Praise the Lord for these Waynesboro Bibles, get
them free, so they don't have little damaged
parts, you know.
Loose leaf edition.
It's a $50 Bible, so we don't mind
if it comes apart.
Let's just look at this Acts section here.
Let's look at Acts 6.
How many of you are not staying here
in Bromley?
You're marking time, you're here visiting, you're headed
out to the regions beyond.
Raise your hand.
Oh, I thought there'd be more than that.
I guess they're all off resting or down
in the Arab world team or home.
We have in Chapter 5 this horrific story,
and it is a terrible story, of Ananias
and Sapphira.
I don't like to read it like some
kind of little Sunday school flannelgraph story of
these two people being zapped by the Holy
Spirit.
So I won't read that this morning.
I'm not in the mood for that.
But let's look at Acts 6.
In those days when the number of disciples
was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained
against those of the Aramaic-speaking community.
Wow!
Book of Acts Christianity.
You ever met one of these little groups,
think they're the only church, and say, we
are the New Testament church?
I always say, which one?
Corinthian church?
Right here in the beginning of the Book
of Acts, the Holy Spirit is moving tremendous
power, and they've got practical problems.
They've got a communication problem.
They've got this unity between people of different
backgrounds.
They're all Jews.
If you think all Jews get on well
together, you obviously haven't fellowshiped much with the
Jews.
The Grecian Jews among them complained against those
of the Aramaic-speaking community because their widows
were being overlooked in the daily distribution of
food.
13A is collapsed.
So the twelve gathered, all the disciples together.
You think, what a waste of time.
These people should be out evangelizing.
They should be out getting on with the
job.
They're gathering together to have a big discussion
about food.
So the twelve gathered all the disciples together
and said, it would not be right for
us to neglect the ministry of the Word
of God in order to wait on tables.
You must be speaking spiritually.
They're otherwise trying to be humorous.
Brothers, choose seven men from among you who
are known to be full of the Spirit
and wisdom.
We will turn this responsibility over to them.
And we will give our attention to prayer
and the ministry of the Word.
I'm not convinced that ever happened completely because
it seemed to me they were soon running
into other problems.
They were having big meetings with this complete
renegade, the Apostle Paul, who wanted to take
the gospel to the Gentiles.
It seemed to me they were giving a
lot of time to prayer and the Word,
but they had a lot of other problems
they had to keep meeting about and have
all kinds of Jerusalem meetings.
And then, of course, they all got scattered
abroad through persecution.
So this proposal pleased the whole group.
They made a proposal.
They got some unity on this proposal.
They chose Stephen, a man full of faith,
and the Holy Spirit, also Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor,
Timon, Parmenas, Nicholas from Antioch, a convert to
Judaism.
There are no Gentiles here, except Gentile converts
like Nicholas.
They presented these men to the Apostles who
prayed and laid their hands on them.
So the Word of God spread, the number
of disciples in Jerusalem increased readily, and a
large number of priests became obedient to the
faith.
And then, immediately, we have Stephen going out
and getting martyred.
And you'll find, as you study the Book
of Acts, the enormous problems they had and
the constant need there was for communication.
One of the things I want to share
with you this morning are the decisions made
at the Coordinators Conference this year.
I can't cover all of them, and someone
may go over this again, but I won't
be here for a couple of weeks.
I'm off to Canada on Tuesday.
I'm back to the Manchester Valedictory Saturday night,
up to Newcastle Sunday night.
So I won't be around.
Then, in November and December, you'll probably see
me more than you want to, as they're
British months.
Let me just say that we've had a
tremendous weekend.
Last Thursday, after getting back from a great
weekend in Germany, where, by the way, we
saw, just on the weekend, about 2,000
pounds sterling of book sales.
Most of that goes, of course, to Mospach.
And about 2,000 pounds in gifts.
Just on the weekend and the Tuesday, more
than that, we saw many, many stand to
make deeper commitments of their life to the
Lord Jesus.
We, as a team, were at the Bracha
Bible School, a school where we've had a
very long-term relationship.
