- Home
- Speakers
- George Verwer
- Inner Workings Of Om 7.10.83
Inner Workings of Om 7.10.83
George Verwer

George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.
Download
Topic
Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of effective communication and prayer in the context of spreading the word of God. They mention the need for a new generator for the ship and the positive fellowship experienced during a conference. The speaker also highlights the success of a missions conference and the commitment of 60 individuals to world missions. They mention the significance of Scotland as a place for raising up labor for the subcontinent. Additionally, the speaker briefly mentions their involvement in a computer committee and the need for designated funds for operation mobilization.
Scriptures
Sermon Transcription
Praise the Lord for these Waynesboro Bibles, get them free, so they don't have little damaged parts, you know. Loose leaf edition. It's a $50 Bible, so we don't mind if it comes apart. Let's just look at this Acts section here. Let's look at Acts 6. How many of you are not staying here in Bromley? You're marking time, you're here visiting, you're headed out to the regions beyond. Raise your hand. Oh, I thought there'd be more than that. I guess they're all off resting or down in the Arab world team or home. We have in Chapter 5 this horrific story, and it is a terrible story, of Ananias and Sapphira. I don't like to read it like some kind of little Sunday school flannelgraph story of these two people being zapped by the Holy Spirit. So I won't read that this morning. I'm not in the mood for that. But let's look at Acts 6. In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against those of the Aramaic-speaking community. Wow! Book of Acts Christianity. You ever met one of these little groups, think they're the only church, and say, we are the New Testament church? I always say, which one? Corinthian church? Right here in the beginning of the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit is moving tremendous power, and they've got practical problems. They've got a communication problem. They've got this unity between people of different backgrounds. They're all Jews. If you think all Jews get on well together, you obviously haven't fellowshiped much with the Jews. The Grecian Jews among them complained against those of the Aramaic-speaking community because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 13A is collapsed. So the twelve gathered, all the disciples together. You think, what a waste of time. These people should be out evangelizing. They should be out getting on with the job. They're gathering together to have a big discussion about food. So the twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. You must be speaking spiritually. They're otherwise trying to be humorous. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them. And we will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word. I'm not convinced that ever happened completely because it seemed to me they were soon running into other problems. They were having big meetings with this complete renegade, the Apostle Paul, who wanted to take the gospel to the Gentiles. It seemed to me they were giving a lot of time to prayer and the Word, but they had a lot of other problems they had to keep meeting about and have all kinds of Jerusalem meetings. And then, of course, they all got scattered abroad through persecution. So this proposal pleased the whole group. They made a proposal. They got some unity on this proposal. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and the Holy Spirit, also Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicholas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. There are no Gentiles here, except Gentile converts like Nicholas. They presented these men to the Apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them. So the Word of God spread, the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased readily, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. And then, immediately, we have Stephen going out and getting martyred. And you'll find, as you study the Book of Acts, the enormous problems they had and the constant need there was for communication. One of the things I want to share with you this morning are the decisions made at the Coordinators Conference this year. I can't cover all of them, and someone may go over this again, but I won't be here for a couple of weeks. I'm off to Canada on Tuesday. I'm back to the Manchester Valedictory Saturday night, up to Newcastle Sunday night. So I won't be around. Then, in November and December, you'll probably see me more than you want to, as they're British months. Let me just say that we've had a tremendous weekend. Last Thursday, after getting back from a great weekend in Germany, where, by the way, we saw, just on the weekend, about 2,000 pounds sterling of book sales. Most of that goes, of course, to Mospach. And about 2,000 pounds in gifts. Just on the weekend and the Tuesday, more than that, we saw many, many stand to make deeper commitments of their life to the Lord Jesus. We, as a team, were at the Bracha Bible School, a school where we've had a very long-term relationship. We also met many exo-Emers. After coming back, I went to Lancashire, alone on the train, and we opened a Christian bookshop. That's an item of prayer you may want to jot down. They say there, Lancashire is the last large city, or last city in Britain, to