Lord guide us as we just consider a
few more thoughts about strategy, about where we're
going, about what you want us to do
here in India.
These things may be a foundation for our
discussion.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
I have so much I long to share
with you.
I really believe it was in God's providence,
it may have been an attack of the
enemy, but I believe it was in God's
providence through a series of mistakes that I
was not allowed back in India in 1968
and ended up here in Nepal.
I believe that in some ways if I'd
remained in India I might have helped the
work, but in other ways I would have
hindered it.
I've always felt that the key of the
work in India was Indians, and I, despite
all my aspirations, I'm not of that chosen
group.
And I believe that my departure further Indianized
the work.
We never wanted the work to be totally
Indianized because we felt it should be international.
We felt that marked and made the work
unique.
You see, it used to be that if
a work was only Indians, it would be
very unique.
But the role has changed.
The missionaries have departed.
There are very few left.
The church became very nationalistic, and there was
a day which we were very proud to
say there are no missionaries in our work.
They've all gone.
We've taken it all over.
More in Africa than India.
That is no longer so unique.
Most denominations have hardly any missionaries.
Everything is in the hands of Indians.
The Bible Society was proud.
It was all in the hands of Indians.
Somehow one or two got back in there,
like Ron Petty and other unique characters.
So, in one sense, it's more unique in
India to be international than it is to
be totally Indian.
After all, if this is India, so for
something to be totally Indian today isn't really
that special.
But something that is still international in the
post-missionary, post-Raj, post-British Empire days
is unique.
And to a large degree, the foreigners who
are here are in submission to Indian leaders.
I think this is exciting, and I believe
that God has a very important role and
place for OM India to continue to play.
I believe we are seeing laborers thrust out
from India to other needy parts of the
world, and hope we can talk about this
more.
But it just dawned on me when I
went to the Gulf, after traveling all over
the Western world and hearing them pray for
tent makers to go to the Gulf, and
very few who have that as a missionary
strategy get there.
Try to follow me on this.
Very few who have that as a missionary
strategy get there.
But in God's providence, hundreds of Indian Christians,
because of the economic squeeze on India as
a nation, are in the Gulf as tent
makers, and they are witnessing, and the Indian
church in the Gulf is alive, and they
are wanting to be involved with us.
And there are ex-OMers, graduates in every
Gulf state, witnessing for Jesus Christ.
You say, well, that isn't the highest motivation.
How did the Jerusalem church eventually move out
of evangelism?
They had a lecture on evangelism, all got
inspired and went forth evangelizing.
No.
Persecution came, and they were scattered everywhere.
And India is a nation with severe economic
problems, at least a large segment of the
people.
We know there are plenty of rich people.
We know there are a lot of people
with a lot of money.
But there are still masses of people who
are struggling to get a job.
Struggling to get a job.
You are living in a country, as you
well know, where just getting a job is
considered one of the most important factors in
all of life.
Many people have to bribe very heavily just
to get the training to get the job.
They sometimes have to bribe there as well.
How many of you know Thomas Samuels' testimony
of how he bribed before he was a
Christian to get going?
In fact, a lot of people don't get
to the Gulf without paying bribes.
I hope the Christians who are there got
there without doing that.
You know, even if they got there paying
a bribe, especially if they faced up to
that, realized it was wrong and repented of
it, God can use them.
The thing that amazes me, you won't like
this bit of theology, is when God goes
around using the people who haven't repented.
And I will tell you, I used to
believe that, you know, if you haven't repented,
then I don't know how the Lord is
going to use you.
But after seeing God use unrepented wretches in
his work for 25 years, you know, I
don't know what to say anymore.
I've adjusted that to say, if you repent,
certainly God will use you more.
The other problem in this, I took getting
on sidetracks, it's terrible, but many times a
brother hasn't repented because he hasn't understood.
The ego is so tricky.
I think of people who may be XOMers
and are a little bitter against us, and
our fellowship isn't all that it should be.
And we may be waiting for them to
repent and write a letter of apology.
I say, forget it, just love him.
Stop waiting for the letter of apology.
He may be confused, he may think, I've
had specific cases of this, he may think
he's repented.
You're saying that was a half repentance, that
was a cheap escape, not a real repentance,
so you're not feeling you can fellowship.
And when I meet XOMers, they think that
I know some of the problems they had
with OM.
Lots of people have had problems with OM,
I've had a few.
The biggest problems I've always had have been
with myself, I don't know about you.
But, you know, often I don't remember these
things.
I don't remember if somebody broke the social
policies 24 years ago in Operation Mobilization.
And if they did, I would care less.
I mean, it's totally wrong that people have
a stigma put upon them because they broke
the OM social policy.
It's just wrong.
And I pray that forgiveness may flow through
our ranks.
Anyway, let's get back from the side road
onto the main road.
The main road is, what are we doing
in India?
What are the goals of OM India?
Now, let's understand this.
There is a lot of freedom for each
area in each state.
I have not been around for two years,
so basically you're doing what you want with
hopefully Alfie and Ray having a little bit
of control.
But now I'm here, so I'm going to
just share how I feel, how I see
it.
Then we're going to discuss it.
Then I go to England and you go
off and do what you want.
Yes.
The hope is, the hope, you see, is
that when you go off and do what
you want, that you will want to do
a little bit of what I'm talking about.
That's the hope.
It's called leadership by persuasion.
I have no power to make you do
this or that in your particular state.
I can weep, I can pray, I can
send you tapes, books, and I have had,
by the grace of God, with other leaders,
a little bit, perhaps a lot of influence
on this work going back from its earliest
days because basically I believe you're already doing
largely what I want, what I felt we
should be doing.
But what I felt was not my thoughts
alone but the amalgamation of the early founders
of OM India, some of Thomas Amos' burdens,
some of Greg Hiddleston's burdens, some of Alfie's
burdens, perhaps a lot of my own burdens.
And I am basically happy where we're going
but I think it's good to constantly redefine,
constantly take a look, especially since we have,
I think, largely agreed that we want to
cut down the number of people, the number
of teams, and hopefully by doing that increase
the quality, give more time to each individual,
be able to specialize more in certain ministries
and especially in training leaders.
But let's give just some of the basic
goals and aims of the work.
This is based on scripture, scripture that not
only do you already know but you're already
teaching.
What scriptures?
Acts 1-8.
Ye shall be my witnesses, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria,
the uttermost parts of the earth.
There is a need in any movement to
constantly go back to the basics.
Acts 1-8, reading.
And then those verses connected with the Great
Commission in Matthew where it tells us not
only to go into all the world and
preach but to make disciples.
I like that, I like that.
Teaching, follow-up.
I've always felt that OM was 90%
follow-up.
Now some people don't understand that because they
don't understand what we're aiming at.
You're here at this conference now because of
OM's emphasis on follow-up.
We believe that you still need follow-up
before you're going to be some apostolic church
planter in the back outreaches of Rajasthan.
Most of you, if you're headed in that
direction, need a little more follow-up.
And it has always been the goal of
OM to try to create a revolutionary, dynamic,
committed individual who would be a representative of
what we read in the Book of Acts.
That takes time, longer than I ever dreamed.
And I've had to lower the standard a
little bit from my early idealistic days and
come into balance on a few extremist ideas.
The key with your team is not the
number of tracts they give out, not the
number of books they distribute, or even the
number of churches they plant if they start
in that ministry.
The key with your team is where are
they individually and spiritually in terms of their
walk with God, in terms of spiritual balance,
without which people will not function, in terms
of really effective cross-cultural communication.
It's not a matter of just getting some
brother out on the street shouting at the
Hindus that they're all going to hell and
that their idols shall be destroyed at the
last day, or now, and then roll out
and destroy.
People did try that in God years ago.
I think it was one of the Roman
Catholic methods, burning the temples and destroying the
idols.
