I'd like you to turn now to John
chapter 13, the Gospel of John chapter 13.
It's good to have this time with you.
There's so much to share, so much to
pray about.
In the last couple of days, I've just
had it more impressed upon my own heart,
it's been building up actually over a couple
of weeks, that the whole aspect of the
missionary as the servant is just more important
than I think we have been able to
emphasize in OM up to now.
This has always been an emphasis.
Some conferences it comes through stronger than others,
but I think it has to come through
stronger to get through to our hearts and
our minds.
And I think this passage is one of
the strong passages that helps us receive from
the Lord the challenge of being a servant.
We all know about the Lord's table, but
we don't always remember what happened starting at
verse 4.
He riseth from supper, and laid aside his
garments, and took a towel, and girded himself.
And after that he poured water into a
basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet,
to wipe them with the towel with which
he was girded.
Then cometh he to Simon Peter, and Peter
said unto him, Lord dost thou wash my
feet?
Jesus answered and said unto him, What I
do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt
know hereafter.
Peter said unto him, Thou shalt never wash
my feet.
You know, sometimes it's harder to receive than
it is to give.
It's harder to receive than it is to
give.
Because pride has an interesting way of intercepting
the receiving of a gift.
And in the age of the self-made
man, we've had people leave O.M. because
they just couldn't handle anymore living off people's
gifts.
Even though the Bible says the laborer is
worthy of his hire.
It's hard for at least certain types of
people, all of us perhaps to some degree,
certainly at certain times, to just receive, you
know, receive money from God's people.
I've had quite a few people lately say
to me, I want to go back and
make money and send it to O.M.
Of course, I've had a lot of people
say that over the years.
I've never discouraged them completely, but it's more
easily said than done.
But it is often harder than receiving.
Peter was going to have Jesus washing his
feet.
So after he had washed their feet, and
had taken his garments, and was seated again,
he said unto them, Know ye what I
have done to you?
Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye
say, Well, for so I am.
If I then, your Lord and Master, have
washed your feet, ye also ought to wash
one another's feet.
For I have given you an example that
you should do as I have done to
you.
Now you can take one of two paths,
or both, as a result of that.
You can institute literal foot washing, as the
Grace Brethren do in the United States.
They have literal foot washing.
I understand that they generally wash their feet
very thoroughly before they go to that meeting.
And the Grace Seminary, where George Miley studied,
though he's not Grace Brethren by denomination, is
a seminary of that denomination.
It's a very great seminary.
It turns out a lot of great people.
So that's not just some little freaky group
that has a little kink about washing feet.
For them, it's a sacrament.
Once in O.M., we almost got into
foot washing.
There's not much we haven't tried, by the
way.
I know that some of you feel now
O.M.'s become very stodgy and conservative.
But I can assure you, almost anything you
would challenge us to try, we've already tried
it ten times.
And sometimes with considerable degree of anguish.
But anyway, when the mumps hit in 1963,
when the teams were trying to launch out,
we were in this terrible financial mess, and
we were all trying to figure out where
sin was in the camp.
The mumps hit, and the group with the
mumps had to go into a separate part
of the building in Switzerland.
I wasn't there, thank the Lord.
Were you with the mumps group, Roger, or
the non-mumps group?
I got on the turkey.
But I understand that my dear brother, who
actually helped pioneer the work here in England
back in 1962, Hosey Burke's big, heavy, huge,
black brother, was in the mumps group.
And he was in this group that were,
what do you call them, quarantined by the
Swiss health authorities.
They were doing some heavy praying.
I think Ray Lynch was in there.
And they were doing some pretty heavy praying,
and they decided maybe there was a lack
of humility, and this was holding up the
finance, and getting the mumps, and whatever else
was going.
So they decided that to prove, or somehow
to break the grip of the enemy, or
the lack of humility, they would wash one
another's feet.
And the rumor goes that Hosey was not
willing for anybody to wash his feet.
He felt it was extreme.
But if you don't take that particular road,
then you have to take the road that
this is an example of serving, of humble
service, and of doing the lowly task, the
lowly task.
I have a feeling that without us realizing
it in OM, there's an overemphasis on leadership.
And I'm probably to blame.
Most things go wrong, you can find me
to blame somewhere.
And there seems to be a drive, and
some of it is healthy, within OM, for
people to be leaders, for people to have
a position.
And if you don't have a position, you
probably won't even get a desk.
And it's hard to work without a desk,
much less you might not get a secretary,
or a dictaphone.
I don't know what it is.
I haven't studied it thorough enough.