get a bookshop. And if STL can come up with some other facts. No, Lancaster, sorry. Lancashire is the county, right? Lancaster is the city. Anyway, they now have a Christian bookshop right on the main street. You might pray for them. It's quite an amazing shot. Then we had a rally that evening in connection with Mission England, an advance preparation rally, which was a good time. Then we went, I came back here because I had a lot of things on Friday, and then we went up on the old coach to Edinburgh, and some of us sailed with a ship from Edinburgh. The final weekend in Edinburgh. You know, some people get this idea, well, you know, what is the ship doing back here? It's just marking time. I mean, really, we should be out in Asia. Number one, some of the countries in Asia the ship has been going to are more evangelized than Britain, much less Spain or Italy. Don't think because the ship's in Asia it's always in unreached areas. Actually, the ship has difficulty getting to the unreached areas. And the ship spends a lot of time in the Philippines, which is more evangelized than Britain, and a lot of time in Taiwan, more evangelized than most European countries to say the least. It spends time in Korea, which is one of the most evangelized nations on earth. It spends time in Japan, a very evangelized place, a very, very non-responsive, very non-Christian place. That would be a little bit similar, say, to places like France. But Denmark would be far more unreached where the ship has just been than Japan, and far less responsive. And I just believe it really is in the purposes of God that the ship is here in Britain at this time and was able to share with the people on the ship about it. The ship has a way of attracting the crowd. Believe me, I don't have many meetings in England when I've got more than a thousand sitting out there. And it was an encouragement. Edinburgh on Sunday night, a thousand people in the farewell meeting, and bananas at the book table. So that was an encouragement. On the Saturday night, we had 60 people stand up to make a commitment to start moving toward world missions after a day missions conference. And of course, one of the burdens of the multiple ministry of the ship in any port is world missions. And seeing labours raised up, especially, we hope, for the subcontinent, and Scotland is a place that is ripe for that. There's a lot more I could say about that, but we're short on time. It was a joy. I haven't sailed on the ship for seven years. I visited the ship, but not sailed on it. To make that long journey, out of Edinburgh, past the famous Bass Rock, where some of the Covenanters were kept, down, and the one and a half hour journey up the river to Newcastle. It looks like Newcastle is going to have even greater cooperation, some good unity among the churches. And as I shared with the chairman of the committee, I couldn't resist changing my plans for this weekend. And instead of coming back from Manchester, going to Newcastle for three meetings on Sunday. Please especially pray for the Sunday night after church meeting. That's when we get a lot of people. We've got a big shed. This is right near the center of Newcastle. People can walk there. We got a slow start in the last two ports, and the exhibition was not well attended compared to some other places. The conferences, the weekend, fine. And so instead of coming in at the end, as I did in Edinburgh, I want to get there in the beginning. So we're all going to spread the word around. All the church meetings we have Sunday, 20 or 30 meetings. That loud mouth brewer is there for the only time Sunday night. That may bring some, may scare some. Let's pray that we can fill that shed, and we're going to challenge all these people to bring at least 100 friends to the ship during the next two weeks. We're going to show them how, you know, this ship is their ship. This is an OM ship. It's God's ship. They're God's people. Then they need to get involved. You see, we get too many spectators. As you know, spectatorism is a major disease among most evangelicals. And we want to somehow get them out of the spectator category into the involvement in the coffee bar on the ship, in the film industry, in the evangelism. They're out on the streets with their chalkboards. Mickey Walker just had a go at them before I got there. And it really is exciting what is happening, and we hope even more will happen in Newcastle, then Ipswich, then, if the Lord continues to confirm, Dover, and we want to organize Pasadena Brownlee, I don't know who's going to volunteer to do this, to go down to Dover, because Dover is so close. I'd rather drive to Dover any day than North London. You can really open up if you don't want to test your car on the 70 mile an hour motorways. And driving across London to me is one of the most frustrating things in life. But Gene Giff and Babu launched out to Dover the day I was on the ship to do the lineup. And Dover is a little pagan bastion of ships. Very few live churches in Dover. So let's pray about that. After that, there are lots of possibilities. Shoreham, Weymouth, Poole, right around the coast. Lagos will probably be around Britain until April. We need to see a lot of miracles. There was another thousand pound designated gift. This is the second one from the Newcastle area for the generator. I had a tremendous fellowship with the generator, I mean with Dave Thomas, in the engine room. There's a big hole where the generator once was. And Dave Thomas