In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of effective communication in leadership and organization. They highlight the value of carbon paper as a communication tool and mention a new type of paper that is more durable and efficient. The sermon also touches on the significance of fasting and the proper way to approach it, referencing Jesus' teachings in Matthew chapter 6. The speaker then discusses the challenges of organizing literature in their organization and the importance of clear instructions and guidelines for discipleship.

Sit down. At mealtimes, we utter some little prayer. And it's good that God is very merciful. Because He was more strict in dealing with us, I think many of us have been slayed by the Lord Himself for our flippancy of praying and lack of heart that often goes with it. So let's take a moment of silent prayer and really search our hearts that we may be prepared of the Spirit. This is serious business. You know that when leaders in physical armies are given briefings that if they make one mistake, it can cost lives. As the ship was coming up the river, one mistake up on that bridge and We're in a spiritual warfare, guiding the ship of God. Let's have a moment of silent prayer, searching our hearts. I'm going to speak this morning on the leader as an administrator, organizer, on God's guidance. Lord, help us to understand the seriousness of what we are doing. Be diligent as your word commands. Give our minds the alertness for us to grapple with the language and to also ask the right questions. Ask in Jesus' name. Amen. This morning we're going to be speaking on the leader as an administrator and an organizer. Many of you have only joined this course midway. Complicated. Come that. Somehow. Acts chapter 6. We may have point over this business. But we will give ourselves continually prayer. And to the minister Joseph Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. When they sat before the apostles and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. The word of God increased and the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. And a great company of priests were obedient to the faith. Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Here we see in the very, very beginning of the church that immediately they were faced with organizational problems. So they assigned certain leaders to give themselves to the practical work. The amazing thing is one of the first men given to this practical work ends up out preaching in an open air meeting and gets thrown to death. So that is a beautiful example that the person who is given to practical work does not mean he no longer preaches in the open air, he no longer witnesses. That is the mistake we have made in the 20th century. We categorize people and we say, well, this is my job, this is my ministry. I serve cups of tea to visiting pastors. I don't give out tracts, I don't go house to house, I don't preach. I sing in the choir only, that's my ministry. And this kind of categorizing and professionalizing is absolutely a death blow to spiritual reality. Because it means that basically we do things because it's our job rather than we do things because of compassion and love. The thing that determines a person's reality on this ship is what he or she does in their free time. That is a very big factor. Everybody in the world is working an 8-hour day. Most of them are working close to double that just to get food in their stomach. Maybe not in affluent countries, but some come from. And what we do in our free time is a very, very big thing. Very, very big thing. Of course, we don't get much free time. Some certainly don't as they would like. But as little or as much as there is, it's a very big thing. Well, I have to be careful, I don't want to give out tracts. I want to get right into the heart of this subject. As an organizer, we live in a very complicated world. Unfortunately, much more complicated than this world that these people live in. That was complicated enough. They immediately had problems. You ever tried to think of the administrative problems that Moses faced? That was the first big operation, mobilization. And he had more than a million, more than one million people to organize, to feed. They lived in little tents, water supply. This book was a great challenge for me. I was praying about this ship project. A lot of people want OM to expand. We have unlimited opportunities to expand. One of the biggest reasons that OM finds it difficult to expand more at present is the station. It's all out here on the ship. Or in Bombay. You know, we wouldn't be here without organizations. But even if you don't, you need to learn something about organizing yourself to attend those. A good organizer can save hundreds of people. A poor organizer can cost hundreds of people time. Planning and organizing 140 hours. Lose time, you don't get it back. A poor team leader, disorganized, not planning ahead. The whole team suffers. You can't stress enough the need for us to learn something. We're whole. And how it functions will really depend on your ability to plan, organize, administrate. I have seven children. I know brothers that think OM team life is difficult and this, that problem. When they get married, their bearings are going to burn. Government wants you to pay taxes. You discover that you've got to live in a house. How do you get a house? You've got to rent it. You discover nobody rents houses in this area without black money. And in five minutes, all you've learned in five years, you're under the pressure of just trying to organize and provide for your family. And so learning how to organize, learning how to do things, hundreds of people, all of us, and women included because some of you women will probably marry some scatterbrained man and if you don't help him organize, you'll probably flush him down the toilet in the dark. Exaggeration, of course. But believe me, there are quite a few scatterbrained people around too. Let's get right to the issue. First of all, organizers, term, I don't like the term actually, not born, they are made. Born. That is not true. Who is a born organizer? You were born a baby. So, of course, there are hereditary factors. Some people certainly have more brain power than these things. A bigger factor is upbringing. Upbringing. And even if you have children, you can be overcome. Children can be overcome. There are many factors. There are many factors that determine one's ability when he arrives to the ripe age of 18, as to whether he can organize, can overcome. God has given all of us a mind, no such thing as an inferiority complex. People, there are individuals, hundreds, thousands of examples, with terrific disabilities, who bypass the people with the natural ability. And the second thing, for the sake of you, let's talk about the administrative task connected with a day's full things. And