The Hindus down there never stopped talking about
it.
The personal spiritual life of your team member
is the highest priority that you have.
This means you've got to spend time with
them.
I've talked to team members that have never
even once prayed with their own team leader.
Much less the big area leader sitting back
home behind his desk writing important reports that
no one reads.
I'll tell you, most reports do get read.
But if you have to choose on that
day between spending time with a brother in
need on your team and writing a report,
you know, see the brother in need, and
forget the report for that week.
I would love to have a report saying,
during the hour I was going to write
this report, I led a soul to Christ,
gave out a hundred chacks, and counseled a
needy brother for 45 minutes.
That's my report.
That's the kind of reports I would like,
because quite often some of the Indian reports
are getting a little dull.
It's better to tell one individual thing about
what you're involved in and what God has
done, rather than a long list of things.
Though personally, any report sometimes is better than
no report.
So I repeat, the individual spiritual life of
that brother on your team, or sister, is
the first priority of the work in OM.
We are a training movement.
Our burden is to build men and women,
and anytime I don't mention women, you please
add it.
Because it is purely a grammatical malfunction, or
it may be a hangover from my male
chauvinistic days, which I didn't even realize were
there until I was trained or sat in
the ministry of certain women, like my own
wife, on a private basis.
I did have some really weird chauvinistic ideas,
which I hope I have shed without going
into the other extreme, and therefore be classified
as a woman's liver.
If you don't think any of these things
have influence on India, then you must live
in some very interesting situations.
Training men and women, prayer, the word, relationships,
cross-cultural communication, learning how to deal with
their emotions, hatred, envy, bitterness.
It all exists on our teams.
We've seen people train on our teams in
three years and go down in one day,
even leaders, one day turn bitter.
Sometimes OM is all right when it's going
your way, and when OM is letting you
do what you want, maybe that's sometimes the
problem.
But OM does have a limit, even in
terms of strategy.
As I'm sure you realize from what you've
laughed at before, it isn't really a matter
of going back and just doing anything you
want.
Sooner or later, Brother Alfie will be flying
into your headquarters to have a personal chat
about what in the world you are doing.
If one of you leaders decides, after reading
a scripture in the Old Testament, that you're
going to take on an extra wife, you
will discover how absolutely bullheaded, narrow-minded, and
fanatical OM can be about marriage.
But if it's just a matter of whether
you serve sugar in your tea or you've
advanced to higher levels of commitment and are
now pouring joggery or juggery or whatever other
thing into your tea, you know, we're not
going to worry too much about it.
I personally believe that though outwardly at times
it doesn't look like we quite know where
we're going, that most people in OM do
know where they're going.
They're after men, they're after women.
To see them discipled, encouraged, to get them
in the Word, praise God for the effectiveness
of the study program.
Of course, little Sammy Idealist comes out of
the closet and if you get on these
idealistic clouds where I have dwelt far too
often, everything looks black.
Study program, the vehicle thing, the maintenance thing,
everything can look black.
In an imperfect world with imperfect reading, people,
and as John Brown would tell us, often
reading imperfect Bible translations.
But somehow, somehow it goes on.
Somehow it goes on.
And I think John Brown, because I like
to use living witnesses, and I don't like
to speak behind people's backs, I believe he
is one of the most beautiful testimonies of
someone with strong convictions, a very different background
than some of us would be from, coming
into OM not really being happy about certain
things and yet getting his priorities sorted out.
It wasn't a matter of John sacrificing convictions.
It was a matter of finding out what
was the priority.
We're not asking you to sacrifice your convictions
unless they're really miles out, and even then,
if you keep them to yourself, you can
get away with a lot.
I've got a few kinks of my own,
especially in the area of music, but we
find out what the priorities are.
We find out what the priorities are.
And this is why it is good to
sometimes come together like this, even though it
comes at great sacrifice, and to just speak
together and think together on some of these
basics.
Go ye into all the world and preach
the gospel.
You know, when I read the church growth
statistics, and I read the computer reports, I
get excited about OM India.
Do you know Ralph Winter, considered one of
the most radical leading missiologists in the world
today, esteems OM as one of the most
avant-garde, significant mission organizations in the world
today.
Robert McQuilkin, a leading missiologist in the United
States who lectures to all these leaders of
the mission world, quoted OM as one of
the groups that's broken through all the foul
that has stopped so many other people.
Now, of course, we in OM oftentimes have
a more realistic view.
Some of us are very gifted at putting
OM down.
But the fact of the matter is that
while other people have been talking about unreached
people, it's taken us 2,000 years even
to get the definition.
That's right.
For 2,000 years, we haven't had this
terminology that is now enabling us to go
forward.
Hidden peoples.
Unreached peoples.
People groups.
There's a whole new terminology.
Recently someone exhorted me, please go to California
and get this course so I can get
my terminology straightened out.
There are some who seem to be really
more concerned of getting your terminology straightened out
than getting your life straightened out.
I'm not against terminology, but you're in a
movement that's concerned about your life.
Someone was saying to me just recently that
one preacher, I think it was John MacArthur.
You've heard his tapes.
I was just with him.
Pray that his vision increases a little bit
because he's got this narrow, just the church
vision and parachurch groups.
This is very popular in Western teaching.
Parachurch groups.
Oh, they're nice, but second best.
Second best.
Of course, a lot of people won't touch
anything like that.
Only the local church.
I have two tapes dealing with that subject
in case you want to get into that.
But praise God.
John MacArthur is a dear friend.
We love him.
He puts 25 hours of preparation every message
he gets.
Great.
I hope you give 25 years of living
the Christian life behind every church you plant
or whatever else you do because the fact
of the matter is that a lot of
people who put preparation behind messages, John MacArthur's
not in that category because he has a
life, don't have it in their life.
And the world, maybe not India.
You'll have to judge for India.
But in the West, we've got more preachers
running around who cannot back it up with
the life that I think has existed since
Pentecost.
I can't prove that, of course.
People are looking for those who will live
the life.
OM people in India are looking for leaders
who do win souls to Jesus Christ, personally,
or at least try.
No one's going to judge you if you
don't see any conversions.
But you might find a little need for
excitation if you aren't even trying.
Some of the greatest joys I have are
in personal evangelism.
Not preaching on television or radio.
I'm not even going to do loss in
Tampa.
That kind of high exposure media, radio, all
the celebrities there all wanting to meet the
leaders and oh I'm great, let them meet
George Miley, David Hicks or some other more
sane looking character.
I'll pray for the Tampa ministry.
I came to India in a substitute for
going to Tampa, Florida.
I have more of a burden than ever
to be found doing some of the simple
things.
Giving out chaps as I still do all
the time.
Not every person that passes me.
Preaching even to small groups.
To me, if there's two or three, God,
Jesus is in the midst.
That's good enough for me.
Where did I get that philosophy?
I found it in Matthew.
Try it, it's a great book.
And if we should become smaller and I
believe we should, then I believe it's that
leaders may get their priorities sorted out and
give more time to just simply walking with
Jesus and doing the things that we all
say every Christian should do.
Indians perhaps more than most will learn by
what we do, but not by what we
say.
You can listen to a hundred tapes and
that will not necessarily change your life.
Go spend one week with a man of
God.
Live with him, walk with him.
Learn something from him and sometimes learn things
not to do.
Certainly true if anybody ever comes with me.
And that will have more of an influence
than maybe those one hundred tapes.
Personally, I believe in both.
I believe in teaching with every ounce that's
in us, but I believe that we should
live the light.
Light a fire and people will come and
see how many fire departments or fire groups
came to your fire there in Bombay.
I don't like to call it your fire,
that's not fair.
I heard there were ten different companies.
I'm sure some of those fire companies came
just to see it.