pointed out to me that the spare parts alone from the old generator, which has exploded. Remember that unique Australian fellow who was here during that prayer meeting that one night? He was praying about the miners. Remember he was praying about the miners? He was the guy in the engine room when all this happened. Brand new. And he just didn't have enough training to know that he should have stayed away from that thing when it was going completely bananas. Pieces of steel flying around the engine room. Because you have to turn that generator off by hand. You have to go to it. And you know, it's like a wife. You got to do it by hand. And you got to push all the buttons. And he just went up there and pushed all the buttons. Very wise move. Shut this thing down. Dave Thomas estimated the spare parts on that, especially the armature, because the other two generators need spare parts. And these spare parts cost thousands of pounds. But the spare parts alone will be equal to almost what we're paying for this new used secondhand generator that's hardly ever been run. We had a number of other designated gifts. I think you heard about the two and a half thousand one from the Sir John Lang Trust Fund. All these years. I think the first time we ever had any money from them. So that's unusual. Some other designated gifts came in Germany. And they're trying to pay for this generator on cash. The Lagos financial situation is rapidly increasing. The Doulos is still limping. And it's a much bigger thing. Just picture the generator. Generator for Lagos, 12,000 pounds. Generator for Doulos, get ready, 200,000 pounds. So they might get it down to 175,000. So they're not even thinking about that. The only way we're going to see Doulos really move out of Europe is somebody's going to have to drop a big gift. We cannot scrape around the OM camp and find 200,000 or 175,000 pounds. You might think this is just wild. But if that amount of money had been on the ship at the purchase time, so instead of... Does anybody remember the purchase price on the ship? It was a million dollars by the time we got it moving. But it wasn't a million dollars purchase price. It was somewhat under that. But suppose it was a million dollars plus 300,000. We still would have gone ahead and bought it. Because for a ship that size, it's still unbelievably cheap. We're talking about $25 million, $30 million worth of ship. But of course, that amount of money hitting us at this stage is almost impossible to comprehend. But you know, people spend that much money every week in Europe and America to put up a church. That's no big deal. Put a church up. Some churches are only used four times a week. And now, of course, if you want to get a real church, you've got to think at least in terms of $2 million. You know, diddle around in some poor little church. So let's realize that even Dulas, as big as the challenge is, she's still limping along on those old generators. They may last longer than we think. There's all kinds of other dreams and thoughts. But it seems that ultimately, that's what's going to happen. Now, here's another interesting little thing to put in your mind. That in three years, fuel saving alone on the new generator on Dulas will pay for the generator. Because the reason they want this new, more expensive type generator is to use heavy fuel. And heavy fuel just saves that much money, especially if that ship's going to head out to Asia. The new generator on Lagos also will save a lot of money. Instead of running two generators most of the time, they'll be able to run one new generator for the current for the ship when she's in port. Communication. That kind of communication isn't just important for me to know. But it's important for you, because people get to you. They don't get to me. And if you can give intelligent answers to intelligent questions or even unintelligent questions, it helps people to pray more effectively. So praise the Lord for that. And pray, and pray, and pray. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. As you know, before the conference began, some of us spent ten solid days in discussion. For me, the most intensive days of the year, which proves what a baby I am, because compared to what many people face in life, you couldn't even use the word intensive to describe that. And the positive fellowship, of course, is something that we greatly appreciate. We had a number of proposals. One of the proposals is about the setting up of committees. It's not possible for O.M. to continue, and it hasn't been for a number of years, without groups of people discussing things. That's all a committee is. It's a group of people discussing things. And if you look into the book of Acts, they had committees. They didn't have a similar word to this, seemingly, in the Greek. But they got together in groups, and they discussed things. We have set up some committees in O.M., and I'll just mention some of them to you very quickly. We've had a finance committee functioning fairly effectively for now, over a year. They are the most active committee. They have to meet. They have to make decisions. They have a stronger mandate, a stronger authority, especially since both Peter Maiden and I, and Roton, McCroskey, and many others, a number of others are on that committee. Jerry Davies is on it. We'd appreciate your prayers. We are subject to the area leaders and the field leaders. O.M. is led by a combination of groups. The overall authority is in the hands of the area leaders and