But there is, there's a lot more titles
floating around OM than certainly we ever had
in the early days.
And I'm not saying that these things are
necessarily harmful.
They can be neutral, they can be harmful,
they can be helpful.
But the key to the disciple, and the
life of the disciple, is serving.
And especially as we go cross-culturally into
difficult countries, they're not interested in our titles.
And we have to go as servants.
Now I think there's a possibility that Tom
Brewster is going to be speaking in our
September conference.
And if he speaks, I certainly hope he
will speak along the lines of some of
the things he has written about along this
line.
But I think in some of his writings,
he has shown how much more effective it
is, even when it comes to language learning,
and working with nationals, and making an impact,
even on the unconverted, that we go in
a very dependent servant role.
Learning the language, which esteems someone else higher.
They know what you want to know.
Therefore you can esteem them.
You can listen to them.
You can ask them to correct you.
How many in your work here are asking
your leader really, absolute honesty, to correct you?
I'll tell you, in my role of leadership,
the hardest thing I've ever found is correcting
people.
And I said, years ago, I said, Lord,
I'm tired.
I'm not correcting anybody anymore.
You take over that department.
Now once in a while, I still do.
Send out exhortations, and of course the danger
is when you ever try to correct anybody
that you'll be wrong.
And it's just not generally the favorite ministry
of most people.
I can remember in the history of OM1,
even so long ago, people come along and
have a very strong sort of teaching corrective
role.
They usually make enemies fairly quickly.
But that's complicated because someone has to be
a leader.
The church teaches that there is leadership.
The church teaches that we must be ready
to correct and exhort people.
And yet we're being challenged also to be
servants.
So I think the key is perhaps to
ask what is the foundation?
We're going to do a lot of things.
Perhaps also we have a lot of false
ideas as to what a servant is.
Is that a mouse that's just sort of
walked on?
That's not what Jesus is setting the example
of because we see Jesus in his total
life representing many, many different virtues, many, many
characteristics.
And some people need more grace to speak
out and not to be walked on.
So there's a lot to learn and I
don't have time to go into the details
tonight.
But I do believe that this is certainly
one of the most challenging and exciting parts
of the New Testament way of life.
That we're servants and to do some dirty
job, some mundane job.
It really bothers me when I pick up
feedback.
I haven't picked it up lately because I'm
not plugged in.
You think I'm plugged in to what's happening
in Brownlee?
Forget it.
I don't know what's going on.
For all I know, some of you got
married last week.
I don't know what's going on.
You know, I pick up some things.
But I had to purposely turn Brownlee off
in order to do the job of serving
the whole body worldwide and the ministry that
God has put me into.
So, you know, I'm not informed that much
about everything here.
But I can tell you that it always
bothers me if there are people in L
.A. who feel they're being used.
They feel they're being given the dirty jobs,
the mundane jobs.
I don't think any of you have done
mundane jobs probably much longer than some of
us who are in leadership.
And some of us, we would love to
spend hours doing some of this mundane work.
Today, I just spent a little bit of
time digging up, cleaning up the front of
my new office.
There's a lot of timber and garbage there.
I finally got a skip.
I was bawling in it in my hands,
old bookie worms, and piling it in a
skip.
It's the best part of the day.
I mean, really.
I almost...
And, you know, don't think O.M. is
using you.
O.M. is giving you the mundane, boring
job so that leaders can get on and
do their thing.
What are the leaders in O.M. doing?
You think they're saving up to buy a
house in the mountains?
Now, that part of things I do keep
an eye on.
I tell you, I have enormous confidence in
the leaders and the co-workers in this
work.
I couldn't ask to work with a more
pure-minded and honest, hard-working, loving group
of people than I have, especially if we
think in terms of what people really are
and who God is and what life is
really all about.
You know, there's nobody that's, you know, sort
of making a stack on your hard labor.
There was somebody who once criticized George Brewer
because they went into the bookshop here and
they saw this really nice, fancy bookshop and
they found out the people in there were
working for nothing.
Now, we need to be careful when we
communicate to people we're working for nothing because
today, some of you, your expense money just
to keep you going is more money than
a lot of other people are getting even
almost as a salary because we have a
lot of facilities and our great goal here
is not poverty.
Our first goal is not even simple lifestyle
in case you aren't plugged in yet.
Our first goal is world evangelism.
That's going to cost.
That's going to cost and we're not uptight
about what it costs to keep this army
going and this army moving.
