1 Corinthians 9, a familiar passage.
I really want to thank you for praying.
I don't take that lightly.
I believe God's work, as I'm sure you've
heard me say before, is done through prayer.
I believe O.M.'s greatest victories and greatest
defeats are on the same sentence.
The victories have been the lessons we've learned
in prayer, the times we've persevered in prayer.
Perhaps O.M.'s strongest point, and at the
same time the thing that concerns me the
most in O.M. is not the lack
of money, but the lack of prayer.
People who still are not experiencing personal reality
in their own prayer lives and in the
prayer fellowship, in the half-nights of prayer.
And it's easy in O.M. to take
these things for granted.
Perhaps I have the privilege that most of
my life has lived outside of O.M.
these days.
It hasn't always been that way.
When I was directing the Lagos ministry years
ago in India, many of my years have
been spent very much within the O.M.
community.
But now I'm more on the road, out
of the community, leading, often, nights of prayer
for other people.
Tomorrow I'm all day with YWAM and their
whole national conference of all their workers in
the whole country.
And as some of you know, I've been
with Campus Crusade for the last short time,
Expo in Berlin, where four and a half
thousand were gathered.
And I was asked to lead the prayer
time, sort of extended prayer time in Birmingham,
before going over to Berlin.
And you know, it's amazing, people just so
appreciate these meetings.
In fact, in the Birmingham meeting, after sharing
these very short sentences on the unreached people,
I asked how many had never really been
gripped with this before, what the whole thing
of world vision and the unreached people is
all about.
Ninety percent raised their hand that they never
had really seen this before.
That's about 2,000 people.
And I think one of the greatest dangers
in O.M. is we become so accustomed
to spiritual things.
And a night of prayer, for some it's
a bore, for others they don't bother to
go.
For others it's, of course, a chore.
Not that we expect it always to be
easy, because we don't.
Just imagine in the Soviet Union if they
had a privilege for a prayer meeting like
this.
I will tell you, with the information we
have, they would, you know, can't believe it.
The most appreciative people, I think, in my
ministry in the past weeks was just a
few days ago in East Berlin, Communist Germany.
And going through the famous checkpoint Charlie, which
you see in all these spy films, too
many of which I have watched, is quite
an experience.
You know, you're just waiting for someone to
shoot.
But it was all rather dull, actually.
Except the meetings and the privilege of meeting
these believers who, you know, just are so
appreciative of people willing to come from the
West.
And they want to give.
Their money isn't worth anything out of East
Germany.
One dear lady came to me and gave
me her watch right off her wrist.
And she said, I'd like you to give
this to a Christian worker in the West.
Do you think anybody could use it?
And I was reluctant, but I said I'd
try to get it to someone in India.
And I took it.
I wondered, you know, going back through the
checkpoint Charlie, am I going to find this
woman's watch on my arm?
And somehow it was late at night, and
they didn't even have any customs inspection going
out of East Germany.
Anyway, it's good to be back for this
short time.
And I thank you for praying, and I
know many of you have prayed.
And I know that it's more difficult, at
least for some people, week after week to
be in the same somewhat chilly location interceding
than it is to have perhaps the variety
I face in praying with so many different
people.
Anyway, 1 Corinthians 9 is the New Year's
message the Lord gave me that I shared
this past Sunday evening in a tremendous sending
church up near Birmingham, back here in England.
And I just thought I'd share a few
thoughts from this before I share prayer burdens.
Verse 24, 1 Corinthians 9.
Know ye not that they who run in
a race run all, but one receiveth the
prize, so run that ye may obtain.
Every man that striveth for the mastery is
temperate or self-controlled in all things.
They do it to obtain a corruptible crown,
but we an incorruptible.
I therefore so run, not as uncertainly so
fight I, not as one that beateth the
air.
But I keep under my body and bring
it into subjection, lest that by any means
when I have preached to others I myself
should be a castaway.
Is this the first night of prayer for
the New Year?
Did you have one last Tuesday?
You did.
Well, that's great.
And was last Tuesday New Year's Eve?
That's even better yet.
But if it went past midnight, then you
prayed into the New Year.
Otherwise, this is your first prayer meeting in
the New Year.
I don't think it's too late in the
year to set goals, and I hope you
will be setting realistic goals for 1986.
And I often think of this exhortation, so
fight I, not as one that beateth the
air.
The person, the team, the fellowship that doesn't
have goals is easily the fellowship or individual
that is beating the air.
And God wants to give us personal goals.
Some people type up goal sheet.
I remember one of the leaders from India
typed up his goal sheet when he was
headed back for a year home in Canada.
So I wrote him just recently.
I said, could I have a summary of
how you did on the goals?
I think I sent him a photocopy.
And I got a very interesting reply back.
Most of us idealistic zealots fall short of
the goals that we set, but better to
have goals and fall short than have no
goals and drift or beat the air.
Sometimes, occasionally, I meet people who are on
OM beating the air, and the main thing
they seem to be thinking about is when
they're going to leave.
And God has often challenged me, live where
I am now.
I also can get caught up thinking about
the next big challenge coming up.
But again and again, the Lord has rebuked
me and brought me back to the day
in which I was and say, live for
today.
It may not be any big events today,
but each day is important.
I was jogging along the beaches in the
Netherlands a couple days ago at this tremendous
youth conference of a movement I'd like you
to pray for called Young and Free.
They certainly have a good name, almost a
better name than OM.
Young and Free.
And I had brought with me from Australia.
I'm pushing Australia these days, as you can
see by my koala bear.
It's proven to be an embarrassment, actually, in
some of the meetings, especially in Berlin when
they had this giant television screen behind me.
And I think unconverted people on the cameras.
And when I was trying to drive home
this very strategic point, people started laughing.
And I wondered, what is going on?
I'm obviously not communicating.
Apparently the man with the camera had blown
this up giant size on the screen while
I was trying to pour out my heart.
So I have taken it off in the
presence of video cameras, which we also had
over there in the Netherlands.
But I brought this message with me from
an outstanding Methodist minister in Sydney who's obviously
a sportsman.
And he was giving this message just before
the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, in Queensland.
And he gave these tremendous illustrations from sportsman.
Started with Eric Little.
I had just seen Chariots of Fire again,
the fourth time on the plane.
Only wept six times, I think, this time.
Decided I'm going to, whatever the cost, purchase
at least 100 copies of that videocassette and
circulate them around the world.
And I know when I get to heaven
I'm going to see the results.
I don't want to get into this because
it would be a sidetrack, but I feel
the greatest area where OM is missing the
boat is in the use of the videocassette.
We're about 10 years behind.
Most groups are 20 years behind.
We're only 10 years behind.
But when I think of some groups still
distributing phonograph records, which is probably good for
certain parts of the world, in an age
when the videocassette is just everywhere, it's just
literally everywhere.
