Travel in general, just look at it for
a moment.
The whole vision for the ship was born
out of the understanding that travel was important
in missionary work.
Missionaries did not understand this in the early
days and huge expenses went.
One missionary car, $20,000.
Really, to keep one missionary and his little
band mobile out in the middle of Zulu
land.
And we saw that by sharing transportation and
by working together as a team we could
launch so many more vehicles.
In 1962, I was almost the only truck
driver and I wasn't really a truck driver.
There were no mechanics.
God gave us a little fleet of 15
or 20 vehicles.
That was when OM was being born in
Europe.
By 1963, we had 125, 90 of those
vehicles.
Let's go to the next memo.
Handling doctrinal differences.
As soon as you finish giving out the
one, go for the next one.
Handling doctrinal differences.
So, we had 90 vehicles cross the English
Channel on that summer.
And out of that were the initial seeds
of the ship transportation concept.
So, please read this.
Travel in general.
Those who write to me saying they have
read all of these memos given this morning
will be rewarded with a lovely, challenging, dynamic,
overwhelming book.
Not a magazine book, but a book.
So, we want you to read these.
Alright, next.
Handling doctrinal differences.
Now, this morning, the main...
This is just the introduction.
The main subject this morning is present trends
in the British Church.
Present trends in the British Church.
And people who do not have their notebooks,
we should have a special punishment, cleaning up
in the lower holds breadcrumbs with an eye
dropper.
But, we won't do that.
So, this handling doctrinal differences fits very well
into what we are talking about this morning.
This is the seed of the little magazine
book Extremism, which is a chapter in the
book Revolution of Love and Balance.
Okay, next.
The most important memo we are giving you
today.
Revolutionary principles for world evangelism.
Maybe, Dirk, you can get one man to
help you and split the pile in half
and let him come over here.
Those in this row, go to the second
man.
This is a new concept of distribution I'm
experimenting with.
Revolutionary principles for world evangelism.
Let's just look on them for a minute.
I think we got a bottleneck with Dirk.
If you run out, do not worry.
Some people may not want all of them.
All these pages, just to give you a
little background for this, were all going to
be thrown away.
They were left in the basement at Tweedy
Road when we moved from a duplicated leadership
manual to a printed one.
These were left.
Someone wanted to throw them out.
I said, how can we throw out all
these tremendous papers?
They even smell.
Just give them a sniff.
They have a basement smell.
And the staples are rusted.
Anyway.
Are we up to revolutionary principles?
Okay.
Please read that.
Prayer letters.
Start distributing prayer letters.
But just turn to your revolutionary principles.
Realize this was written about initially 20 years
ago.
Internationalization.
That was in preparation for all the people
from other countries.
Mass media.
Man to man.
Esteeming others.
Indigenous and self-supporting work.
Short term.
Teamwork.
Mobility.
Flexibility.
No closed doors.
Mobilize the church.
Neglected areas.
God is the provider.
Please, if you don't read the others, read
that one.
All right.
You've already had a memo on how to
do a prayer letter.
These are just a few more thoughts on
things to keep in mind as you're doing
your prayer letter.
How many are now sending out your prayer
letter at least once every second, third, or
fourth month?
At least it's going out.
This is revival.
Manfred did not raise his hand.
Manfred, are you sending out your prayer letter?
He is.
He was just so overwhelmed with the scenery,
he couldn't get his hand up.
Okay.
Transportation and highway safety.
Are we ready for that?
Transportation and highway safety.
How many of you...
All right.
Let's try to hold down the discussion.
How many of you have a driver's license?
Raise your hand.
Brilliant.
How many of you feel you actually know
how to drive?
Raise your hand.
Many hands did not go up.
Highway safety is one of the biggest problems
we are facing in OM.
Almost all the people who have been killed
in OM, maybe ten, all through motor accidents,
minus one sister in a bathroom accident where
the gas burner was killed, one in the
Mexico crusade drowned, another one was shot on
the doorstep in Turkey.
This is over 27 years, so don't let
it frighten you too much.
But if you're going to get killed in
OM, the best possibility is when you get
in a vehicle.
