As I brought the last part of the
message, the last tape to a close, I
was giving a plea to keep our confidence
in the Lord, to avoid looking to man
or to organizations and to keep away from
what I would term organizationalism.
I believe the Lord really wants us now
to focus in on some other or more
of the weaknesses and problem areas that we
have to wrestle with at this present time.
I'd like to just pray, the Lord help
us, this won't go too long, but we
will be able to deal with issues that
are so important in this work and that
we will be able to lay a foundation
for further prayer, for further discussion.
God, we pray that you will help us
to be as like-minded as possible on
these issues.
Help me keep the balance of what I
say.
I ask in Jesus name, Amen.
Moving on to another area, we come to
this area of sometimes conflict in terms of
what we should actually be doing in strategy.
In some places a greater emphasis now on
church planting.
We've always believed in church planting.
I think many of us have always felt
that a lot of this should be done
by people when they leave OM.
We feel strongly about this in India and
it's sort of the official policy there that
most church planting is to be done by
graduates.
This enables it to be more linked with
the soil, more indigenous, more realistic.
Here again, I think that one of the
strong points of OM is that we have
allowed a wide range of strategies.
It's just my plea that it will not
get too wide and that countries will just
feel they can basically do what they want
without any reference back to the original principles
and to the thrust that we feel must
continue in other areas of strategy.
Mass evangelism, of course training, working with existing
churches toward renewal, flooding out powerful literature and
all the rest.
I know that the word superficiality gets thrown
around at times and if there's not intensive
follow-up in certain areas then the sowing
of the seed and that kind of evangelism
is often despised and ridiculed in our day
and that we get the image of just
still being a movement of people running out
running around giving out tracts and in our
personal communication and public communication we really need
to know how to carefully destroy that image.
I've seen in church after church it can
be easily destroyed.
We say the right thing at the right
time, God's help, we can destroy these false
concepts and churches that were once very cool
about us will just swing around and get
behind us and move in a tremendous way.
With different churches and different groups we emphasize
different aspects of the ministry and I think
in our interviewing people in the September Conference
we must make a greater emphasis, a greater
effort to get them into a particular field,
a particular ministry and when possible with particular
leaders we think they're going to be happy
with and the kind of ministry they're going
to be able to be happy with.
Of course the other side of the coin
is we need to throw people into the
deep water and sometimes doing things especially in
their first year that they're not happy about.
Who can ever find the total answer to
that one?
Then we face quite a quite an amount
of discussion and controversy in regard to when
people should leave.
Do not think that when a person leaves
the work that it's only something that involves
say him and his direct leader over him,
the field leader and maybe the standing country
leader.
In a fellowship it doesn't work that way.
People have relationships, people have friends, people in
a sense build up loyal friendships and then
generally within a land this is unfortunate they
build up people who don't like them.
Just the amount of material that comes to
me from one person about another person that's
basically negative is sometimes staggering and I know
that in many ways I'm still out of
it and don't get in on a lot
of the nitty-gritty that's happening on a
team level.
In fact one of my great concerns is
that as leaders especially field leaders and people
with large responsibilities we can fail to know
what's really going on down among the troops.
What they are saying, what they are thinking,
what they are feeling, their hurts and I
don't see any way we can unless we
spend more time with these new people.
We cannot just be locked up into various
committees and various leadership sessions.
We've got to be spending time with new
people.
I don't see how we can be involved
in evangelism and not do that.
Every year I'm involved with new people that
I'm leading to Christ.
I can't just delegate them off.
If I'm a spiritual father I need to
spend time with them, write to them, love
them and encourage them and in a sense
our time some of us seems to be
divided almost 50-50 that 50 percent of
it has to be toward existing relationships, leaders
if we're in positions of leadership in my
type of position and 50 percent new people
leading people to Christ, discipling new young ones
coming up into the work, encouraging them.
Of course this is also linked with how
much organizational load we carry but the two
are very interrelated.
Organization and people are inseparable, absolutely inseparable in
Christian work.
So it is a big thing especially after
the first or second year when someone leaves
the work but even during the first or
second year the decision to stay or leave
is a big one.
This is one of the reasons, one of
many of the reasons that I feel strongly
as I have shared in memos over the
last couple of years that people who do
not see definite financial breakthrough in terms of
support first one or two years minimum which
we're trying to de-emphasize and after that
regular support that they should take that as
the sign that the Lord is leading them
out to another ministry or leading them back
to build up a revolutionary relationship with the
church.
We're not here talking about leading though in
some cases the Lord may lead that person
to leave because of a number of circumstances
but in the area of finance we're talking
about challenging that person to build a foundation.
That foundation is not only going to be
valuable in terms of prayer partners, in terms
of a nucleus of people that will stand
with them if they stay with OM, that
is going to help them the rest of
their life.
Missionaries laboring all over the world who were
once on OM are thankful to God that
we taught them something about faith, something about
prayer partners, prayer letters, building up a supporting
body of people through prayer because that has
helped them the rest of their life and
because this is such a big thing we
should not expect it to happen without a
little effort.
It's not a matter of just praying a
few prayers and suddenly we've got our financial
support and our prayer partner support for the
rest of our life.
The enemy is going to resist and if
we are not more specific with people giving
them specific goals to work towards specific breakthroughs
we are only hindering them.
If their money is just coming because of
the general OM body when they leave OM
they're back to zero, they are back to
zero.
They have perhaps very few prayer partners, their
prayer partners have in their mind that they're
in any way just supported by the general
giving and so they're in some ways going
to be back to zero.
A majority of mission movements in the world,
especially movements that OM young people are going
to be interested in, are going to require
them to have support and in most cases
they're going to require them to go out
and raise support and praise God that we
never took a totally negative stance against that
to the degree that when people leave OM
they would be unable to enter into other
missions.
We tried to bring this out in the
message on balance and the difference between principles
and policies and things along that line and
I just feel that the whole concept of
personal support, seeing people walk with God, seeing
actual finance coming into them is an enormous
part of what we're teaching young people and
is going to enable them to either stay
with us in a healthy sound and to
a large degree conscience free way because conscience
is involved with this or it's going to
enable them to join some other great faith
mission and have prayer partners and have the
kind of support that most of these missions
require.