People are renting mainline movies now for two
pounds.
And we ought to pray, and maybe we
can include that in our prayer requests, that
as God's people we may do more with
videocassettes, and that there'll be a day when
the videocassette will appear on every OM book
table just like books.
Most young people are not reading books, at
least in the Western world, certainly totally different
in many Third World countries.
And I just have very much that burden
on my heart and had that confirmed again
on this trip.
So he shared a bit about Eric Little,
things that I hadn't known before, and the
tremendous challenge of him running the race.
He used this same passage of Scripture.
And then he shared about a woman who
was a swimmer, a world champion swimmer, and
her goal was to get her swimming one
more minute less.
Now you'd think one minute, you know, that
isn't much.
But in this particular race, not a very
long race, one minute is just like, you
know, going over Mount Everest again if you
were a mountain climber.
And she worked at this such a long
period of time and could not break that
minute.
But she stuck at it, and stuck at
it, and eventually she broke that world record
through cutting down her swimming time by one
minute.
And then he told the man who was
a discus thrower, you know, if you've watched
the Olympics, these men sort of whirl around
and then heave this heavy disc into the
air.
And apparently this man had won three gold
medals over a period of 16 years, forgive
me for not knowing the names, then went
into retirement and came out again and started
throwing and broke the world record again.
But at one of the major events, something
unbelievable happened within him.
You know, he sort of began to rip
apart in his ribcage and started spewing blood
and just about died.
They put him in the hospital, tied him
up, and they couldn't keep him.
They didn't tie him to the bed, they
tied up his chest, strapped it up.
And he went out.
I think it was in the Olympics again
or some very major sporting events.
And he decided to throw.
In excruciating pain, I think they take a
number of throws, he cut down the number
of throws.
And somehow in his last throw as he
felt this pain ripping through his body, he
said in God's name, I don't know if
he was a Christian or a believer in
God, let this discus throw and he beat
the world record.
Twenty years this man, he wasn't young any
longer, had been training and working on that.
You know, we have an enormous problem in
O.M. We have about a hundred problems
and I'm thinking of one right now.
That our whole goal, one of our main
goals is love.
And if love isn't kept in balance, it
becomes very soft, it becomes very insipid.
And it becomes an enemy of excellency.
Anybody who trains any of these sportsmen, they
have to be vicious.
If you saw the man who trained Abraham
in the Eric Little film, you know, this
old Italian who won some award for acting.
You know, he was really rough.
And all these people who win these contests,
almost all of them have trainers.
And to properly train someone, believe me, you
cannot just have the doctrine of 1 Corinthians
13.
You have got to really be rough and
hard and firm.
And that's the only way you'll create excellency.
If you took a secular public speaking course,
some of you who take meetings, they'd rip
you apart.
Christians won't tell you anything.
You'll go your whole life, a lousy preacher,
with a few shaking hands with you at
the meeting and always some results.
And you'll never know that you're just a
C-league speaker.
You'll always wonder why you don't get invited
back.
But if you took a secular course in
public speaking, they'd tear you apart.
And you'd learn to communicate if you're going
to graduate from the course.
And this is the enormous dilemma we find
ourselves in, O.M., as we go into
1986.
I mean, let's face it, in places O
.M. is getting very soft.
Very soft.
We had another young person quit not long
ago.
He said, this is a joke.
It's so easy.
I heard this movement was hard.
I don't believe, of course, that paints a
true picture.
He'd only been on a summer campaign.
I don't know whether he expected he was
going to eat just bread and water and
sleep on nails or what.
But he went home disillusioned with this movement.
That has gone soft.
Now, if we go soft, we will never
create excellence.
And I'm not a fanatic on excellence.
I even attack it if it becomes extreme
because I know God uses all kinds of
people.
And I know God uses ordinary efforts.
God can use the world's greatest singer, Amy
Grant or Sandy Patti or Sheila, to sing
in her local church.
And I really get upset when messages come
across that give the idea that only the
best, you know, God can use only the
best.
I mean, God is merciful.
That's the bottom line for all of us.
But we must not take that mercy and
forgiveness and grace as an advantage for slawfulness,
slipshod work, lack of discipline, and all the
kind of thing that we do see in
the sports world.
We see it in the world of acting.
Whatever the Christian church may say about Hollywood
and about acting, many of those people are
very disciplined people in their field.
They may drink some things that you don't
drink and go places that you don't go
to, but a lot of them are very
disciplined people.
The state of the church in terms of
memorizing Scripture could make the most optimistic depressed
if he takes surveys as I do all
over the world.
God's people just don't memorize Scripture.
In Holland, when I took a survey recently,
just a couple days ago, 90% of
the young people in the meeting had never
read the Bible through even once.
That also is just lack of discipline perhaps
also.
Lack of motivation.
Any training program, and we realize that OM
is many things, and that's been emphasized a
lot lately, but it is among other things
a training program.
You know, you will only get out of
it what you put into it.
There is no way we can force people
into spirituality on OM.
We have tried for a long time.
In fact, some of the people who we
thought were going the furthest fell on their
faces the quickest when they left.
Spirituality is a very personal thing.
There are people growing in grace as much
as any of us who don't know anything
about Operation Mobilization or YWAM or any of
the other great movements that God has raised
up.
They just have a personal, deep walk with
God in the midst of their own tough,
vicious, often secular environment.
I don't think we should be intimidated by
our environment.
Each environment has pluses and negatives.
OM has a lot of pluses.
It also has a lot of negatives.
You will all change environment as life goes
on, and you'll just get different pluses and
different negatives.
Do not think all these people in the
communist countries are all spiritual people.
That is a great miscommunication.
They are just like many of us, and
among them there are some very spiritual people.
They're the ones we usually incorporate into our
message illustrations.
I just read something by quite a famous
British writer about the people of Poland.
It was an absolute laugh.
He compared the people of Poland with the
people of America and made the people of
America look like absolute sawdust, lazy bone, materialist
Christians.
And the people of Poland, the most dynamic,
sold-out, committed, anti-non-materialist saints that
have ever lived.
I just had considerable feedback from Poland, and
the state of the church in Poland is
extremely mixed with a very high degree of
materialism running rampant throughout the nation.
We're all more similar than we'd like to
admit.
And in the communist countries, I remember the
last time I was in the Soviet Union,
the first girl, not many people talked to
me because they didn't know English, but this
one girl took me aside in the kitchen
and started to pour out her heart, the
same struggles that the average woman has on
operation mobilization back in the Western world.
It was really quite interesting.
But I think as we go into this
new year, it would be so tremendous if
we could sit down and write out some
goals for 1986 and to determine, by God's
grace, to improve in various areas that we
have already talked about and discussed endless times.
I don't want to take the time, and
I know the Holy Spirit can point out
specific areas in each one of our lives.