But this person visited the bookshop and they
saw all these books being sold, so they,
the rumor got going, I don't think it
went too far, that George Verwer was some,
you know, big American somewhere had all these
stooges running around working, making money, selling books
and he was stashing it up.
I probably shouldn't even tell that story because
one of you is half asleep is probably
thinking I'm giving my testimony right now and
it'll go into a prayer letter and you
know, we'll have another cassette tape and memo
to counter the rumor.
Endless rumors.
But I think, you know, I think we
need to just once again afresh realize we
serve the Lord Christ.
I don't have the exact reference but I
know that's what it says.
I remember it from a preacher when I
was a student at Moody.
We serve the Lord Christ.
And I pray that you'll take those words
from Colossians if necessary each day as you're
doing your work, some of your work is
routine, some of it may be boring at
times and you'll say Lord, I'm doing this
as unto you.
I have to keep saying that.
It helps me.
I'm doing this as unto you.
And to see the privilege of taking the
towel and if you ever get the opportunity
to go out of another country to see
that you've got to go out as a
servant.
You know, this is why some of the
very clever, gifted people we've sent to India
India have not done well.
And some of the people that we would
evaluate as not so clever, not so gifted,
not so well-educated, not so witty and
sharp and boom, boom, you know all that
which we glorify in the Western world, they've
done a great job.
The Indians have loved it.
Good listeners.
Good servants.
India is a land in which that's very,
very, very important.
And I think it's something God wants to
teach us not through this little talk but
a renewed emphasis over the coming months.
And what are the ramifications of this?
What changes can we make in OM?
I may be wrong in this, but I
see, for example, in Spain, we bring people
off the doulats.
When the doulats comes into a port, it's
a pretty important thing, isn't it?
It's in the newspapers and publicity.
And I remember when I was on the
ship, you know, you felt part of something
and you felt accepted.
The people generally took you out and took
you nice meals and the vice president of
the country was there opening a book exhibit.
I mean, never met so many important people
as my few months, two years on the
Lagos.
And often the young people, even the newest
recruit on the ship, and it's true in
other parts of the world, they're asked to
give their testimony and meetings and they're pretty
important people.
Then they leave the doulats.
Latin Americans, we drop them in Spain.
You know the trouble we're having in Spain?
One of them is that, of course, the
Latin Americans are not always appreciated in Spain,
just as the Americans are not always appreciated
in Spain.
And one of the reasons we're not always
appreciated Americans are Latin Americans, we get too
many answers.
We get too many answers.
And we feel the Spaniards aren't fast enough.
Or we feel this.
Or we feel that.
Or we point out something where our country
is better than their country.
And, of course, this doesn't go over too
well.
Now, let's forget about Spain.
What about England?
Because I'll tell you, some of us over
here as internationals, we're making a mistake a
week.
And it's sad.
It's sad, really.
And I would wish that the British people
would be a little harder on us internationals.
And let us know where we're saying things.
Yeah, among OM, you can get away with
it.
You may be able to get away with
it.
You may not know whether you're getting away
with it or not.
But outside of OM, it's offensive to English
people or Welsh people.
And, by the way, it would be good
if those of us who come from other
countries could understand that Wales is not England,
and that Welsh people are a nation.
They feel they are a nation, in a
sense, and have a separate language and a
separate country, and actually despise the British, generally
speaking.
And if you go north of the border,
there's a border there, Scotland, you come to
another nation called Scotland.
Now they're all part of the United Kingdom.
The whole country is not called England.
It's the United Kingdom, and it includes Northern
Ireland, the most complex of all places.
That's right.
And, you know, here we are, bombing up
and down the high street, a great hodgepodge
of internationals dressed like a bat-converted Beatle
movement, and I just wonder sometimes how our
testimony is.
And I think all of us, from us
in the United States, Other countries need to
be willing for more correction.
You know, how do you pronounce Worcester?
You know, you read it?
How do you pronounce it?
And just be willing to be corrected, and
just not argue with people, and esteem them,
and we can learn off the smallest child
in the street, we can probably learn something
about culture.
I'm amazed at what I don't know about
British culture.
Maybe it's because I keep going in and
out and get confused about what's British and
what's Indian and what's Chinese and Russian and
Polish, but I know one thing, this is
where I want to have my roots, and
I don't want just a superficial existence here,
but want to be linked in and somehow
encourage people and communicate with people and be
a part of what God is doing here
as a servant, as a servant.
I was amazed at this Keswick speakers meeting
when one of the top speakers spent at
least five or ten minutes, he got up
from his chair and served all the rest
of us our tea, you know, a cup
of tea.