So please read this prayerfully and realize how
important it is to drive safely.
Publicity.
Are we ready for publicity, Dirk?
Okay.
We definitely don't have enough of each page.
Let me say a word about publicity.
Attention.
This is a tremendous thing for Monday morning.
People are getting their blood circulated, several eyes
have actually opened.
A lot of people are confused about OM's
publicity policy.
And often the ships are accused of breaking
the OM publicity policy.
But you know it was one of the
goals in the 1963 summer campaign to try
to provoke secular publicity for the gospel in
the towns where the teens visited.
So what you are doing in provoking publicity
in the secular press, which is our bigger
concern, in order that the gospel gets into
the secular press, actually was an initial goal
in the early days of OM that was
not fulfilled very much because we found they
were not too interested in writing up about
a little OM team rolling into town in
an old British lorry.
So read about that because it will help
you.
Working with your own assembly or church.
How are we doing?
Are we still on publicity?
We are re-discussing the subject of publicity
at the Coordinators Conference again this year.
So I appreciate prayer for that.
Okay, working with your own church or assembly.
Again, in the tremendous ship manual that you
receive, some of these items are covered.
And this is just a little overlap to
that.
But some of these basic issues of working
with your assembly.
You people already got all yours, right?
Okay.
I thought maybe you went ahead there.
Working with your own assembly.
We are almost there.
Let me just say that last night we
had a tremendous meeting here in this auditorium.
You know, again and again it's proven on
both ships that the Sunday night after church
rally is often the meeting of the week.
And I was spending time late last night
praying for the people who stood up here.
They all filled out little feedback papers.
Some of them on, you know, almost gum
wrappers.
They got anything they could write on.
Some of them didn't stand up but just
gave me prayer requests.
And some of these people here on the
ship last night are in desperate situations.
Desperate situations.
It's hard to believe.
And I wish there was a way to
mobilize more prayer for some of these individuals.
But it's just a lesson that when you're
talking to someone who's come up this gangway,
you don't know what problem they're in.
They may be ready for suicide.
This may be their last effort before taking
their own life.
And we had about 50 to 60 people
stand up.
And as I shared with you in Swansea,
Welsh people do not easily stand up in
a public meeting in an unfamiliar place surrounded
by friends.
But 50 or 60, many middle-aged and
older people also stood up to recommit their
life to the Lord Jesus.
Next.
Did you get over here working with your
own assembly or church?
Okay.
Informing others and sharing the vision.
We had to do one at a time
or it would get completely chaotic.
We wouldn't know who had what and everybody
would start looking around and oh, then it
goes really wild.
How many of you have a loose-leaf
notebook that you can keep things like this
in?
How many have such a system?
Very good.
If you don't, I hope you at least
have a file folder.
In the early days when I refused to
spend money for hardly anything, I used old
cornflakes boxes for all my file folders.
They served quite well.
But you may find some old.
Even now I use mainly used ones.
Informing others and sharing the vision.
You know, this is one of the continual
ministries of OM and that you have more
opportunity than most.
And, you know, the opening that came for
me yesterday morning here in Newport in a
church that I've never been into before, and
without the ship's visit, I probably never would
have gotten there.
One of the biggest churches in Newport, a
church that was Presbyterian has left the Presbyterian
denomination similar to the way the Bible Presbyterians
have in Singapore.
They don't work with Billy Graham, but they
welcomed us and God moved in that meeting.
We couldn't sell any books, but we brought
them anyway, magazine books and my own books.
We gave them away and we had an
absolute, mainly magazine books.
Don't think people even stop and get a
free magazine book after a Sunday morning traditional
church service.
Ninety-five percent, please move on to organizing
prayer groups.
Ninety percent went to the book table, even
though they had to stand, some of them
for ten minutes in line in a queue,
just to get that literature yesterday morning.
And that meeting was one of the most
encouraging meetings I've had in Britain in a
long time.
And I had lunch with a pastor who
will be here tomorrow again.
And I think God has started a permanent
relationship with O.M. in that church.
Now, I want to say something that's very
important.
When you come to places like Britain, it's
true also in Germany and the States.