We also met many exo-Emers.
After coming back, I went to Lancashire, alone
on the train, and we opened a Christian
bookshop.
That's an item of prayer you may want
to jot down.
They say there, Lancashire is the last large
city, or last city in Britain, to get
a bookshop.
And if STL can come up with some
other facts.
No, Lancaster, sorry.
Lancashire is the county, right?
Lancaster is the city.
Anyway, they now have a Christian bookshop right
on the main street.
You might pray for them.
It's quite an amazing shot.
Then we had a rally that evening in
connection with Mission England, an advance preparation rally,
which was a good time.
Then we went, I came back here because
I had a lot of things on Friday,
and then we went up on the old
coach to Edinburgh, and some of us sailed
with a ship from Edinburgh.
The final weekend in Edinburgh.
You know, some people get this idea, well,
you know, what is the ship doing back
here?
It's just marking time.
I mean, really, we should be out in
Asia.
Number one, some of the countries in Asia
the ship has been going to are more
evangelized than Britain, much less Spain or Italy.
Don't think because the ship's in Asia it's
always in unreached areas.
Actually, the ship has difficulty getting to the
unreached areas.
And the ship spends a lot of time
in the Philippines, which is more evangelized than
Britain, and a lot of time in Taiwan,
more evangelized than most European countries to say
the least.
It spends time in Korea, which is one
of the most evangelized nations on earth.
It spends time in Japan, a very evangelized
place, a very, very non-responsive, very non
-Christian place.
That would be a little bit similar, say,
to places like France.
But Denmark would be far more unreached where
the ship has just been than Japan, and
far less responsive.
And I just believe it really is in
the purposes of God that the ship is
here in Britain at this time and was
able to share with the people on the
ship about it.
The ship has a way of attracting the
crowd.
Believe me, I don't have many meetings in
England when I've got more than a thousand
sitting out there.
And it was an encouragement.
Edinburgh on Sunday night, a thousand people in
the farewell meeting, and bananas at the book
table.
So that was an encouragement.
On the Saturday night, we had 60 people
stand up to make a commitment to start
moving toward world missions after a day missions
conference.
And of course, one of the burdens of
the multiple ministry of the ship in any
port is world missions.
And seeing labours raised up, especially, we hope,
for the subcontinent, and Scotland is a place
that is ripe for that.
There's a lot more I could say about
that, but we're short on time.
It was a joy.
I haven't sailed on the ship for seven
years.
I visited the ship, but not sailed on
it.
To make that long journey, out of Edinburgh,
past the famous Bass Rock, where some of
the Covenanters were kept, down, and the one
and a half hour journey up the river
to Newcastle.
It looks like Newcastle is going to have
even greater cooperation, some good unity among the
churches.
And as I shared with the chairman of
the committee, I couldn't resist changing my plans
for this weekend.
And instead of coming back from Manchester, going
to Newcastle for three meetings on Sunday.
Please especially pray for the Sunday night after
church meeting.
That's when we get a lot of people.
We've got a big shed.
This is right near the center of Newcastle.
People can walk there.
We got a slow start in the last
two ports, and the exhibition was not well
attended compared to some other places.
The conferences, the weekend, fine.
And so instead of coming in at the
end, as I did in Edinburgh, I want
to get there in the beginning.
So we're all going to spread the word
around.
All the church meetings we have Sunday, 20
or 30 meetings.
That loud mouth brewer is there for the
only time Sunday night.
That may bring some, may scare some.
Let's pray that we can fill that shed,
and we're going to challenge all these people
to bring at least 100 friends to the
ship during the next two weeks.
We're going to show them how, you know,
this ship is their ship.
This is an OM ship.
It's God's ship.
They're God's people.
Then they need to get involved.
You see, we get too many spectators.
As you know, spectatorism is a major disease
among most evangelicals.
And we want to somehow get them out
of the spectator category into the involvement in
the coffee bar on the ship, in the
film industry, in the evangelism.
They're out on the streets with their chalkboards.
Mickey Walker just had a go at them
before I got there.