I hope that we can have enough balance
so that people even can join missions where
they're given a salary, though that is not
the general thrust of of OM's thinking.
This is all very much linked with when
people leave the work.
It seems to me that in some cases
very few people are asked to leave OM
any longer unless they have got into some
difficulty, they're not working out, there's this problem,
there's that problem and there may be personality
clash, let's not think that we're free from
that, then those people are eased out.
Now this is wrong.
If this also gets through to the troops
that basically you don't get asked to leave
unless something is wrong, we are on weak
and dangerous ground.
Now praise God, the other side has been
there.
Very good people who have done very very
well, who we're happy with sometimes, leaders sometimes,
outstanding people have been challenged at times to
leave, especially at times by myself, but I
don't think too many are involved in doing
that.
Of course maybe people feel afraid to do
that, but because there are so many needs
for personnel everywhere, that tendency is for people
unless they want to leave, and there's a
variety of reasons why people want to leave,
generally if they don't want to leave they're
encouraged to stay on or they go from
one field to another field or sometimes it
seems that the jobs aren't even created for
them, and so this is of concern to
me, and I believe one of God's breaks,
one of God's ways of challenging people out
of a win, who we love, we want
them, we think they're great, we've got a
relationship with them, is by for a period
of time slowing down their finance and moving
them out through finance.
The Lord has other ways of moving people
out.
He puts it on their heart just to
get involved in another mission, what they may
feel is a better organization.
I believe God has overruled situations where people
have really been upset with us, they've not
been happy about their leader, they've not been
happy about Owen, and so they've decided to
leave.
You don't want that in one sense, but
I believe God has used that at times
to get people out because he's seen, our
great God has seen how hard it is
to get some people out of Owen, because
for some people it becomes very much their
spiritual home, their life, they're relatively happy, they've
got a fairly good thing in different ways,
and they want to stay.
Now I fear even saying those words because
some person misunderstands that and thinks that the
only way to really find it more difficult
and to get greater testing and greater difficulty
is to leave Owen.
This is of course false.
God has given Jonathan McCrosty the greatest testing
of his spiritual life, and he's within Owen.
Let us understand that the great tests and
the great difficulties in life do not come
necessarily related to whether we're in Owen or
not in Owen.
There's plenty of scope to endure hardship within
Owen, to grow, to face the tough issues
of the secular society, to face problems in
family life, there's plenty of pressures, there's plenty
of things going wrong in Owen, there are
plenty of financial struggles, so that within Owen
there is great scope for testing and growth
and everything else, even if at times it
may appear to be easier in one situation
than another.
God is not going to be hindered even
by some of the things we attempt to
do to help one another and to make
it easier for one another when he wants
to bring in his program of testing and
difficulty, but some people will not find the
right challenge for their situation until they're out
with another movement, another fellowship, and going out
of Owen often is a great step of
faith and it means moving into another one
of God's graduate programs.
I don't have an easy answer to this.
Personal guidance from God is the most important.
Careful counseling, avoiding being too subjective.
We can be honest about our needs, we
need certain kinds of people, we challenge certain
kinds of people to stay because there's a
desperate need.
There's nothing wrong with that provided there's the
other side of the issue that we often
keep people and challenge people to stay with
us not because we see where they particularly
fit into our program but because we love
them, we want to help them one more
year, we want to prepare them for what
is ahead of them when they leave.
God is working in different ways in different
people.
Different people are in Owen for different purposes
to some degree within God's program and I
think it's important to understand that.
Just lastly under this area of the problems
we face because of the wide range of
viewpoints and backgrounds and philosophy I've just written
here that whatever decision is made now with
a wide range of people and thoughts within
Owen there's always someone who disagrees.
If we don't learn to be positive and
I speak to myself cast every care upon
the Lord this can become a nightmare.
The number of letters and memos that come
to me every day that the post comes
which is most days.
Disagreeing with this, saying we should do that,
giving the answers to this, things that we
should discuss at the coordinators conference, warning me
about this thing that has crept into Owen.
I am not talking in all of this
talk I've given about issues that I've pulled
out of the sky.
Almost every one of these things I've shared
with people have touched on more than one
person in their letters, in their memos.
I can't even read all of this material
anymore and of course I don't but somehow
we have a problem here because we want
to maintain all the blessings of Owen when
it was small and yet we want all
the benefits through being large.
We can't have all in both of these
worlds we are going to have to lose
some things.
I feel bad that I've not had more
personal fellowship with many of you.
If it were 15 years ago when I
had hours and days of fellowship with most
all the leaders in the work you know
it would be a different story.
I think most Owen leaders have come into
maturity in this area and they realize that
my love for them, my commitment to them,
can no longer be directly measured in terms
of time with them.
There's factors in regard to the providence of
God, geographical location.
If I had the opportunity with certain people,
many of you who are listening to this
cassette, I would just be thrilled to spend
days, hours, work together, hike down Grand Canyon
together, whatever, but in the providence and the
purpose of God in a 24-hour day
that is just not possible with a huge
number of people.
We're not going to be able to have
the best out of both worlds.
All the advantages of the present structure of
Owen, the outreach to the ends of the
earth, the two ships, the two and a
half to three thousand people that unite with
us in the summer, the thousand six hundred
committed to world evangelism throughout the year, all
the benefits that brings, the souls that are
coming to Christ, the tens of millions that
are being reached, and then the exact same
carbon copy of the kind of fellowship we
had in the early days, all spending time
together with one another, praying together, all being
in certain prayer meetings together, etc.
Well, let me move on to the next
major area under this section about the weaknesses
that we're facing at present.
I've written with a number of people we
are relating to, there never seems to be
enough time, especially now that many of us
have families that demand a good amount of
time and attention.
Do the main leaders really know what is
going on?
That's interesting, not realizing, and I already in
my thinking ran into that concept, so I
don't think I'll go on much longer.
Single people, and praise God for the faithful
committed army of single men and women in
this work, and OM is the kind of
work that demands a large segment of single
people, team leader level people.
Generally, single men and women fit better into
that situation, though there are beautiful exceptions.
But these people will need deep patience and
understanding about marriage, and that's difficult because they
haven't been in marriage, and what they know
about family probably was in a totally different
context back in their own country, though there
are exceptions, young people reared on the mission
field and all the rest.