Are we on to organizing prayer groups?
Oh, hallelujah.
When you come to places like Britain and
Germany and Sweden, etc., you don't always see
the big fanfare, you know, the masses of
people, Madras, Karachi, Rio de Janeiro.
But often there are believers, serious believers, and
when they make a commitment to stand with
O.M., they will stand with us the
next twenty years.
This is one of the interesting things about
the way northern Europeans and British people often
think, that they may be slow, but when
they decide to take that prayer letter, many
of them, not all, they will be giving
and they will be praying for many, many
years to come.
So do not think, do not judge things
by the fanfare of the moment.
Do not be a head-counter.
How many heads went up the gangway?
Anyway, we want whole bodies.
But we trust that you understand that often
a greater work takes a longer period of
time.
It's a slower work, building relationships with churches.
This pastor's conference today, leaders' conference, will probably
not be a huge bonanza with pastors queuing
up.
But, you know, we build brick upon brick.
And that's why we're glad so many of
you are around for two years.
Because the Holy Spirit is not in a
rush.
Even though I know sometimes we are.
It would be very encouraging to hear from
some of you.
If you write to me in London, the
letter will be forwarded by carrier to me
in Pakistan, that you've actually read all these
memos.
How many do we have?
You don't all have...
how many?
Nine.
Now, if you didn't get nine, whatever number
you have, if you read all those, do
underline them, and write to me that you
read them, especially if you can say anything
intelligent in your letter, it would be very
encouraging.
Now, hermanos y hermanas de América Latina, he
oído personas en el desayuno hablando en español,
en secreto.
Y yo entiendo muy bien que no es
fácil siempre hablar en inglés, siempre oír inglés,
inglés, inglés, hasta la garganta.
Y yo espero que en el año ochenta
y cuatro, no vas a, como se dice,
desmayar.
No vamos a desmayar.
No vamos a perder el favor, el ánimo
para aprender inglés.
Y yo quiero animarte, rededicar su vida a
aprender inglés.
Y no debemos hablar español demasiado en secreto,
o con nuestra novia.
Bueno, no sé qué regla tiene para hablar
con su esposa o su novia, qué idioma.
Es una batalla.
Tenemos que trabajar mucho, leer todos estos memos
en inglés, orar en inglés.
Okay, I was just challenging the Spanish speakers
to learn English, and let me just add
that some of you from the English-speaking
world speak atrocious English.
So do not be proud, but perhaps take
your grammar book and study a little English
yourself.
It's a long-standing battle in my life
because my English teachers used to look at
me over the top of their glasses, wondering
what I was saying.
Okay, we're going to talk about present trends
in the British church scene.
I shared this message on Lagos some days
ago, and I had a very, very, very
good feedback because I found that even British
people don't always know what's going on in
their own country.
History is important.
Now, if you don't have anything to write
on, there's blank spaces on the back of
these memos, but we want you to take
notes.
History is very important.
Seventy-five percent of your Bible, that's a
rough, verbal generalization because I've been reading a
lot in the Old Testament lately, is history.
History must be important with God.
At least, if it isn't, then I have
some real problems with the sections I've been
reading lately in the Old Testament.
And the history of the church since Pentecost
is also important.
And if you can read some church history
books in the library, and there are some
good ones, it will be a blessing to
you.
Let's just pray now and ask the Lord
to help us in this brief time.
Lord, we just thank You that we have
input from so many different sides as we
work together on this ship.
We thank You that You've given us some
basic principles and policies in which to carry
the work forward, whether it's our vehicles or
taking church meetings or writing prayer letters or
living together with people of different backgrounds and
doctrinal positions.
Help us now to understand more the church
in Britain today and therefore be able to
better share the message of spiritual revolution and
the challenge You've put on our hearts for
the churches.
Help us now at this time, especially those
who are still learning English.
We ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Now, to talk about present trends, we have
to spend a few minutes giving you some
background of the churches in Britain.
Now, you must understand first of all that
Wales in many ways is like a separate
country.
You have not yet arrived in England.
Some of you went to England yesterday because
it's down the road about 15, not even
that many miles.