And it really is exciting what is happening,
and we hope even more will happen in
Newcastle, then Ipswich, then, if the Lord continues
to confirm, Dover, and we want to organize
Pasadena Brownlee, I don't know who's going to
volunteer to do this, to go down to
Dover, because Dover is so close.
I'd rather drive to Dover any day than
North London.
You can really open up if you don't
want to test your car on the 70
mile an hour motorways.
And driving across London to me is one
of the most frustrating things in life.
But Gene Giff and Babu launched out to
Dover the day I was on the ship
to do the lineup.
And Dover is a little pagan bastion of
ships.
Very few live churches in Dover.
So let's pray about that.
After that, there are lots of possibilities.
Shoreham, Weymouth, Poole, right around the coast.
Lagos will probably be around Britain until April.
We need to see a lot of miracles.
There was another thousand pound designated gift.
This is the second one from the Newcastle
area for the generator.
I had a tremendous fellowship with the generator,
I mean with Dave Thomas, in the engine
room.
There's a big hole where the generator once
was.
And Dave Thomas pointed out to me that
the spare parts alone from the old generator,
which has exploded.
Remember that unique Australian fellow who was here
during that prayer meeting that one night?
He was praying about the miners.
Remember he was praying about the miners?
He was the guy in the engine room
when all this happened.
Brand new.
And he just didn't have enough training to
know that he should have stayed away from
that thing when it was going completely bananas.
Pieces of steel flying around the engine room.
Because you have to turn that generator off
by hand.
You have to go to it.
And you know, it's like a wife.
You got to do it by hand.
And you got to push all the buttons.
And he just went up there and pushed
all the buttons.
Very wise move.
Shut this thing down.
Dave Thomas estimated the spare parts on that,
especially the armature, because the other two generators
need spare parts.
And these spare parts cost thousands of pounds.
But the spare parts alone will be equal
to almost what we're paying for this new
used secondhand generator that's hardly ever been run.
We had a number of other designated gifts.
I think you heard about the two and
a half thousand one from the Sir John
Lang Trust Fund.
All these years.
I think the first time we ever had
any money from them.
So that's unusual.
Some other designated gifts came in Germany.
And they're trying to pay for this generator
on cash.
The Lagos financial situation is rapidly increasing.
The Doulos is still limping.
And it's a much bigger thing.
Just picture the generator.
Generator for Lagos, 12,000 pounds.
Generator for Doulos, get ready, 200,000 pounds.
So they might get it down to 175
,000.
So they're not even thinking about that.
The only way we're going to see Doulos
really move out of Europe is somebody's going
to have to drop a big gift.
We cannot scrape around the OM camp and
find 200,000 or 175,000 pounds.
You might think this is just wild.
But if that amount of money had been
on the ship at the purchase time, so
instead of...
Does anybody remember the purchase price on the
ship?
It was a million dollars by the time
we got it moving.
But it wasn't a million dollars purchase price.
It was somewhat under that.
But suppose it was a million dollars plus
300,000.
We still would have gone ahead and bought
it.
Because for a ship that size, it's still
unbelievably cheap.
We're talking about $25 million, $30 million worth
of ship.
But of course, that amount of money hitting
us at this stage is almost impossible to
comprehend.
But you know, people spend that much money
every week in Europe and America to put
up a church.
That's no big deal.
Put a church up.
Some churches are only used four times a
week.
And now, of course, if you want to
get a real church, you've got to think
at least in terms of $2 million.
You know, diddle around in some poor little
church.
So let's realize that even Dulas, as big
as the challenge is, she's still limping along
on those old generators.
They may last longer than we think.
There's all kinds of other dreams and thoughts.
But it seems that ultimately, that's what's going
to happen.
Now, here's another interesting little thing to put
in your mind.
That in three years, fuel saving alone on
the new generator on Dulas will pay for
the generator.
Because the reason they want this new, more
expensive type generator is to use heavy fuel.
And heavy fuel just saves that much money,
especially if that ship's going to head out
to Asia.
The new generator on Lagos also will save
a lot of money.
