Thank you very much.
Thank you for being here.
I'm administering on this ship, in this room,
almost every year for 25 years.
I'm a little bit late because I was
fellowshipping with one of the engineers.
And this engineer has been with the ministry
for 35 years.
On all three of the ships, he has
been in a key position in the engineering
department, including being chief engineer.
And I have the privilege of so many
friendships with such people.
But we don't get much time to be
together.
So I'm sorry I wasn't here to welcome
you when you first came as I was
trying to get a few minutes with this
dear brother.
The first ship to come to Korea back
in the 70s was Lagos 1, a much
smaller ship.
This man, Dave Thomas, who I was just
with, was the chief engineer on Lagos 1.
He was with me when we began the
ship ministry and traveled together, my whole family
and Dave.
He wasn't even married at the time, from
Great Britain out to India.
And he was on the ship, Lagos 1,
in 1988, when we lost that ship right
here in the Beagle Channel.
And the ship is still sitting there on
a rock, in case any of you want
to tour that area and see the ship.
I'm so glad for this special missions event
that you are having.
Quite a long time ago, I was contacted
about this particular conference.
And it's one of the reasons that I
came to Korea at this particular time.
If we are to do the work that
God has given to us in world missions,
we need the pastors and the leaders to
be involved.
And I'm sure most of you are involved.
So we really thank God for each one
of you and your commitment to the word
of God and to world evangelization.
I'm going to ask Soo Young if you
could please bring me a copy of my
new book in the Korean language.
I was just so happy when I found
out the book was ready in time for
the ship visit.
And we really would like to give each
one of you one of these as a
gift.
Now, we don't really have the money to
do that.
But we're going to do it anyway.
Because seven seminars are in this book.
It came out less than one year ago.
Except in Spanish, it came out earlier in
Spanish.
I speak Spanish.
130,000 copies are in print in 10
languages.
130,000.
Ten languages.
And that is unusual because missionary books do
not easily sell.
And in the last part of this book,
I share the Acts 13 vision.
And if you have your Bible, I'd like
you to turn to Acts 13.
Because as we think of world missions in
the 21st century, we must start with what
God did in the 1st century.
And we have this tremendous model, this tremendous
picture here in Acts 13.
In the back, final chapter about the Acts
13 vision, I share just some general goals
that I would like each nation to have
as a minimum.
Our vision was to see 100,000 churches
take their first step or a bigger step
in connection with world missions.
This came to me about four years ago,
five years ago, when I was very much
part of the AD2000 movement.
And we all came to Seoul, Korea, thousands
of us, for that great Jiko-e event
that so many of you were involved in.
And I know Louise Bush, my close friend,
he would love to be here today, and
he would surely want me to give his
greetings.
I somehow, in God's unique way, became the
chairperson of the Mission Mobilization Network, part of
that AD2000 movement.
And this Acts 13 vision, combining church growth
with world missions, came out of what God
was doing through all of that.
Some of the countries that are listed here,
many of the countries that are listed, they
have not reached these goals yet.
So we have a lot of work.
These things are hard to measure, of course,
because God is doing so many things.
But Korea is the country, in my viewpoint,
where we've seen the greatest growth and the
greatest breakthroughs in connection with world missions.
I'm very involved in Latin America.
Our ships have been around Latin America many,
many times.
At 19 years of age, I went to
Mexico.
That's really where this work began.
And Latin America probably has a similar number
of people as Korea who have, you know,
volunteered.
Latin America has not been able to get
the finance and the structure, good, solid, sending
churches to get those recruits out to the
field in big numbers.
And that's a tremendous, tremendous proof that just
getting volunteers is not enough.
World missions must be tied to the local
church.
It must be tied to church growth.
Let me give an example.
In America, back in the 50s, when I
was converted to Jesus, there were many great
missionary-sending churches.
They were really strong on world missions.
But many of those churches were also very
traditional, very conservative, and not churches that easily
make changes.
Within 30 years, many of them had to
stop supporting their missionaries because they were not
having church growth.
And whenever I've spoken in some of these
different churches, I have tried to commend them
for what they're doing locally.
We just can't go and make them feel
miserable because they're not doing enough in terms
of world missions.
We must encourage what they are doing locally
to see church growth.
My own wife's church, her home church, was
in that kind of situation.
It used to have 300 members.
Very strong-minded people, very biblical people, but
not very flexible people.
Not easily adapting to new situation and to
change of pastor.
And so church division came.
And it shrunk from 300 to 30 people.
And they were still trying to pay the
pastor his full salary.
And so my wife had that famous kind
of letter that all missionaries know about.
She's got the letter.
Saying, God bless you, we love you, but
we cannot send you any more money.
Now this has been happening in quite a
few churches.