They didn't behave as if they were going
to put it out from what I've heard.
But anyway, we won't argue over that point.
Others came to see it as well.
Maybe a poor illustration at this time.
But one of the things God has called
me to preach on a lot lately is
found in Hebrews.
Our God is a consuming fire.
I want to ask you.
You're the leaders of all of India.
If you don't have it, who will?
Are you on fire?
That's why when people come to me and
they want a chart, I think that has
been a mistake in some American groups.
They think everything has to go on a
chart.
And Americans have upset many people around the
world by exporting their charts, exporting their little
evangelistic packages.
You've had it in India for years.
My burden is just to see Indians on
fire.
They can make their own chart.
They can make their own strategy.
I hope it will be within reason.
I hope it will be aimed at some
of these things we're talking about today.
But it would be regimented.
And in any case, that person can always
leave O.M. and let the fire burn.
And I think that's just so beautiful.
It mocks us often as a European movement
and an Asian movement rather than as an
American movement, though I'm not anti-American.
I love that country, and I don't believe
Christians should be anti-any country.
And I don't think you northerners should be
anti-Kerala, and I don't think you Kerala
people should feel persecution complex.
You're like us Americans, feeling no one understands
you, and no one really lets you crawl
in your corner and hide under a banana
patch.
But we Americans, I'm still an American, though
everybody thinks I'm an Englishman.
We're the same everywhere we go in the
world.
People criticize America, they criticize us, and of
course, some of it is valid.
Why are we so afraid of valid criticism
about our country or our state?
As mature Christians, we no longer get uptight
about these things.
If somebody gives me five criticisms about O
.M., I try to maybe point out the
balance, then I get five others.
Because these countries are just, what are they?
What are they, these countries?
If God took his restraining hand off these
nations, they'd all bombard each other with nuclear
warfare.
And I just have this yearning for Christians
to be different.
And the greatest disappointment in my life with
O.M., and with leaders in O.M.,
and if I saw it any better elsewhere,
I'd be tempted to leave, really.
I'm probably that kind of a case.
And I'm always researching, always looking for bigger
fires, and more sane people, and if A
.W. Tozer started a movement, I'd probably join
him.
He couldn't even keep his own wife organized,
the poor guy.
That's right, he had a lot of family
problems, and two of his children are totally
away from Jesus Christ.
And he admitted that one of his greatest
problems was lack of moderation.
Lack of moderation.
He admitted, basically, that extremism was his problem.
I think if he had traveled in Europe
more, if he had a little O.M.
training, and had read a little more of
other people's books instead of just old mystics,
he got so overdosed on old mystics that
when he preached, if he coughed, either Gunyan,
Madame Gunyan, or someone else came out.
In fact, they couldn't produce his books because
he would have been accused of plagiarism.
All these things he was saying were rehashed
mystics, and they had a lot of trouble
producing his books.
By the miracle, they didn't get in a
lot of legal cases.
Dr. Francis Schaeffer, in his amazing book, Ash
Heap Lives, brings out the fact that Christian
leaders have feet of clay.
In other words, all Christian leaders, and that
includes us, we have our weaknesses.
You know what happens in O.M.? It's
the big game we play in O.M.
We go around judging leaders.
Now, as senior leaders, like Ray and Alfie
and myself, we have to sit down prayerfully,
in agony, not even wanting to do it,
and evaluate people's ministries.
That's not judging.
That's not gossip.
Otherwise, the work of God is impossible.
It is impossible.
If we can never evaluate, why are we
told to have discernment?
When you go out recruiting, you need discernment.
Before you recruit little Johnny New Convert, who's
got a big smile, and sells a lot
of books on the first day, and tells
you you're the most wonderful guru that ever
walked on the streets of this town.
You might want to talk with a few
other people.
You say, but that would be gossip.
What if one of the people said something
negative?
It's just unrealistic.
We must evaluate.
And yet, we must do it in compassion.
We must always try to see the positive
points.
And we must, in all honesty, when there's
something real and negative about a brother, go
to that brother individually.
Your job as a leader in this work
is incredibly difficult.
And if you think at any time that
I'm criticizing you, even generally, for every inch
of criticism, believe me, there's ten inches of
deep sympathy for the difficult job you have.
If I visited your team, and I found
someone throwing tomatoes at you, spiritually speaking, criticizing
and attacking you, you'd probably find that I
would talk to you and take your side
as much as I possibly could.
Because I know how hard it is to
be a leader.
I know that no leader has everybody on
his team happy.
It's impossible.
And I just pray that you'll not allow
criticism to throw you off balance.
Examine it and go back into the battle.
So what is our goal?
It's training men and women.
It's bringing them into revolutionary Christian faith as
we read about in the New Testament.
It's taking all that we've heard in the
teaching we've received from many great men of
God and condensing it down into a way
that it can be brought into the life
of an individual.
And you, most of you, have been exposed
to a lot of truth, a lot of
truth, a lot of truth.
But is it functioning in your life?
You've studied the Book of Acts.
Study program, great.
And yet you go out sometimes with little
compassion for souls.
I've been told, maybe the one who told
me is wrong, but I've been told often
even leaders without literature and somehow break every
rule of the Book of Acts.
And at that point all of us in
OM feel very guilty.
Well, not my fault.
I didn't write the Book of Acts.
I just simply believe it is possible.
I've had tremendous temptations to give up this
message, to just say it can be done.
People will not live that way because I've
seen so many who will not.
But I just say and perhaps it's one
of my greatest needs as I come here
this weekend to recommit my own life to
you and to the work here that it
can be done.
People can live in this same way.
And I have had people totally outside of
OM who were once critics, who know the
Book of Acts, observe OM, see our weakness,
and yet say they believe this is the
closest thing they've ever found in this world
to what they found in the Book of
Acts.
It's because the enemy is so clever and
is so detached so much of what happens
today from what we read about here.
Do you realize what's happening to the prayer
meeting?
Just in case you think I'm exaggerating.
Prayer meetings are absolutely basic to the Book
of Acts, are they not?
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 4.
Absolutely basic.
You can't study the Book of Acts without
seeing that the New Testament church is a
praying church.
So just take that one thing and take
a survey of the churches in India.
I've taken it all over the world.
And you'll discover to a large degree churches
no longer have a prayer meeting.
Or if they do, only a few people
are there.
And if they have that meeting, often it
is completely dead.
Completely dead.
Fifty years ago there were several who felt
that the Pentecostal movement was it.
Now, we leaders, we can all be very
honest.
We all know where our land stands.
There's no one here foolish enough to think
that I am anti-Pentecostal.
I am accused all over the world of
being a raving Pente.
Especially in Germany.
And, you know, I'm not anti-Pentecostal.
I'm anti-extremist.
That puts me at odds with a lot
of people.
But we did think, even 25 years ago,
the charismatic movement, the Pentecostal movement, this is
it.
And a lot of people because that, because
that became very narrow.
It wasn't new.
The Southern Baptists already felt they were the
main ones.
And they still do.
They still do.
Bless their hearts.
And I'll be happy to send that tape
to any Southern Baptist church at that section
of it.
Because there's Southern Baptist leaders that now acknowledge
their denominationalism.
And there's a new revival movement starting in
the Southern Baptist church in which Roy Hesham
and Calvary Road has been the spearhead in
the hands of the Lord to bring people
to repentance and turn it from sectarianism and
denominationalism to a more mature faith in Jesus
Christ.
So the Pentecostals, big thing born around 1905,
the Azusa Street revival, really began to burn.
It still is one of the great movements
in the world today.
And I thank God that we have many
linkings.
But it wasn't the movement.
And now the leaders of the Pentecostal church,
as they look back over 50 years, in
which there have been thousands of adulteries, thousands
and tens of thousands of church divisions that
would stay in the very hair up on
your head.