I want to help you. What is learned? Different people have different potential in the area of memory. Some people have very good memory. I have a fairly good memory, but it's amazing how all of us have different. Learn to write things down. Write things down that you have to keep in mind for the next day. Write things down the evening before that you have to remember the next day. It can be such a help, because in tackling a day's work, we have to continually battle the problem of priorities. There's always so many things to do. So many things to do. And when you get married, you get a whole new range of things you have to do. Family. Dreams. Maybe I did dream, but I didn't realize very much. How many things would come to me now that I have children? Going to parents' night. And I have three children in school. That's three parents' night. A couple times a year. Going to sports day. Your children expect you to come to sports day. And at times, Christians have made the mistake of, because they're not disciplined, not organized, not doing this kind of thing. And the children suffer for it. Bringing this in, because I don't think we want to think of organization just as something we do for the OM team or the OM office. It's something we need for marriage. Planning your next day. Have a diary. A diary, as we think of it in England, is not a book where you write down what's happening after it happens. That is the American idea, I think, of a diary. And I'm not against that. The diary of David Brainerd. He wrote his spiritual experiences. That's okay, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a little book that has all the days of the year listed in, and you write in there key dates. Very important. I already have the dates for OM fall conferences. I'm already booked to speak the 31st of January 1976 at Oxford University. That is entered in my diary. I can't carry all this around in my head. And if I just have the letters, I have a double check. I like to use, as much as possible, a double check system in case one system falls through. I lose my diary. What do I do? Well, I have the letters dealing with those meetings, inviting me to those meetings, in a file. So if I lose my diary, I have a file. If I lose the file, I have a diary. I also, when I was in Singapore one year ago, took my entire address book and had the whole thing photocopied. So that I have a complete photocopy of all my major addresses in a file in England. How many people, fatter-brained OMers, have lost their address book with contact, new converts, and they could never write them again. Gone. Why didn't they make a copy? Have that somewhere home. If people mean anything to you, other than two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a mouth, that you talk to or look at, you will want to keep track of their address. And believe me, when people leave this ship and no one writes to them, it can be a very devastating experience. Well, when I was here, you know, a few people used to talk to me. Now I'm gone. But one of the reasons sometimes they don't get a letter is no one knows their address. Or they gave the wrong address. Little practical things can make all the difference in the world. All the difference in the world. Any of your own life. So, planning ahead, the day before, determine your priorities. You have to decide what you're doing now. In IT, your priorities now on the ship are different from your priorities in the UP campaign. You must surely understand that. If you didn't, you'd be certainly having a lot of difficulty. So, determine your priorities. Priority means what things should come up. I recommend you put people as the first priority. That may be a little bit balanced. You are in a period of training. Especially those of you from India, you have been putting people up to your neck for the past two years. So, in a sense, you're a little bit withdrawn now. That's understandable. You'll do the course. True. But that doesn't mean people are scared. On, limit yourself. The thing that I believe should be a priority is our prayer and worship. One of the deadly dichotomies of many people is not a man of prayer. Tell me, was Stephen a man of prayer? The fact of the matter is men who are holding positions of organization, they must also give themselves to be organized by human wisdom. In the mind of God, we need the discernment of God. Don't think someday because you're in a practical job or in an organizational job that you don't need prayer and worship. So, always keep that as a priority. Next thing is to have a system of files. Very simple. My first file system, as far as I remember, were cornflake boxes cut in half and folded over backwards and wrote on the top. Any thin piece of cardboard can be used as a file. Beginning stages of organizing, you're probably not going to have one hundred files. If you want to come into my office, you can see about one hundred and forty files. I realize you're not going to get into that. But, here are just a few basic suggestions. Have a file of things you need to read. For what to read. No end in life in general. You're always being given things to read. Isn't it simple? If you have one place, everything, I'm not talking about books now, but magazines, memos, that are not yet read. Have a file to read. Put it together in the beginning. Then have a file to answer. Here are people who have written a paper to a bigger piece of paper. Do everything you can to avoid little bits of paper because they're so easily lost. Also find something. Help me. I have a big envelope, usually in my briefcase, full of miscellaneous papers. Get a chance. You can go through that. People's pictures, people's business cards. You don't know what to do with it. Put them all in that envelope. I prefer an envelope for that rather than a file because a file is loose. Find an envelope. All of your things is better. Big envelope, often it's being thrown away. Keep your things in there, especially if you're traveling. You've got a file for it to read. You've got a file for it to answer. Preferably a big envelope where you just put your mission. I would also suggest a file called pending projects. Things that you want to do. You're working on. You don't necessarily need to answer anything, but it's something that you want to do. Maybe, and what I put into that, here's a letter that I've answered and it involves a particular project. What am I going to do with that letter? Throw it away. Maybe my only reference to that particular project. So I put it in pending projects. If it's purely a personal letter, I probably will not want to keep it. Write. Some of you may want to keep a list of the letters you write. I don't do that because I can't keep up as it is, much less making a list. I keep a carbon copy of every letter I write and then about four or five weeks later I go through it. Keep letters that are relevant