Not only in America, but other countries.
Keeping in mind that mission, strong mission sending
goes back 200 years in some of these
places.
While this was happening, and especially in Great
Britain where I live, new churches were being
born.
Actually whole new denominations.
And many of them were not proactive about
world missions.
Some of them were even anti-mission societies.
We don't believe in mission societies.
And they would say, the Holy Spirit is
doing a new thing, and we're not going
to get involved in these old things.
So the 1980s in a number of countries
were very, very challenging years for missions.
Some traditional churches were no longer able to
do much.
Because of division, because of financial problems.
And because they failed to be proactive in
church growth.
And especially winning and keeping the young people.
Now here in Korea you have many outstanding
model churches.
And I preached in many of them.
And so I'm not here telling you what
to do.
I'm more here saying, hey, you know how
to do it.
We need help.
Can you send us some of your young
people for Turkey or for Pakistan or for
Afghanistan?
And I am thanking God that so many
of your churches have been growing.
Now some of my Korean friends who are
my teachers, like Pastor John Oak of Serang
Church, who is also the chairman of the
OM Board in Korea, he told me even
a couple of years ago that church growth
in Korea was beginning to level.
It was beginning to level out.
And I will leave you to study your
own statistics.
I'm not going to talk about your statistics.
But I want to say this.
When a church grows so rapidly as the
Korean church has, it takes an enormous amount
of prayer and pastoral work and care just
to maintain that tremendous level for the glory
of God.
Of course, we know some churches continue to
grow very rapidly, like Serang Church.
But it might be also quite normal that
other churches actually may have less members and
less people than five years ago.
That is a normal occurrence.
The key is not to give up.
Not to get discouraged.
To realize God is using small churches as
a very vital part of building the kingdom.
And many of the great Antioch kind of
churches sending out workers around the world, they
are often small churches.
I think when people look at a movement
like Operation Mobilization and other movements like OMF
former China Inland Mission, which we so highly
esteem in our work, some people see these
as sort of outside of the church.
But it is our biblical conviction that we
are 100% part of the church.
About 80% of our longer term people,
we have many, many, many hundreds of longer
term people, they have been sent out by
their own local church.
If they are sent out by their church,
to work in fellowship with OM in church
planting in Turkey, to me they are still
100% part of the church.
How can a local church in Chicago possibly
oversee a church planting work in the land
of Turkey, where by the way we have
been involved for 38 years?
Is the word partnership.
When I was in Malaysia, many of us
from all over the world were at the
W.E.F. Congress in Malaysia.
And also the Great Commission Roundtable.
You may ask, what is the Great Commission
Roundtable?
As AD2000 had closure last January, a movement
with all of its complexity, but a movement
that had a huge impact in many, many
nations, in many, many ways.
There is not time to talk about that.
But even two years ago, seeing this coming,
seeing this closure coming, some Norwegians called key
organizational leaders together to Norway.
Here is Norway.
I have this in case somebody steals my
globe, and I have my jacket.
And at present, the burden of the Great
Commission Roundtable is to keep major mission and
church leaders in contact and talking.
They are not launching some new global plan
for world evangelism.
That is not the plan right now.
They feel so much needs to happen on
a national and on an area level.
And they are trying to esteem the various
networks, like the World Evangelical Fellowship, and the
Lausanne Movement, and other networks.
And I want to say, as someone who
has been in missions for 45 years, as
someone who will be turning the leadership of
this movement, OM, over to someone else in
two years' time, it's me, that
I am incredibly excited about these next 10
years.
And I hope that each one of your
churches will have some kind of 5 or
10-year plan, 5 or 10-year dream,
what you want God to do in your
church during these great days.
And we believe that Korea is to play
an increasingly major role in the evangelization of
the whole world.
I had three wonderful services yesterday that I
could preach at in two different churches.
And when I came back, or maybe it
was this morning, my wife came with me
for the first time.
It was the final service.
So I started to speak to her about
my burden to come, not for a few
days to Korea, but to come here and
live at least for one month.
My wife, who was with me on this
trip, and who has been traveling for 41
years, as a human being, does not want
to travel anymore.
So if we're going to come here to
live for a month, God's going to have
to do a special work in my wife's
heart.
So please pray for that.
As I turn the actual leadership of OM
over to others, I hope to have more
time to do some of the things I've
been praying about and dreaming about for a
long time.
Because I've also been the leader of the
international office and team based in London.
A lot of time has been given to
that team in London, where I live, London,
England.
So when I leave that responsibility, I'm going
to have a lot more time to do
what I want to do.
And I want to come to Korea.
I want to preach in your big churches
but also your small churches.
And I want to talk to pastors and
leaders.