He really spoke to me, I wouldn't dare
give his name, one of the most well
-known men in this country.
You know, we were all eating your meal,
you don't want to have to get up
and break your meal and serve ten cups
of tea, you want sugar, one or two,
milk, you better just sit and eat.
And this English outstanding churchman got up and
just very politely, I don't even think in
any way, entered his head he was being
a great servant.
I think it was part of his lifestyle,
part of his lifestyle.
Learning to be a servant will not come
through raising your hand in a verbal meeting
and saying, Jesus, I recommit my life to
you.
It's going to take brokenness, it's going to
take relearning habits, it's going to take a
lot of things.
And we know when it comes to identifying
and uniting with a culture that it's complicated
because every nation has a number of cultures.
What particular culture?
The youth culture, the older culture, the conservative
evangelical culture, Pentecostal culture, Brethren culture, you know,
we're not saying it's easy.
And it's first, of course, an attitude of
the heart.
Well, let's just quickly shift gears.
We want to go to prayer now and
there's still another message coming, so relax.
We want to go to prayer for the
work of ICT.
I think the work of STL, personally, as
one being involved in STL long before ICT
ever existed, is easier to understand, at least
it is for me.
It's easier to understand, it's easier to measure.
We get these tremendous sales reports at the
board meeting.
I mean, it's very easy to see that
STL is doing something.
It's easier to understand.
And when we get another check for twenty
thousand quid to send to India, it's clear
something is happening.
In turn, ICT is a relatively new thing
and I think it's a little difficult to
measure, except if you want to measure how
much further we're getting into the red in
trying to serve the rest of the body.
Both ICT and STL teams are service teams
and consist of a large number of people
who aren't serving directly at the same time.
But I thought if we could have a
really good time of prayer for the ICT
ministry and specific aspects of it, it would
be really great and it would also help
us to know a little better what we're
doing.
And the area I want us to target
in on in prayer is communication.
One of the priority tasks of the ICT
team is to serve through communications, through communications.
We hear about a lot of letters going
out.
We see typists banging away from morning to
night.
Don't any of you ever get a question,
what's it all about?
We hear little rumors about George Burr sitting
on the train or in the bus or
in the bathtub dictating letters and Vera slaving
away typing letters and weaning the hours of
the night.
What is this all about?
What are all these letters about?
Who could anybody be possibly writing so many
letters to?
And I think if you thought then I
would just give you a list of the
people that we're corresponding with.
And you may want to write them down
very quickly.
And we want to pray for these people.
New converts.
All the time there are new converts.
Do they deserve a letter?
What does it say about offending a babe
in Christ?
Better to have a weight around your neck
thrown into the sea.
And when new babes in Christ make decisions,
at least they can get a form letter.
Yes, because of the lack of typist secretaries
and general manpower, often we can only send
a form letter to a new babe in
Christ.
You say a form letter?
It's better than no letter.
Because in a form letter you can often
say, look, we wish this could be personal.
Most people understand if they saw 20 or
30 people come to Christ in the meeting
that maybe they're not going to get a
personal letter.
We do write to some of them personally.
So new converts, let's pray for the many
people coming to Christ.
Many who come to Christ through the ministry
of OM never get any single letter.
Not one single letter, especially some of the
fast moving programs.
Now if the local follow-up committee picks
up the ball, they can reverse that.
Then number two, letters to new recruits.
Hans Strohm once testified he came on OM
because when he wrote a letter he got
a sane, sensible, and good answer from some
leader.
Every letter that comes in from a potential
new recruit for world missions, firstly, not for
OM.
Many of the people were involved in recruiting.
I would say 75%, that would be a
rough guess, 50-75% who are touched
through the ministry of OM never come on
OM because there's so many movements.
It only takes a spark to get a
fire going.
OM is a spark producing movement and all
those sparks cannot possibly come back into OM
for germinating or for being built up.
So letters to recruits, whether they come on
OM or not, letters to those making recommitments.
Thousands of people have made recommitments to Christ
just through the meetings we take in ICT,
counting my meetings, Nigel's meetings, meetings some of
you are taking.
And those people who make recommitments need some
kind of letter.
And what happens is many of them write
back and they need an answer.
And it's a way of serving.
It seems at times that it seems at
times ridiculous.
It doesn't seem to be strategic, even in
my own ministry when I think of all
the things I'm supposed to be doing.
It doesn't seem strategic.
One little letter, a little word of encouragement,
a few pieces of free literature.
But I think this kind of serving is
important.
Generally today people don't need you to serve
them a cup of cold water.