But I think we have to face it
just takes a lot more time, effort, money,
and everything to maintain a family in the
20th century.
And this does at times outwardly seemingly distract
from evangelism, from discipling men, from a lot
of things that single people have more time
to do.
And we do have people pointing their fingers
at some of the married men because they're
not doing enough of this or enough of
that, or maybe Saturday morning they didn't show
up on evangelism, even though Saturday morning, if
a man has a family, is priority time
for his family.
And I took my family with me on
evangelism until they weren't too keen on doing
that.
Then I had to find other times to
do evangelism, though sometimes I do Saturday morning.
My case and situation is often very different
from other people.
There needs to be a breaking down of
any barrier that the enemy is trying to
build between single people and married people.
This takes communication, but it also takes believing
the best.
I'm convinced sometimes we believe the worst about
people.
I know we don't mean to do that,
but we get the wrong signals, we hear
this thing or that thing.
And I've had to repent about this in
the past.
And I'm asking God to continue that crucifying
work in my life that I may know
how to believe the best until I really
have the facts and then to confront, but
to avoid generalizations and gossip, and to try
to sympathize with the difficult situations that certain
families are having just to survive.
I'm preaching all the time now on survival.
I just gave a series on this at
the Chester Operation World.
Maybe you'd like to listen to it.
But I know in my case, many times
it's not a matter of advancing down another
beach of spiritual combat, it's survival.
And I know some of you listening to
my voice at this time, even some of
the concepts I'm talking about here, perhaps they're
not registering very deeply because you're battling for
survival.
You're battling for survival.
And I want to stand with you.
Maybe we need to share a little more
as to where we really are.
What are some of our real struggles?
I know a lot of this is happening
in OM, and it's building reality and fellowship,
and it's enabling us to get things into
the right priority.
We would be less judgmental.
Praise God for the section on love covers
the last few pages against judgmentalism.
But I believe we would be less judgmental
about one another, and even about different fields
and different groups and different things within OM.
If we could really understand some of the
problems different ones are facing just to survive,
just to survive.
That's why I've been willing at times to
compromise certain convictions.
That's why I've been willing at times to
the distress of some people who feel I
should take a harder line on certain issues,
to compromise, to be more patient, to give
the person another year maybe before I ask
them to leave.
Because we want to minister.
We want to be a movement of compassion.
We want the fruit of the spirit.
We want to be sensitive toward people's needs.
And that's going to be constantly one of
our greatest struggles.
And then the next main point under this
section of our weaknesses is the age gap.
The lack of time now among some of
the older ones to train junior leaders, to
to spend time with new recruits that they
can just be plugged in right to the
heart and the pulse of what the Holy
Spirit has been doing over the years.
Many don't even seem to understand some of
the historical roots of OM.
Many seem to be confused about what this
whole thing of spiritual balance and the importance
of it.
Because it is just as important as commitment.
It is part of our commitment.
It is that which keeps the sword sharp.
There is a danger that there are so
many voices, so many messages, so many tapes,
so many outstanding magazines and books that a
majority of our time in terms of input
is from other directions.
And that we don't get enough time in
some of the OM material, the leadership manual,
some of the leadership tapes, there are piles
of leadership tapes from past conferences.
I know some of my own material that
I only maybe give once a year.
And I discover people making major mistakes not
understanding things because they didn't get that message.
They missed that emphasis.
And this concerns me.
And I know that age is a factor.
Perhaps some of us older and they see
us in the pulpit and they're afraid to
come to us.
Some of us don't seem to have another
spare minute, another spare hour, yet we have
to make time for those that want to
see us.
We must, no matter how many other responsibilities
we have, we must avoid like the plague
any kind of OM elite, people with special
privileges.
Our policy has been people receive according to
their need.
A brand new family coming into the work
with three children is going to have greater
needs than a single man who's been in
the work for 10 years.
And that single man should have the maturity
to understand that.
I don't believe we should move in the
direction of giving greater privileges according to the
years within OM.
That may be all right in some specific
area.
I understand on the ship in terms of
pocket money, people who have been several years
have a greater amount of money than maybe
people who are new.
Maybe that can be allowed for certain specific
areas, but it must not become a general
policy.
And it seems to me that a family
coming to the ship with three children, even
though they're new recruits, they're going to have
to have a greater privilege, what may seem
to be a privilege, than say some single
person who's been for three years.
It is complex.
We must not try to do through rules
and regulation that which can only be worked
out in individual situations through fellowship and communication.
I'd like to say that again, but I
don't think I can quote it again.
Different people have different needs.
And in OM, the priority is not the
seniority, but it's the person's particular need.
And we will have to wrestle with that.
But I feel that's the direction we must
continue to move by the grace of God
and by the help that the Lord can
give us.
Sometimes when we've suffered, we don't want others
to go through the same suffering.
We see OM's weak points, and we can
become almost cynical about those weak points.
This spreads to the new recruits, and they
don't know how to handle some of the
cynicism that comes by older people.
And let's face it, sometimes that person that
we really want in the work, and he's
filling a vital job, and we don't know
how we continue without him, he's become cynical,
and he's hindering people underneath him.
And he needs to be spoken to in
a very clear way, and even told that
if he doesn't shape up in that area,
if he continues to be a stumbling block
to the younger ones and not be an
example, I know that has to be kept
in balance, then he's going to have to
pray about moving on.
You know, a lot of people really do
change when we speak to them very clearly
that maybe it's time to leave.
This shouldn't be done just sort of off
the cuff in an emotional fervor.
It must be done in an objective way.
Usually two or three leaders are brought into
it.
But we must confront people.
We cannot let people drift.
And sometimes the hardest people to confront are
those who we are so dependent upon in
terms of their skills and their abilities.
And sometimes the brother who doesn't seem to
be so valuable in terms of the work,
if we're honest, he gets jumped on a
lot quicker.
No one will ever be totally consistent in
this area.
But let's work toward that by the grace
of God.
Yes, let us cry out that no middle
age spiritual rheumatism will set in.
Young people are going to understand that families
need perhaps more time for a break, though
they need some time as well.
Families are going to understand or single people
are going to understand that if a man
is not in good health, he's not going
to keep up with what may be the
standard OM pace.