To me, all this, of course, indicates that
the whole Christian life is so challenging because
no matter how far you are along, there's
just so much ground to take.
And in my own life, I just, of
course, I get over esteemed in many parts
of the world.
I mean, some of the introductions I get
in some of these countries where they don't
know me, it's just quite a laugh.
But I just see so much ground yet
to be taken in my own life in
various areas.
And I want to, by God's grace, make
1986 a fighting year for God.
Sheila Walsh, a tremendous fighter for the Lord,
has written a book which Hodder is publishing
and I hope we'll distribute.
I don't know if it's out yet.
It's coming out this year.
You saw it in the Hodder catalog.
There's a lot of great books coming out
in 1986.
She just shared, you know, she was a
little shy Scottish girl that was afraid of
relationships with anybody and how God just took
her and made her an international fighter in
presenting the gospel to the rock and roll
generation that is still out there growing bananas.
It's just unbelievable the interest in rock and
roll right around the entire world.
Somebody like Bruce Springsteen has a meeting.
It can be the biggest stadium in the
world.
Everything will be sold out 21 days before
the guy even arrives.
People are paying $200 a ticket by the
time the night arrives.
People just go in there for hours.
The commitment even of people in the music
world sometimes is quite a challenge to me.
So I guess I'm still where I was
many years ago, wanting to get a greater
grip on my own body, my tone, my
eyes.
You know, I had another, one of those
interesting phone calls from a pornoholic.
I seem to be setting up almost a
pornoholic anonymous agency around the world.
They phoned me from overseas.
Can't imagine how thankful people are to talk
to somebody who understands their problem.
This fellow called me from the continent and
he had just had a defeat.
He'd been going for months.
His fellow is absolutely hooked on pornography.
He's a Christian.
He loves Jesus.
He's studying theology.
He'll probably be a minister.
And his wife knows his problem and one
of the ways he overcomes his problem is
by not, you know, letting his wife give
him any money because then he can't buy
anything.
But he persuaded his wife, in a moment
of weakness, to give him some money to
buy toys for the children and went out,
actually this morning went out and blew his
mind on some pornography.
He called up again discouraged, broken.
Asked me to pray with him on the
phone.
And we shared together.
He called back and he said he read
in a magazine that actually in New York
City they have a sexaholics anonymous.
They didn't have any address, so we can't
join.
But it's amazing how many people are enslaved
by their body.
Some habit has just got a grip on
their life.
It may be something else.
It may be jealousy.
Jealousy with God is just as evil as
lust.
It may be bitterness.
I would say that's far more evil and
does far more harm than lust.
That's why we have so much killing around
the world.
So I have this goal and I hope
you have the same goal that in 1986
I may bring my body into subjection, as
it says in some of your translations.
Keep it under.
Bring it into subjection.
Lest that by any means when I have
preached to others I myself should be a
castaway.
You know one of the encouraging things as
I've looked back over the years of OM
is that there don't seem to be many
ex-OM people who have been with us
say a year or two who are castaways
today.
I have castaway research.
I had one of my subsidiaries do anything
to find out any ex-OMer, especially in
your program, who is away from the Lord.
There are people of course.
But wherever you go in the world you
find quite a number of OM people.
I saw it in Australia and New Zealand
going on for God.
And it seems somehow despite all of our
weaknesses many have learned something quite significant during
their time in OM about buffeting that old
body.
It takes quite a bit of buffeting these
days as you get out of bed in
the morning and just get into orbit.
It's slushy and cold and snow and most
of the cars that we have don't just
leap into action.
This thing that we drive around here is
like a turtle who's lost its head.
And then you're out scraping off the windshield.
Interesting, right?
This time of the year.
But I believe it's all a challenge.
If we could see each problem each problem
as a challenge.
This man shared on this tape about the
handicapped Olympics.
And all these people running in these handicapped
Olympics have serious handicaps.
And they have hurdles for people with only
one leg.
I don't know if you've ever run hurdles.
That is not easy with two legs.
And here they were running down the field
with their one leg heaving themselves over these
hurdles.
And this one man was running, winning the
race.
He bumped his knee on the hurdle and
his leg fell off.
And he grabbed his leg, picked it up
and kept running and finished the race.
You know, it's so easy for us, isn't
it?
I don't know about you, but it's so
easy for us to get into our self
-pity syndrome.
People don't love us enough.
They don't appreciate us enough.
Or I'm not.
You know, why didn't God make me more
gifted?
Why am I a scatterbrain?
Why do I lose my wallet once a
week?
Whatever other great disadvantage you seem to be
facing in life.
And I would really like to get to
see one of these handicapped races.
I did see a film once about X...
I don't know if they're focusing in on
my equilibrium.
I did see a film once about all
these Vietnam veterans.
That has been so much on my heart
in 1985.
All these Vietnam people.
So easily, I could have been born just
a little bit later.
Gone out to Vietnam so easily.
Do you ever picture yourself in the shoes
of other people?
Come back without legs, without eyes.
Napalm burned all over you.
And I saw this film, I think I
saw it when I was in Pakistan, of
people coming back from Vietnam at the time
when nobody wanted to talk to these soldiers.
And this was all taken in a hospital.
Jonathan McCrosty had just had his accident.
This was all taken in a hospital and
they were all amputees.
And they had one of these handicapped races.
What a great challenge it is, isn't it?
To think of the Apostle Paul also, with
all of his disadvantages.
Most of the churches misunderstood him.
He was a man, apparently, that wasn't so
pleasant to look at.
He had these terrible three, this problem that
he prayed would disappear three times and it
didn't go.
God just said, I'm going to give you
grace, press on.
You know what the present day prosperity extremist
movement teaches about Paul?
And all of his problems and his illnesses
and his lack of clothing.
You've read about Paul.
They say, you know, if he'd only had
faith.
That's what they're teaching about the Apostle Paul.
If he had faith, he wouldn't have any
of these problems.
I tell you, that doesn't make you barf.
I don't know what it does.
And I hope you don't know that term.
But really, it really does make me very,
very upset.
So the Apostle Paul, with all of his
disadvantages and weaknesses, he says, I therefore so
run.
I therefore so fight.
Not as one that beateth the air.
I keep under my body and bring it
into subjection.
There's no shortcuts to this.
Cannot be done in a one-year OM
program.
This is a lifetime marathon.
So don't get discouraged if you're falling along
the race.
Don't get discouraged if you're trying to increase
your prayer life a little bit, like that
woman was trying to decrease her swimming time,
if you don't seem to be making progress.
And I thought of this in terms of
our financial problems.
The finance committee is meeting in Belgium.
I've had them on the phone.
We're in an awesome situation in one sense.
But you know, as we look back over
1985, the amount of money that's overdue as
we go into this year, which we feel
very burdened about, and we're not happy about
moving into the year with overdue bills, probably
a quarter of a million dollars.