They get all the water they want.
They don't necessarily need food.
They've got food in the age of socialism.
People have more than they know what to
do with.
But love, encouragement, thoughtfulness, you're not going to
get this from the local man down the
road giving out the dole.
And this is one of the best ways
we can serve one another, the ministry of
encouragement.
Hebrews says that we should encourage one another
to good works.
Monthly backsliders.
If 99 are going well and one is
going off, where should our effort be?
The one.
It's easy to say that, isn't it?
That takes time.
That takes phone calls.
That takes tracing down addresses.
It takes chasing people around the world.
There are a number of notoriously backslidden people
out of OM.
Now out of 36,000 not so many.
Our hearts are burdened for these people.
We're praying for these people.
We've got pictures of them but we often
no longer have the address.
So that takes research, communication, correspondence, sometimes phone
calls.
But we wrap this as correspondence with backsliding
people and it's wonderful to see someone coming
back to the Lord.
And often those letters and prayers of other
OM friends have made the difference.
And then I've written here correspondence in connection
with meetings.
Oh my, what it is to line up
meetings.
Sometimes there are 20 letters involved in lining
up one weekend.
Back and forth, back and forth, this thing,
that thing.
And it's all so mundane at times, so
routine.
Why can't we just have the meeting?
Why do we have to line up the
literature and the transport?
Some of these groups want to know the
exact train you're arriving on.
They want to know what text.
They send you hymn books.
They want you to pick the hymns.
You know, you're trying to, but it's all
part of the work.
I tell you, without the faithful people in
your, behind your desk, it's just not going
to go on.
And then prayer requests.
People write us and they give us prayer
requests.
We want to pray over those prayer requests.
We have to often answer them and send
them a piece of literature related to that.
Then people write to us, just giving different
categories, with special problems.
I had another man last week pour out
his heart, homosexual man.
This is a huge thing to him.
The first time he's committed his problem of
homosexuality to paper.
Some other Christian leader recommended that he write
to me about this.
I guess my little tape on what the
Bible says about sex is all over the
place.
It's a miracle I don't get more letters.
And we've been able to send that man
some very helpful material.
Mark put that in the post last week
I believe, where he had some of the
material, and we sent it.
That man has already sent it back with
a word of thanks.
It's only four or five days later.
Photocopied it all.
He said, unbelievably helpful.
We have a gold mine of material here
that people need.
Don't think people have access to all this
material that you and I have.
We've got books that cover almost every problem
that you can imagine.
That particular kind of letter, to answer it,
I would not commit to tape.
I would either type out personally or talk
to him on the telephone.
I actually tried the phone tonight, it wasn't
holding.
People with all kinds of problems.
The OM is a movement that has been
free to share our fault and our sins
and our failures.
And I tell you, people relate to this.
People relate to this, because that's where people
are.
They're out there hurting.
There are more people hooked on pornography than
you'll ever know.
If I go on a meeting and talk
about a totally different subject and mention one
line about pornography, there will be people for
counseling on that subject.
Anywhere in the world.
Personally, I'm not interested in counseling anybody on
any sexual thing anymore.
I've been doing it for 28 years.
People get the idea through this that I've
got a problem.
Think of my reputation.
Think of the whole reputation of the movement.
But you know, I'd rather lose my reputation.
I don't think we will because we've got
God's protection and be able to help people
with these problems.
Just before I left on the trip to
Spain, we had a little meeting.
What an encouraging meeting it was.
Little mid-week prayer meeting.
50, 60 people were there and the man
told me, they usually get 40.
So it wasn't just for our special night.
What was the main thing?
And I was just speaking about all these
different countries around the world praying.
We had a great time of prayer.
The young man came to me after absolutely
hooked up to his teeth in pornography.
He has tried every possible method to shake
it.
He just can't shake it.
And I heard a message by David Siemens
on tape last week and I tell you
it was the most honest message I've heard
from an elderly Christian.
He said if I were living in this
day where so much pornography and so much
free sex is just floating everywhere, he said
I'm not so sure I would have made
it.
That was from an older preacher who lived
in a different day when it wasn't just
all jumping out the windows.
People still got in that trouble then but
it was harder.
It was harder.
Today it's just a major thing.
So we're corresponding with people with all kinds
of problems.
Sometimes when people initially write us they put
out feelers.
They're not telling us the real problem.
And if they don't hear from us we'll
never find out about the real problem.
And then we're corresponding with prayer partners.
These people are important.
That's why your prayer letter is important.
Especially when you can put a little personal
note on the bottom that you're praying for
them.