Instead of running two generators most of the
time, they'll be able to run one new
generator for the current for the ship when
she's in port.
Communication.
That kind of communication isn't just important for
me to know.
But it's important for you, because people get
to you.
They don't get to me.
And if you can give intelligent answers to
intelligent questions or even unintelligent questions, it helps
people to pray more effectively.
So praise the Lord for that.
And pray, and pray, and pray.
Nothing is too hard for the Lord.
As you know, before the conference began, some
of us spent ten solid days in discussion.
For me, the most intensive days of the
year, which proves what a baby I am,
because compared to what many people face in
life, you couldn't even use the word intensive
to describe that.
And the positive fellowship, of course, is something
that we greatly appreciate.
We had a number of proposals.
One of the proposals is about the setting
up of committees.
It's not possible for O.M. to continue,
and it hasn't been for a number of
years, without groups of people discussing things.
That's all a committee is.
It's a group of people discussing things.
And if you look into the book of
Acts, they had committees.
They didn't have a similar word to this,
seemingly, in the Greek.
But they got together in groups, and they
discussed things.
We have set up some committees in O
.M., and I'll just mention some of them
to you very quickly.
We've had a finance committee functioning fairly effectively
for now, over a year.
They are the most active committee.
They have to meet.
They have to make decisions.
They have a stronger mandate, a stronger authority,
especially since both Peter Maiden and I, and
Roton, McCroskey, and many others, a number of
others are on that committee.
Jerry Davies is on it.
We'd appreciate your prayers.
We are subject to the area leaders and
the field leaders.
O.M. is led by a combination of
groups.
The overall authority is in the hands of
the area leaders and the field leaders.
They, in turn, are subject to their board
of directors in their country.
If they are a grown-up adult field,
they have a board of directors.
It's a balance of power.
I think that's good.
The human heart cannot be trusted.
The greatest man of God can become an
ogre and a monster, and the human heart
cannot be trusted.
I believe it's good that there's a balance,
that whoever he may be, he is responsible
to somebody.
Then there's a new literature committee, which has
just been established.
I won't give the names of the people,
but Jerry Davies is the chairman of this
committee.
It's just being born.
Their idea is large.
It's largely an advisory committee to help improve
everything in the area of literature.
We then have a relatively active, in terms
of a lot of correspondence, five-year committee.
This, we think, may be temporary.
This is to examine how we can develop
policies for longer-term people.
Then we have a conference committee with Nigel
Lee and Case, Jonathan, a few others, of
course, to work on the conferences.
We must pray because we do not have
more than one year guarantee that we can
continue to have our conference in the BBI.
We're having to pay more money to be
there, but can you imagine finding a place
for this size conference?
We had an average of 700 people there
most of the time.
Close to 1,000 went through the September
conference.
A lot, a lot involved in that, a
lot of families.
Though that place isn't perfect, it is ideal.
If you haven't been in other factories in
years gone by, you won't understand what it
is to sleep there on a bed in
that dormitory compared to, say, St. Mary Cray
a few years ago, 200 men on cardboard
behind an old sheet.
Well, we have a church relations committee that's
only getting off the ground because we realize
that our relationship with the churches is so
important, so absolutely important.
What we do is directly linked with what
local churches do.
There's no way we can escape that.
We may be able to stretch a little
bit at times, but if the churches don't
move, to a degree, we don't move.
And if those ships are held up right
now, though we know there are providential factors,
though we're not excusing areas of weakness and
sin on our part, but overall, if you
think that the ship is being held up,
obviously you haven't studied the Muslim world push.
Because I would say the Muslim world push
all these years within O.M. has had
a greater hold up than the ship right
now.
It's just that it's not as visible.
You don't even have the people to start
with.
You don't even have the money to start
with.
And because it's not as measurable.
The ship ministry is more measurable.
Therefore, it has more visibility.
Therefore, we can tell when it's going forward
or backward.
But what do you know about Turkey?
How can you measure what's going on in
Turkey?
I will tell you the work in Turkey
has been, in many ways, not been growing.