But as we go into this with this
huge amount of bills that we're trying to
pay and all the agony that brings, we
realize that money is only a tiny percentage,
a small percentage, a few percent, of all
the money that God has brought in in
1985.
And so though we have this burden, and
we're going to be praying about that in
this meeting, the priority really needs to be,
even when it comes to money, the giving
of thanks.
The Word of God says, with food and
shelter, be thou content.
We've had no problem getting the money for
food and shelter.
There may have been occasions when, through organizational
problems and cash flow and other things, you
know, we didn't have it right in the
hand.
But the reason OM has financial problems is
we are trying to evangelize the world.
That's why I don't believe it's just a
simple claiming of the promise for God to
supply our needs.
What we are trying to do is much
bigger than that, much more complex than that.
We're trying to evangelize the world.
We produced another 10, 15, 20, no one
seems to know anymore, millions of pieces of
literature in 1985.
We've seen the ships continue in their ministry
every single week.
We've seen a massive summer campaign.
We've seen so much.
And 97% of all of the bills
for the whole year are paid, or 95,
I don't have the exact amount.
So I think even as we think of
these overdue bills, it's easy to focus on
the problems and the negative, and no one's
saying it's not a problem.
But we have a lot to thank God
for.
We really do.
The growth that he's given, the strength, also
his miraculous watch over us in the area
of accidents in 1985 is quite amazing.
I don't have the exact statistics, but we
have had very few accidents at all in
1985, the greatest year of air disasters in
history, even before the last American Air Force
charter flight crash.
It already was a record year.
Always interesting to hear this on the radio
each day as I flew around the world.
But the Lord gave lots of grace, not
without struggle, as I'm sure you can be.
Well, we're recording this for teams around the
world, and we'd like to welcome any OM
team that's got the patience to listen to
this recording.
We're going to stop now and spend a
little time in thanksgiving, and then we're going
to go on a little world tour, and
I'm just going to share some prayer requests
on each place I've touched since I was
last with you here in Bromley, and I
think that will keep us busy for quite
a while.
So let's just stop and pause, and let's
pray together on the basis of 1 Corinthians
9, the new year facing us, and thanksgiving.
Let me just share a couple of burdens,
and we're going to go right back to
prayer for this area known as the Arab
Gulf.
This was our first stop off, as I
think most of you know, Bob Rose and
I traveling together.
About 40 days ago, flew directly to Dubai,
and God really opened the way because Friday
is the one key day for meetings in
Dubai.
That's their sort of Sunday when they have
the day off because it's a Muslim country.
My main contacts there are Indians, and it's
always just such an emotional and great challenge
to meet ex-OMers and to meet Indians,
to have time in their homes and to
minister in their churches.
But a group of brethren assemblies, a number
of assemblies, they were the first group really
to have churches in Dubai among the Indians,
had arranged a united meeting, and you know,
even as soon as I got there, they
presented me with a love offering of over
$1,000, which was, you know, we were
sort of, I wasn't really believing, but I
was praying somehow my ticket could be paid
for just in the first day in Dubai.
We carry interesting things on our trips to
the Gulf.
We carry mainly music tapes.
They sell at a very interesting price, nothing
illegal, but we sold 700 pounds sterling in
music tapes in that one day, and we
were able to send most of that money
back in a bank draft here to Bromley.
But it indicates a potential in the Gulf
that I'd like you to pray about, and
that is to see financial support for the
work in India.
And these places are not easy to get
visas, and airfares are also expensive.
Mine wasn't because I just, it was a
stopover on this cheap around-the-world discount
ticket.
It would cost almost as much just to
fly to the Gulf and back than it
would to go halfway around the world on
a discount ticket.
And I'd like you to pray for the
Indian believers in the Gulf.
Now, many of them are being sent home.
The great day of big money for large
numbers of people in the Gulf is over.
Many of them are going home.
Others are desperately trying to immigrate to America.
But there are now enough Indians overseas, if
they became really committed to world missions, to
be the largest single help for financing the
work of God.
I'm speaking in general terms in India today.
Let's give thanks.
We squeezed, Bob took a meeting, and I
took about three or four meetings on that
day.
I can't go into details.
But we thank the Lord for the response,
people who committed their lives.
And a number of people came from a
place called El Ayn.
That's down here.
It doesn't show on this map.
But there's a hospital there reaching the Arab
population.
And the pastor came and sort of was
hoping I'd go back with him the next
day.
I had to tell him early in the
morning we were flying to Singapore.
He seemed a bit disappointed.
But pray for that Arab pastor, without mentioning
his name, of the church in El Ayn,
which is a work among the Arabs.
There are very, very few national Dubai or
United Arab Emirate people who are followers of
Jesus Christ.
It's incredible, really.
These believers we're talking about are Indians or
Americans, British, a lot of expatriates, especially in
Dubai.
Pray for them.
Very hard to have contact with the local
people.
There's a wall bigger than what I saw
in Berlin.
Let's pray for the breaking down of this
wall.
Somehow, something could happen there that the Arab
people would ask some of these other people,
what's this all about?
And for the few Arab believers that are
there, I met some of them, because it's
an overwhelming task to be such a minority
in such a totally Muslim-dominated area.
So let's pray right now for Dubai, the
United Arab Emirates.
And if you feel that's too limited, branch
out into any of those Gulf countries.
Kuwait is a similar situation.
Oman, similar situation.
Qatar, Bahrain, I've heard of some exciting things
happening there.
Few here and there professing Christ.
And it is a neglected area of the
world.
So let's cry out to God.
There are a number of exoemers in these
areas.
Some of them have jobs.
Some are tent makers, usually in disguise.
But if you know some of them, maybe
you could pray not by name, but pray
by country.
For people you know down there, public meetings,
it's not good to pray for high-security
areas for people by name in your flat.
You know everybody.
You might want to do that.
And we might just pray for the real
problem of security in these countries.
There's certain kinds of freedom.
Like these Indians, they have freedom to worship.
But I tell you, when it starts moving
over among the Arabs, it gets very, very
tense.
Let's cry out to God.
One other prayer request for that area is
that's a country where our good friend Irving
Sylvia, we can mention him, I think, by
name, is translating the Baluch New Testament.
He is in that country.
I didn't see him on this trip.
Working away, trying to get that New Testament
into Baluch language.
Because there are a lot of Baluch people
in the United Arab Emirates who he's using
to test the translation.
Amen.
Let's just focus now on praying on Singapore.
Just some specific prayer requests for Singapore.
It is not getting easier to get recruits
out of this country, though.
It's got enormous potential.
Upon arrival in Singapore, the stock market there
crashed so desperate they closed it.
Malaysia followed, and the government said the great
heyday for Singapore economically is over.