Do you pray for all your prayer partners?
Well that should be just basic.
You don't have that many.
I know some members have less prayer partners
than we had when we launched out to
Mexico, three of us in 1957.
We didn't even know what prayer partners were.
We were just gathering names for people who
seemed to be interested.
We didn't have it all together back then.
So you don't have many, which is sad,
but at least you can pray for them
all.
And then we have to correspond with them.
And of course some can correspond with more
people than others.
We all have different ministries.
But there it is.
That's the challenge.
And then I put here were the share
partners, the people who are sharing.
You know people give money to them and
get nothing back.
Nothing.
Others at least get a printed letter and
a receipt.
Soon the receipts will be put out by
computers.
That's always warms people's hearts.
Computer, receipt, communicates about as much as a
dead goldfish.
And I tell you, praise God, we've got
people still turning out personal letters.
And most leaders are turning out personal letters.
But I tell you, that's not going to
continue and it's not going to It can't
happen unless there are people who are called
to the typewriter.
Now we're getting to the next message.
I don't get a chance to talk to
you that much so just relax.
Three million people unemployed today.
Just had an interview this afternoon, spent an
hour with another XLM, unemployed.
But there are thousands of jobs.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs all
over the country.
What's gone wrong?
People get in a rut.
And you go to somebody, especially a big
masculine probably, who believes that he's called to
drive articulated lorries or whatever.
And you say, hey, what do you learn
typing?
This fellow just said it to me today.
Well, I always thought that was a woman's
job.
I said, oh, I think actually the typing
record for speed is held by a man.
It may have changed since I was studying.
But he scratched his head.
And, you know, I believe some of you
are going to be on the dole within
the next couple of years, really.
Going to be on the dole.
It's a good experience.
But if you learn to type, I don't
think you're going to be on the dole.
And, you know, today if you study what's
happening in the world, there's a shift in
kinds of jobs.
There's a shift in kinds of jobs.
And if you can run a keyboard that
starts at a basic typewriter keyboard and goes
to computer keyboards and all kinds of other
keyboards from the one that the airline counter
has sitting there when you're checking in, it's
all leaked.
If you can get those fingers of yours
to run that little typewriter keyboard, you're not
going to be unemployed unless something really weird
happens.
So I would challenge you, and I think
we ought to challenge more people, to learn
some of these skills that really are needed.
And just think of Christian work.
Christian work is crippled with a lack of
secretaries.
This is really bugging me.
Do you know that term?
I think it's an American term.
It's crippled with the people with a lack
of secretaries.
We, you know, as leaders, we are the
most privileged band almost I've ever seen in
missionary work.
I know many major mission leaders, a number
who have no full-time really trained secretaries.
And I just think that this is an
area where we need to pray and we
need to do something.
I don't want to take it too far,
but it's serious.
It really is serious.
O.M. is faced with a perpetual crisis
of a lack of help in our offices.
I face this with every country I go
to.
I don't know how many leaders right now
are just crying out to God that somebody
is going to drop out of the trees
soon who can type and type right.
I mean, it's a skill.
It's not a matter of just anybody coming
along sitting down and typing.
To type, you've got to know how to
spell.
A lot of people, the moment you talk
about typing, they drop out because they can't
spell.
Can't Christians learn how to spell?
Is that so difficult?
Now, some of us don't have to bother
because we've somehow got through that channel, though
I'm still trying to learn how to spell.
And we are fortunate to have typists and
have people helping us.
But oh my, the need in this area
is enormous.
So there are all kinds of letters, but
without people with typewriter vision, missionary work is
going to be held up.
One of the things that we need to
realize as we're praying for ICT, we're praying
for the different offices because we want to
do that as well, is that we are
in a very complicated work where we have
to recruit ten times as many as the
average mission organization.
Ten times as many as the general organization.
There it is.
Because we've got short-term, long-term, mini
-term, short terms a year, mini-terms a
summer, it takes a lot of communication.
Plus on top of that we're in a
literature ministry.
Plus on top of that a film ministry.
Plus all these other things that we're giving
you this list of because we think it's
important.
Share partners, prayer partners, next one I put
is exoemers.
Some exoemers for years haven't had a single
prayer letter.
Not a single bit of communication and it's
because nobody sent them a letter.
We're trying to get this exoemers newsletter out.
I tell you it's a long uphill pull.
I mean to really get this letter out
to 30,000 exoemers across the world.
We're working on it.
We need your help.
And then correspondence with other missions.
There's not a day we don't get communication
from other missions.