He's not going to be able to stay
in every prayer meeting to the end.
And legalism in this area, the failure to
be compassionate and understanding is just as deadly
as lack of discipline.
Let's move on.
The next point under this section about weaknesses
is the pressure, the pressure to compromise the
standards or even bypass the training to fill
needed posts and keep the machinery going.
There is a sense where there is machinery
within OM.
Machinery can be good.
You drive a car, that's a piece of
machinery.
I'm using this tape recorder, that's a piece
of machinery.
I'm glad it's still working.
And within OM, there is machinery.
We trust it will be held together by
the oil of the Holy Spirit.
Things need to happen.
Things need to be taking place.
It's one thing for people to be spiritual
and when they only meet each other on
Sunday, they have a nice praise time, a
nice worship time.
Put them on the battlefront seven days a
week and you'd see that a lot of
what they think they have, they don't really
have.
And so it's going to be a battle.
But we must avoid just bypassing basic training
in order to meet specific gaps.
There are backdoor recruits.
What was us when we have more backdoor
recruits than front door recruits?
People that go through the tapes, the books,
the training conferences, the nights of prayer, the
times on the doors, the boot camp.
We can't throw away the spiritual boot camp.
When people are brought in through the backdoor,
they need extra time.
Dare we bring anyone through the backdoor directly
to the ship, directly in the STL, directly
out anywhere and not spend more time with
them.
Get them into tapes.
Relate to them personally because we're going to
lose people, we're going to hurt people.
It's not going to work.
It's not hard to see in OM the
need for typists, administrators, bookkeepers, carpenters, engineers, people
who can be accountants.
In fact, let's face it, some of us
who I think maybe understand the work a
little better than some others, we do see
the need for every single, every single person
that's in the work.
I'd love to write a paper on how
God has used the weakest people over the
years to keep this thing moving.
People who weren't ready to go somewhere else,
stayed in their own country and ended up
playing a vital role.
Let all of us be thankful to God
for those who may seemingly have the most
unimportant routine task in this work.
They are vital.
And as we see in Corinthians to that
lesser member, sometimes there's greater importance.
A ten-talent man will be responsible for
ten talents.
He's got a very big job and probably
is having lots of failure.
That one-talent man only has to be
responsible for that one talent.
He's an easy man to miss in any
movement.
He can be neglected and forgotten and lonely.
He may not be a great communicator because
communication may not be that vital to his
particular ministry.
And so he gets left out.
Not many seek out his fellowship.
He may get classified among the people who
are dull.
Oh, may we have a wide spectrum of
people that we fellowship with.
We don't just fellowship with those who it's
a blessing to be with them and we
gain through that fellowship, but we reach out
and fellowship with people that may be a
total drain upon us.
People that don't necessarily appeal to us.
That to me is spiritual revolution.
We have to ask ourselves, does OM or
do the people come first?
I think the people should come first.
I think this can be kept in balance.
As you know, I'm more than willing to
cut down on numbers in order to increase
the quality of input into each person within
OM.
The pastoral care, the man-to-man discipling,
that which is one's heart and soul parcel
of this movement, man-to-man discipling.
Discipling certainly in some places seems to be
slipping.
And if we ask ourselves specifically for people
that we've led to Christ or we found
them when they were babes in Christ, and
now we've seen them going on in maturity
because of the hours and the weeks and
the months and the time we've spent with
them, sometimes it's a little embarrassing.
On the other hand, I think that has
to be kept in balance by the fact
that often a person is encouraged and discipled
by a number of people having input into
their life.
And most of you have heard me speak
on that.
And then two final points under the setting.
The question, are we trying to do too
much at the same time?
I think in some ways we are.
And I, for one, have had to cut
back on projects.
I've had to perhaps throw a high percentage
of my ideas and things that have popped
into my mind that we could do.
I've had to just lay them on the
Lord.
Ideas are easy to come by in a
movement this size with so many pioneer types,
so we always need them.
But to see last year's ideas becoming a
reality, that which we started five years ago
because we had a good idea, really coming
into maturity, that's something else.
It often is easier to start something new
than to pick up something halfway and carry
it through to completion.
This is why I'm so heavily indebted to
so many faithful men.
I won't start to give a list of
names because it would be too long, who
have picked up at times where I felt
I had to move on to something else
or could no longer carry on.
And they have battled with more difficult situations.
And I'm indebted to the Lord for such
a faithful army of loyal men and women
that I can work together with.
I think people really do respect us for
the stand we have taken of trying not
to become too big.
I find feedback on that all the time,
tremendous feedback, that we want to emphasize quality
before quantity.
Though when we have quality, the quantity will
come because lives, quality lives in touch with
Jesus, they will bring forth fruit.
And it's fruit we want, not brick, not
wood, hay, stubble, fruit.
And that's going to come from Christ-like
living and from a body of people in
communion with one another, growing in Christ-likeness,
in grace, filled with the Spirit.
And whether we can measure all the results
or put them all on the OM prayer
letter or not, they will be there.
And then the last point under this heading,
have we become unrealistic about finance?
I believe many people in OM are realistic
about finance.
I believe they're more realistic than many people
in the world.
And sometimes in OM people seem to almost
glory in putting themselves down.
And sometimes we find people who see the
strong points of people out in the world
or in other situations in comparison to our
own weak points.
It's a reverse.
It's going extreme on something we challenge people
to do.
We challenge people for the sake of humility
to see other people's strong points and their
own weak points.
But if people don't keep that in balance
and we have to think of ourselves honestly
as we ought to think, Romans 12, then
they're constantly seeing other people's strong points and
our weak points.
And they're putting themselves down or they're putting
OM down.
I have had to repent at times of
putting OM down.
It's a hard area.
But I think different fellowships have different strong
and weak points.
We can learn from one another.
But we need to realize God has given
us some strong points.
And basically the whole area of finance is
a relatively strong point within OM.
People are realistic.
People are crying out to God for finance,
probably more than in most situations.
There are people who are selling possessions.
There are people who are living sacrificially.
Maybe not as sacrificially as one brother may
think.
Somebody reared in a very tight home situation
with very little money is not going to
understand another brother who may be more free
with his money.