This is already affecting the church.
They have all kinds of building programs and
projects.
They're going to battle to meet their own
local needs, much less start sending out missionaries
or supporting missionaries.
If you could pray in retrospect, especially for
the pastor's meetings we had in Singapore.
We'll pray for Malaysia separately.
They are separate nations, I'm sure most of
you realize.
Pray especially that we may have greater rapport
and breakthroughs with the real sort of Chinese
pastors whose churches are in one of the
Chinese dialects.
We don't have a Chinese prayer letter.
Some of those people don't get any information.
Our letter there is in English.
There's considerable tension at times between the English
congregations, they often meet in the same church,
and the more Chinese congregations.
One of the sisters who's been on OM,
went back to Singapore early, was just sharing
with me, because she's of the very Chinese
kind of church, that OM tends to be
mainly people, of course, of the English side.
Even though we meet them, they're all Chinese.
There are actually quite large differences in their
thinking.
So we'd like to see a greater breakthrough
among these churches where they do largely work
in Chinese languages.
We had a prayer breakfast with some of
those men.
It was quite encouraging.
And we had pastors' meetings for a wider
range of pastors in the English medium.
One of the reasons it's harder to get
recruits is a positive reason, that there are
many, many groups now taking Singaporeans out.
YWAM has grown quite large there, but there
are other indigenous groups, plus the denominations, starting
their own little OM-type movements.
And so we thank the Lord for that.
But let's pray for the right people for
this year coming out of Singapore.
We pray for Chung Ho, his wife gave
birth to a baby girl when we were
there.
He hadn't named her at that time.
Has anybody heard any names coming out for
this little piece of Chinese dynamite?
Let's pray for him.
It was good to meet so many XOMers.
We must have had 60 in the Singapore
XOMers meeting somewhere around that time.
Let's pray that they will see the need
to support the work.
We were able to share very openly about
the little changes in the OM's approach, and
it was greatly appreciated in that part of
the world.
Even James Hudson Taylor III, President and Director
of OMF, was in the meetings.
In fact, I had lunch with him, and
that was very encouraging, as they wrestled with
similar things in their movement.
In fact, he wanted to speak to me
about what I thought and what was my
advice for OMF beginning in Pakistan.
I had already announced publicly that they are
40 years late.
Because I've always had this theory that when
the OMF came out of China, they should
have not only included in their target fields
Asia, but they should have included the subcontinent.
It's one of my little theories I've spouted
out in different places around the world, but
not ever before in front of the Director
of OMF.
But he was quite challenged by that, and
long before he ever heard that, they have
been praying about doing something in Pakistan.
They need God's man.
Let's pray for OMF.
An OMF man who has the gift, but
will give himself to Pakistan.
Until they have God's man, they will not
do much other than research.
So let's pray for Singapore.
The office situation there, they need some more
staff.
I met Rodney in Melbourne.
He is definitely committed to go back to
Singapore as the country leader.
Chunghor will work with him starting in May.
Alan Adams may be making a somewhat important
trip out to that part of the world
in the next month or two as he
oversees the area leadership for that Southeast Asia
and the Far East.
Let's pray for Alan.
And one of the most important prayer requests,
mark this down, is for an associate area
leader for that part of the world who
can be Alan's arms and legs as he's
on the do-lots to travel around.
Exciting things are happening in that part of
the world.
I just had a letter from Korea.
They want to support 10 OM Indian nationals
from Korea.
God has set us free so that we
can talk to third world countries, which is
not just about people, because the bigger factor
in third world countries is not people.
Really, they've got people.
It's finance.
Where is the money going to come from?
From these countries.
And in Mexico, I talked to Mexican pastors.
And in Singapore and Malaysia, I talked.
And I've talked a little bit to Koreans.
And, you know, it's an enormous help for
these people to understand what OM actually practices.
This has been a well-kept secret for
a couple of decades.
And people are quite encouraged to find out
what we actually do and believe.
And they want to get involved.
So let's pray for Singapore right here, in
case you don't know.
It's like a huge city.
Pray for the churches.
Pray for the exilers and these requests that
I shared in our groups of five or
six.
Okay?
Amen.
We had about three or four days, actually,
in Singapore, including a day after we visited
Malaysia.
Malaysia, just north of Singapore, you may not
realize, is a country that is dominated also
by Islam.
It's actually against the law to try to
witness to a Malay Muslim.
And almost all the Christians are from the
Chinese community or Indian community.
That's most of the people who come on
OM.
We went to a town north of Kuala
Lumpur called Ipoh and had a very encouraging
time, a smaller place.
Often, of course, smaller places, people are more
appreciative of your visits since these big cities,
they do get an interesting number of people
coming through.
But if we could especially pray for the
pastors and Christian leaders who came to the
meetings there.
Peter Maiden came just after I departed.
He came and took part in the Christian
camp in Malaysia.
I haven't had any official report from that
camp, but that is one of the key
events of the whole OM year in that
part of the world.
We call it a camp because we have
to watch out for our terminology.
Just like in Malaysia, we don't have Operation
Mobilization.
We have a Mobilization Fellowship as a registered
organization.
We certainly seem to need a strengthening of
our board of directors in both of these
countries or trustees or whatever you want to
call them.
Maybe you could pray for that.
We went back then to KL.
I had the joy of meeting Kulham's pastor,
a huge Assembly of God church, Mr. Gunaratnam.
Maybe you could pray for him.
It's a tremendous ministry.
The Assembly of God is probably the fastest
growing ministry in Malaysia.
I was staying with another Assembly of God
pastor who's had a man named Henry.
He's had about 15 people on OM.
It was just so encouraging to fellowship with
him and see the real burden for evangelism.
New churches are coming into being there in
Malaysia.
Peter Maiden was commenting on when you minister
to people in Malaysia, and it's true in
Singapore, there's a tremendous response, tremendous enthusiasm, more
than you would find in the average English
audience.
The way Peter put it, better for him
to say that than me.
But at the same time, it isn't any
easier for these young people to convert that
enthusiasm into long-term action.
There are many obstacles.
There's more peer pressure and parent pressure in
that part of the world because of the
way society is structured.
We cannot continue an in-depth work there
with just breakthroughs among youth.
We have to see breakthroughs among pastors, among
adults, among businessmen.
I had a few meetings with laymen and
businessmen in both Singapore and Malaysia.
We could pray for results.
You know, you're reminded of STL wherever you
go because there your books are always just
seemingly ahead of you.
Sometimes they do tend to get stockpiled.
I've never seen such a stockpile of magazine
books in my life in any small headquarters
like I saw in Malaysia.
Apparently, some of them were left behind by
the ship or previous enthusiastic leaders.
So we had a special magazine book bonanza
at the evening meeting there in Malaysia.