And every kind of problem has hit the
Pentecostal church as much as any of the
churches that they felt that God did not
have the Spirit.
God still uses them.
And every Pentecostal church, as every Brethren Assembly,
as every Baptist church, has to be judged
on its individual value rather than its denominational
reputation.
And so we fellowship with individual churches of
many different groups.
The greater differences are not really between the
Pentecostals, the Baptists, the Brethren, the Anglicans.
The greater differences are between those who are
extreme, judgmental, or dead.
That's the other end.
And those who are alive, believe God's Word,
believe 1 Corinthians 13, and have something in
this basic message that during your years in
OM we try to fill your heart with.
Many Pentecostal churches now have hardly any prayer
meeting at all.
If they haven't, hardly anybody comes.
And sometimes it's the most ritualistic thing you
have ever sat through.
In other cases, it's just pure, unadulterated noise
for one hour.
And at the end of the hour if
you ask anyone what they believe God was
actually going to do as a result of
that noise, no one would know.
No wonder I have more invitations from Pentecostal
churches than almost any other single church.
Because when they hear this message, even as
I'm sharing with it now, many of them
want it.
And one thing I must say about the
Pentecostals often, they're at least more willing to
give you a chance.
It's that, what shall you say, that spirit
of bleeding still for the miraculous.
Most of them still believe that.
And wanting God's message.
A little more hunger than the average church.
That at least you get in the door.
At least you get in the door.
And it's hard to preach if you don't
get in the door.
When I went to Mexico in the early
days, I couldn't get in these sophisticated Methodist
churches.
I couldn't get in, I didn't have Baptist
credentials.
I couldn't get in some of these groups.
The Pentecostals had me.
And they were concerned about fire.
And I come in, and they couldn't understand
the Spanish, but they smelled the burning.
And when I gave the invitation, they all
came forward.
I've often thought that one of the greatest
ministries in OM is simply bringing people from
false fire to true fire.
Some of you, if you're honest, when you
came into OM, you were so extreme you
could barely fellowship with yourself.
And God somehow, through this feeble group with
much failure, has brought you to some degree
of balance.
And let me tell you, when you leave
OM, if you don't have balance, you're going
to have a lot of problems.
I mean you're going to have a lot
of problems.
Balance is not an optional extra.
Do you know that terminology?
Is that an optional extra?
If you buy a car in the United
States, the air conditioner is optional extra.
You don't need an air conditioner.
It costs too much.
A stereo is an optional extra.
If you're in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, that's
all thrown in with a car.
Yeah.
But the poor Americans, it's an optional extra.
The Kuwaitis, it's an optional extra.
Spiritual balance is not an optional extra.
If you teach your brother five things on
your team, study program, evangelism, prayer, a lot
of other things, and he doesn't develop balance
which involves the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians
5.
It involves love.
It involves discernment.
If he doesn't learn spiritual balance, whatever he's
learned, he may actually use it to propagate
something that you wouldn't even classify as acceptable.
We've got to teach spiritual balance.
You have got to represent that in your
life.
And I feel this is one of the
goals in terms of basic spiritual training.
Don't think balance comes into a brother through
going to one OM conference and hearing a
message even by someone who may be very
gifted on that subject that that's going to
produce spiritual balance.
It's learned out in the highways and hedges
as your team sees you react to different
situations.
How do you react?
Let's take a little inventory.
When everything goes wrong on the team.
How do you react when you're criticized?
How do you react when someone openly opposes
you in the morning devotions?
They're not supposed to do that, but they
do it.
And our reactions are often more a difficult
area of spiritual struggle than our actions.
How do you react?
I'm very concerned about this because I believe
that some leaders seem to be specialists in
putting younger Christians into a guilt trip.
How do you handle a brother who's just
come back from breaking one of the OM's
25 major rules?
Now, they should be keeping rules.
We don't want people living in the dark.
But your reaction to them when they break
that rule is more important than whether they
broke the rule.
And if you don't react in patience, love,
discernment, and balance, beloved, you have just broken
a bigger rule.
God's social rule.
And I feel it's so important to react
properly and compassionately to people when they break
rules.
If someone steals from your team, you don't
break their heart.
That's what they do in Saudi Arabia.
They chop it all.
But you talk to them.
Why was he stealing?
Could it be that your team treasurer is
such a cotton-picking scrooge, to give the
terminology, that no one would ever in his
right mind ask him for money?
He'd rather steal from the book sales.
That's easy.
I can teach him many ways how to
teach to steal from the OM book sales.
You have to be a real idiot not
to be able to get away with that.
And many do it.
They think they're clever and be sure their
sin will find them out.
But could it be that the extremism in
guarding the money in India, Lord Protector, that's
what Judas was, has created an extremism that
has caused people to steal.
It happens in Europe, much less India.
And this is why in everything we do
there must be spiritual balance.
Let me jump ahead on a few things
and then come back to the subject of
balance.
I want to just mention a few other
goals lest we leave out something important.
One of our main goals after training these
men in spiritual life is to train and
mobilize local Christians.
Train and mobilize local Christians.
You want to use other terminology?
Revival of the church.
Revival of the church through prayer, through preaching.
I see several ways that we disciple and
influence people in O.M. One way is
when they become part of us.
They join our team, right?
There's a danger in O.M., especially O
.M. India, that we think that's the only
way to be discipled, join O.M. We
must understand there's another whole area where we
can disciple people in the context of their
own culture.
Not taking them out of their culture.
Not telling them leave your job, leave your
home, join the O.M. women's team.
We must turn down some of these women,
my dear sisters.
We cannot take so many women.
How many of you heard me say that?
So, therefore, we must learn to disciple them
in their culture.
Bible studies.
Living with them maybe on a weekend of
training.
You can have a weekend of training and
a lot of contact without dragging them off
for a two-year program.
And I'm convinced Dennis Alexander is one of
the strongest proponents of this section over here.
He believes O.M. is way off.
Always thinking, got to join the team, got
to go to the O.M. conference, got
to go on the summer crusade.
It's like a record in O.M. I
still believe in that.
But I can see the weaknesses in that.
And I believe we've got to do both.
This team can have an enormous input in
this group of people that never maybe read
the discipleship manual.
And don't believe in our social policy.
But they do love Jesus.
And you know, this group around the world,
they are the people that's supporting this work.
And many of them have never been in
O.M. A lot of people, and this
breaks my heart, they come in O.M.
and they go and they never send a
rupee back to support this ministry.
And I want to tell you, if you
think we're discipling all these brothers in an
in-depth way that come in our teams,
you're crazy.
I'm being too blunt.
You're crazy.
Give, give, give, give.
We are now in need.
We are now plowing our backs.
I want to see if people are going
to turn around and give.
But if they don't, I won't be disappointed
to despair because I've already been disappointed so
much in life.
I don't think I can go any further.
It's going to be all uphill from now
on.
I've gone down, I think, as far as
I can ever go.
God's chosen people, so often God's frozen people.
I would rather we cut down and train
200, yay, 100 men to be absolutely revolutionary,
absolutely unselfish, absolutely radical if it takes five
years than this great mass of people who
go through this program.
They go out and somehow they didn't catch
it.
They didn't catch it.
Unselfishness, Christ-likeness, brokenness, tract distribution.
Some of them don't even catch that.
Beloved, some of the message that we declare
is a hard message.
It's a radical message.
You don't pick it up on a weekend.
But let's understand this.
If we increase our prayer life, probably one
of the greatest needs in the work worldwide,
if we increase our prayer life, then I
believe the Lord would lead us more to
prepared people, even within this category over here,
not ready to join OM, yet hungry for
God.
They get some OM books.
They meet an on-fire team.
This is where I've seen the ship just
do unbelievable things, unbelievable things.
They come into a port.
The Spirit of God has prepared people.