But if that brother were living the way
he was living 10 years ago, he would
be 10 times more free with that money.
This thing does get a bit relative.
And we need to be slow to point
fingers at people, especially in these sensitive, difficult
areas.
At the same time, the enemy is clever.
And in every area he wants to drag
us into unreality.
I think people are unrealistic about the amount
of money it takes for overheads.
Money going into overheads in Christian work is
almost considered non-spiritual.
I almost used to be this way.
Money for tracts for literature, that's where I
want my money.
I don't want to put my money into
a brand new typewriter.
Let's get something out of the junkyard and
let the typist bang away at 30 words
a minute.
And God had to show me that money
invested perhaps in a good typewriter, I know
that has to be kept in balance, is
spiritual.
Praise God for the equipment he has given
us.
Praise God the vehicles may be a little
better than they used to be.
Yes, I still have my same conviction.
Bicycles for brothers in India should have a
greater priority over a better vehicle for Joe
Blow in Europe, but maybe we can have
both.
OM has to function within its individual culture.
There are actually some people using bicycles in
Europe, praise the Lord for that.
There's no simple, easy answer to this.
We must constantly work for greater reality in
the area of finance.
This is why our policy of individual support,
each individual seeing something come in, even when
you're getting your regular support, that's not carrying
the whole load.
To really carry the load, you've got to
get into what Jonathan McCrosty calls ministry support,
or what I used to call producing faith,
where you're starting to pay for the books,
the tracks, the other person, the ministry phone
calls, the free literature that costs thousands of
pounds and dollars every year.
And that's what every leader should be aiming
at, ministry support.
Perhaps it should be double of regular support.
There are people who have that.
And such people aren't going to put themselves
up as being better than someone else because
they probably have other areas in their life
where they're very weak.
But we've got to keep aiming higher.
We've got to keep facing the reality of
tremendous economic problems in the world today.
There may come a day when some of
us will have to go take jobs and
count it all joy just to pour finance
into the work.
A little tent making done here and there
with good control doesn't hurt.
And it all helps build reality and finance.
In the world, many, many, many families have
to have both the man and the wife
working just to make ends meet.
I'm not saying we have to do that
within OM.
Praise God, if our wives in OM are
able to give more time to our families,
we should have better and more committed families
as a result of it.
Praise God, when our wives have greater opportunity
for the ministry of hospitality, to get in
on prayer sessions, to minister to others, or
to just minister to ourselves.
Because let's face it, a lot of these
families where the husband and wife are both
working are also having tremendous problems.
I can't get into that now.
But certainly both men and women within OM
have a big job to do in the
home, in the work, in rearing the children,
in relating to the neighbors, in hospitality.
And I feel that the married women within
OM especially need maximum sympathy because I sense
that in the kind of work we are
in, a lot of times the pressure bypasses
different people and lands on the married woman
and often it's not seen as having landed
on her.
And so though I would never want to
fail to challenge a married woman to move
on in prayer and to move on in
her witness and her spiritual growth, she would
want that.
I at the same time want to be
most sensitive to these women with their children
and their pressures in their particular situation, especially
in a movement that's moving with the kind
of vision and the kind of velocity and
the kind of speed that OM is moving
at at the present time.
Let's keep that in mind and minister to
one another in that area.
I find that almost every family I have
ever interviewed in OM, they want to see
their personal and family support coming in.
They know what the teaching is and they
want to see that.
So though there's some discussion about this at
present, I think the devil is going to
try to magnify this out of proportion because
basically the policy that we are stating and
that we are wanting to keep is the
policy that most people believe in their own
hearts.
The greater problem comes when we sit down
and have to counsel people and talk to
people in the midst of particularly difficult situations
when finance is not coming in.
Reality, reality in this area is going to
build deep personal faith in God.
Less faith in any organization or even to
some degree in people and greater faith in
God himself, I think is going to be
so essential, especially if the Lord allows the
church to go into persecution.
If the Lord allows the world to go
into financial chaos, that absolute confidence in God
is going to be the key thing.
That was the key thing for Wang Mingdao
when eventually he was separated from the whole
Christian community and that may happen to many
of us.
We must build a deeper confidence in our
God.
We must not become over-dependent on one
another and certainly we must avoid getting over
-dependent on all the perks and all the
special provisions of our socialistic societies.
Someday we may have something, the next day
we may not have it.
Someday the Lord may provide for this or
that through another person, through an inheritance, through
a gift and another day we'll have to
go out and work with our hands to
get a few dollars, a few pounds, a
few deutschmarks just to put food in the
stomach of our own child.
Let's not be unrealistic about life.
Let's face suffering head-on if God has
allowed some of it again into the work
this year.
Let's not look for some cop-out.
Let's not go the way of all flesh,
the panicky nervous insurance mania way of all
flesh.
I'm not saying that to down all insurance.
God can lead certain people perhaps to get
at times certain inexpensive and really, oh how
can I explain it, bargain insurance.
If you get so much insurance for some
relative small amount of money in a particular
country because insurance is required in that country
and because of government regulations, this is something
that is an exception to maybe what we
originally thought in some of these areas.
I believe OM will continue to be tested
in a great way that we must try
to hold firm to the convictions God has
given us in the midst of the testing.
Well I could say a lot more about
that whole area but I really want to
move on.
My final section is entitled what is the
best way forward in the light of all
this.
Now I'm aware that this is feeble.
We're dealing with great truths.
We've got a whole bible to tell us
the way forward but these are just a
few thoughts, some of which have already been
mentioned on.
I put number one, let us hold fast
to the basic principles we believe the Lord
has given us.
I've already read that quote about uniting together
in the light of the warfare of world
evangelism even when there are things we don't
agree with or don't necessarily like.
Let's listen to some of those old basic
tapes and go through some of the manuals
and meditate on things like the seven major
emphasis.
Let's have that crucial section of important memos
concerning the principles we believe.
Let's reread these things from time to time
and commit ourselves to go in that direction.
If we are going to evangelize the world
we must to a large degree move in
the same direction.
There can be exceptions, there's balance, there's there's
flexibility but we've got to move in the
same direction.
This means even as we come into a
coordinator's conference we can't discuss at length everything
that everybody has on their heart.