Generally speaking, however, because of the cutback and
the watchful eye on inventories, my experience is
that most O.M. bases do not have
proper good literature supply.
And so when you come in for meetings
and you want to really push outstanding books,
you can get a little bit frustrated to
say the least.
I was talking to Harley Rollins on the
phone about this and have challenged Harley about
a trip around the world to just visit
all these O.M. bases and see how
we can help.
These people need help.
This understanding of how to distribute literature, how
to sell literature, how to set up a
book table, how to handle these things doesn't
just fall out of a tree.
And maybe you can make this a matter
of prayer that we could increase the on
-the-field training side for literature evangelism within
O.M. Because we really are dropping the
ball in some cases.
Great intentions and great enthusiasm usually, at least
I'm sure when I arrive, and I trust
I had that long before I arrived, need
to believe the best, but the literature stocks
in some places are rather low.
And when I think of all the tremendous
books we have here, you go to some
of these places and you can't find them.
Now for Australia, Bill Lowe had been here
to Bromley and had ordered a great stock
of books and they arrived just in time
for the meetings.
In Sydney, he thought he was in Brisbane,
in the north, and he didn't think that
I needed these books in Sydney.
He thought maybe CLC could help out.
In my experience, most of the groups when
they put up book tables do not have
quantity of any title so that you can
push it.
They have usually a nice little selection, 400
young people there in Sydney.
But let's, before we jump the big leap
to Australia, pray for Malaysia, touching on those
things that I have just mentioned.
All right, let's pray for Malaysia.
I think the most exciting thing on this
trip, the most intensive thing, comes at the
final moment of some of the bigger meetings
when, though I often fight it during the
meeting, I get the squeeze of the Spirit
upon my heart, trust it's the Holy Spirit,
that says, you know, go all the way
and give an invitation and call people out
to act.
If you've never done that kind of preaching,
you may not understand, at least for characters
like me, the struggle that often is.
You immediately hear the voice of people who
criticize invitations.
You immediately know and are reminded of those
who respond that it's an emotional thing and
nothing happens.
All kinds of little voices come.
But the Lord gave grace maybe every fourth
or fifth meeting when it just seemed appropriate.
He took all young people to stand.
They fill out the little piece of paper,
write out their prayer requests, all of which
I pray through personally, which are now being
followed up on by the ICT people here.
But let's praise the Lord and pray when
we pray for Australia.
Also, just remember, in general, quite a few
hundreds in the past few weeks have stood
up.
For us, it may be just one more
person, one more name, one more prayer request.
But for some of them, it's the first
time in their life they've ever openly made
a recommitment in their life.
Often the results are more catastrophic than their
conversion.
Conversion generally leaves you geographically where you are.
It leaves you in your own family.
You might have some struggles.
But this kind of commitment linked with world
evangelism in varying degrees often brings absolute chaos
in the home because they go back and
start talking about discipleship or commitment.
The average young person doesn't know how to
express these things.
He says, I think about joining OM for
a year, and I tell you the sparks
begin to fly.
Many of the young people in Singapore and
Malaysia are not from Christian homes.
You're going back into some home where they're
worshipping idols and are loyal to the ancient
religions of yesteryear and tell them you're going
to launch out to reach the Middle East
for Christ or something.
Parents just about go up in smoke.
So that's a real challenge for prayer for
all of the countries that we visited.
We flew through the night to Australia.
I have had 20 years of invitations to
this country.
Contrary to public concepts, I'm very conservative in
travel, really, considering the size of OM.
I don't go unless I'm really sure the
Lord is in it and it's going to
be worthwhile in terms of the money invested.
But I soon discovered that Australia is a
very, very unique and special country.
I always had that feeling.
And people are very state-conscious in Australia,
very state-conscious.
And it might be good for those of
you non-Aussies, which are most of us,
to realize that this is Victoria.
This is New South Wales.
This is Queensland.
This is the Northern Territory, Southern Australia.
We have a lady in South Australia.
She came all the way from there to
tell us that OM is very weak in
South Australia and wants us to come there.
That includes Australia's very key city that I
did not go to, Adelaide.
When I got to New Zealand, I heard
that Adelaide really, according to some of my
men in New Zealand, is the real best
city in Australia for spiritual life.
I don't know if that's true.
And then Western Australia, I didn't get out
there either.
We flew into Melbourne.
We're met by an ex-OMer Indian.
Australia is a very cosmopolitan society.
And interesting ex-OMers pop up there from
all different countries.
But we actually have a Victoria office under
John Mann.
Let's pray for him, an elderly retired man
who's sort of running things down there with
the help of some tremendous prayer groups.
One of the best places I have ever
been in the entire world for OM prayer
groups is Melbourne.
By the way, a huge city.
It seemed that we were everlastingly driving around
to the next meeting.
But let's pray for John Mann and the
prayer groups there.
The literature had not arrived there, but he
had some literature in his closet.
You know, in OM, you learn to sniff
around.
And some of that literature had actually been
left by John Yar, who a number of
years ago went to heaven.
Old copies of Operation World.
But we sold almost every item that he
had in his closet, quite a few hundreds
of dollars worth of literature in the meeting.
So that was an encouragement all the way
around.
Usually we were having three to four meetings
every day, plus radio interviews, magazine interviews.
It was wild.
Mark Smith is a very, to me, key
man for Melbourne.
Ex-OMer from friends from abroad now with
Tier Fund Australia.
We had an ex-OMer reunion barbecue in
his back garden.
He's married a young woman who came out
of Vietnam as a refugee.
And her mother and father were there.
I'm not sure if they know the Lord
yet.
You could remember then they certainly didn't know
much English.
And if I got talking to you about
ex-OMers, the meeting would go too long.
And I always have this fear when this
tape goes around that some ex-OMer is
going to wonder why I didn't mention him.
No one would ever say that.
But we do like to get all the
prayer we possibly can.
But we just don't have time to mention
but a few.
And my mentioning them is not very systematic.
So let's pray, probably for some of you,
the first time in your life you've prayed
for Victoria.
Pray for David Pennon.
He was an old friend of mine from
Pakistan.
He used to be with InterVarsity, saved through
InterVarsity.
Then he was in Lebanon.
He is now the Archbishop of Victoria.
I never realized how many Anglicans there were
in Australia.
One out of every three persons in Victoria
is an Anglican.
Phenomenal, high church, low church, whatever, they're Anglicans.
This man is the Archbishop.
And he's the first Evangelical Archbishop in 150
years in that whole area.
He acts as a bishop, really of Melbourne
as well as the Archbishop covering the whole
of Victoria.
And I know he would appreciate prayers because
of the large number of Anglicans he has
a degree of political involvement.
In fact, I had to sit and wait
to see him even though I was late
because the French ambassador had gotten there ahead
of me.