It has not been growing.
And again, this is a disaster year for
recruits for Turkey.
Of course, they have some people there.
They get on with the job.
There are always blessings.
Well, there are always blessings on the ship
as well.
But with the ship, we can measure the
non-blessings.
With Turkey, the non-blessings are difficult to
measure.
And if you said anything, you might get
in trouble with Dennis Alexander or Glenn Garner,
and so you'd be a little less verbal.
See, what we don't understand and we don't
know about often we don't say much.
With the ships, we have a lot more
people who feel they know something.
A lot more people get involved in it.
Therefore, you get a lot more people mouthing
off.
It becomes more exciting all along the way.
The fact is that the Muslim world is
facing tremendous struggles in going forward.
And right now, we're not even sure what
we can do in connection with Sudan, where
things have been difficult lately.
Church relations, so incredibly important.
Tony Sargent did an excellent paper that I
would like to eventually give to you on
maintaining relationships with a local church.
Tony Sargent is a pastor of a local
church who comes on on as a guest
speaker.
Then we have a computer committee.
I am temporarily chairman of that.
That's two very exciting, interesting meetings.
Since we don't have any cash, we have
lots of dreams and little action.
Case Roses did manage to squeak through a
computer.
It's interesting, just as we get involved in
two little micro Osborne computers, the whole company
goes bust.
Anyway, he's leasing his, and now I think
he wants to change it.
He says it won't cost him any more.
But there's really, as far as any bigger
computers, a need to see finance.
And the best thing is if there could
be designated money.
You say, what if somebody comes to me
and says, we've got some money we want
to give to Operation Mobilization, and I wonder
if you could tell us if there's anything
we can give it to.
What will you say?
New recruit.
We don't tell anybody about our financial needs.
We only live by faith.
You're fired.
That's not the answer.
Our policy is that we pray that the
Lord will touch people's hearts and minds to
ask us just that question.
Because we don't expect good stewards of God's
money just having a prayer meeting in the
morning in the woods to suddenly walk back
home and say, I sense, speaking to his
wife, the Lord is leading us to sell
our house and give it for the purchase
of a computer at STL.
They don't know what STL is.
They don't know what a computer is.
They don't know where we are going to
use the computer.
No, we expect people, as the Holy Spirit,
to touch their hearts to ask questions.
I wish I could share with you the
letter I just got from Josh McDowell.
You know, I don't get many letters from
these famous Christian leaders just on their initiative.
I get answers to some of mine, maybe
half.
This just comes out of the blue.
Josh McDowell writes a letter.
Maybe he saw Jerry Davey at five.
But anyway, suddenly he writes this letter saying
he thinks OM is the greatest thing and
appreciates our ministry and even appreciates me.
And he's heard through Bob Provost, who happened
to be the pastor of the church where
the Akron Conference took place, where normally they're
going to know a little bit about OM's
finance.
There's no rule about people finding out about
OM finance because we believe in the providence
of God.
And we can't hide the thing from our
main prayer meetings.
So if somebody's a visitor in our main
prayer meeting, like Joyce Stansford is here this
morning from Sri Lanka, then she's liable to
find out.
And so Bob Provost shared with Josh McDowell
that OM is a financial need.
And Josh McDowell wrote a fantastic letter saying
he wishes...
He sent us a letter.
He wished he was a millionaire.
I wish he was too.
And, you know, believe it or not, I
didn't get an immediate answer to that letter.
Now, some of you knowing me, you thought,
boy, I'd answer that one on the toilet
at midnight.
But I didn't.
I let it relax.
I made a few copies to send to
leaders.
And I dictated an answer to it, I
think, two days ago.
It's on tape.
So he'll get an answer to that.
And maybe, you know, some of the royalties
of the Josh McDowell books, our motivation's just
increased to sell them, will come back to
us.
Actually, we've been involved with his books from
almost the beginning.
And I've always had a high esteem of
him.
So we pray that the Lord will touch
hearts.
Those three committee members, join the ship.
How are we doing on time?