They want to hear back.
They're asking us every question you can imagine.
How to do this?
What's happening there?
I think Roger Molstead's work must be one
of the most misunderstood in OM.
I think it's better understood now than it
was three years ago.
You cannot believe what he and Bill Bloom
and his little department are trying to handle
in terms of correspondence.
From Ghana, from countries we don't even work
in.
We don't even want to work in.
And people want to know how to come
out of OM.
And then we got to send them all
the information even though we know in most
cases they're never going to come because the
possibility of them getting airfare out of a
Congo to come to Belgium when their money
isn't worth anything and none of the churches
believe anybody should leave the Congo to go
to Belgium anyway, is basically like a cow
flying over a Bromley cell.
And yet, what do we do with those
letters?
What do we do with those letters?
We throw them away?
They're people.
We've got to answer them.
We've got to send them something.
So there's that correspondence with other mission agencies.
There's correspondence with, I don't think there are
many nations in the world, I can only
think of maybe ten we're not corresponding with.
Not just our office but total office communication.
And then correspondence with the churches.
A major, major factor in OM's work is
the relationship with the churches.
Not only correspondence but telephone communication, telex communication,
any kind of communication, duplicated communication, printed communication,
it's all about.
We can't write out a personal long hand
letter to every church, what the financial policy
is, we've got to get that thing printed,
we've got to get it updated, we've got
to get it corrected, we've got to get
it in good proper English, then somebody's got
to get it in an envelope, somebody's got
to get it past the post desk with
a stamp on it and out.
And even then you have to cry and
pray that it will get there and not
get dumped into the waste basket with junk
post.
And then there's correspondence with former leaders.
I feel a great part of my ministry,
one of the 100 things that's on my
mind, is correspondence with men who are once
leaders in this world.
I don't want them to think we've abandoned
them because they're not leaders in OM now.
Well, you know, goodbye, nice to know you.
Do you like that philosophy?
Goodbye, nice to know you.
No, we need to pray for them first
of all, correspond with them.
Correspondence is linked with many other things.
Building unity, answering questions, general exhortation, encouragement,
organization, finance, communication of the unsaved, unconverted relatives,
thank you letters, communication with board members, communication
with people who are on OM now.
What do I do when I get a
letter from someone who's on OM now?
I say, well, you're not a problem case,
I only write to problem cases.
And the feedback we get from people after
they receive a letter, after they receive a
free book, after they receive a free little
leaflet, like what happened to the prayer meeting.
I mean, it's staggering.
It's staggering.
I share this with you this evening.
I'm from my motivation, I already know all
this.
I'm already too motivated.
I have trouble going to sleep at night.
But I share this with you that you
may be motivated in what you are doing.
And that those of you in ICT may
be motivated, and those of you in STL,
may pray for ICT, may not think, because
we have people criticize us for having too
many team members.
Any other organization that was trying to do
what we're doing would have twice as much
or three times as much facility, three times
the budget, and three times the personnel.
And if you don't think that's true, then
you know very little about missions whatsoever.
We are laboring under an enormous handicap.
Plus, we are trying to include study programs,
evangelism, church relationships.
It all takes time out of the day.
It's not a matter of getting people at
eight o'clock in the morning who are
highly trained, sophisticated secretarial school graduate secretaries, working
from eight in the morning until five thirty
at night.
It's people trickling out of a study program
at nine, nine fifteen, they didn't get any
money.
And you know, they volunteered, actually they wanted
to go on an evangelistic team, but the
door wasn't open, so they heard that ICT
existed.
They weren't really sure what that was, but
anyway, they came, and we're happier here.
We're happier here.
And without you, listen, without you, we are
like people with broken arms and broken legs.
And I hope every one of you, as
we go toward this difficult time of the
year, running toward the summer, and soon the
study program will stop, and you know, I
hear some people have trouble getting out of
bed.
Oh, I can understand trouble getting out of
bed.
Because, you know, I have a great struggle
getting out of bed.
And the main thing to get out of
bed is to somehow get somebody to help
you.
You say, hey, that's not very spiritual.
You know, this is the trouble, some of
you are too spiritual.
You come down to earth, you get a
little bucket of water above the bed, a
little string attached to it, you know, develop
your own method.
But if we're going to evangelize, if we're
going to evangelize the world, you know, I
don't think this is in-depth theology.
If we're going to evangelize the world, we
have to get out of bed.
I mean, does that make sense?
I mean, is that too deep?
I didn't learn that at Keswick.
Now, to get out of bed, it seems
to me that you have to go to
bed.