the field leaders. They, in turn, are subject to their board of directors in their country. If they are a grown-up adult field, they have a board of directors. It's a balance of power. I think that's good. The human heart cannot be trusted. The greatest man of God can become an ogre and a monster, and the human heart cannot be trusted. I believe it's good that there's a balance, that whoever he may be, he is responsible to somebody. Then there's a new literature committee, which has just been established. I won't give the names of the people, but Jerry Davies is the chairman of this committee. It's just being born. Their idea is large. It's largely an advisory committee to help improve everything in the area of literature. We then have a relatively active, in terms of a lot of correspondence, five-year committee. This, we think, may be temporary. This is to examine how we can develop policies for longer-term people. Then we have a conference committee with Nigel Lee and Case, Jonathan, a few others, of course, to work on the conferences. We must pray because we do not have more than one year guarantee that we can continue to have our conference in the BBI. We're having to pay more money to be there, but can you imagine finding a place for this size conference? We had an average of 700 people there most of the time. Close to 1,000 went through the September conference. A lot, a lot involved in that, a lot of families. Though that place isn't perfect, it is ideal. If you haven't been in other factories in years gone by, you won't understand what it is to sleep there on a bed in that dormitory compared to, say, St. Mary Cray a few years ago, 200 men on cardboard behind an old sheet. Well, we have a church relations committee that's only getting off the ground because we realize that our relationship with the churches is so important, so absolutely important. What we do is directly linked with what local churches do. There's no way we can escape that. We may be able to stretch a little bit at times, but if the churches don't move, to a degree, we don't move. And if those ships are held up right now, though we know there are providential factors, though we're not excusing areas of weakness and sin on our part, but overall, if you think that the ship is being held up, obviously you haven't studied the Muslim world push. Because I would say the Muslim world push all these years within O.M. has had a greater hold up than the ship right now. It's just that it's not as visible. You don't even have the people to start with. You don't even have the money to start with. And because it's not as measurable. The ship ministry is more measurable. Therefore, it has more visibility. Therefore, we can tell when it's going forward or backward. But what do you know about Turkey? How can you measure what's going on in Turkey? I will tell you the work in Turkey has been, in many ways, not been growing. It has not been growing. And again, this is a disaster year for recruits for Turkey. Of course, they have some people there. They get on with the job. There are always blessings. Well, there are always blessings on the ship as well. But with the ship, we can measure the non-blessings. With Turkey, the non-blessings are difficult to measure. And if you said anything, you might get in trouble with Dennis Alexander or Glenn Garner, and so you'd be a little less verbal. See, what we don't understand and we don't know about often we don't say much. With the ships, we have a lot more people who feel they know something. A lot more people get involved in it. Therefore, you get a lot more people mouthing off. It becomes more exciting all along the way. The fact is that the Muslim world is facing tremendous struggles in going forward. And right now, we're not even sure what we can do in connection with Sudan, where things have been difficult lately. Church relations, so incredibly important. Tony Sargent did an excellent paper that I would like to eventually give to you on maintaining relationships with a local church. Tony Sargent is a pastor of a local church who comes on on as a guest speaker. Then we have a computer committee. I am temporarily chairman of that. That's two very exciting, interesting meetings. Since we don't have any cash, we have lots of dreams and little action. Case Roses did manage to squeak through a computer. It's interesting, just as we get involved in two little micro Osborne computers, the whole company goes bust. Anyway, he's leasing his, and now I think he wants to change it. He says it won't cost him any more. But there's really, as far as any bigger computers, a need to see finance. And the best thing is if there could be designated money. You say, what if somebody comes to me and says, we've got some money we want to give to Operation Mobilization, and I wonder if you could tell us if there's anything we can give it to. What will you say? New recruit. We don't tell anybody about our financial needs. We only live by faith. You're fired. That's not the answer. Our policy is that we pray that the Lord will touch people's hearts and minds to ask us just that question. Because we don't expect good stewards of God's money just having a prayer meeting in the morning in the woods to suddenly walk back home and say, I sense, speaking to his wife, the Lord is leading us to sell our house and give it for the purchase of a computer at STL. They don't know what STL is. They don't know what a computer is. They don't know where we are going to use the