And sometimes people seem to go further in
a week than some people in OM in
two years.
You know in Europe, some people after the
end of the two-year program, you know
where they are?
They're defeated, discouraged, bitter, hearts full of unforgiveness.
Some of them go home and that's the
end.
Now praise God, not many.
Spirituality does not come automatically.
It's not a matter of how many teams
we have.
It's not a matter of how many are
on the team.
What's happening in their lives in terms of
in-depth, long-term, deeper walk with God
and all the reality that is involved in
that.
And with small teams, we can affect the
churches.
If there's even one man on the team
who has an anointed ministry, together with a
praying team and some powerful books, we can
affect the churches.
We can affect the churches.
I know it's hard.
I know it's long-term.
We all know what Worthing Tabernacle has done
for OM.
But very few people know how many years
we've been involved and how many hours and
how many sermons and how many journeys and
how many sermons and personal conversations are involved
to build that relationship.
Now that was already a live church, but
not to the missionary vision and degree and
intensity for the pastor for launching out every
six months in evangelistic crusades in the innermost
parts of the earth and the church happy
about it and actually commending workers.
If we could build some in-depth church
relationships in India, I believe we could eventually
move to the place where churches would be
commending people to OM, financed and commended to
OM.
I know it's idealistic.
I know it's way down the road.
Let's at least aim in that direction.
Then we could have two avenues of keeping
people long-term in OM.
Follow this because it's very important and we're
going to discuss it.
Number one, we feel that a person can
stay on.
We can't take them anymore in this category
at present, but we feel just so strongly
he must stay on.
The Lord has given testimony to this in
a number of ways and so we take
him on and he has to basically live
by book sales or by the book sales
of the group or we have to bring
in subsidy, which we're trying to cut down
so that the work can be more indigenous.
That's the way we do it now.
But if somehow we could develop this in
-depth relationship with churches, they could really get
to know what OM is, the way we
live.
To do that, it may mean some suffering.
Then there could be the second avenue in
which we'd say to a brother, look, we
can't keep you in if it's going to
be the tent-making thing.
The tent has just collapsed.
In other words, there's just not enough money
from the book sales and even from the
gifts to keep another person.
Many organizations evaluate every single new individual, every
single one on the basis of budget.
They simply say, you know, one of the
great movements in this country is the student
group, the EU.
Why?
If they had the money in one sense,
they could have a thousand more workers, I
believe, or at least several hundred.
But each new full-time staff member with
that group is carefully calculated on the basis
of budget.
Now, I may be wrong if I am
incorrect.
That's the way it was when I researched
it and talked to people who were in
it.
Whereas I am, we're very, very sort of
cavalier, you know, let's all go.
If each state just takes a little bit
of liberty, there's ten states, it seems, about
ten, then automatically we've got, before we know
what happens, 50 more people all who need
to live.
And when they get married, and when little
Johnny comes and little Sally, whatever you call
them over here, Monju, when she comes along,
she's got to go to school, you're talking
about a lot of money.
And to presume this just keeps falling out
of Europe is one of the greatest mistakes
that we could ever make in this world.
So if eventually we could develop this second
method, which is, by the way, the method
we use everywhere else in the world, misunderstood
greatly, thought as, oh, we just pray in
our money.
That terminology alone is so confusing people don't
know what we're talking about.
The OM policy is a combination of praying
in the money and believing that the local
church should support the people.
I already talked to you about Singapore.
I could give you a few other stories
to help it all stay in balance.
And the reason we have chosen the tent
-making road in India, it evolved that way,
is there was no way in the early
days that churches were going to support people
and send them on Operation Mobilization.
Only in the past five years are they
supporting missionaries in their own denomination.
Many of you could leave OM now and
your denomination would support you, right?
But your denomination or your church will not
support you as long as you remain in
Operation Mobilization.
That's why some of you ought to go
join your denomination.
Blow it up!
In love, of course.
Praise God!
I've heard that this brother Shantiji is now
a leader, a key leader in the Methodist
Church in Gujarat.
Praise the Lord for that.
There are others scattered around, exilers, infiltrating the
church.
We always have the two types.
We have those that infiltrate the established churches
and work toward revival and new life.
We have those that don't like that.
They go crazy if they're in that kind
of ministry.
They can't even bear the translation of the
Bible they're reading in that church, much less
all the people.
So they go down the road, the SNDASs,
and they plant new churches.
Hallelujah!
We're happy either way.
We don't want to be narrow.
If you bring revival to the cathedral in
Calcutta or even to the Assembly of God
Church, I guess they don't think they need
it, but if you go out anywhere, we'll
be happy.
Or if you go out like SNDAS and
Brother Sakar and others across the country and
start new churches, we'll be happy.
You can't expect OM, an interdenominational movement, to
just take one road or the other.
Different OMers have different preferences.
Even Peter Main and I are different in
this area.
Peter Main's from the Brethren background, and he's
one of the most open-minded among the
Brethren.
But he's still in the local Brethren church,
and he's consulting the elders, and he's in
submission to them and so forth.
And I tried, I thought about that, and
I went along to the little Brethren establishment
in Bromley, Louis Street, Assembly.
If you blink your eyes walking down the
main street, you miss it.
And I just, you know, my wife couldn't
even bear it.
I mean, I could have, I could have,
I could have survived.
I love the people there, and I don't
mind hearing the same prayer every week for
several weeks.
We're all different.
I just heard today that Joseph D'Souza comes
from a tight Brethren assembly.
You guys ought to get together.
And the day they send him his first
gift for world evangelism and reaching North India
for Christ, we'll all get together and put
the tight Brethren up one more notch.
And the day they send him
his first gift for world evangelism and we'll
all get the tight Brethren And the day
they send him his first gift for world
the tight Brethren up one more notch.
And the day they send him his first
the tight Brethren out one more notch.
And the day they emphases, and you're willing
to tolerate OM for a while.
Now, I'm teaching you things that you've got
to teach others.
I'm teaching you things maybe you've never heard.
So when you're in OM, you tolerate OM.
You'd maybe like a little more tongue-speaking.
You'd maybe like a little more healing.
You'd maybe like more prophecy.
These things are very important to many churches.
We have prayed about these things.
We've discussed them.
We have been very open to God, but
we don't believe that with what God wants
to do with us today, that these particular
gifts, which we do not despise, would be
useful at the present time in the present
situation.
But if you leave, and you go down
the road, or even when you're in OM
on Sunday in your own church, if you
feel more strongly that way, nobody's going to
judge you.
We've infiltrated a large percentage of all large
Pentecostal movements in the world with a message
and the emphasis on balance, and the book
Love Covers.
God is using it among those people.
Many other emphasis, and leading more balanced Pentecostal
people greatly respect OM.
Many, many balanced Brethren people who don't agree
fully with us, because if anything, the Brethren
won't.
They want to baptize you.
I mean, that's...
In the years gone by, they would, you
know, almost tackle you going down the road
and get you in the baptistery.
Now, that's interesting because Darby and the exclusive
Brethren still baptize children.
You probably, of course, already knew that bit
of church history.
The exclusive Brethren still teach infant baptism.
So, obviously, they had a little disagreement, even
in the very early days.
And I'm convinced, or let me just say
this, there are many men in the Brethren,
leaders, who would totally agree with everything in
OM.
We're a little too broad for that.
But they'd love to send their children to
be with us for a summer or a
year.
And because they've seen so many children in
the Brethren go completely atheist or agnostic, they'd
be willing to compromise and even have them
become OMers if they went on for Christ.
You know, I don't care if my son
is here.
It's not fair.
But I don't care if my children, they
grow up and decide to join YWAM.
I don't care if they go to where
my one son goes in the mornings to
the Bradford House Fellowship Stream, which, you know,
I don't think is the greatest, most balanced
thing going in Britain today.