When you arrive in the Merseyside, Liverpool and
that area, you will be in England and
you will find a different situation from Wales.
Later on, you will be in that famous
city of Glasgow.
That is Scotland.
That is also a separate country.
Most Scottish people and a degree of Welsh
people are actually mildly anti-English and quite
a few are not mildly anti-English.
They are anti-English.
And even the church situation is completely or
very distinct in those three different areas.
And it's good to understand that.
When you go to Belfast, you will be
in a totally different world altogether.
You will be in Northern Ireland.
Southern Ireland is a separate independent country.
It is not part of Great Britain, though
they have a special, unique relationship with Britain.
I don't think this ship on this visit
will be visiting Southern Ireland or Ayr, but
you will be going to Northern Ireland where,
of course, there has been civil war in
a very unique and extreme form for as
long back as many British people, young people
can even remember.
And even just a few weeks ago, some
IRA terrorists broke into a Pentecostal church and
murdered, killed a couple of people.
That is a situation, I believe, closer to
the border.
What are some of the main denominations here
in Britain?
Let's mention some of them quickly.
Number one, overall, of course, the Anglicans.
You cannot understand England without understanding the development
of the Anglican Church, which is a divided
church.
A church that is divided into high Anglican
and low Anglican.
Or it's divided into what some people call
more traditional than, of course, what's called evangelical.
Our work, the work of OM, is almost
exclusively with evangelical Anglicans who believe the Bible,
who preach the gospel and the new birth.
And they are a rapidly growing movement.
They are divided into two.
There are other smaller divisions.
Basically those who are charismatic and lean in
that direction.
And that has been a major source of
life in the Anglican Church.
You'll not understand present trends in the Anglican
Church without understanding the charismatic movement.
And the unique British charismatic movement, which is
far more balanced than that particular movement in
some other parts of the world.
And you have such outstanding leaders as David
Watson, who every person in England would know,
who has been one of the leaders of
the British Anglican charismatic movement, though he's not
a man that is overly infatuated with labels.
And that's one of the reasons he has
acceptance among many Anglicans who are not necessarily
charismatic.
So the Anglican Church is a major force.
And even when I was preaching in Scotland,
they booked me a meeting in the Anglican
Church.
Some of you had meetings yesterday in the
Anglican Church.
But actually in Scotland and in Wales, the
Anglican Church is not that strong.
In Britain, of course, it is.
And one of the unique factors of OM
is that God has given us linkings with
the Anglican Church.
Many of our board members are evangelical Anglicans.
We are not Anglican in our roots, in
our background.
But as we came to Britain, and as
I came to Britain, very much I saw,
as we later saw in Germany, that we
should work with Lutherans, evangelical Lutherans.
So in England we felt we must work
with these evangelical Anglicans, even though there are
things we may not understand.
There may be some things we don't even
particularly agree with.
Then in Britain you have the Baptists.
Not nearly as strong as they would be
in the United States.
Also the Baptist Union of Britain, especially 50
years ago, moved strongly, many of them, into
the liberal position, which is true of every
mainline denomination, minus, say, a small Pentecostal denomination
like the Elam, or the Assembly of God,
which is bigger.
They have not moved into liberalism.
But your older, your older mainline denominations, most
of them, 100 years ago, before and after
that period, moved through the seminaries into liberal
theology, which literally ransacked the Church.
And when you don't understand a word, you
write the word down, the best you can,
and you ask someone later, what does that
mean, ransacked the Church?
George Brewer doesn't have that many new words,
or big words.
I have a limited mentality, but if I
come out with a word, maybe you will
find out what it means.
You may discover it's not even in the
dictionary, then you'd have to check with me.
Good fellowship over that word.
Some Baptist churches, like, and this has happened
in most denominations, of course became independent, but
many are still in the Union, and so
you would have evangelical Baptist churches, and then
you would have more traditional Baptist churches, or
liberal Baptist churches, where the Gospel would not
be preached, where people don't know anything about,
or would not know much about the new
birth.
In Scotland, you will come across the Church
of Scotland.