You know, I don't want to get too
deep.
And if you go to bed at a
decent time, you get
to bed at a decent And if
you go to bed at a decent time,
you get to bed at a decent And
if you go to bed at a decent
time, you get to bed at a decent
And if you go to bed And if
you go to bed at a decent time,
you get to bed at a decent And
if you go to bed at a decent
time, you get to bed at a decent
And if you go to bed at a
decent time, you get to bed at a
decent And if you go to bed at
a decent time, you Take a look at
the It's as if there wasn't an event
at the And getting up is important, especially
when we're working as a team in a
semi-community situation.
And of course, I know it's a battle.
And I think if we're honest, it's a
lack of motivation when those eyes first open
in the morning.
What are you looking forward to?
And somehow, if we could get motivated and
realize God has given us the position, the
exact position that Jesus is talking about in
John 13.
The towel is there.
I mean, it's there in other ways early
in the morning.
To get up and serve.
I often have the joy.
Don't I, darling?
I need your support.
I often get up and serve tea to
my wife.
Two cups.
Not the same.
You've got to go back, you know, two
trips, upstairs.
Sometimes to my daughter.
Sometimes she gets up early.
She serves the tea to me.
And somehow, you know, we've got to be
more motivated to be servants.
And we've got to see that the work
we're doing, it's not routine.
Sure, in one sense it may be.
But it's a tremendous privilege.
We're here to serve the body of Christ.
We're getting thank you letters every day.
I can't read them all to you.
I've already gone too long now.
We're getting thank you letters every day.
Thank you for that book.
Thank you for that letter.
Thank you for this.
People are so thrilled.
Why do you think a lot of the
money comes into us?
I would estimate tens of thousands of pounds
come to us purely as an expression of
thanks.
A lot of the money I receive.
And it's tens of thousands.
Expressions of thanks.
People are grateful.
We've helped them.
They've been saved through our ministry.
Their life's been turned upside down through that
book, through that tract.
They've been encouraged through that letter.
There are people who were contemplating suicide and
didn't do it.
Because they got the right tract and the
right book at the right time.
This is not a game.
It's not a routine thing.
It's not just sort of a year of
somehow getting broken and going through some kind
of training program.
This is one of the most privileged positions
we could ever be in, all of us
together.
It's not George Burr doing strategic things and
the rest of us, you know, we're sort
of just humming along barely getting up in
the morning and counting the days we can
get out and get into something strategic.
No, this is exciting service for Christ.
And there's all kinds of other ramifications.
What you do on the weekends, what you
do in your own churches.
I'm not excluding that.
But don't think, what I do on the
weekend, I go out and evangelize and I'm
winning people to Christ and I'm relating to
people.
That's really spiritual.
But what I do at my desk, what
I do here at the typewriter or the
telex machine or handling the post or packing
the books.
Well, it's got to be done.
Somebody has to do it.
No.
And cleaning that floor and those washbasins which
need it every week and those toilets and
the paper that we all should be picking
up whenever we see it in front of
these buildings so they don't look like the
dirtiest buildings on the whole street.
It's all a way to serve.
And I'm excited about that.
And if I can work it out, I'd
be happy to take any one of your
jobs at least for one or two years.
I'm not sure I can work that out.
Let's pray.
Let's just go right to prayer.
I really believe this was God's word for
us tonight and I want us to go
right to prayer for all these people who
we have to communicate with.
And God knows even after all this, if
you're feeling miserable and dull and depressed or
confused, just praise the Lord because He can
meet your need.
He can light a fire in the greatest
refrigerator and your heart cannot be excluded.
So let's just thank Him and praise Him
and pray with all of our hearts all
of our hearts for all this communication and
all the people involved in it.
We'll pray for one another, people who are
receiving it, all the processes involved, the telex,
the printing.
Let's touch every area of this ministry.
The lineup, the people going out taking meetings,
the books, the book room, the mechanics to
keep it all mobile.
Let's touch all the aspects.
The hospitality, it's all interwoven.
If I spoke on how it's all interwoven,
we'd be in other hour.
We can't do that now.
Lord, guide us as we pray.
I really believe, Lord, that you want to
revolutionize our attitude toward our work, toward one
another, toward the world, toward being a servant,
toward taking up the towel and washing other
people's feet, spiritually, sometimes practically.
And Lord, may there be a baptism of
Holy Ghost humility upon our hearts without losing
our initiative, our drive, our passion, our convictions,
but with it.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Let's one after another lead in prayer before
we perhaps break into groups.