because it's dealing with a person writing it back. Throw away letters that are strictly personal. I have the person's address. I wrote him a letter of encouragement. I suggest you have a file called pending projects. I used to separate and have a file called to hear from. Again, I'm only giving this out as a suggestion. But there are quite a few people I was waiting to hear from and the matters were somewhat urgent. Actually, it's a little bit too similar to pending projects. It's not worth it. Don't get too many files. Don't subdivide and subdivide and subdivide. When it comes to trying to find something you haven't got a clue what file you put it in. Most of you don't have that many things, that many letters. Some of you, of course, probably keep a lot of these memos and all this in a notebook and that's all right. You have to find a system that works for you. Moving on from there because we're short on time. Keeping track. Keeping track of the things God has committed to you. Now here again, if you don't have a good memo, memory, why don't you make a list? Why don't you make an inventory of the things God has committed to you? Then when you go to leave this ship a few months from now, you can look over this inventory and see how much junk you have lost or left behind and it can be very, very helpful. So I suggest one way or the other keeping track of what belongs to you. Why is there so much junk left? People don't even know what they have. They don't even know what they own. And this happens especially when you start getting on Charlie. You've got shirts with different people's names in them and you don't even know what clothing is yours. I get very confused on this. What clothing? I fortunately have a wife and we didn't have to do that in itself. Marriage, a bit of a scatterbrain. But I think we need to be faithful stewards of all the equipment God has given us. And another little thing, very important, put your name on the thing. It's amazing how that can help. Even when people find it, you lose it, someone finds it, your name is on it. But put your name, a little tag, maybe you're just, maybe it's a tape recorder you're just using for a month. Put a little tag on it. Temporary stewardship for the next month of so and so. Because there's so many cassette recorders floating around the ship, somebody can easily pick yours up thinking it's theirs. So putting your name on things. And you will discover in the area of laundry if your clothes don't have a marking or an issue. You'll have trouble sometimes getting it back. You're all on the line and a big storm comes and you're all taken. Fuck it. So all these little things add up to either save time or lose time. And with the time you save, you can be dealing with people and doing the things that are really on your heart. If you're an organizational scatterbrain, you're continually losing time and then you won't get to the people, you won't get to the priorities that you want to get to. You've dealt with various areas. At least some of you on how to save time, how to use time. Let's just insert a word here that will help in this everyday life. Important thing to keep in mind is avoid being selfish. Avoid being selfish. So when we get going and we have goals, we want to study, we want to do. Without knowing it, we can become selfish. Without being thoughtful. And this is especially important living in crowded conditions. You are living on a ship. Are you really being thoughtful about your roommates? They want to listen to you. Cabins are packed. Question about this, what I'm talking about. Really be considerate. We like to get up very early on the ship. Are they being considerate of people? Whereas we're organized, people being inconsiderate. None of us. I think of myself. Am I going to study? When am I going to sleep? What am I going to do today? When am I going to get free time? A whole world. Tremendous book. I don't know how many copies are on the ship. I saw one yesterday. Especially for the girls. Every people life speaker I've ever read about Andrew Murray, all the ladies who wrote this book, all of them have said, in this life, you don't want to become carnal in order to become good students. In order to get ahead in your spiritual life, you want for you to become selfish. This at times may mean even giving away something that you feel is very useful to you. But maybe it can be useful to that other brother. And he doesn't have one. Above all else, our burden is not to be great, but to be Christ-like. I feel the West, the Western world, tends to equip us with a mechanical and technological way of doing things and robs us, oftentimes, of balance. Let me move on to another area. Organizing our literature. Organizing our literature. You know, Anne, we're dealing with literature. It makes everything we do twice as complicated. Think how simple it would be to take meetings. Go there. Sit, stand up, speak, sit down. Talk to a few people after. We believe in the printed page. We believe in literature. We believe in Bibles. We all have our own Bibles. Why don't we have more desire that other people can have Bibles? We have to get their expensive Bibles. And yet, the lack of concern that a man can buy the spring of $4 Bible. So, this causes a lot of complication. Just think of before how we had to get the literature out to the gate, and some people said, a gate and a room in a church and I could have any... Endless little complications. So this is an area where we have preparing our literature ahead. Finding out from the church and letting them know ahead that we're bringing a book table. I have the advantage. My reputation has gone ahead of me in most places. People know that I will not be arriving without a book table. plus with my sort of authority, most people don't stop me from doing what I want to do. Because they've been, in many cases, begging me to come to their church. I have a choice of churches to go to. But, that was not always my situation and it's probably not yours. So, you need to be a little more tactful and it's not others. But, letting them know and... I still do this, don't get me wrong. I generally ask the pastor, look, do you mind if we have a book table? If it's a particular situation on Sunday, I said, do you mind if we just play? I do in churches that don't like book tables. Now, some countries that doesn't work very well in because people don't have hardly any money and if you offer everything, on a donation basis, this is where you need wisdom. Just put a few books out. Our first burden is to get the literature out. Not to get the money in. And I think we've got to get that into our heads. Get the word out. We gave away thousands of books in Singapore and Malaysia. Why? To get money in. How much money came in from books we gave away? I think sometimes people are critical. Don't think through the whole situation. For example, how many organizations in the world, you tell me, would be having meetings on a ship like we've been having of businessmen and never taking an offer? I say this because some people think, oh well, the main thing around here is that we get book sale money. That we get money in general. Some people are upset by the fact that we announce our sales figures. But we've done that because other people were upset that we didn't announce each day the sales figures. But our burden, and I think it's very important to understand this, is not money. No offerings taken in these meetings or in the church meetings. Measuring rods. Money is a good measuring rod. How many books went out? Maybe we should just count the books. As we go out, we're going to have somebody at the table. So keep that in mind. We want to get the word out. So I like to bring with you, whenever possible, things that you can give away. Learn more giveaway material. Go through prayer. 