We can't deal with every doctrinal issue that
comes up.
Someone recently wrote me their concern, somebody on
their team doesn't believe enough in total depravity.
How many of us have really had a
thorough study of total depravity?
Basically I believe in total depravity but if
my brother in Christ believes that man is
a sinner, he's lost, he's going to hell,
he needs to be rescued and saved by
the grace of God, I don't think I'm
going to have a major argument with him
on whether he believes exactly as I do
about total depravity.
I don't think we all believe exactly the
like alike on exactly what hell is.
I think I could list 50 areas where
we would have variation and if you go
and just join yourself with a fellowship where
you sign the 25-point doctrinal statement you'll
find you probably have greater disunity because so
oftentimes disunity comes through personality, through genes, metabolism,
outside influences and who knows what else.
Let's move together agreeing on those basic issues,
learning to love one another more, being more
patient, less judgmental, let's not get into this
syndrome where we say oh he spends this
much money so I can spend this much,
he gets this much so I get this
much, he has this amount of free time
so I should get this amount of free
time, they had a one-month holiday, why
don't I get a one-month holiday, they
live in a five-room house, why do
I live in a three-room house, his
car is two years newer than my car.
We can't possibly claim to go on in
maturity and get into this type of mentality,
this kind of worldly comparing and small-mindedness,
may God deliver us from that and may
we realize that above all else each man
walks before God.
If it's a straightforward, clear sin or even
if we have questions and it may be
a sin, let us in love go to
that person and speak to them, otherwise let's
press on.
I think at times there's a fear of
one leader going to another about something and
talking it out.
Instead of one leader going to another, one
leader goes to the friend of that other
person and Proverbs says that sometimes the very
best of friends can be separated when a
matter is passed on and I've seen a
number of problems in OM have come when
a particular leader has gone to the friend
of another leader or has gone to someone
else about that leader's fault or sin or
error or whatever, rather than in love going
to that person at least first.
Then if it's a serious and a big
thing and nothing's been done then he brings
someone else into it.
Now I know that saying this and putting
it into practice 100% is one of
the greatest challenges we have in the Christian
life and I'm not about to lay a
double guilt trip on some brother who at
an off moment has shared something about someone
to someone else because I think we can
become very unrealistic and I don't think leaders
should get all upset when he finds out
his team members at times are talking about
him even in a negative way behind his
back.
I think he should be surprised if that
never happens and when you find someone has
done that you don't just immediately come down
on them with a six-ton spiritual hammer
but you share how you at times have
made the same mistake and you're sorry if
you haven't been more approachable and then try
to work from there pointing out the dangers
involved.
Secondly I believe the way forward includes a
continual emphasis on spiritual balance.
You've heard my messages on this subject there
are many of them you've seen the verses
and there are many the whole chapter 1st
Corinthians 13 to start with so let's not
play this down.
Spiritual balance and all that goes with it
as much as commitment and dedication as much
as as anything else has kept OM on
that straight and narrow highway of holiness that
the Lord has called us into and I
feel that God that of the many messages
God has given us to share with one
another to share with the church and to
learn from the church the message of balance
in all of its aspects balance in missionary
work balance in leadership balance in the family
I believe it's of the messages God has
given to us it's a message of love
it's a call to obey the whole counsel
of God rather than just one side of
the coin.
There are certain basic biblical issues in which
balance simply means that we stand absolutely unmovable
and firm.
I read an article recently where it said
we should hold our nose saying no to
the big issues you know in OM working
with people if we give them freedom and
let them move and not get negative and
always stop people from doing things they want
to do then when we do say no
it will really count.
I hope that by God's grace in some
ways about smaller issues you'll you'll hear from
me less and that when I do have
to come along in your field or your
situation and say no that would always be
after prayer and consultation with a lot of
people and firstly with the Lord that that
no will somehow carry some weight.
Stand firm and then thirdly to realize that
people leaving is one of the greatest aspects
of OM's growth.
It means stepping forward in faith it often
means greater dependence on God it often means
putting something into practice that they haven't been
able to totally learn when they were within
the fellowship.
It will mean often that new movements are
born churches receive blessing that otherwise would remain
too much confined within OM.
Each person must find God's plan for their
life.
Some people find getting to know the will
of God much more difficult than others and
of course as we've often said God leads
different people in different ways.
Then four to count the cost about each
step forward.
Don't expect others to do that which we
are not doing.
As leaders we can't just end up behind
the desk telling people to do things we're
no longer doing ourselves.
Personal evangelism, prayer, literature distribution, serving, doing a
few dishes, whatever.
Our example is still stronger than our words
when it comes to really influencing and discipling
people and maintaining the spiritual testimony of the
movement.
There's so many ways in OM that we
can we can kill two birds with one
stone.
We can take people with us to a
meeting where we can be in touch with
God's people, we can present a vision of
the work, we can give a call to
discipleship, and probably there'll be some unsaved people
in the meeting as I so often find
and people will get converted as well and
we can link up the person we brought
to lead that person to Christ at the
end of the meeting someone else can handle
the book tables.
OM is still basically an on-the-job
training.
Conferences have always been a vital part because
in the conference we set our course, we
decide what direction we're going, we get some
of the basic biblical principles, but the real
learning so often happens out on the job,
out in the experience, together, suffering, working, praying.
We've seen how valuable the ships are as
two of the greatest on-the-job training
tools that God has ever given us and
that's why every time someone leaves the ship
ministry and launches into another ministry within OM
or outside of OM, it's generally always victory.
It takes those beautiful lessons that have been
learned in that particular training environment and puts
them out into new situations and new opportunities
and that's exciting.
And when people, maybe as Phil Bushell recently
from Bangladesh, went to spend some time in
that unique training environment on Lagos, it generally
always results in growth.
And this is good, this is exciting.
Then number five, greater emphasis on holiness of
life.
Spirit-filled living, death to self, war against
all that is not Christ-like, yet never
losing sight of the mercy and the grace
of God.
I believe God has given us a message
on sanctification that is balanced, that takes into
account a wide range of scriptures, that pulls
together messages like that which Ian Thomas and
Alan Redpath are sharing and Roy Eshin with
that which men like Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones
are sharing, that bring together some of the
best that have different movements that are being
used of the Holy Spirit in our day.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit must continue
to be one of the strongest messages that
comes from the pulpit whenever an OMer is
there.