I see you're looking at your watch.
That's a fancy watch.
Did you get that one free?
I really appreciate you sitting in the front
row and without a towel.
Well, that is courage.
That is courage.
You want me to wipe it off your
glasses?
Three committee members joined the pilot boat and
they went up the river.
And they knew about these two big gifts
for the generators.
And they had it in their mind that
the generator problem was resolved.
This is what happens.
People hear about a couple of gifts.
Then they hear that we're going ahead with
the generator.
They forget O.M.'s strategy.
That when we see some breakthrough, we begin
to move.
Just like when we see this next 120
,000 come in, we're going to begin to
move.
But we'll still be in desperate need.
Dulos will still be stuck in Spain.
And so these men, the committee men, thought
it was all resolved.
So I had the joy, over a cup
of tea, to set the record straight.
That it wasn't all resolved.
They were happy to hear that news.
Because as the Holy Spirit gives them wisdom,
they may go back and they may see
some more money come in in answer to
prayer.
So it's important to understand.
I just throw that in as an extra
to this morning's lecture and to pray for
specific giving for the generator on the Dulos,
for computer, Mosbach, eventually STL, a mini-computer,
eventually on Lagas.
Paris is pushing very much for a small
computer.
Only through the wonderful working of the computer
committee, the brakes are on there to see
what really is best for that Paris situation.
And I thank God for these committees because
I work with people in a very personal
relationship.
And sometimes it's not easy for me to
say no.
And I may have a big bark, but
I'm actually a soft touch in many ways.
And some of the problems in L.A.
are because people at the right moment put
the touch on me and I said yes.
When we didn't even have the money.
And of course, over the years, here in
Britain, where the work is in a more
advanced stage in some countries, I've been able
to refer it to the board of directors.
And that has put the brakes on some
things.
And that has helped STL, you can be
sure, over the years.
And it's good now we've got these committees
and they can act as brakes because sometimes
also in a movement like when people take
things personally.
You know, it's just like a little child
and the child asks for candy and you
say, you're not going to have any candy.
So, you know, we now can refer things
back to committees.
And then other brothers can share.
And then that person who may be involved
in this, he can be invited to the
committee meeting and he can hear that it's
not just George Burroughs, the big bad wolf,
that is neurotic about spending money, but he
can hear other people.
And some of you that may be upset
about this policy or that policy.
Why does this happen?
Why does that happen?
I wish you could be in on some
of these meetings.
But it's difficult, you know, to get everybody
in on all the meetings.
Anyway, then there's the social policy committee.
This thing, it almost died.
Since we have so few problems in this
area.
Everybody is so well behaved.
This committee almost died, but it was resurrected
to discuss divorce and remarriage, to discuss international
marriages.
And we've made a real step forward in
that area to discuss various things.
And they're going to continue to meet.
The doctrinal committee was resurrected, but they haven't
done very much lately.
The growth and expansion committee, it was decided,
should be the area coordinators.
Now, you may not know all the leaders
in OM, you don't need to know all
the leaders in OM, but I hope you
do know who your area coordinator is.
Your area coordinator for Europe is Jonathan McCrusty.
He's in charge of all Europe.
Now, because that's pretty big, he gives a
lot of freedom.
But he's still in that position.
Janice Alexander is in charge of all the
Middle East.
I am temporarily acting over the subcontinent.
Dr. Alan Adams is over the Far East.
The newest appointment is David Hicks over North
America and Mexico.
George Miley is in an equivalent position over
the ships.
I always leave somebody out.
Let me just think a minute.
I don't think that covers everybody.
We've decided temporarily we will keep this as
the growth committee, but realizing that basically when
it comes to any big growth, it has
to be all the field leaders.
And so it gets really held to the
field leaders' meetings.
But these area leaders have to work on
this throughout the year, and supposedly a field
leader, when he wants to thrust some new
idea, something big, he should bounce it off
his area leader first of all.
And then there is the stewardship committee.
I haven't got time to explain.
It was just sort of a change.
These are the people who are part of
the finance committee, but who are day by
day responsible for moving money.
