hour.
One hour maximum, commencing at 9.30.