30,000 copies on the ship. To give away or to use as premium. New Testament. You have to check, of course, for the people in charge. They may be open to your suggestion. A lot hinges on how much you're willing to carry down the gangway. In general, we need to make sure we have the different kinds of literature. What are the different kinds of literature generally you have to think about when you're organizing? One, facts for the unconverted. Two, booklets for the unconverted. Three, a gospel packet. Generally, again, for the unconverted. Four, some kind of books for the unconverted. Even in meetings with Christians, we can be challenging them to take these materials and use them in reaching the unconverted. Last minute, in Singapore, we had this idea selling 10 New Testaments or 12 New Testaments for $10. And we sold quite a few. They will now go out to the unconverted. There's two kinds of books to me on the book table in one sense. Books. To have anything less than 10 copies is a bit ridiculous. To me, that's the priority. Please think other books we're seeing on the table. Make the difference. Take the advance. Now, when you're on a regular team in India, you have a terrific problem keeping the supply of literature coming. You must know where are your sources of literature. Your source of Bengali literature. You must know, as a reader, where the literature comes from, how to get it, what's the best method of transportation, how to show the literature that you have, why we're having readers change. Because over many, many years, we discovered all readers dropping the ball, as we say in the West. You know that expression in the future? We're reading Leviticus. Tell me in the future, say, don't drop the ball. You know what I'm talking about. I think they have other expressions that are based on cricket. But, it's very, very important to understand that what you do in this area as a leader determines your whole team in terms of what they can do. This means communication. One of the most valuable weapons ever granted to us in the area of organization is carbon paper. Carbon paper. They now have carbon paper. I have a new type that isn't called carbon paper. It's not made out of carbon. It doesn't smudge. And it lasts 100 times, 100 times one piece of paper. One of my old companies that I worked for manufactured this stuff, so I get it cheap. If you want a piece of carbon paper, you can see, and they'll give you one of these new polyester pieces of carbon paper. You can fold it up, put it in your wallet, and unfold it. But, uh, I say this because so often in organization we've got to make a copy. We need to make a copy. And often more than one copy. So that if we're giving instructions to somebody with a little piece of carbon paper, we automatically have a copy for ourselves. We write a letter, we write a report. So many times we need to make a copy or more than one copy. I very highly recommend learning how to type. Uh, the most valuable thing I ever learned in high school, always, so many things I studied in high school, chemistry, physics, uh, I can't remember any of that. Geometry, uh, but I learned how to type. I took a course in typing, learned how to type 40, 50 words a minute, and what a valuable weapon that has proven to be. Especially when you get, if any of you are in my state, I don't know how to write very well. I grabbed, uh, a pen like it was a knife, and within 10 minutes my hand is tense. I don't know if any of you are tense writers. The art of writing is supposed to be very relaxed. Now, uh, people from Singapore probably are good because they're used to the chopsticks. I tried to learn how to use the chopsticks. My hand was getting all sweaty and tense. Finally I went back to the spoon. Uh, that's the same problem I have in writing. So learning to type was a great breakthrough for me. Uh, and helped me especially when I went to college. You may want to take that on as a challenge. So there has to be communication, and there has to be, at times, copies made, and just this whole area of organization. You need to know the prices. What problem there often is at a book table nobody knows the prices. You sell a Bible, oh, I think this was probably 20 rupees, a 400 rupee Bible, a leather Bible, there it goes, 20 rupees. And you need to know the price. And, uh, don't presume that Joe Blow in charge of organization is going to provide you with anything but a headache. Don't presume. In leadership, don't presume. We trust people, yes, but we don't presume. The wise leader in any movement has a little bit of distrust underneath. That maybe this fellow got ill today, maybe this is the wrong phone number, maybe it's the wrong address, maybe it's not Gate 2 after all, maybe, you know, how many mistakes are made even in every port we go in because of presumption. Presumption. And I tell you, it's a miracle things go as good as they do considering some of the mistakes that are made. But, double check. Links to this thing of literature are meetings. Don't have a poor attitude toward meetings. Every meeting is a potential encounter. I don't even like the word meeting. We're going out to encounter people. If it's a small meeting, a big meeting, a house meeting, there's a chance to encounter people and people are our business. People are our concern to see them blessed, to see them helped, to see them edified, to see them encouraged, to get good books into their hands. Don't despise the smallest meetings. I have taken more small meetings I'm sure, than anybody in this room. Very small meetings. Four people in a meeting after being advertised. So don't despise small meetings. And I remember coming to Singapore last year and they had organized prayer meetings. Now, prayer meetings are not popular in Singapore, I can tell you. Probably, if I'm wrong on that, you can let me know. But, well, we called a prayer meeting and sent the letters out. I think we had six people show up at that