Well, in the evening, he goes down to
another church.
He's still sort of, you know, deciding which
direction he should go in.
My daughter thinks most all the churches are
absolutely boring and dull, so I don't know
where she's going to go to.
She thinks OM is great, but I don't
know if she'll ever join.
But, you know, that is not my big
thing.
I think most of us who are parents
are just so thrilled just to see our
children going on for Christ.
There is a sense in OM where the
standard is too high.
It's too high.
You're going to drive people crazy, some of
you, if you don't come down a little
bit.
You're going to drive your own children crazy.
People don't live up here the way sometimes
in OM we at least get the idea
we should live.
And sometimes the heavy guilt trip we put
on them when they fail.
So our burden is to train, to mobilize
the church, to work for revival within the
church.
There are many ways we can do this,
and each state has freedom.
Some don't do much in this area.
Well, there's so many other things you can
do.
Nobody's going to jump on you.
Bangladesh doesn't want to do much in this
area.
They want to plant churches among the Muslims.
They're working in a totally different situation than
most of us, in a totally different historical
context.
Though I would not be opposed to the
possibility of one team getting involved with an
apostolic church planter in planting a Muslim group.
I don't think we're ready to do that
on our own.
There's a lot that can be said about
that.
And then one of our goals is still
mass evangelism.
Mass evangelism.
This was one of the marks of OM
in India.
And I may have not said this completely
before, but whereas some talk about reaching unreached
people, I think many who know OM know
that this is what we have been doing.
Do you know that many of the people
you have reached all over India in the
last 17 years are classified as totally unreached?
Totally unreached, hidden people's groups.
You met them in the markets, you met
them in the open airs, you gave them
the gospel.
None of that information is in the computer.
That's why I really believe on the basis
of what even OM India has done, the
statistics for unreached people are false.
And to a degree, they're actually lies.
They give a false impression.
Because in India alone, we have reached over
200 million people.
And a lot of those were in these
so-called hidden groups because we weren't smart
enough.
And I wonder how smart they were when
they launched out in the Book of Acts.
Will you tell me how much of all
this computerized information they had in the Book
of Acts?
Forgive me if I overstate it, but I
still believe a little more of the Holy
Spirit and a little less red tape, ticker
tape and computer tape, would help us get
the job done.
I really believe that.
Now, one of the problems is definition.
Some are saying nobody is reached until there
is a church in their midst that speaks
that language.
I don't agree with that.
Because some people are resistant, they've had the
gospel, they've had literature, they've been preached at
and we've talked to them face-to-face.
Now, I believe we can say, depending on
where we draw the line, perhaps we could
say they're among the un-evangelized.
Certainly no church growth there.
I think we've left out a chunk of
terminology that's very important.
That there are different levels of reaching people.
And that a movement like OM have reached
people, even hidden peoples and unreached people, in
a very basic level that to a large
degree the church has very little interest in.
Do not think that church planting is the
new thing.
Church planting is the oldest thing in missions.
Every mission group has been involved in church
planting minus very few.
I'm not speaking here of help organizations like
literature organizations.
I'm talking about African Inland Mission, TEAM, any
of the big missions.
They plant churches.
And the parent church groups, get this in
your head, have done more church planting than
some of the church-church groups.
This is interesting, isn't it?
And I believe that in the context of
where India was when we came here 20
years ago, this kind of mass evangelism, coupled
with the training, was more radical and more
important at that time than church planting.
Because if we had just gotten church planting,
we'd probably been stuck in a couple of
states.
Probably the way we were, we'd all failed
anyway.
Now, we have some missiologists that are telling
us to stop doing what we're doing here
and all go to the tribes because they
respond.
Number one, if we as foreigners especially go
to the tribes, we're all going to end
up over in Pakistan.
Now, Mike Wakely wouldn't mind.
We are dealing with heavy security problems that
are being faced in countries all over the
world.
I feel that tribal work must be done
outside of Operation Mobilization.
An interdenominational mission running on foreign money to
some degree cannot be heavily involved in tribal
work in India at this time.
Individuals who don't care, it's a separate situation.
Praise God for the number of ex-OM
people who are going into tribal work.
To me, this is why OM is so
exciting because when people leave us, they go
into all these ministries that are on your
heart.
We can't do all these things ourselves.
We're limited by many factors.
We may deal with that another day.
The limitations we've got to face about ourselves
and where we are.
But the people that graduate, that receive this
training, that get this foundation of reality in
spiritual life, are going into all kinds of
ministries.
I feel that if an area is responsive,
if an area is responsive, there is less
need for OM.
Because if it is responsive, history has shown
many groups will soon be working there.
There are some exceptions.
And it's horrible when there's response and no
one goes.
And we need to tell the Indian church
about these areas.
We need to get this information out.
Maybe our new newspaper that we put out
can be somewhat linked with reaching the unreached
or something.
I don't know.
That would be, again, politically perhaps a problem.
But the Indian church must take the responsibility
of the tribals and must take the larger
share of the responsibility where there is response.
Existing denominations, existing movements.
What in the world is Bhaktsingh's group all
sitting back in Andhra and Tamil Nadu?
I've been trying to tell him and his
people for 20 years to move out.
I can't believe how deep they are stuck.
And I'd be happy to send them the
tape.
Because he is not afraid to speak out
boldly.
And some of the things he says are
nonsense.
And so I'm not afraid to speak out
boldly, knowing sometimes what I say is also
nonsense.
Maybe from some of the mixture of nonsense
we will get sense.
But you see, people are telling us only
go where the church is growing.
People really put down this kind of work
some of you are in.
Going among Muslims.
They're not responding.
Nonsense.
Praise God, even some of the people who
were saying that 10 years ago have changed
their message.
They've changed their message.
We were too dumb, maybe too much filled
with faith to feel that we should give
up on Muslims 20 years ago because they
were not responsive and still are not responding.
Except in Indonesia.
And a few very tiny experimental projects.
Unless you think Bangladesh is anything more than
that at this present stage.
I believe we must continue with mass evangelism.
Not to the sacrifice of the other more
important goals.
And I believe that literature is valid especially
among church people who will not give generally
to this kind of evangelism.
We've been forced by the providence of God.
Such is the history of the church, my
beloved.
Such is the history of the church.
The providence of God has forced us into
a tent-making strategy that sometimes we don't
like.
Sometimes we don't like book-selling.
It doesn't sound spiritual, does it?
Say, he's a book-seller compared to he's
planting a church.
I mean, it's obvious.
The one is a graduate.
He's graduated from the book-selling and he's
now a church planter.
To keep that in balance, you may go
interview some of the church planters across India
and see what they do during the eight
-hour day in which they live.
If you want to get a depression, make
a tour of the nation, one end of
the coast to the other.
Why?
Because some have gone prematurely into a ministry
that is way over their heads.
And they have to sit down and write
letters all over the world in order to
get finance so that they can go one
more week because they're in a dead-end
street.
It's hard.
And we need a lot of wisdom in
that area.
Yes, I believe in church planting.
I don't believe a main strategy of OIM
India is direct church planting, but I believe
indirectly OIM India is going to result in
the planting of hundreds of churches perhaps in
the next even few years.
And if it doesn't happen, I don't think
we should put ourselves under a triple guilt
trip.
We've been proclaiming this, we've been teaching it,
we've been practicing this to some degree, and
if the church doesn't respond, we can only
go so far.
And you're going to beat yourself into a
spiritual pulp if you think you can just
do it without the church because we're part
of the church.
When I speak of the church, I speak
of live churches based on God's Word where
people love Jesus Christ, although they may be
as dead as doornails and as visionless as
bats.
They're still God's people, and the scales can
fall off, and things can happen.