By the way, that's the first in-depth
fellowship I've ever had with an Archbishop, so
I really am beginning to move into interesting
realms.
But let's pray for David Pennon and his
wife.
They have taken a very strong stand in
a number of areas that really have shaken
people.
For example, I have quite a few practicing
homosexual ministers in that state, and he will
now no longer ordain homosexuals.
So that's leading to some very interesting counseling.
And I know he would appreciate very much
our prayers.
And he just said, look, anything I can
do to open the way for OM in
this state, just let me know.
So that was quite encouraging.
So let's pray for Melbourne, for OM in
the state of Victoria.
They even process their own money there.
They don't send their money to the national
headquarters in Australia.
They send it to the state headquarters.
John Mann and his wife process it.
It's part-time.
And then they send it on to the
Australia headquarters up in Brisbane.
Okay, let's pray just in our groups again
for Victoria.
Well, let's just pray for Mexico for a
while.
You've got that little leaflet.
If you could take a look at that,
that's really aiming at next summer.
This is actually the kind of leaflet that
people have to write in to get because,
in fact, it has financial information on the
back of it.
But as an OMer, of course, you're privileged
to have all the facts.
And I think this is quite well done
and would like to use it for prayer.
I was in Mexico mainly the entire time
in Veracruz living on the ship Lagos.
I think it's so important at times to
mention answers to prayer, but you remember all
the hassle we were having just being in
Mexico.
That all just went.
They were allowed to sell books, and they
were allowed to carry on.
You know, there were some regulations, of course.
There were a couple of hundred people at
the Christmas campaign, mainly all Mexicans.
One group came from Prairie.
They seemed to be special privileged Canadians.
I guess Burk Kempis was behind that.
But largely they were Mexicans.
And in the evening meetings, when they opened
it to the general public, there were a
lot of people joining locally.
It was a bit difficult to figure out
all the different things that were happening.
But in some of the evening meetings, we
had up to 1,500 people.
When I first spoke to the pastors on
the Lagos, I went through interpreter two meetings.
But by the time I got to that
big meeting on shore, I just let loose
in Spanish.
And somehow the Lord gave grace to preach
Spanish all the rest of the time.
But I'd like you to pray because a
lot of people stood to make a recommitment.
We have all these Spanish feedback papers.
I don't know if we're going to get
Kathy or Jack or somebody to translate those.
But I'd appreciate prayer because it does seem
that in Mexico, again, the place is so
ripe for this message.
And with OM's shift, I can tell you
the old policy of OM about finance is
absolutely bad news beyond any question in a
place like Mexico.
I actually said that to Dick Griffin 15
years ago.
I said, Dick, if we don't change it
here, nothing will ever work because they so
easily believe all American groups, and they think
of OM as American, they don't easily understand
European things, is loaded with money.
And we were able to share with some
this change.
And immediately they were taking offerings in the
meetings.
I'm not saying they never did that years
ago.
They did.
And I talked, you see, because before we'd
always just talk about personnel.
OM talks about personnel and recruits to cut
out your ears.
But that's so hard for them.
It costs thousands of pesos to get one.
A hundred thousand maybe to get somebody out.
Now we can talk to them not, we
can talk to them about prayer.
We're talking to them about partnership.
And we're talking about one of the ways
of partnership is giving.
They can give.
They can support an Indian who maybe costs
ten rupees a day to support.
And the few that we share this with
are really interested in this kind of partnership
for World Mission.
So prayer first, spreading the vision, definite giving,
and then as the Lord leads, perhaps sending
their own personnel.
So let's pray that as Dick and his
men, Daryl and Dwayne Grassman, praise the Lord
for the healing of Daryl, is it Daryl
or Dwayne's child?
Daryl's child.
Some of you heard he got electric wire
in his mouth, but it wasn't an electric
wire, it was caustic soda.
It was just bad, but none of it
went into the esophagus.
So actually I saw the little child.
She was rapidly improving.
But what an awesome experience.
The little child in a laundromat started eating
caustic soda.
So let's pray for Mexico.
Praise the Lord for the great open door
the ship had.
They put their international night on in one
of the really big luxurious theaters of Veracruz.
They had to do it twice, so many
people came.
Then they were able to put it on
in the open air.
Just endless opportunities.
And the day I left the ship, you
know, this long queue of people, just like
I've so often seen, queued up waiting to
get on the Envi Lagas.
They were selling a couple thousand dollars a
book.
Some days only a thousand, some days more.
And they of course should be arriving in
Puerto Rico.
Anybody know, is it today or tomorrow or
the next day?
Certainly, yeah, probably tomorrow.
Let's pray for the program in Puerto Rico.
Had a number of good sessions with Dick
Griffin.
Continue to remember him.
Mexico has such terrific church growth, really.
But there's a need for teaching.
There's a need for the books that we
so passionately believe in.
And they were able to get an enormous
amount of books off Lagas for Dick's program
in Mexico City.
They already have four to five million tracks
ready for Mexico 86, most of them free.
And I just feel the work in Mexico
has taken some real steps forward.
David Hicks, of course, was down there very
much involved.
Maybe for sake of time we can use
this leaflet and pray together.
Okay, let's start getting on Mexico for a
while.
In our small groups.
Amen.
Yeah, if some of you are getting a
little cold, you can get closer to the
heaters.
Let me just say that the ship Lagas
has been ministering now for I guess it's
15 years.
And it's something that we really have a
lot to thank the Lord for.
I found in general the staff and crew
on the ship, I spent quite a lot
of time with individuals, you know, quite encouraged.
The ministry going on.
Very good unity in the men who are
leading this, the planning group.
Spent time with the captain, Jonathan Stewart.
Keep praying for him.
Lagas since Dave Thomas, who by the way
has been in a terrible motor accident.
The car is completely written off.
This is several weeks ago now.
Traveling in the states.
I met him in LA briefly.
He's all right.
But the man taking his place is an
Indian, Alan.
Forgive the pronunciation.
Remember him.
He's the chief engineer.
We heard very good things about his leadership
of the engine room.
It was a very exciting visit.
It's only for lack of time.
I don't say more about that.
Pray for the lineup.
Of course, there's several ports in Puerto Rico.
Then Norfolk.
Baltimore.
I'll be visiting those places, both of them
in about a month's time.
Very, very much going forward in preparation.
And also French speaking Canada, George Barathon.
John Matthew is up there now.
So that's moving in connection with the Lagas.
I guess one of the great privileges of
this whole trip, as we come toward the
end of it, is that I was with
my parents on Christmas Day, the first time
in 30 years.
Hard to believe in a lifetime.
Seemingly it goes by.
And we went out and visited relatives and
had a very interesting Christmas.
Also, Daniel was there because he's on a
vacation.
He's back now in the states visiting relatives.
Maybe we could just pray for the USA
situation.
The work there has greatly increased in the
last few years.