computer. No, we expect people, as the Holy Spirit, to touch their hearts to ask questions. I wish I could share with you the letter I just got from Josh McDowell. You know, I don't get many letters from these famous Christian leaders just on their initiative. I get answers to some of mine, maybe half. This just comes out of the blue. Josh McDowell writes a letter. Maybe he saw Jerry Davey at five. But anyway, suddenly he writes this letter saying he thinks OM is the greatest thing and appreciates our ministry and even appreciates me. And he's heard through Bob Provost, who happened to be the pastor of the church where the Akron Conference took place, where normally they're going to know a little bit about OM's finance. There's no rule about people finding out about OM finance because we believe in the providence of God. And we can't hide the thing from our main prayer meetings. So if somebody's a visitor in our main prayer meeting, like Joyce Stansford is here this morning from Sri Lanka, then she's liable to find out. And so Bob Provost shared with Josh McDowell that OM is a financial need. And Josh McDowell wrote a fantastic letter saying he wishes... He sent us a letter. He wished he was a millionaire. I wish he was too. And, you know, believe it or not, I didn't get an immediate answer to that letter. Now, some of you knowing me, you thought, boy, I'd answer that one on the toilet at midnight. But I didn't. I let it relax. I made a few copies to send to leaders. And I dictated an answer to it, I think, two days ago. It's on tape. So he'll get an answer to that. And maybe, you know, some of the royalties of the Josh McDowell books, our motivation's just increased to sell them, will come back to us. Actually, we've been involved with his books from almost the beginning. And I've always had a high esteem of him. So we pray that the Lord will touch hearts. Those three committee members, join the ship. How are we doing on time? I see you're looking at your watch. That's a fancy watch. Did you get that one free? I really appreciate you sitting in the front row and without a towel. Well, that is courage. That is courage. You want me to wipe it off your glasses? Three committee members joined the pilot boat and they went up the river. And they knew about these two big gifts for the generators. And they had it in their mind that the generator problem was resolved. This is what happens. People hear about a couple of gifts. Then they hear that we're going ahead with the generator. They forget O.M.'s strategy. That when we see some breakthrough, we begin to move. Just like when we see this next 120,000 come in, we're going to begin to move. But we'll still be in desperate need. Dulos will still be stuck in Spain. And so these men, the committee men, thought it was all resolved. So I had the joy, over a cup of tea, to set the record straight. That it wasn't all resolved. They were happy to hear that news. Because as the Holy Spirit gives them wisdom, they may go back and they may see some more money come in in answer to prayer. So it's important to understand. I just throw that in as an extra to this morning's lecture and to pray for specific giving for the generator on the Dulos, for computer, Mosbach, eventually STL, a mini-computer, eventually on Lagas. Paris is pushing very much for a small computer. Only through the wonderful working of the computer committee, the brakes are on there to see what really is best for that Paris situation. And I thank God for these committees because I work with people in a very personal relationship. And sometimes it's not easy for me to say no. And I may have a big bark, but I'm actually a soft touch in many ways. And some of the problems in L.A. are because people at the right moment put the touch on me and I said yes. When we didn't even have the money. And of course, over the years, here in Britain, where the work is in a more advanced stage in some countries, I've been able to refer it to the board of directors. And that has put the brakes on some things. And that has helped STL, you can be sure, over the years. And it's good now we've got these committees and they can act as brakes because sometimes also in a movement like when people take things personally. You know, it's just like a little child and the child asks for candy and you say, you're not going to have any candy. So, you know, we now can refer things back to committees. And then other brothers can share. And then that person who may be involved in this, he can be invited to the committee meeting and he can hear that it's not just George Burroughs, the big bad wolf, that is neurotic about spending money, but he can hear other people. And some of you that may be upset about this policy or that policy. Why does this happen? Why does that happen? I wish you could be in on some of these meetings. But it's difficult, you know, to get everybody in on all the meetings. Anyway, then there's the social policy committee. This thing, it almost died. Since we have so few problems in this area. Everybody is so well behaved. This committee almost died, but it was resurrected to discuss divorce and remarriage, to discuss international marriages. And we've made a real step forward in that area to discuss various things. And they're going to continue to meet. The doctrinal committee was resurrected, but they haven't done very much lately. The growth and expansion committee, it was decided, should be the area coordinators. Now, you may not know all the leaders in OM, you