And at the end of the day, I
want to just tell you with all my
heart, keep on keeping on, keep on keeping
on and don't rest.
In ministry, there will be many discouragements.
In mission work, there will be even more
discouragements.
We are attempting the impossible.
For 42 years, I've been praying for Afghanistan.
In fact, some of the first Koreans who
were 30 some years ago, they also had
a vision for Afghanistan.
We have sent many people there.
But we have not seen a breakthrough in
Afghanistan.
There is no church in that nation.
There are some believers but they are not
meeting together.
Many of them are afraid for their very
lives as the government has threatened to take
people's lives.
And some Korean churches have adopted, in the
adopt-a-people movement, have adopted Afghanistan as
their nation, their people's group.
Now we know phenomenal things have happened around
the world in these past 100 years.
I'm sure you know, everywhere in the world
people talk about Korea.
Surely you know that.
The statistics about church growth in Korea are
known all over the world.
Sometimes these things get exaggerated.
Probably you are quite aware also of some
of your struggles, some of the weaknesses.
And I know some Korean leaders who have
spoken to me.
They feel, why haven't we made, so many
of us, why haven't we made a greater
impact in the nation, in the political world,
in the social world?
The American church is also asking this question.
The Brazilian church is asking this question.
It's a good question to ask.
But we need a lot of wisdom as
we answer the question.
Because we will not be in unity as
to what God's actual program is for our
nation.
You get some people who want to convert
the whole nation to Jesus.
But there are many godly people that don't
believe that is necessarily God's plan.
And I don't think the church is going
to get united on how all of this
is supposed to happen.
One thing I feel very strongly is that
we should not start feeling excessive guilt and
then discouragement because we haven't totally changed the
fiber of our nation.
Because sometimes my hearts go out to the
average Christian sitting in church on Sunday morning.
And if we are not careful, we can
lay on them burdens, burdens, challenges that no
person can handle.
Because many of God's people are battling in
their marriages.
They're battling with their children.
They're battling with their economic situation.
They are already stretched in terms of their
mental capacity.
So one of my prayers for each one
of you pastors is that you will be
a blessing to your people.
That you will be a true pastor.
Not just a Bible teacher.
Not just a sermon producer.
But a true pastor.
Pastoring, loving, caring with all of your heart
for the people of God.
And that I believe will produce a healthy
church.
My heart rings in unity with that.
So we are together in this work.
We are people who are pastoring.
We're not trying to recruit you for Afghanistan.
Some of you are too old to learn
the language.
You go right out of your mind.
But as you create a healthy church, as
you work to have an Antioch church, the
Holy Spirit will be able to call out
as He did Paul and Barnabas, people from
your church.
Now we get quite a few churches in
some countries, especially Brazil.
Brazil for me is the Korea of Latin
America.
Don't tell them that.
But they often say we are not ready
to send out anybody.
We have so much more to do locally.
We have this problem.
We must solve this problem.
And we haven't finished building our church building.
And the Spirit of God is leading us
to buy our pastor a new bicycle.
And so we're not ready to send missionaries.
But brothers and sisters, if we wait till
we have the perfect local church, we're not
going to send anybody.
There will always be complexities.
There will always be problems.
When I was selling books door to door
as a young Christian, selling Bibles, I met
a lady.
She bought a lot of books.
I was really happy.
Praise God.
She gave me a lot of money for
these books.
I was trying to earn money to get
to Mexico.
But then the lady invited me in and
started preaching to me.
I think just looking at me she knew
I was strong on zeal and weak on
wisdom.
And she challenged me to read the Proverbs
to get more wisdom from God's Word.
So I started to read the Proverbs almost
every day.
She said, a proverb a day will keep
the devil away, young man.
And then she showed me that there were
31 Proverbs, one for every day in the
month.
I don't know about the Korean calendar.
And for 44 years I've been reading the
Proverbs almost every single day.
It's been one of my greatest sources of
wisdom and inspiration for the leadership that I've
had to learn and develop in this organization.
I read them in Spanish.
I read them in English.
I listen on cassette tape.
I love the Proverbs.
Now I'm starting to write my own.
Okay, don't worry.
I'm not going to add them to the
Bible.
But one of my Proverbs has gone very
famous around the world, on the Internet and
in different books.
This is the Proverb.
Where two or three of the Lord's people
are gathered together, sooner or later there will
be a mess.
The first time in the Korean language.
Where two or three of the Lord's people
are gathered together, sooner or later there will
be a mess.
That is my experience for 46 years.
But the beautiful side of the story.
Our God knows how to continue His work
even when we have made a bit of
a mess.
So even if your church is going through
a time of crisis, even though you may
have what we say in English, a bit
of a messy situation, don't allow that to
discourage you.