prayer meeting. This was my triumphal entry in Singapore. George Burrough arrives, come pray with George Burrough. Alright? Six people. The brother with the literature did not want to carry the boxes up two flights of steps. He sold more books to those six people after the prayer meeting than normally he sells to 30 or 40 people. I don't know how it happened. One lady especially really got excited. She had an awful lot of money with her. And she went to town on a book table. Don't think because the small meeting didn't bring any books. I started book selling house to house. And sometimes in one house. I sold $100 worth of books. $4 worth of books. One house. So, don't be deceived on that. But in this area of meetings it's always good to contact the contact man the day before. We're on the shift. We had a whole group that didn't even turn up. All the tables set. Speakers ready and don't even turn up. Why our little department operating out of this room doesn't call these people maybe the day before and say look, you know, is everything set? Are you coming? Look at all the problems that could have been solved. Now maybe they did that. So when we have a meeting even though it's a line of men or somebody else program answers this meeting, here it is. If you possibly can phone the pastor the day before. We always do this in Europe. We're weak on this on the shift, I guess. Because sometimes we don't have a phone. Hey look, I'm coming to your church. And suddenly say oh Allah. No, no Allah. We're not expecting you. No, no. That's next week. Make contact. Plan ahead. Think ahead. Presume on nothing. You presume on anything. Presume that something is going to go wrong every time. Something is going to go wrong every time. You're supposed to have special music? Nobody told you. I had a meeting in Singapore this last time. I was supposed to have special music. I didn't know anything about it. Except I had been told a week before that I had that meeting. So don't presume. Don't presume. The whole area of organizing literature and organizing meetings. Also, don't presume that this brother is going to get up to give his testimony. He's going to keep to the time. Presume that he will not keep to the time. He is going to ruin the meeting. If you as a leader don't get into his thick head that we only have five minutes that the pastor here is a bit sticky. He already is skeptical about OM. He already is skeptical about Lagas. He has told us the total meeting is 22 and a half minutes. And if you don't get a piece of string on this guy's toe and pull it at the end of the five minutes he is going to ruin the meeting. So if you presume anything presume that. So you say well what do you do? You get this brother ahead and you say brother do you have a watch? And would you mind because of the time if I stood in front of you sat in front of you and let you know in the time would that be an offense to your brother? And of course it probably will. But you got to do something to get that guy to shut up at the right time. And you yourself have to be careful. One thing when we're in OM it's our own group. Now in OM they're my own people I have a lot more freedom. When I go into a church an Anglican church and I'm told 20 minutes as I was this Sunday morning I basically stood the 20 minutes. I believe that's ethical. And that's something you're going to have to wrestle with. Don't presume this brother even knows how to give his testimony. Why not ask him to write it out? Why not have a little training? Why not ask him to give it to the OM team? If he can't give it to the OM team will he be able to give it to the 400 people in the church? I rather doubt it. So as a leader you're responsible for organizing that. There's a lot more involved in organizing a meeting than we think. The time element the books and as you go toward that meeting or if possible the day before finding out what kind of church it is. If it's a charismatic church you don't want to go bombing in there with a brethren line. If it's a brethren assembly you don't want to go bombing in with a charismatic line and your symbols. And we need to be wise knowing where we're going. And Paul said I became all things for all men who went up. And here we need a lot of wisdom. If we find out ahead of time that's basically it's a church that is basically skeptical about OM. Our approach would be different than a church that is enthusiastic about OM. It can make all the difference in the world. And I can tell you in a fair number of places after one OM team has gone in they never wanted to stop. That was the end. Because the meeting was so poor because the content was weak and people were offended. Here's some little brother who's just been converted one and a half years. He's had two lessons on discipleship and he tries to pretend that he's William McDonald or he tries to pretend he's Jordan Conn or he tries to pretend that he's Hudson Taylor or somebody else and it doesn't work. Well you'll have more instruction on that perhaps in some other course but it is linked to the organization. It's linked with letting your team know. For example girls all go into Brethren Assembly with their heads uncovered. It really upsets people. People cannot hear the message. People in the Assembly cannot hear the message because all the scenes of all these girls with their heads uncovered. When I take girls to a Brethren Assembly I ask them to cover their heads. That's a big thing to them. It's just like walking into a Butsing Assembly with a pair of hiking boots. When you go into a Butsing Assembly you take your shoes off. You go into a Brethren Assembly you cover your head. When you go into some other Assembly whatever you do don't let your feet touch your Bible. I was in a church we Westerners are very very crude in the handling of the Bible. In the East people are not that way. Not generally. If a Muslim saw you touching what you feel is a holy book with your foot it would shatter him. Completely shatter him. And if you touch the Quran with your foot God will punch you in the nose. Because they believe that's a holy book. Little things tell. You are responsible to let your team know. You are responsible to organize properly. And it can save the day many many times. Another area of organization what time is it? Another area of organization is I lost track of my memory I think I have such a great memory to remember this point. Who remembers what I was going to say? Oh! Communication. Communication. This time is your next main point. The whole problem of communication. This is becoming again more and more difficult. And I cannot tell you how many times we suffer for lack of communication. We have already touched on this. What are some forms of communication? Number one letters. Has anybody shown you hospitality in Singapore? Have you written a letter yet? Even before I sailed out of Singapore I was