don't need to know all the leaders in OM, but I hope you do know who your area coordinator is. Your area coordinator for Europe is Jonathan McCrusty. He's in charge of all Europe. Now, because that's pretty big, he gives a lot of freedom. But he's still in that position. Janice Alexander is in charge of all the Middle East. I am temporarily acting over the subcontinent. Dr. Alan Adams is over the Far East. The newest appointment is David Hicks over North America and Mexico. George Miley is in an equivalent position over the ships. I always leave somebody out. Let me just think a minute. I don't think that covers everybody. We've decided temporarily we will keep this as the growth committee, but realizing that basically when it comes to any big growth, it has to be all the field leaders. And so it gets really held to the field leaders' meetings. But these area leaders have to work on this throughout the year, and supposedly a field leader, when he wants to thrust some new idea, something big, he should bounce it off his area leader first of all. And then there is the stewardship committee. I haven't got time to explain. It was just sort of a change. These are the people who are part of the finance committee, but who are day by day responsible for moving money. I used to do all this, sitting on the phone in Tweedy Road, moving the money around. Now a lot of the money in OEM just goes automatically. Nobody has to do anything because it's the beginning of the year. Arab world needs so much a month. Austria needs so much a month. Austria draws from Germany. India draws from Switzerland. It's fantastic how money flows around. By the way, here's a prayer request on this. Will you pray with me that we can cut down on the amount of money we have to exchange? Presently, we are having to bring a lot of dollars into Britain and shift pounds out of Britain. We are losing thousands and thousands of dollars on bank commissions and exchange. Now this is linked partly with a very tight program, tax program in the United States, where money must go out of the country according to what country it's given to. So if it comes into India, it's got to go out to India. If you have a little understanding of finance, you can see how crazy that is. We are losing. I just went to change some Deutsche Marks yesterday. God just used that. When I saw the commission this guy took. Now he takes more than the banks. One of those little doublons down in Trafalgar Square. Don't change money with these turkeys if you don't have to. A few pounds in an emergency doesn't matter. Then I just started thinking all the money we are changing unnecessarily. We don't have an expert committed to exchange control. We've thought about it. We've talked about it for years. We are losing a lot of money. Now STL, actually, in the way we operate buying books, selling books, we actually make quite a bit. There are wins and there are losses in this thing of exchange control. But we need more attention to this. The stewardship committee is praying. There's a prayer request. I'm not getting these things out. Exercise my lungs. We need a really sharp financial secretary who can be with Peter May. Especially now because the finance committee with the agreement of the field leaders are now going ahead with budgeting. Every field has to submit a budget. It's a very beginning stage for OM budgeting. They basically have to see what they needed last year and see if they can cut it by 5%. Now some fields that are already cut down to the belly button, like Austria, we're not asking them to cut. It's only volunteer anyway. But some of the bigger fields where they got a little fat, they can cut. Forgive the comparisons, but you know what I mean. We need to really pray because this puts more pressure on the CAO. Even board members went into the CAO to put the screw on, to put pressure on, to get those computer reports two months earlier. We've had chaos lately because the woman who punches into our main computer for the CAO, which is in Sweden. I know that sounds strange, but we were in computers in the CAO a long time almost before we started buying computers except STLs. And we got a good system there in someone else's computer. A lot of discussion whether we should move that to Belgium. Whether we should put a mini-computer in Belgium because we need these reports sooner. These reports tell us if our field, like ICT, is going in the red. And ICT is one of the most in the red field. India is double indebtedness of ICT. That's in terms of internal cash flow because all money ultimately has to go to where it's designated. But it can be used according to the need as determined by the stewardship committee and the field leaders, which is a sensible way not to have huge chunks of money sitting in one bank account while other people aren't eating. Now we are actually working towards some change in this where we will even, especially with the ships, have a little buffer so that if some money comes into Germany for the ships, it can be put in the bank for the next fuel purchase or the next nightmare problem that they have. But up to now in the history of LM we have never been able to get a buffer except when we were saving money for the purchase of the ships. You may want to pray along that direction. But it's a challenge. And I'd ask you to pray for these men, myself, Jonathan, Paul Troper, Peter Maiden who's on the phone, he's the secretary of this stewardship group, has to do most of the work, and Dale Roton. Because