And it's amazing what's happened to the Kennedy
Explosion Program in some parts of the world
through other programs like Evangelism in Depth in
Latin America.
In the next few years in O.M.
India, one of our major strategies should be
to push the work, the vision, and the
task back into the hands of the church
where it belongs at least to a large
degree.
We can be a voice, we can be
an avant-garde force, we can be those
traveling teams we see in the Book of
Acts that minister to churches and that launch
out planting the seed hoping that as the
church follows or someone follows, even an individual,
there can be the follow-up and a
new church born.
This will have to be worked out in
every area of India.
And then, to bring this to a close,
let me mention a few of these areas
of balance.
I was going to meet with the state
leaders at 5, but I felt it was
better just to go on because, you know,
when the water is flowing, I like to
not turn it off because I may not
get it all tomorrow.
And I have the state leaders for endless
hours and I feel these things need to
be heard by everyone.
But here are some of the areas we're
going to have to work for balance if
this strategy is going to be carried out.
There's a lot more I can say about
strategy.
Strategy is easy to sort of say, but
it takes a lot to defy, you know,
and we'll be doing that in the next
three days because I believe even such things
as seeing Indians going out to other areas
of the world is included even if it
be on the smallest beginning stage level.
And there are other things I'd like to
say.
But if this is going to be carried
out, there's going to be some balance and
these are some areas we've got to work
on.
You know, number one, the balance between state
strategy, national strategy, and international policy and some
degree strategy.
Never ending issues.
Now, we all know our brother John Lee
has a tremendous vision for West Bengal.
It's wonderful to be able to speak openly
about these things.
God is obviously moving, unless I'm reading the
reports wrong, in West Bengal.
People are responding, especially from the villages.
So he's got some visions.
He's submitted three, four pages of visions.
He's strong-minded.
He says at the end, great, if you
come along with us, I mean, if you
go along with us, great.
Otherwise, well, maybe I read it wrong.
He said, I'm going anyway.
I mean, we all know that's John Lee.
Onward, Christian soldiers.
Great.
Here we are, back in London, you know,
just hanging on to OM International, and we
see suddenly revival in West Bengal, or church
growth, or John Lee growth, or whatever.
So we're going to discuss that.
That is not going to be easy.
Let's all be praying about what we're going
to talk about in West Bengal.
This is a leader's thing.
We all can know about this.
Then we don't have to all, you know,
we all meet in the toilets.
What did we say in that session?
We're going to talk about West Bengal.
And, you know, if we come out of
the meeting, and John's hair is all, and
I've got a patch on my eye, you'll
know we've really had a heavy discussion.
I don't know if we'll let Janice come.
State strategy, national strategy, how is what perhaps
our brother wants to do in West Bengal,
how does that fit into what everybody else
wants to do?
I remember a brother who was a leader,
one of the most interesting we ever had.
We used to think if he had his
way, every truck would be in his state,
everybody with any maturity would be in his
state, and I would leave, surely Bombay or
London, and join his team as a literature
man.
Slight exaggeration, but you got the point.
We've got to pray together, and we've got
to see where we're going nationally, what are
the problems, what about the money?
Everything costs money.
And then how much can we do in
that state?
What about the neighboring state?
What about the state next door?
We just can't do everything, because I think
many of us already realize, at times OIM
India seems to be a breaking point.
I know that Ray at times wants to
get out.
I know that.
Because anybody in that job, it just blows
your mind to think of all that's happening,
and all the cross-sections of opinions and
ideas and criticisms.
It's a heavy responsibility to me, this work.
There are not many in the church that
have ever done it.
Do you know that Michael Griffiths just resigned
from the OMF?
And I know that one of the reasons
is the intensity of leading that number of
people.
The travel it demanded, away from his family.
And he just felt he had to settle,
children, this thing, that thing.
He left a mission, long-term commitment.
He's a man of long-term commitment.
He left the mission.
He's now the president of London Bible College.
Some of us missionary fanatics feel that's a
bit of a side road for a guy
like Michael Griffiths, really.
But we've decided not to judge him.
Because the Holy Spirit usually handles things better
than some of us who are sitting on
the edge of the ballpark or the cricket
patch, not patch, the cricket pitch.
You know, just evaluating people at a distance.
We do too much of this at OMF.
Evaluating people from a distance.
Many times, even our leaders, when they're judging
other parts of OMF, they don't know what
they're talking about.
They don't know what they're talking about.
They have what I call, diarrhea of the
mouth.
Obviously, that's not an Indian expression.
But it's an expression very commonly used, especially
in certain countries.
Not usually on television.
States, strategy, national strategy, international policy.
We might say, what do these people internationally
have to do with us?
Well, who's sending the money?
Who's sending the workers?
Who's paying the bills?
We are committed to each other.
What you do here affects us there.
The whole work is affected by this fire.
I dare to say some overseas are more
under the burden of that fire than some
of you in this room.
Not Alfie or Rudy, who's had all of
his equipment go up.
But maybe some others, who just by temperament,
by your own way, I mean, the fire
in Bombay, how many of you fasted and
prayed automatically without anybody telling you?
Just for that.
Had a special prayer, or maybe decided to
send some of the money and stashed home
in a safety deposit account to help get
out of the fire fund.
It's interesting how people pray for money.
They hardly ever think that maybe they should
do some giving.
And I believe we are deeply involved in
a national and an international movement in which
we've got to constantly work for understanding and
balance and sympathy.
In the long run, through unity, we're going
to accomplish more in each individual state, even
though at times they will have to compromise
what they are dreaming about temporarily.
The history of OM is a history of
compromise.
I've had to compromise some of my deepest
dreams just to survive in the movement, so
I'm not afraid to ask other people to
compromise as well.
And then the balance...
Let me just see how much tape I
have here.
The balance...
between tent making and other forms of evangelism.
Tent making means book selling.
Praise God.
The kind of tent making we do really
isn't tent making.
It's a ministry in itself.
Paul was making tents.
Dennis Alexander works in a secular job.
That's what...
really what tent making is.
We wouldn't have to call our book ministry
tent making.
It's a ministry in itself.
We wouldn't care if you made any money.
The fact that you do make money in
this type of situation with a church the
way it is is key to growth.
But a ministry of books is valuable in
itself.
It's valuable in itself.
Don't stop doing it when you leave OM
simply because you don't need the cash.
And it seems that we need to train
our people more thoroughly in all the aspects
of book selling.
There should be a four-lecture series on
book selling, not a one-lecture series.
If you give one lecture to it, you're
esteeming it for what it is in many
people's minds.
Very, very little.
We need a number of lectures somehow, locally.
Study program.
I feel some of the things we teach
in the study programs are things the young
people use very little.
They can't keep all that in their head.
I study the Bible as much as most.
What I've studied, what I can use is
a long distance.
I was a fairly high student at Bible
College.
In my theology course, my doctrine course, church
history, I knew that book.
And today, I can't give you a lot
of that material.
I can give you other material.
But I believe together with theology and doctrine,
we need to give them that which they're
living in.
Six days a week in OM.
That's their very bread and butter.
We have a naive, immature view about life.
And if book selling isn't enough, let's train
some more mechanics.
Let's train women how to sew.
Let's train people how to be secretaries.
Let people, when they go from OM, have
a skill that they can use to work
in this difficult world.
Not everybody going from OM is going to
be an evangelist, a pastor, or a teacher.
It's a great grief to my life in
Bangladesh that so many, when they leave OM,
the only thing they can do is go
on the missionary dole.
I call it the missionary dole.
You become a little worker for a mission,
receive a little salary, and do whatever they
tell you.
A really indigenous church worker.
I will tell you, they're in tremendous inner
struggles in Bangladesh about the strategy there.
India is far, far more advanced in church
situation.
You can get in an indigenous movement when
you leave OM, and even be supported by
Indian money.