God is still using you.
God is working in the midst of that
situation.
He knows how to overrule our mistakes.
One of the reasons I'm still here.
I learned that failure could be the back
door to success.
When I first lived in Europe, I lived
in Spain because it was a closed country.
But my vision was the communist world and
the Muslim world.
I was hardly interested in Western Europe.
They already have churches.
My prayer was Turkey, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union.
My first summer in Europe, 61, I was
headed for the Soviet Union to smuggle Bibles
and distribute Christian literature.
Some of you know Brother Andrew, a good
friend of mine, known as God's smuggler.
I'm Brother George, known as God's bungler, the
big mistake maker.
Because the second day in the Soviet Union,
I was arrested due to my own stupidity.
This work at that time was very small.
We did not have the name OM.
We had the name STL, Send the Light.
But because of that failure, being deported from
the Soviet Union, I went for a day
of prayer.
And in that day of prayer, God changed
me.
Greater understanding of the church, the importance of
the local church.
And gave me that name, Operation Mobilization.
So I moved from Madrid, where there were
hardly any churches, to London, where we had
2,000 churches.
The next two
years, 2,000 British people were to move
out in evangelism across Europe and around the
world.
Do not be afraid to fail.
We as God's people, especially in regard to
world missions, must be willing to take a
few risks.
Maybe there's someone in your church, they want
to get into world missions.
If you feel well, they're so young.
And I saw him make this stupid mistake
last week in the church in the Sunday
school.
How can he ever be a missionary?
He doesn't know the word of God enough.
And I don't think he knows how to
pray two hours a day yet.
So he must stay here for more years.
We must be willing to take risks.
I was saved in a Billy Graham meeting.
I was saved, what looks like, outside of
the context of the church.
But that's not the way I see it.
Billy Graham was sent by the church as
an evangelist.
It was the churches in New York City
that brought Billy Graham there to speak and
went to the meetings.
Otherwise, nobody would be there.
And after I was saved that night in
New York City, I got involved with God's
people.
And I went to a local church.
And I shared my vision.
I was only 19.
I'm going to Mexico to evangelize.
They could have easily been negative.
Who are you to go to Mexico?
You're only 19 years of age.
You don't even know how to drive properly
yet.
But instead, these dear people in my hometown
they said, we're going to pray for you.
And one man bought me the first vehicle
in the history of our church.
Another man bought all the books I had
left over from my door-to-door book
selling.
He just bought everything that was left over.
And three of us headed to Mexico.
That was the birth of a movement that
was ultimately to give the word of God
to one billion people across this world.
I'm excited about these next 10 years.
The church growth movement of the world is
going to be is merging with the mission's
vision for phenomenal results in the next 10
years.
Whether you are a small church or whether
you are a big church, you can have
a vital part in this great program to
reach everybody in the world with the gospel.
About 90% of the missionaries in the
world are working where the church already exists.
That includes many of our own workers.
But our greater passion for these next 10
years are those nations and those places where
the church does not exist or is incredibly
small.
Many of those places are across what's known
as the 10-40 window.
That's 10 degrees north of the equator to
40 degrees north.
That's what we're talking about.
I'm sure most of you know about this.
Of course, many of those countries are dominated
by the Muslim world.
Some of them like Libya and Algeria and
Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, they have almost no believers.
And as we look across the whole world,
we can thank God for all that has
been done.
But about 20% of the people in
the world, about 20%, have never heard of
a Christian church.
I was greatly influenced by a man from
Canada named Oswald J.
Smith.
He was a great mission leader.
A pastor of one of Canada's greatest churches.
He was a great writer.
Many of his books are in Korean.
And when I heard the mission challenge from
him, 50% of the people in the
world had not yet heard the gospel.
So a lot has been done.
And we know hearing the gospel once, that
doesn't mean they're evangelized.
That's just the beginning.
Now it's only 20%.
But here's the problem.
Population explosion.
So that 20% of today's population is
very similar in numbers of people to 50
% in 1955.
There are hundreds of millions still not heard
the gospel.
And your churches before God together with others
will determine whether they ever hear about Jesus
Christ before they die.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank you for what you are
doing across the world.
We thank you for the directorship of your
Holy Spirit.
We thank you Lord for your Holy Word.
Passages like Acts chapter 13.
That can be such an inspiration and such
a help to us.
Lord, I pray for every church represented here
today that we may be proactive, visionary churches.
That we may continue to experience church growth.
But also we would be willing to take
the risks to send out workers to the
more unreached parts of the world.
And give us the strength Lord also to
care for those workers when they return.
Give you all the praise and all the
glory Lord.
Amen.
If there's time I'm happy to answer questions.
I don't know what the time setting is.