I used to do all this, sitting on
the phone in Tweedy Road, moving the money
around.
Now a lot of the money in OEM
just goes automatically.
Nobody has to do anything because it's the
beginning of the year.
Arab world needs so much a month.
Austria needs so much a month.
Austria draws from Germany.
India draws from Switzerland.
It's fantastic how money flows around.
By the way, here's a prayer request on
this.
Will you pray with me that we can
cut down on the amount of money we
have to exchange?
Presently, we are having to bring a lot
of dollars into Britain and shift pounds out
of Britain.
We are losing thousands and thousands of dollars
on bank commissions and exchange.
Now this is linked partly with a very
tight program, tax program in the United States,
where money must go out of the country
according to what country it's given to.
So if it comes into India, it's got
to go out to India.
If you have a little understanding of finance,
you can see how crazy that is.
We are losing.
I just went to change some Deutsche Marks
yesterday.
God just used that.
When I saw the commission this guy took.
Now he takes more than the banks.
One of those little doublons down in Trafalgar
Square.
Don't change money with these turkeys if you
don't have to.
A few pounds in an emergency doesn't matter.
Then I just started thinking all the money
we are changing unnecessarily.
We don't have an expert committed to exchange
control.
We've thought about it.
We've talked about it for years.
We are losing a lot of money.
Now STL, actually, in the way we operate
buying books, selling books, we actually make quite
a bit.
There are wins and there are losses in
this thing of exchange control.
But we need more attention to this.
The stewardship committee is praying.
There's a prayer request.
I'm not getting these things out.
Exercise my lungs.
We need a really sharp financial secretary who
can be with Peter May.
Especially now because the finance committee with the
agreement of the field leaders are now going
ahead with budgeting.
Every field has to submit a budget.
It's a very beginning stage for OM budgeting.
They basically have to see what they needed
last year and see if they can cut
it by 5%.
Now some fields that are already cut down
to the belly button, like Austria, we're not
asking them to cut.
It's only volunteer anyway.
But some of the bigger fields where they
got a little fat, they can cut.
Forgive the comparisons, but you know what I
mean.
We need to really pray because this puts
more pressure on the CAO.
Even board members went into the CAO to
put the screw on, to put pressure on,
to get those computer reports two months earlier.
We've had chaos lately because the woman who
punches into our main computer for the CAO,
which is in Sweden.
I know that sounds strange, but we were
in computers in the CAO a long time
almost before we started buying computers except STLs.
And we got a good system there in
someone else's computer.
A lot of discussion whether we should move
that to Belgium.
Whether we should put a mini-computer in
Belgium because we need these reports sooner.
These reports tell us if our field, like
ICT, is going in the red.
And ICT is one of the most in
the red field.
India is double indebtedness of ICT.
That's in terms of internal cash flow because
all money ultimately has to go to where
it's designated.
But it can be used according to the
need as determined by the stewardship committee and
the field leaders, which is a sensible way
not to have huge chunks of money sitting
in one bank account while other people aren't
eating.
Now we are actually working towards some change
in this where we will even, especially with
the ships, have a little buffer so that
if some money comes into Germany for the
ships, it can be put in the bank
for the next fuel purchase or the next
nightmare problem that they have.
But up to now in the history of
LM we have never been able to get
a buffer except when we were saving money
for the purchase of the ships.
You may want to pray along that direction.
But it's a challenge.
And I'd ask you to pray for these
men, myself, Jonathan, Paul Troper, Peter Maiden who's
on the phone, he's the secretary of this
stewardship group, has to do most of the
work, and Dale Roton.
Because when we're short of money they have
to monitor giving every day.
To get the money to go where the
greatest need is.
This takes telexes, communication, a lot of prayer,
and I believe God has really given Peter
Maiden the gift for this.
Now another major decision at this conference is
that Peter Maiden is now the associate international
coordinator, director, or I even like the word
leader, of the work of OM.
Though he would esteem me as still sort
of having a final voice, it is set
up that he can act in my absence.