That doesn't mean we always share it in
a sort of authoritative, preachy way, because many
people, that kind of message they just need
to share in the way of testimony.
I like the emphasis on body life that
men like Ray Steadman and others stand for
in our day.
I'd like to see more times of sharing
within OM.
I'd like to see more small group activities.
I praise God for those ship families.
I praise God for every time a group
of people in OM get together for sharing
and prayer in an informal way, in their
homes, in their cars.
I think it's basic.
I think that from this kind of fellowship
cell, this small group emphasis can spring more
vital evangelism.
I'm concerned about some of OM's evangelism.
I feel some of it is stereotyped.
I feel some of it is extreme.
I feel we're unrealistic at times.
I long to see evangelism as a spontaneous
outflow from a people who are in tune
with God, who are fellowshipping together, who are
working together in prayer, evangelism, and other aspects
of the spiritual life.
Then I put down here as my sixth
point, more leadership recruiting, training on the field
as much as possible.
I praise God for the conference, leadership training
in Mosbach, for other similar conferences in India,
in France, for retreats and conferences that go
on in almost every OM field, all of
which helps people move on in the relationship
toward one another, in spiritual growth, and in
learning some of the basic principles of discipleship
and of being a follower of Jesus, which
is so important.
We don't want to set up a hierarchy
within OM.
We all want to be servants one of
another.
We want everybody to be involved in helping
to make decisions without degenerating into being some
kind of quasi-democracy, which is not the
way God's word goes forth.
We must get our orders from above, and
as a nucleus of leaders in fellowship with
everyone, since this is the direction that we
must move in, then others, by God's grace
and faith, must move forward as a united
army, always free to disagree, always free to
ask for reclarification, and always free to leave
and to join some other movement, some other
fellowship that may have a different way of
doing different things, may have a different set
of emphases.
We've got to work on making sure that
those men who lead those teams in the
summer have had previous contact with us, training,
that there's a relationship being built before the
summer starts, that the manuals have been read.
Failure in this area is continuing to cripple
some of our teams, so praise God for
the way he overrules, sometimes on even the
weakest team, tremendous things take place.
We do however face the problem that people
turned on through the tapes, people who make
deep commitments to their life in the OM
conference and experience something of the grace of
God, end up being broken down and worn
down through weak team situations where the leader
has just not been able to cope.
We have that, and we must beware, and
we must work together to overcome it.
Seventh, we need to realize that the natural
road, the natural road is downhill.
OM will go downhill in many ways, we're
going downhill and uphill at the same time.
The flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit
against the flesh, the two are contrary.
Revival is working within OM, people are being
revived, people are being filled with the spirit,
at the same time others are backsliding, others
are getting into sin.
This year once again some people within OM
have got into deep sin, no need to
go into detail, but let us not be
naive about where people are within OM.
Discouragement creeping in, spiritual lukewarmness, perhaps the ugliest
cancer of all.
This is why we need to be refilled
again and again.
This is why we've tried to emphasize from
those early beginnings, daily denying self, taking up
the cross, and following Him.
You've all I think heard me say that
great faith is not made in the absence
of struggle and doubt and fear and battles
and heartaches, it's made as we battle through.
It is going to be a battle.
Let's take one another by the hand spiritually
at this moment.
Though we may feel weak, though we may
feel more inadequate than ever, let us take
one another by the hand and let us
lay hold of God together to go through
as a victorious army of Jesus Christ.
Prayer sometimes becomes the hardest work in which
we're involved, but let us let us fear
more than anything else the choice of the
easy road that would lead us into less
prayer, less discipline, less hard work, and less
repentance.
That which may appear to be an easy
road probably has a deeper ditch on the
end of it than we've ever seen in
our life up to now.
Then number eight, yes total war against discouragement,
against disunity, against pride, against worry.
You find as you're growing older you have
more responsibility, you have a family you have
children, that worry is beginning to come in
and short-circuit some of your spiritual lines,
some of your spiritual battery terminals, whatever you
want to call it.
I find worry is a very subtle thing.
Big brother fears always standing around the corner.
Praise God that when we're really under pressure
in these things generally we can not only
talk to God, we can share with one
another.
I don't know how much these two tapes
have helped any of you, but just to
be able to share these burdens when so
many of you I no longer see you,
some of you I don't even hear from
you, I don't even know some cases who
you are, you're the recruit of somebody else,
we don't know each other, and just the
privilege, just knowing that I've been able to
share this, to get this off my heart,
off my mind, to every major person within
OM is an enormous help.
I can assure you that within OM there's
always someone you can share with.
If you can't find someone I'll tell you,
I'll be there if I have to travel
a thousand miles to get there.
You'll probably find a better listener than I,
you'll probably find a more compassionate and wise
understanding person than I.
Right where you are if you take the
initiative.
Praise God we're not meant to carry around
all these burdens, repressing things we don't like
or agree with, becoming more hostile by the
minute and allowing roots of bitterness to get
in and sap us of spiritual revival.
We can share, we can cry, we can
fellowship with one another and then cling together
and claim God's grace for the victory.
Then believe it or not, my last point,
willingness to continue on with the problems and
the hardships.
That's right, no matter how much planning, no
matter how much praying, no matter how much
working, no matter how many new committees we
start to resolve this problem or that problem,
no matter how much advanced training we go
through, as we move forward there are going
to be the problems, there are going to
be the mistakes, there are going to be
the hardships, there's going to be suffering.
And we need to be delivered of any
remnant of spiritual naiveness that thinks there is
some other road.
Yes the road for some will be easier
than others.
Many of us have lived with a cloud
over our heads, feeling why did Jonathan get
put into this hard period of suffering and
difficulty and not us?
Why am I free to roam the hills
and to run and jog and do this
and that, while my brother lays on a
hospital bed in Belgium?
But thinking that way is neither spiritual maturity,
except perhaps for a few moments, nor will
it accomplish very much spiritually and it certainly
won't get Jonathan out of bed.
Cost of Commitment brings this out very clearly
and it's a book we need to re
-read at this time.
Each one of us will face different problems
in life.
For some there will be greater mental suffering
and spiritual suffering.