But they are certainly short a couple of
very key people in the New Jersey operation.
They also fight an accommodation problem similar to
us.
They're also fighting increased costs problem.
Dave, of course, not only has the USA
now.
Paul Troper is on a sabbatical.
Will not be going back into the same
ministry.
Had a good time with Paul and Elsa.
But Dave also has quite a lot of
responsibility in connection with Mexico and Canada.
He will be going out to the subcontinent
for the leaders meetings there.
So let's uphold Dave and Kathy.
They're very active also in the church.
The board members, very active board there.
We could pray a little bit more for
them.
There's been a continued increase of giving in
the states over the last couple of years.
Not huge, but steady.
And they, I found in New Jersey, really
have a burden to see funds coming in.
I'm sure most offices do.
I don't think they saw in December what
they were aiming at.
They were aiming very high.
But certainly we had some encouraging giving in
the month of December.
So let's just pray right now.
Some of you perhaps who are from the
states could lead us in prayer for OMUSA.
And I would appreciate prayer for this next
trip I have.
My trips don't always work out the best
in terms of the calendar.
I have to build my trips around key
invitations.
They're usually the people paying the airfares.
And OM has got too much money, as
you know, to pay for airfares.
So if someone else is willing to do
that, it's interesting.
I've just had an invitation today to go
to Texas next July to a big Jesus
thing, I think partly lined up by YWAM,
of several thousand people.
I'll just come back from there, and I'll
be in Switzerland.
I guess I said I'd be in England.
And they telegrammed today and said, Look, we'll
pay the round-trip fare, and we want
you here.
And this trip now to Chicago, Minneapolis, and
Denver is built around my speaking at the
Anniversary Founders Week.
I forget what year, but it's the anniversary
year.
Founders Week at Moody.
Many, many thousands of people.
Then the bigger meeting really was Mandate 86.
This is a missions conference, a mini-urbana,
for university-level students in the whole Midwest.
Mission 80, Mandate 86.
In fact, I have a telephone link up
with them this Saturday for the final planning.
David Bryant and David Howard and others are
involved in this, so I have the main
chunk of speaking.
And then I've given the meeting to others
for the last 15 or 20 years.
Whenever they've invited me, I've finally accepted the
meeting.
Bethany Fellowship's main annual missions conference.
That's my first meeting starting 17th of January.
There's a very key church that God has
just linked us with out in Denver.
And I have their main missions conference.
This church has got enough potential, believe me,
to do more than I'd like to put
down on a cassette tape.
But let's pray for that church meeting.
Cherry Hills Presbyterian Church already got a great
vision.
And at a number of other meetings, including
a Muslim Emphasis Day that Roger Malsted has
lined up.
And then Wheaton College, and going to be
a whole day with my friends with Jesus
People Chicago, Resurrection Band, and that crowd.
Quite a mixed challenge, which is what I
usually have.
And then a day with a line-up
people in Norfolk, a line-up people in
Baltimore, before coming back.
Ken Taylor wrote a letter, absolutely thrilled with
our financial policy change.
He said, I spent many years at Moody
Bible Institute, enough to learn that Moody's method
is better than Mueller's.
And he sent a check with it.
Praise the Lord for Mueller and Moody, and
may we, in the end, take the best
and mix the best, and still have our
own roots.
So let's pray for the USA, and maybe
some Americans here.
Jack Rendell, African-reared American, can lead us
off in this prayer session for the United
States.
At the end of this session, at least
the amount that I'm putting on cheap, I'd
like us to just pray in follow-up
for Expo 85.
Past history, the largest media event in the
history of the Christian Church, according to the
press, even the secular press.
In fact, that media event covering 94 centers
around the world was so complicated that it
made that Aid Africa rock festival, which also
used satellite, look like a very simple operation.
And I know that when we were in
Berlin, we were in this beautiful Congress Hall
in Berlin, there were four and a half
thousand there.
And when I was there, I had a
brief time of fellowship with Bill Bright, and
some prayer together.
He was just going around the world in
four days, speaking at these different places.
And that day that I was there, the
day before I spoke, he was going to
speak from Berlin, and it would go around
the entire world.
Quite amazing.
And then on the screen, we'd have everybody
in Mexico City singing, and then we'd be
singing, and then we'd see the Philippines singing.
And actually, all 94 centers were singing the
same song at the same time throughout the
entire world.
You know, it's quite a mind-bending thing.
I think, however, the key prayer request is
for the follow-up.
My message, which is only a small part
of the whole thing, very much tried to
emphasize the process, God's process when you leave
here, the cross for the Lordship of Christ.
I felt a terrific response in both places.
I spoke in Birmingham, main evening meeting, and
then had the night of prayer, and in
Berlin at the final New Year's meeting, which
was the last meeting of the Congress, followed
by the invitation, which was, I didn't have
time to give the invitation myself.
It was mainly to fill out a form
that they were going to keep with them.
So in this case, we only know, only
God knows, the number of that 4,500
who made some kind of commitment.
I had a very unique opportunity to be
interviewed in Birmingham, and the next day, that
was on satellite for the entire world.
You know, if I was only given one
or two minutes, and that's all I had
on this interview, the one thing I'd like
to talk about was prayer.
Well, that's the question they asked me.
They asked me several questions.
They only transmitted.
Let's just pray.
We've heard some interesting feedback from our Indian
brothers in Lucknow, also their little friend on
the screen, big nose of her work.
But let's pray that somehow what I shared
about prayer, somehow God would use that to
stir these people.
I challenged them in Berlin, all go back
and start prayer groups.
I really feel any young person that is
on fire for Christ or world missions should
start or get involved in a prayer group.
Let's pray also for the Lord to raise
up missionary prayer groups throughout the entire world.
The local church is really dropping the ball
in terms of missionary prayer.
My goal is still the local church.
I think they're the key to world evangelism.
I pray and work day and night to
see prayer brought into a more rightful place
than the local church.
But I believe at the same time God
wants to raise up missionary prayer groups in
homes, in offices, lunchtime, morning time, whenever.
And let's pray that X-Blow, I'm sure
there will be many other results from X
-Blow, but that X-Blow will result in
a worldwide prayer movement for world missions and
for those things that we know are in
the heart of the Lord Jesus.
So let's pray right now for Campus Crusade
to organize that.
A number of XOM are especially involved in
European Campus Crusade.
Let's remember Bill Bright as he's back once
again in his home office in Southern California.
He's 63, 64 years of age.
What a great example he has been of
faith and world vision really is quite phenomenal.
Let's pray for the tremendous ministry of Campus
Crusade.
They must have about 15,000 on their
staff now throughout the world.
One of the most phenomenal movements of our
century.
Let's cry out to God for that and
for the follow-up on X-Blow as
it went right around the world.
Okay?
Let's again pray as one.