writing letters to people who showed hospitality who were kind to me who did this who did that. I call it thank you communication. Appreciation communication. We are very weak at this. We offend many many people. And they get the feeling that Lada abuses people. We use them and discard them. Coming to a port all of a sudden the traffic manager is the most important man in the whole wide world. And we are playing up to him why we want to get a berth. We sail away and he never hears from us. We used him. We used him. OM Lagos by nature uses people. Don't you do it. Thank them. I am still writing to the people who serve us this ship. That was five years ago. I write to them. I thank them. I tell them how the ship is going. I have no reason to do this whatsoever. The Danish trading company unlikely will ever have any business with them again. But they are people. And God put a burden on my heart to deal with them as people. I have never done that before. Deal with them as people. And I feel it is very very important. One of them was an atheist. I am still writing letters to the people who helped us prepare this ship in Rotterdam. I am sure they were convinced we used them. They took us down. We were giving them cups of tea. When they walked on the ship, we filed down. And when we sailed away, what? The next year they realized again they had been used. People in the commercial world are used to this. Sometimes it doesn't bother them. They don't think much about it. But when they do get a letter and a photograph of the ship or a ship calendar and a word of appreciation, it shatters them. And maybe they begin to realize, well these people actually get converted to this kind of communication. And I can't tell you how strongly I believe in letter writing. Your letter may be very short. I would challenge you, whether you're in the Encounter program or the IT program, to set a goal right now for the number of letters you write every week. If you're already writing 10, increase it to 20. If you're writing 20, make it 40. It doesn't take long to write a letter. When God puts a burden on your heart to write a letter to someone, write their name down. You can have a page in your notebook, people I'm going to write. Or you can have that file, letters to answer. And you can put in there any old piece of paper that says I'm going to write this letter. And I think it's very, very important. Thank you letters of appreciation. Why did Paul write some of his letters? Some of them seem to be very appreciative. He usually brought in a little other ministry after that. Communication. Two, phone calls. When you get back to Singapore, many people in Singapore have telephones. Keep people's phone numbers. You get back, call people up. Give a word of greeting. Express your interest. Ask them how they're doing. Of course, in organization, in evangelism, oftentimes phone calls save us a lot of money. Sometimes we call London on the ship. In the long run it saves money. We call the lineup man. We find out what's happening. Communication involves letters, phone calls, telegrams. You're going to arrive three days from now and you're expecting hospitality. Don't just land on their doorstep. Many OM teams have been criticized for that. You can do that more in some countries than other countries. How about a telegram saying, look, expecting you to arrive with a team of five. You go any place we can stay rather than presuming we will stay with you. Telegram. Method of communication. Sending someone on ahead. That's another method of communication. We've already talked in this leader section about advanced planning. We brought out how many of the mistakes we made in OM are lack of planning ahead. Lack of sending someone in advance. At the end of this meeting we're going to pass out these notes that touch some degree on this advanced planning. That is the method of communication. Excusing someone between you and the people you're going to. By the way, your parents will appreciate communication. Try to write your parents every week. That's one of the things you should be doing within the next two days if you haven't already done so. That will mean so much to them. Some of your parents are worried. Once you're the leader, you have the responsibility of reminding your team members about this. We have our announcements. Do you think we could run this ship without announcements? We couldn't run it. One of the biggest problems we had in the early days of this ship was announcements. I came on the ship late. The ship had already come from Denmark. So I didn't want to bother giving the announcements. I let another brother who was inexperienced give the announcements. He almost blew the ship up. He would make announcements without the right authority. People stood up right in the middle of the announcements and protested. We can't do that. That's not the way a ship is run. You can't tell us to do that. That has to come to the head of our department. You wouldn't believe the displays of carnality here in this dining hall. Then we realized announcements are top priorities. The only people who are going to make announcements are people who have wisdom, who know what they're doing, who will know the rules of checking with the right people and coordinating it. Very few mistakes are made in the area of announcements. You, as a leader, become the team that Find out the true situation before you make an announcement. Once we had a man announce that all the deck men will help unload something. They're not contacted the head of the deck department. I tell you, it took us several days to recover from that one. And these deck men had no intention of doing what this little fellow was announcing. Even I wouldn't do that. So the leader is aware, and it's very important, of other conflictions. Other conflictions. What is the local pastor going to say? You tell your team to go do this in this church, but what about the local pastor? What about the local elders? What about the people you're staying with? Just like when you write a letter, who's going to pay the postage? For example, but I think you know what I mean. You've got to communicate. You have communication upwards. That's for the leader over you. You have communication downwards. That's for the people under you. You have communication sideways to the people you're working with. You have communication overboard to other related people. Communication is a very big thing. Well, we've got to have at least two sessions on this subject, so we'll pick this up next time and give you ten minutes to ask questions. Let's have some questions on these areas of organization and administration so far. Who has a question? Let me sit down a little bit. I'm feeling a little weak. It's amazing what people can endure when they have a purpose, when they have a motivation, and they can fight for political reasons or many, many other