The Church of Scotland is basically a Presbyterian
church.
There have been enormous tensions between Scotland and
Britain.
Some of you have seen films like Mary
Queen of Scots, and you picked up a
few of the vibrations.
And you know the history of the Scottish
Covenanters, and you will get orientation on this
later on.
The Church of Scotland, therefore, is quite distinct
from the Anglican Church, and has remained more
orthodox, but not necessarily more alive in some
places, though liberalism had its inroads there.
And out of the Church of Scotland, you
have a number of different groups.
You have one that's represented on the ships.
The Free Church of Scotland.
Very conservative.
Do not even have music instruments of any
kind in their meetings.
Only sing the Psalms.
Very biblical, very orthodox.
Some very good people in that church, but
often very, very, very skeptical about anything like
interdenomination.
Very anti-charismatic.
Very, very, very Calvinistic.
Totally unique to Scotland.
They're called by some the We Freeze.
And some of them are freezing, but they
are some beautiful people.
I don't want to get caught up in
Scotland, because we're not that far yet.
Then we have the Holiness Movement, which comes
out in different denominations.
But if you read Bill Hymer's book, Love
Covers, you're reading a book by a man
from a holiness background.
The Nazarene Church would be one of the
holiness churches.
The Free Methodist Church.
There was a movement called the Primitive Methodist
Church.
Have a lot of similarities in their birth,
actually to the early days of Operation Mobilization,
shortly after Wesley died.
People who strongly take John Wesley's position about
sanctification often were described as part of the
Holiness Movement.
We have very good fellowship with many people
in this movement, and I'm often asked to
speak at one of the biggest holiness conventions
in this country.
Some of your churches have a holiness background.
They emphasize holiness.
They would emphasize the baptism of the Holy
Spirit for holiness.
This predates the modern Pentecostal Movement, which is
around 1900.
And their emphasis of the baptism of the
Holy Spirit was for holiness and for spiritual
power.
And even at Moody Bible Institute, they had
quite a shake-up when Torrey started to
preach a baptism of the Holy Spirit for
holiness and for power.
And a number of the holiness movements were
split in two because in the 1900s, a
strong group came along and emphasized the baptism
of the Holy Spirit for gifts.
And the emphasis came on tongues.
That completely split the Christian Missionary Alliance in
two.
A.B. Simpson preached a holiness message.
He preached a healing message.
He had healing.
But he was not into tongues.
And when tongues hit out of Azusa Street,
1904 in California, it split the CNA right
in two.
And this is why it's very important to
understand this.
The holiness people are the closest to the
Pentecostal people in many ways.
And some would be both.
They'd both be Pentecostal and holiness, and yet
have had the greatest fights.
And if you understand what Bill Heimer is
trying to say in his book, as a
holiness man who was trying to understand the
New Charismatic Movement, then that book is a
lot more meaningful.
Though it goes into the roots of this
problem by talking about Wesley and talking about
Whitefield because the roots of this controversy go
back to Wesley and Whitefield and they can
go back even further than that.
The holiness movement in general in Britain has
not been growing much lately.
And even the Southport Convention I just mentioned.
Attendance is dropping.
Young people are not there.
A very high percentage of the young people
have opted out for the more modern, contemporary
Charismatic Movement with its terrific emphasis on worship
and freedom in worship and things we'll mention
in just a minute.
So that's the holiness movement.
Right next to the holiness movement we need
to just mention the Salvation Army.
They, to some degree, almost came out of
the Methodist Church.
As the Methodist Church almost by force came
out of the Anglican Church, the Salvation Army,
though many other additions, especially people just saved
right out of the streets, to some degree
came out of the Methodist Church.
The Salvation Army is generally a holiness movement.
Most holiness churches would teach that you can
lose your salvation.
If you do not persevere, you will fall
from grace.
That is still one of the hottest issues
in contemporary church controversy.
And R.T. Kendall, the great leader of
Westminster Chapel, has just written a new book
on eternal security.
And that sometimes is a hot issue within
OM.
We've had a fair number of heavy arguments
with people on OM on that issue.
But that's the direction the holiness people live
in or go in.