Bangladesh is not anywhere near, neither are most
countries.
And a lot to thank God for.
And some of you, when you're mature, and
you know this kind of thing we're talking
about in these days, you're not going to
have any trouble getting a job.
There are organizations that are looking for mature,
disciplined, spirit-filled, balanced men.
But they're scared of extremists.
They don't want lazy people.
And I know, it doesn't always just fall
out of the tree.
The balance between that which is keeping us
going financially, it also makes us more of
an indigenous movement, it's that which has gained
us respect.
In India, in a day when men living
by faith were, their credibility was at an
all-time low.
Believe me, it was at an all-time
low.
Those who were going around living by faith.
Because most of them ended up begging for
money.
The fact that you work hard to make
at least a part of your money, at
least your food, that's what I've always said,
at least our food can be purchased.
A lot of our clothing, the Lord gives
us in different ways.
And that will make us at least semi
-indigenous and will gain the respect and the
credibility of other people.
People today in India are often more impressed
with hard work than they are with big
prayers.
So when it is, when we're in the
age of skepticism, and we know people that
get and pray big prayers and don't know
how to work hard, we cannot produce that
kind of person.
I'll bring this to a close.
But could someone find out if supper is
actually ready?
It's always good to close just as the
supper comes out.
The other forms of evangelism, we believe in
them, especially for the women.
I believe, oh, in India, it's much more
difficult for women.
Therefore, we need more flexibility.
We need more open-mindedness, new strategies, new
ways of doing things, Bible study groups, work
among nurses.
Personally, I'm so open on this.
In some ways, I don't care what you
do as women.
If you love Jesus and you live in
the life, tell us what you want to
do.
And if it isn't completely screwy, you know,
we're going to, I think, give you the
go-ahead.
Of course, sometimes things we want to do
are not possible for other reasons.
We may give the go-ahead and then
something else stops you.
And I think that it, it's amazing how
the women have continued at book selling.
It's distinctly non-feminine, isn't it?
Ooh, rubs against your very feminine instincts.
I don't know how we can improve that.
I think one thing is to add cookbooks
and sewing books to the women's arsenal.
It's interesting how women all over the world
sell things and they don't consider it anti
-feminine.
You join around the door to door, it's
anti-feminine.
Maybe we should have book parties where we
go in somebody's house and we invite people
to come in.
They're probably already doing this.
Women all over the world.
Again, not so much in India.
I realize we're distinct culture, distinct cultural problems.
I wish we could get a one-hour
lecture from Indira Gandhi on how she's done
it.
But I don't know if she sells books.
She sells a lot of other things.
But I believe that somehow the women's work
is just so beautiful and so vital and
it involves a lot of different forms of
evangelism.
I think we have been incredibly open with
letting people do new things.
Films.
Open air preaching.
What does O.M. not do, would you
tell me?
In forms of evangelism.
Now Rudy, he's always got some new idea.
Blacklights.
What do you do with blacklights?
Shine them in people's faces they can't see
and get them in the church and lead
them to Christ.
Well, blacklights.
And then gospel tricks.
We've got people standing up playing with ropes.
And people think the local Zuku is there
in town.
Then we present them the gospel.
I'm not so convinced about all these things
you do in India.
But you won't find me interfering.
That's your business.
That's a state-wide decision.
Unless something really goes wrong.
But in all the other things, beloved, if
you want to eat, I'm telling you straight,
if you want to eat, you're going to
sell books.
Because that's the method God has given us.
Now if your church says, we don't want
you to sell books.
We're going to send you back to O
.M. Here's your monthly support.
Then we'll talk about a change of strategy.
Because that's action.
If we just talk about other things, it
doesn't become reality.
We put the pressure on.
Ray and I haven't always totally agreed.
I gave him the go-ahead.
Put the pressure on everybody to pray in
so much money.
Some have done it, many have not.
Others have found a lot of guilt by
this.
Others have started to write to friends across
the world.
We don't want you to get your money
from California.
That's not the way O.M. is being
led of God.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have abandoned the United States
22 years ago.
We want you to pray a breakthrough in
your own church.
We want the Indian church to come of
age and do what the Bible commands.
And if she doesn't do it that way,
then we don't want it.
We're willing for a few exceptions.
We're not judging others who do it that
way.
But if everybody else is doing it that
way, then we're going to do it the
other way.
It's either book sales or the church in
India changing, responding, sacrificing, or giving.
We're not going to send money back when
it comes from overseas even to your name.
And we've been helping XO Embers in more
ways than people will ever know.
So we can help in these ways, but
at the same time we know in what
direction we want to go.
And that's going to help the church come
of age in regard to missions where other
things is only going to hinder the church
from becoming of age and taking on her
God-given responsibility.
I saw that especially in Mexico.
And then lastly, the balance, we'll have many
other areas of balance, between training, the training,
the discipling, the building up of the brother,
and the work.
There shouldn't be contradiction, but often there are
problems.
So much work.
Alfie would like to be, I'm sure, more
time training people, preaching, teaching.
He does some of that, but he's got
a mountain of work that some of it
is at a desk.
There's nothing unspiritual about sitting at a desk.
Forgive me if I've given that impression.
The most godly men that have ever lived
have spent weeks, months, years at desks doing
the translations of the Bible, writing to people
letters of compassion.
Desk work can be as spiritual as preaching.
In fact, I'm more effective reaching people with
my pen than I ever have been in
the open air.
Because in my open air I lose my
voice.
I've already had one operation, and I better
just be a little careful in the open
air with my temperament.
Because if you think I get excited and
start going into orbit, here, you can imagine,
in the middle of an Indian market, I
once shouted over at least five or ten
or twenty hawkers, all kinds of screaming babies,
peddlers.
I let my voice go full volume and
stopped them all.
What's this?
It's just some kind of outer space American
cockroach that's landed in the marketplace.
But when I use my pen, my voice
gets some relaxation, and that's very, very helpful.
These are some things that just burn on
my heart.
I think about them again and again.
I know each one of you has to
modify this.
We have to discuss it and then see
how it's going to work in your state,
even more, in your own life.
But I believe, to a large degree, these
are things we can agree upon.
Listen to this tape again.
Go over these notes again.
Better to get one set of very basic
concepts deep in your heart than endless things
on the superficial edge of your intellectual system.
Because, you know, if we don't have some
degree of like-mindedness, it's just going to
become chaotic out here.
There's going to be more and more divisions
and contentions and arguments, more and more differences
between what we're doing in one state and
another.
Ultimately, we won't even be able to recognize
the work if we're not careful.
You know, one of my favorite quotes, one
of the few quotes of my own that
I give so that I don't forget, because
of world evangelism and the reality of the
spiritual warfare, we need to agree on a
plan of action and a strategy and a
policy to carry out that action, even when
there are things we don't like or agree
with.
Beloved, you're not going to agree with everything
that I say.
You're not even going to understand everything.
I'm still learning myself.
But I believe to some degree these are
our goals and should continue to be our
goals with plenty of flexibility to be able
to accomplish what the Holy Spirit wants.
And when the team goes out, George Brewer
isn't there or Alfie, it's just you before
God, hopefully with some basic principles and then
God's direct line of communication, what to do
on that day.
There needs to be more planning.
There is not enough planning.
Planning is not anti-Holy Spirit.
Leaders should not send a team, unless it's
a special exception, into a program that is
not being planned, prayed through, prayer mobilized around
the world.
If you do that, you're going to see
a lot more happen.
There can still be the spontaneous times.
I believe in that.
I gave men 24-hour notice at Lagos
and Goa.
We launched out, especially in seed sowing and
blitzing.
That doesn't need so much planning.
But the more in-depth kind of work
you want to do, staying in an area,
following up, mobilizing the church, it needs planning.
It needs a lot.