reasons. It's amazing. Jesus, He fasted and He warned for misuse of fasting. Also in Matthew chapter 6 verse 17 and 18, He gave instruction. He gave promise of fasting and we know that if you read in Matthew 6, you also have instruction of the right way of fasting. And I really think you should study, meditate on this because when Jesus says it, it's very, very important. When you fast, anoint my head, wash that face, appear not unto men because you should not be as hypocrite. And this is instruction in Matthew 6, 16 to 18. And you, if you fast, may be on the ship with your family. Of course, maybe some other people will know about it. But you may go without anyone else knowing. That's okay, of course. But if other people know about it, that may not matter so much unless your motive is right, your heart is right. If you're not going to go without knowing about it, you not go without else about it. you may go without it. But if you without knowing about it, may not without you know about it, may not without it. You may not it. You may not go without may not go without it. You may go without You not go without it. You may not go without not go without it. You not You prayer may not give you the direct answer, it may lead you indirectly to the way you should go, and that may be even harder to take. But as God let us said, you give yourself to me and I will lead you, and He did that. And ever since, it's 8 years ago now, that He has led us and taken care of our life. And this is really wonderful, when you stand before the main decision, spend the day, or even more, before the Lord in this way. And even another reason can be just to have more time for prayer, and Bible study. We say there's so much busy time here on the ship, I don't get enough time, why not take a day off, and not go here and eat and spend that time, and to pray. I often have seen that I need that, because I don't get the time I need to pray for the things I should pray for, to pray for the people I should pray for, to read the Bible I want to, as much as I want, if I don't. One time, now and then, just take the time for eating, and anything with the Lord. There's wonderful opportunities to do that here, and that could be a motivation enough for you. So, another reason is, that even there could be a call for united fasting and prayer, as a group. We know we have in the Bible, the nationwide fasting, that is mentioned in Esther, chapter 4, verse 16, and we have the church fasting, as I mentioned in Acts, we can have the family fasting, verse 27 and 5, and, but still as a group fasting, you know, we can unite with people all around the world. And I wonder, if there are some of you who would be willing to spend the day tomorrow in fasting, because tomorrow is the first Friday of the month, and the first Friday of every month, there are many people around the world who fast, especially for those young guys and girls. And I know, during my time around the church, we haven't had any special invitation for this type of fasting, but I would challenge you, if you want to spend the day tomorrow, either by yourself, or as a group, we could meet in the Lord's program, and pray for those people, as we already have partnered with me to pray for other people. Tomorrow you will be united with thousands and thousands of people. Even though my fellow friend on the scene in Sweden, if you spend the day tomorrow in fasting, you have the burden for the Christian guy, the young guy in the church, and he was the only sick lost here. Heal in unity of heart, with people like that, according to Matthew, chapter 18, verse 19 and 20, when you unite, wherever you are on the earth, God belongs to you. And so please, if you can do that, we would really appreciate it. I have a lot of things when I was down here. But maybe just, I would say a few things about the physical side. But this is very important. This is taking maybe a long time. But, you know, I said there can be, of course there should be spiritual motivation, and guidance in your life to fast, but also for your own discipline, I think it is very, very important and good. And you can just fast for this reason, to train yourself in discipline. And I remember last year, on our team in Sweden, we got the idea, why not take a long time of fasting, not that long, but we said we should take seven days. That was not any really great spiritual reason to do it. We thought we would like to do it anyway. So we spent seven days in fasting, three of us on the team. And I think that you can, many times you think, oh if I should do that, I cannot work, I cannot do this and that. Usually we kept doing our job, I kept running, you've seen me running, I kept doing that. Even the seventh day of my fasting, I went running around the lake, and that made up for five months. And I felt great. No problem. And that's because we are different. But if you say to your mind, well now I'm going to fast, or I will not make it, I will be late, I have to lie down on the bed, well surely you will do it. But it's not that bad. I mean we have so much nourishment, so much food, we can go on that. But if you spend a long time of fasting, you need to, you can drink nourishment liquid, like carrot juice, or tomato juice, or some other juice, something that brings some nourishment to you. That will do you very, very well. And of course if you spend a long time of fasting, you should have a health check. For example, diabetics, people with that sickness, they cannot fast, they must eat regularly. We cannot judge, of course not. They may not have the privilege to fast any time, because they have that sickness. But there's nothing dangerous to fast. You know, when the region actually started in 2733, when the ship was wrecked, when Paul was out, and they didn't eat for two weeks, and they think they had to work pretty hard, and we should have this ship come into the typhoons here and there, and you may have to do some, do some things overboard, or whatever you are going to manage, why maybe you don't feel to eat in such a weather. But anyway, they worked, and they did a job, and they stayed out for two weeks. And another thing is, you know, that your digestive system, your stomach needs a rest. I mean, you give your body a rest, and you take it easy sometimes. Why not give your stomach, it has to keep up, you know, all the time, of course, in the night, and not live long hours. But anyway, that is very, very good for you. It's nothing bad at all. It's nothing dangerous at all, that's thankful for. It is instead good for you. It's good for your digestion, to give a rest for that system in your body, and it's healthy. And this is just the physical side I want to bring out, because it's very, very, very important. Even people say, you know, that when blood is not in your stomach, you know, to digest the food, it goes to your brain, and that will make your brain clear, and