The other side of the spectrum would be
the Reformed movement.
Very, very strong in the British Isles.
Going back a long way, especially to Whitefield.
Whitefield and Wesley disagreed, especially on the subject
of predestination.
And Reformed theology moved one way with Whitefield,
and Wesley moved the other way.
There's some of the letters in that book,
Love Covers, also in the biography of Whitefield
and Wesley.
Keep in mind that in Wales, Whitefield's influence
and people that worked with him, like Howells,
is far, far greater than Wesley's.
In fact, in Wales, the Methodist churches who
are around the world are traditionally Arminian.
In Wales, they are Calvinistic Methodists.
The Calvinistic Methodists have 1,500 churches in
Wales.
Most of them today are completely dead.
The Presbyterians have 1,500 churches in Wales.
Many of them yesterday morning would have less
than 25 people.
They are two major groups in Wales.
All of those churches, absolutely Calvinistic.
You say, what in the world is that
about?
If you're relatively new, I cannot give you
a lesson on Calvinism right now.
And of course, there are moderate Calvinists, and
some of your churches, many of your churches,
would be moderately Calvinistic.
They would believe in eternal security, that once
a person is truly saved by God's grace,
he will persevere and go to heaven.
But they may not believe in total concepts
of predestination and election.
And they may not believe some of the
other Calvinistic doctrines, which are often summed up
in the initials of TULIP.
And there was a movement out of Wales,
actually called the TULIP Movement.
I don't think it ever grew.
Just absolutely hard-line, die Calvinists.
Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones is the most popular,
well-known Reformed man of our day, and
his influence is enormous.
Though he was very respectful of Arminian people,
and people of other doctrinal persuasions.
And his followers often have carried things much,
much further than he ever did.
But to go in a Reformed church, for
example, as I was in yesterday morning, and
not know anything about Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones,
not understand anything about their roots, and things
that are very, very sacred and important to
them, and just start saying things that may
be very, very acceptable in the Pentecostal church
down the road, or the Brethren Assembly up
the road, could at times lead to serious
repercussions.
And it is important to try to understand
people.
On my way to a church, even if
I know what that church is, on my
way, I get all the information I can
from the pastor about what that church is
and what they stand for.
The church I was in yesterday morning left
the Presbyterian denomination in the 70s.
One of the reasons for this is Dr.
Martin Lloyd-Jones.
When the major denominations joined the World Council
of Churches, Dr. Lloyd-Jones, a very influential
man, stood up and called people to leave
those churches.
This was the largest shake-up in the
60s and the 70s this nation has ever
had.
And they broke from the Anglicans.
The Anglicans, because of their system, are all
linked with the World Council of Churches to
some degree.
The average local Anglican church might not know
anything about it, but the hierarchy is linked
in with that.
And people who teach separation, and without understanding
the doctrine of separation you can't understand any
of this, but those who believed in a
degree of separation, they pulled out.
This particular church I was in yesterday, they
pulled out.
They had to even negotiate to buy their
building, though their pull-out was 100%.
100% of the members agreed to leave.
Now when that pastor started in that church,
he had 50 members, hardly any of them
saved, 20 years ago.
Now here's a pastor who comes on the
ship.
He may have a few questions.
They're not cooperating with Billy Graham.
We think, what's wrong with these people?
You see, we don't understand their historical roots.
And when they pulled out of the Presbyterian
church, some of these men attacked them.
They had to buy their own church building,
though Lloyd-Jones urged them to be very
respectful and loving, and so they negotiated carefully,
and it went very well.
Now there are hundreds of people in that
church.
They are having a week of prayer this
week, and they are seeing people saved, and
the pastor has given 20 years of his
life for that one church.
Every church has a unique history.
Every church has roots.
Every church has been through struggles and trials
and divisions.
And we must not naively go into these
churches making little generalizations like, Oh, this place
is dead.
Just because they're not clapping, or have their
hands in the air, or standing on the
chairs on their heads, does not mean they're
a dead church.
There is a difference, young people, between noise
and life.
There are noisy churches that have no real
spiritual life.