For some it will be physical, for some
it will be both.
For some it may come heavily in their
teenage years, for others in their 20s, for
others it may be toward the end of
their life when maybe they'll go through months
of sheer pain before the Lord takes them.
It's happened to many of the Lord's servants.
So let's be patient.
Let's not become some kind of spiritual masochists
or get into some form of asceticism where
we sort of want suffering and we try
to bring suffering upon ourselves or we feel
guilty because we're enjoying something or we feel
guilty because someone else is having a harder
time than we are.
Yes, there's a never-ending area of things
that we have to constantly have wisdom about
and exercise faith about.
We have to continue to learn how to
compassionately disagree.
Many spiritual movements today are doing things that
are very upsetting to me.
Spiritual leaders are saying things and doing things
that I don't agree with, that I feel
have left the main message that I see
in the New Testament.
I don't have enough time to confront all
these people.
So much has to be cast upon the
Lord and I have to constantly pray for
a guard over my lips.
Even within the fellowship there are more and
more things that happen that I'm not happy
about, I want to speak out about.
We all experience that.
Praise God for the reality of compassionate, patient,
disagreeing, even with those that we will continue
to work with, even within our own families.
We don't have some little stereotype road we're
trying to push our own children down or
our own friends or disciples or co-workers,
but it's God's great narrow road which in
comparison to some of our thinking is quite
broad.
It's the highway of love and includes a
wide range of people.
Beware of self-pity and all of its
subtle, slippery tentacles.
Beware of our inborn self-defense, especially when
someone criticizes.
There's no way any of us can mature
without being criticized, without being misunderstood.
Let's beware of a martyr complex.
Let's realize the other brother down the road,
the other brother across the sea may be
going through something far more difficult than we're
going through, that our very words may have
hurt someone else far more than their words
have hurt us.
Beware of self-pity, beware of overreaction and
self-defense, and let's be really forgiving of
one another when we see these things coming
out because they're some of the last areas
of spiritual immaturity that go under the crucifying
power in a permanent way.
Like a lot of little things such as
the lust of the eyes, self-pity, impatience,
overreaction, irritability seem to be for most people
a lifetime battle.
Let's be clear, let's be loving, but let's
also be willing to exhort one another and
correct one another and not be hurt when
others are correcting us, realizing that whenever someone
corrects us probably there's some degree of error
or miscommunication in that correction.
Don't throw the whole correction away simply because
part of what the person was saying in
his feeble attempt to give the correction is
wrong, any more than you would throw both
of these tapes away simply because something I've
said during these two hours has not been
100% on target.
It takes time to discern exactly what the
Lord is saying to us through any particular
message.
And I praise God that as I've shared
over the past two hours on these two
tapes, very little has been said as a
result of reaction to this person or that
person.
I would be a liar to say that
what I share never to some degree is
linked with reaction, but I've tried to pray
for weeks and months and months before I
have shared this way, talking with many leaders.
And what I've said here is the mind
and the thoughts of dozens of men in
and outside of OM and that which I've
sensed the confirmation on by the Holy Spirit.
That doesn't mean it can't be adjusted in
each situation.
That doesn't mean I couldn't make five more
hours of tapes to bring some of these
thoughts into balance, to define terms, to try
to communicate what I'm wanting to share.
And we've got a Holy Testament that will
help us do that as well.
A publisher's working on a new book of
mine which I have mixed emotions about and
I've been challenged to find a title and
I found a title they'll probably won't accept.
Following Jesus.
It's not an easy road, whether it ever
ends up as a title on the book.
It's one of the deepest convictions of my
life.
Yes, I found it hard going at times.
The struggles have been agonizing, the tears have
been there, the fears, and yet I can
say by his grace every day I've known
his forgiveness.
Every day I've known whom I believe and
I've kept my hands on that plow and
I'm not turned back.
I want to recommit myself to Jesus Christ.
I want to be refilled with the Holy
Spirit even at this moment and I want
to recommit myself to you, to each one
of you who has been called into this
ministry.
We're members of the same body.
Forgive me, forgive me.
I plead if I have offended, if I
have hurt the unkind work, the negligence on
my part in some area, I beg of
your forgiveness.
I pray that no root of bitterness will
come in anybody's heart as a result of
some wrong thing that I have done or
some area of neglect or failure because my
failures have been many.
No easy road ahead.
We will hurt one another as we continue
to go forward in the spiritual battle.
There will be times when we don't agree.
There will be times when we will crawl
off to our corner to lick our wounds,
perhaps after a heavy meeting among leaders in
which our viewpoint has not been accepted as
the main viewpoint.
But God will always be there, fellowshipping with
us, wooing us, loving us, forgiving us.
The difficulties we face by God's grace will
draw us closer to him and he will
meet our needs and he will carry us
forward.
Eyes upon the Lord.
Forward we go through Christ.
All things are possible.
A quarter of a century has slipped by
so quickly, yet by his grace so much
is done through prayer, through our weaknesses and
our failures because of his grace.
And I believe greater things are ahead this
next year, this next decade, this next quarter
of a century.
No matter how many years the Lord gives
us to run the race, let's commit ourselves
to this way.
Not afraid to ask questions, not afraid to
compassionately, openly disagree, but at the same time
by faith deciding to choose this biblical road
with this biblical philosophy and with these biblically
based policies to carry out a plan of
action and to reach out to every person
working with every other group to make the
name of Christ known, to see millions gathered
in to know him, to see the church
born and built up and to see revival
among God's people.
Let's pray.
Our God and Father, we thank you for
your mercy.
And Lord, as we restudy these things, as
we talk about these things in the coming
months, as we move out to the fields
of spiritual combat to put these things into
practice, we would ask you to keep us
from spiritual lukewarmness on one hand and extremism
on the other, to keep us from putting
ourselves down and getting into the syndrome of
failure and discouragement, but at the same time
to keep us from spiritual pride, high mindedness
and foolishness.
May we walk as you want us to
walk, in honesty, in brokenness, in love, with
our eyes fixed upon you, Lord Jesus.
We love you.
We thank you for all you've done, for
many different fellowships, churches and movements, and in
our own feeble teams and bases and headquarters.
We ask these things in Jesus name.
Amen.