when we're short of money they have to monitor giving every day. To get the money to go where the greatest need is. This takes telexes, communication, a lot of prayer, and I believe God has really given Peter Maiden the gift for this. Now another major decision at this conference is that Peter Maiden is now the associate international coordinator, director, or I even like the word leader, of the work of OM. Though he would esteem me as still sort of having a final voice, it is set up that he can act in my absence. There's very little I can do anyway without agreement. So it's all negotiation. But Peter has the respect. He has the knowledge of the OM machinery to be able to get things done. And I have just absolute confidence in him that if I'm in Pakistan where I will be going for two months starting January, though part of the time will be in Bangladesh and Nepal, that he can just act. He in any case would be in constant fellowship with Jerry and with Jonathan and with Dale. So it's a team leadership but at least someone on the team has a little bit of muscle to get something done or to put the brakes on. I believe this move into two of us sort of here at the top, which we want to be at the bottom because unless we can serve, and that's all we want to do, we're unworthy of leadership within God's work. I believe with two of us giving ourselves to this huge task also in terms of relating to other leaders. It's normal for a main leader in OM to want to have fellowship with the guy who is supposedly overall. And now, as I'm still the same weak four-cylinder character I was 20 years ago, the fellowship with other leaders can be shared. Some of the leaders can't get to me anymore. Certainly if they do it it may be a very short period of time. Most every spare minute for six weeks of that conference all I did was talk to leaders. I never turned away too many new people that wanted to talk to me as well, but their time had to be limited. Sometimes with a leader it's a two-hour walk around the woods. And if somebody comes in like Bill Lowry, the head of Christ is the Answer, just had a beautiful letter from him, I just feel I must esteem such a brother. And so we spent two hours, three hours walking around the woods. And our relationship with Christ is the Answer is healing. We felt several years ago when we had a Jerusalem Club meeting with them that we couldn't work with them. Now we're flirting again, we're renegotiating. They've come into a lot of balance. It's still a long way to go. Well I hope this sharing of the inner workings of OM and how it relates to you, how it relates to the work overall, will help you understand. And also that it will make you feel that you are part of this team. You are not joining an organization. You are part of a spiritual movement that's directed and guided by the Holy Spirit who uses men. I hope you'll understand this and not feel that you're on the outside maybe throwing a little rock in now and then or a little bit of advice now and then. But I hope you'll feel a part of this because a lot of those things that were discussed in these days were because new recruits gave us feedback. It doesn't all get decided on. But your feedback goes into leaders. They bring it into the other sessions, committees, and some of it actually gets acted on. I hope in November I can follow up on this and share about seven or eight proposals that we finalized during those days together. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to share. We know there will be further orientation and there will be times for questions and answers. We know also we won't get all the answers. We won't get a knowledge of everything. So M has become a large movement spread out across almost the whole world. We thank you that we are one body. We don't have to be afraid of asking questions. We have nothing to hide. There are no so little secrets we can't tell. The newest recruit who comes in the door give us balance in this area of finance. Give us dynamic Holy Ghost faith coupled with balanced common sense and esteem of the local church and a love and esteem of other believers, other fellowships and other leaders. Guide us as we move together in this work. In Jesus name, Amen. Over to the announcements. Who has the announcements? This commissioning rally is not a volunteer thing. Now if you already have a strong and grateful commitment like Mission England, that's going on of course you can't go. But really it's once a year we have a Valedictory Commissioning Rally. We got people going all the way from Northern Ireland to go. I'm preaching the first time at the Manchester Commissioning Rally. So be there and mix with the prayer partners and wherever you go you always carry a few of your own prayer letters. You make a friend. Some people can't relate to OM and it's business. But they may be able to relate to you and become your prayer partner. If you got even one new prayer partner a week in the next year where would you be? You'd have 52 new people praying for you by this time next year. So be alert and don't feel it's wrong to ask people to pray for you. They can only say no or forget it. And I think this individual fellowship after this meeting is very important. Just as much as the main preacher. Peter Maiden actually is coming down first time isn't he after London now that you've been here.
Inner Workings of Om 7.10.83
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download

George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.