There's very little I can do anyway without
agreement.
So it's all negotiation.
But Peter has the respect.
He has the knowledge of the OM machinery
to be able to get things done.
And I have just absolute confidence in him
that if I'm in Pakistan where I will
be going for two months starting January, though
part of the time will be in Bangladesh
and Nepal, that he can just act.
He in any case would be in constant
fellowship with Jerry and with Jonathan and with
Dale.
So it's a team leadership but at least
someone on the team has a little bit
of muscle to get something done or to
put the brakes on.
I believe this move into two of us
sort of here at the top, which we
want to be at the bottom because unless
we can serve, and that's all we want
to do, we're unworthy of leadership within God's
work.
I believe with two of us giving ourselves
to this huge task also in terms of
relating to other leaders.
It's normal for a main leader in OM
to want to have fellowship with the guy
who is supposedly overall.
And now, as I'm still the same weak
four-cylinder character I was 20 years ago,
the fellowship with other leaders can be shared.
Some of the leaders can't get to me
anymore.
Certainly if they do it it may be
a very short period of time.
Most every spare minute for six weeks of
that conference all I did was talk to
leaders.
I never turned away too many new people
that wanted to talk to me as well,
but their time had to be limited.
Sometimes with a leader it's a two-hour
walk around the woods.
And if somebody comes in like Bill Lowry,
the head of Christ is the Answer, just
had a beautiful letter from him, I just
feel I must esteem such a brother.
And so we spent two hours, three hours
walking around the woods.
And our relationship with Christ is the Answer
is healing.
We felt several years ago when we had
a Jerusalem Club meeting with them that we
couldn't work with them.
Now we're flirting again, we're renegotiating.
They've come into a lot of balance.
It's still a long way to go.
Well I hope this sharing of the inner
workings of OM and how it relates to
you, how it relates to the work overall,
will help you understand.
And also that it will make you feel
that you are part of this team.
You are not joining an organization.
You are part of a spiritual movement that's
directed and guided by the Holy Spirit who
uses men.
I hope you'll understand this and not feel
that you're on the outside maybe throwing a
little rock in now and then or a
little bit of advice now and then.
But I hope you'll feel a part of
this because a lot of those things that
were discussed in these days were because new
recruits gave us feedback.
It doesn't all get decided on.
But your feedback goes into leaders.
They bring it into the other sessions, committees,
and some of it actually gets acted on.
I hope in November I can follow up
on this and share about seven or eight
proposals that we finalized during those days together.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank you for this opportunity to
share.
We know there will be further orientation and
there will be times for questions and answers.
We know also we won't get all the
answers.
We won't get a knowledge of everything.
So M has become a large movement spread
out across almost the whole world.
We thank you that we are one body.
We don't have to be afraid of asking
questions.
We have nothing to hide.
There are no so little secrets we can't
tell.
The newest recruit who comes in the door
give us balance in this area of finance.
Give us dynamic Holy Ghost faith coupled with
balanced common sense and esteem of the local
church and a love and esteem of other
believers, other fellowships and other leaders.
Guide us as we move together in this
work.
In Jesus name, Amen.
Over to the announcements.
Who has the announcements?
This commissioning rally is not a volunteer thing.
Now if you already have a strong and
grateful commitment like Mission England, that's going on
of course you can't go.
But really it's once a year we have
a Valedictory Commissioning Rally.
We got people going all the way from
Northern Ireland to go.
I'm preaching the first time at the Manchester
Commissioning Rally.
So be there and mix with the prayer
partners and wherever you go you always carry
a few of your own prayer letters.
You make a friend.
Some people can't relate to OM and it's
business.
But they may be able to relate to
you and become your prayer partner.
If you got even one new prayer partner
a week in the next year where would
you be?
You'd have 52 new people praying for you
by this time next year.
So be alert and don't feel it's wrong
to ask people to pray for you.
They can only say no or forget it.
And I think this individual fellowship after this
meeting is very important.
Just as much as the main preacher.
Peter Maiden actually is coming down first time
isn't he after London now that you've been
here.