And there are quiet churches that have a
lot of spiritual life.
Noise is like emotion.
If the noise is in line with the
Word of God, and with what you're experiencing
in the Lord, there's no great problem.
But it isn't the end all.
It isn't the measuring rod whether people are
alive.
There's so much good music today, and so
many good praise meetings, that the unsaved are
enjoying these meetings more than the saved.
I mean, it's fantastic.
Some of these meetings can make a disco
seem like a slow motion contest.
And so, as young people, you know, as
young people, we also, together with a little
bit of enthusiasm, we need a little bit
of discernment.
A.W. Tozer said, the greatest gift needed
in the church today was discernment.
So we have this giant Reformed movement, which
tends to, of course, also be divided.
The biggest division is between what they call
pedo-baptism, they baptize children, and those who
don't baptize children.
That has divided the Reformed movement in two.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones, congregational, children baptism.
Earl Hulse, a man in the Baptist-Separatist
movement.
Or Masters, the present pastor of the Metropolitan
Tabernacle, very strong Baptist-Separatist.
O.M. can't even rent a room in
that church anymore because of their strong mainline
position, which even many, many Baptist-Reformed people
do not agree with.
So there are, and this is something you
need to understand, there are always very large
churches that just plow their own way completely.
They don't want to be labeled.
Be careful of labeling people.
We need to understand names, denominations, labels, but
be careful of just labeling people.
Because some people, it's an offense to them.
And they may be plowing their own way.
Now, I'm not afraid of labels in one
sense, because if you don't have any name,
and I'm glad we got that simple, little,
hard-to-explain, semi-vague name, Operation Mobilization,
because otherwise we would be called Verwerites, or
Mileyites, or Dietzites, or Shipites, or Termites, or
whatever.
So, you know, but we must play down,
even in O.M., where of course we're
obviously not a denomination, and have proved for
29 years that there's no way O.M.
is becoming a denomination.
There are no O.M. churches.
Any church that we have started is linked
with an existing denomination, as a church, or
as a local indigenous body.
It has no reference, no reference back to
me whatsoever.
I have no authority in any local church,
or any other main O.M. leader, except
maybe someone who has been a church planter.
Of course, he would surely be an advisor
to any church that he helped to plant.
Another major movement in Britain, of course, is
the Brethren.
The Brethren in the early days divided in
two.
And you have the Open Brethren, and you
have the Exclusive Brethren.
The Exclusive Brethren divided into about 50 segments.
Glanton Brethren, Taylorite Brethren, Kelly Brethren.
You know, we could give you the Brethren
lecture at this point.
The amazing thing is to find people in
O.M. from such a range of backgrounds.
It is staggering.
It's really staggering.
But we have more contact with the Open
Brethren, who were aligned up with George Mueller.
But you have different kinds of Open Brethren.
And you have Open Brethren who are very
tight.
And when you go in one of those
assemblies, you better make sure, ladies, you have
your head covered.
And you better not jump up and just
share a little word from Scripture, and realize
you're in a man's world, and somehow play
it a little bit carefully.
More Open, Open Brethren, and some are now
so open, they don't want to be called
Brethren.
And they would be just seen as a
local fellowship.
When they have Brethren roots, they might even
have a pastor.
Brethren were very strong.
No one-man ministry.
So some of them ended up with no
-man ministry.
Nobody can minister the Word.
But in good assemblies, there were usually several
men who could minister the Word of God.
And they have been one of the strongest
groups in emphasizing Bible study and knowledge of
the Bible.
Then, of course, we have the Pentecostal and
Charismatic Movement.
Each one of these groups, I need at
least five hours to cover the material, each
group.
So we're rushing toward finishing, and we're going
to continue tomorrow morning.
But you must understand that before the modern
Charismatic Movement, we have the old-line Pentecostal
Movement dating back to the turn of the
century.
Dating back to Azusa Street, dating back a
little bit to the Welsh Revival in 1904,
dating back to a lot of great men.
And there's a new book just published about
all this British Pentecostal history, somewhat unique from
Pentecostal growth in America, or Pentecostal growth in
Sweden.