you can have a good study. This is proven. And that's why, spiritual reason is that, to spend time with God in prayer and study when you fast. And, but, then I wanted to say, you know, don't expect that everything will be 100% wonderful when you fast. Well, it won't be. You will feel hungry, of course you will. Don't think, you know, I will have some other time. You will feel hungry. So reckon with that. This is a place, Satan will attack, but resist him and persevere, and you will have the victory. And you can keep going. That hunger will leave you after a couple of days, if you want to fast for more than one day. You will get, you may get headache, or feel a little weak in that way, get headache, but that also can be the very thing, you know, that will follow when you fast. You don't think, oh, this is something wrong. It's not wrong at all. It can be very natural to get a headache when you fast. When you get it, thank the Lord, if you can, and press on. You may, sometimes I have headache, sometimes I'm not. It can be different, different days. And another thing is that you may feel weak, as I said, if you read Psalm 109. You see here in French, in Psalm 109.24, My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh faileth of fatness. You can feel weak, and that can be natural, but still remember that you can fast a day, and still keep doing your work. I really believe that. Don't think that because you have to fast, you must abstain to do your work. Of course, that should be one reason. If you can fast, and spend the whole day in prayer, that's the best thing. But if you want to just keep the hours and half an hour away from food, and then keep your day's work, you can do that, most of you at least. I really believe that. And of course, there are different ways of fasting. You can have total fasting, abstain from food and drink. You can have normal fasting, I would call it, just abstain from food, but still drink. Drink mostly juice and water, not so much coffee and tea, for one day is not so bad, but if you fast for a long time, you should not drink stimulating liquids. You can have partial fasting, that means you may just abstain from one meal, or you may abstain from some kind of food, like Daniel abstained from meat and wine, and you may just eat fruit, or something like that. That could be one way of fasting that God can lead you. So it's good to train yourself in this, to endure hardship, and as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, because we are going into days when we don't know what we may face. You may rely on the big storage of food we have down here on the ship, but there may come days when you don't have that. I remember when I was in Rajasthan, and we went out with that truck, we came to a small place in the morning, we just got a cup of tea, and we kept going, and we got stuck in the sand, in the river, and we worked for hours and hours, the sand was blowing, and we moved, step by step, feet by foot, by foot, up that, and then when we came to the next village, the fellows went into that village, never been reached before, we went down, it was evening, they went into another village, people never been reached there, we went the whole day without any food, we had to, and then the truck was stuck again in the sand, and we had to stop there, and then in the morning the next day we had to walk for a couple of miles into the next village, no food, we got a few sweets, a cup of tea, then back again, the fuel was finished, we had to go back for a second time to the village, and we went for another day without anything, and I tell you, if you haven't practiced anything, but staying for food and still keep going before coming to such a situation, you may not make it, and as believers we really need to take the opportunity in such a good atmosphere as here, where we have the spiritual surroundings to train ourselves in this way, and one army officer was once asked, what kind of people do you want on the front line, and he said like this, I want men from the cities, because they are used to run a day, maybe without food, and still keep doing their work, I prefer these men of the cities, although they may not be that physically, you know, big, I prefer them before the peasants, you know, those who work on the county are big, they are strong, but they need food to keep going, he said, it may be true, and I don't know about you, but still look out and see how God can lead you, and I know, I love food, I ask my wife and tell her I really enjoy eating, and it's not easy just to stay away from it, but many times you need to watch and discipline what we eat and how much we eat, even that, so that may be good, but don't come under legalism, let the spirit lead you, Romans 8, 14, those who are led by the spirit are his children, and he will sustain you and lead you into doing the right thing here, and it's freedom, it's a privilege, it's a joy, and do something about it soon, I really urge you to do this, and I invite you to join, if you want to have some fellowship in this way of fasting, even the day tomorrow, the first Friday of the month, as I said, some people fast even every Friday of each week, but still, maybe some of you who want to do that can meet in the school room tomorrow at the mealtimes, breakfast, lunch and supper, and to pray for those who are afflicted, what about, shouldn't we pray for those, as we said right in here, who are in need, who are in crisis, like those dear people in Vietnam, right up, not far from here, many, many others who are united with us in this way tomorrow, shall we, those in prayer, and Lord, we thank you so much that you are so great, you are a wonderful God, and we just rejoice over the fact, Lord, that you've given us your word, so many clear instructions how to live this life, and even in this area of fasting, we know that it's something that our flesh is against, but still we know that we need it, we need it, Lord, to just come before you to learn more of yourself, to spend time with you, to come to know you more, to see how great you are, how good you are, and to be built up spiritually and even physically in such a time, and Lord, we pray that you will even lead us this day, and maybe know the freedom, Lord, and the joy, and look at this, what we have said this morning, in a positive way, Lord, to see that it is your spirit who will lead us, let us not feel guilty about anything, but just have the freedom, Lord, to move ahead, to enjoy the food you give us, but also to enjoy a day when we can abstain from it, and to seek you in that time, Lord, we really pray, and thank you that you will lead each one of us, how we should apply this into our lives, what we have shared here this morning, for your glory, it must be, and for your sake, and to uplift your name, and offer for our glory in any way, Lord, we pray for this, in Jesus' name, Amen.