Sweden became rapidly one of the strongest Pentecostal
forces in Europe and sent missionaries out all
over the world.
One or two here from the huge Philadelphia
Church in Stockholm, where I preach, that had
sent missionaries out to the end of the
earth.
And churches in Mexico City were started by
those great Swedish Pentecostal missionaries.
So it's important to understand that you have
the old-line Pentecostal starting around the turn
of the century.
Within the last 30 years, you have the
modern Charismatic Movement.
And the book Love Covers talks about the
differences.
Differences especially in teaching about what is worldliness.
The old-line Pentecostals, understand this, were very
influenced by holiness.
No lipstick, no dancing, no films.
They had a lot of negatives.
Even certain kinds of dress in some cases.
Their Bible schools, old-line Pentecostal Bible schools
in America, very strict, many rules.
They were also influenced by American Fundamentalism.
American Fundamentalism does not have an influence on
Britain as much as it would even in
places like Brazil.
American Fundamentalism was a massive reaction against liberalism,
which was denying the Bible.
And Fundamentalism in its early days simply meant
people that believed the Bible.
So Billy Graham was a leading Fundamentalist.
John R.
Rice, other men like that.
And then it split, and Fundamentalism on one
side became more and more narrow and separated,
and they got into the problem of secondary
separation.
And that's when Billy Graham was pushed out
or left, and he was classified as a
Neo-Evangelical.
And you have the birth of a modern
Evangelical Movement in America which is much more
similar to the British Evangelical Movement as it's
known here.
And there's a lot of cross-pollinization.
So your early Pentecostal people were influenced by
the Holiest Movement.
They were influenced by Fundamentalist moral practices, whereas
the New Charismatic Movement was more at a
terrific emphasis on freedom.
So they didn't drive a hard line about
lipstick and about some of these other areas,
and it collided with the Holiest Movement in
an awesome way.
Families were ripped in two, churches were ripped
in two, and we're still coming out of
that.
In Britain, the collision was much less.
And there's been more fellowship between the Modern
Charismatic Movement and the old-line Pentecostals, but
the tensions are still here.
The Modern Charismatic Movement often grew more in
the traditional, get this, non-Charismatic churches.
It was totally new ground.
And so the Charismatic Movement in Britain had
its growth within the Anglican Church.
And a whole chapter I haven't got time
to get into, of course, to some degree,
in the Catholic Church.
But it rapidly spread, and because of the
videotape, because of mass celebration meetings, of course,
it soon influenced many different churches in many
different ways.
Well, we have run out of time.
I didn't think this first part would take
so long.
So tomorrow we will go into where we
are now, 1984.
I've given you the background.
It's sketchy, but it's probably more than some
of you have ever had up till now.
You've got to start somewhere.
And tomorrow we will look at contemporary church
streams and talk about the House Fellowship Movement
and its many different divisions, which you must
be ready for as you're going to England.
And what's happening within Brethrenism as it has
divided, and what has happened in the contemporary
evangelical movement, the birth of the British Evangelical
Council, which went in opposition to the Evangelical
Alliance, and many other interesting events, all of
which have taken place since some of you
were born, and certainly since this ship was
built.
Let's pray.
Father, we look into Your Word and we
see a lot of history.
And it's hard for us to believe that
we're no longer to be interested in anything
past the Book of Acts, because Your Church
has continued to grow and great things have
continued to take place.
And so we thank You for this opportunity
to study the Church, the history of the
Church, and the history of many different movements
that You have used, and in many cases
are still using.
Give us wisdom as we move among almost
all these different churches in our meetings, as
all these different people come on the ship,
and they often are very, very, very curious
about what we believe, and what our background
is, and some of them have never been
in anything interdenominational in their life.
So Lord, help us to be wise, and
we would pray as the psalmist, Lord, give
us wisdom in discernment, that we may be
able to say to some degree as Paul,
all things to all men to win some.
Give us this grace and wisdom and love,
even in understanding one another on this ship,
that we may grow in greater unity, that
we would understand one another's backgrounds, but that
our greater emphasis would be our oneness in
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
God bless you.
Don't leave your memos behind.