The video is a sermon transcript discussing the financial struggles faced by Operation Mobilization (OM), a missionary organization. The speaker shares his personal struggles and questions regarding OM's financial policy and practice. He emphasizes the need for prayer and counsel from listeners. The speaker mentions a recent Area Leaders Conference where issues were discussed and decisions were made for the future of OM.

This is a special personal sharing tape that is going to the leaders of OM, the members of various boards of directors in different countries, some ex-OMers, some very long-standing friends and people who have acted as my advisors and counselors over the years. Other long-term OMers, of course, will get this tape. When it comes to the matter of practical changes and ideas and thoughts about Operation Mobilization, I tend to think this will probably end up as one of the most important tapes I have ever made. I'm alone here in my little office in West Wickham. I've been praying about what I'm going to share on this tape. It may become two tapes for many, many years and especially even more in the last couple of years. What I state here in this tape does not represent necessarily the official policy of Operation Mobilization. In a sense, it's a tape of my own personal struggles and the purpose in sending you this tape is to ask you for your prayers, first of all, and for your counsel. As this subject, again, touches on a number of subjects, but this subject especially of OM's financial policy and practice will certainly be a main item for discussion at the coming field leaders' meetings. I would really beg of you to give your full concentration if you can. Of course, I'd be thrilled to have you listen to this tape in your car or anywhere rather than you're not listening at all. But perhaps after going through it once without taking notes you could go through it again and take notes because the whole area that I'm going to be discussing touches many, many different things and the weight of the argument that God seems to be putting upon my heart concerning certain changes especially in the way we go about things in OM are not based on one or two problems or thoughts or ideas or even scriptures, but are based on many, many factors and it's going to take time to go over these factors. I have many notes that I've made, prayed through, and I would appreciate your giving time to absorbing them. How I wish that somehow as it was 28 years ago when just three of us were headed to Mexico that we all in OM full time could sit here in this office and we could discuss these things face to face. Many of you who receive this tape are personal friends. I think of you as a friend, as a brother or sister in Christ. You are not necessarily in OM full time but God has used you in this work. More than perhaps I have been able to express I think though I've learned something over the years I still have more to learn about how to really express appreciation. And I want to express my appreciation to you as a board member, as an OMer, as a leader, as a prayer partner, as a friend for standing with us over the years and some of you have stood with this work. Some of you back in New Jersey from my conversion 30 years ago, even before that you were praying. Mrs. Clapp will be listening to this tape. What can we say about her? Others of course here in Europe have been standing with the work and with me personally for 20, 21, 23 years. It was just 25 years ago this summer that my wife and I were packing to go to Spain. We had just been in Mexico for 6 months. We had seen the hand of God move in a mighty way. We had been in the Mexican border mainly speaking on the subject of love, fruit of the Holy Spirit. And as those teams went into Mexico you know I had to fly back and then hitchhike back to Chicago try to get Hosey Burks out of prison. But while those teams were moving forward in Mexico we were preparing to go to Spain. People like Phil Marshall such a leader now in the field of Islam was in Veracruz, Mexico that summer on a very, very difficult team led by Hosey who had just come out of prison. So in a sense this is another historical milestone in OM's history. I want to just have a word of prayer right now. Lord, just guide us as we share through the means of this little cassette tape. One of the deepest burdens that is on my heart. Lord, I don't have this all neatly organized because it's a whole series of questions and struggles. And I pray you'll give wisdom to the people who listen to this and who write to me and who send their advice that Lord, if there's an area where I'm going astray that you would help me to refocus and to sharpen my focus and to get back on the right path. We thank you God for all that you have done. We thank you Lord and we come even in making this tape with a spirit of thanksgiving. We have no complaint with you, oh living God. We love you. We want to be able to say as Job though you even slay us we will love you. We worship you. We know your hand is as much upon OM today as it has ever been. Perhaps more. We thank you for the whole new army of leaders in training many of whom want to commit their whole life to this work. We thank you for tens of thousands of prayer partners. We thank you that every day there are people who come to know you. We thank you that every year there are 12 to 20 million precious people for the work in India and the ships in Europe and the communist world and the Muslim thrust and endless other efforts who are receiving your holy word. For those that somehow are being drawn to yourself out of that great multitude who are hearing the gospel. We thank you Lord for what you're doing in the lives of exoemers. For many different fellowships and groups and organizations that have been born out of this particular work. Lord how can we even begin to express our deep love for you our deep gratitude in many many ways that you have answered prayer. Guide us now as we deal, as we think together realistically about this difficult situation of OMS finance and what our response should be to the challenge of the hour. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. I just come from a three day area leaders conference. Six of us representing the different areas of the world gathered together for three days praying wrestling with all kinds of issues preparing the agenda for the field leaders meetings and the general council where final decisions are made or where we come into final unity about what we sense the Lord is leading us into for the future. For the last years we have been in awesome and difficult financial problems. We developed a couple of years ago a stage system so that we know when things were going from bad to worse. Stage one is when things are bad. Stage two is they get worse. Stage three is sort of a full alert and we have different things in terms of cutback and sacrifice and prayer that we do during those different stages which we were in often a year ago. This led to drastic cutback especially in connection with the ship ministry. It led to many struggles. It led to many hurts as Satan tested us. God allowed us to be tested. I want to just share from the beginning that the past couple of years though they've been years of tremendous testing and difficulty. They've been years of great victory. We have found our roots. By God's grace more than ever we know where we're going and we know to some degree how we're going to get there. We've refocused on our targets. I've done a series of five based on the leadership manual in which we deal more clearly with some of the goals that set out in the leadership manual and define some of these. I want to thank those of you who have given feedback to various letters and memos and tapes that have gone around the world and to my feeble books which also somehow have become widely read and bring in many, many thousands of letters over a period of course of years. We now have maybe $200,000 in overdue bills and $300,000 speaking roughly of other bills. We know that August is often a bad month and July and the expenses connected with July in terms of travel, airfares, equipment to move the teams out, all kinds of things mean that we're humanly speaking once again headed into a very dark cloud. This in turn creates many pressures as is a strong segment of the work feel that a large part of the answer in OM is cutback and more careful control of spending and less spending and all kinds of memos are released and all kinds of exhortations are given. All well intentioned but with it different people respond in different ways. Some people just want to leave. They don't want to handle the pressure anymore. Each person or all human beings has the ability to see where other people may be failing, where other people may be spending too much. There's also a strong group that feel that the greater answer lies in seeing increase of income. I think everyone to varying degrees even though it doesn't always come out in what we say and what we practice but in varying degrees believe that we need to increase our income. We saw this years ago in terms of people's personal support. At that time there was even questions as to whether we should have a personal support system. Maybe there should be just a general kind of support system. And after much prayer and struggling we have agreed that OM is a fellowship in which each person is looking to God in relationship with his own church and prayer partners for his own personal support. And praise God for the unity we have on that which so much helps us know what direction we should take when we come into some of the other problem areas. One of the reasons however for this tape is the simple fact that we have an enormous range of people within OM perhaps 20%, perhaps as high as 40% who are having enormous difficulty in connection with personal support. One of the most heart-rending things that I've never been able to fully understand are the many, many people that have had to leave OM over the years because of support. We've tended to try to give answers saying well this was the way God was leading them and we know he can lead through the lack of finance. We have certainly over-emphasized that at times. But in surveying the whole missionary situation at large around the world I have seen that also many other people some who have been on OM, far more who have never been on OM never got to the mission field even though they felt a call, they wanted to go and in some cases definitely, clearly had the skill. They never got there because of a support problem. Some mission societies require a high degree of pretty heavy deputation. Some young people cannot handle that. Many missionaries are not great communicators. That makes sometimes deputation work going out and raising money almost a nightmare and they have dropped along the way or taken up other ministries because as they've traveled in their own country they've discovered other ministries and often these ministries especially in the home countries go with a salary. It's interesting that when it comes to ministries in the home countries pastorate, assistant pastorate working at a bible institute, a seminary many many other similar ministries with these ministries are salaries and of course since the money factor is a large factor in life many many who are praying about going overseas and a high percentage of overseas work is non-salary it's faith, though I know the word faith has different meaning in different places but it represents a situation where they have to look to God and look to His people for somehow giving. It's really volunteer work. There are great missions of course that do have a salary program and it's important sometimes to keep that in mind. And one of my greatest concerns and what I'm sharing here is not firstly OM. Somehow by God's grace OM will continue to go on even if we continue to be confused and to perhaps be in extreme in this area of money and communicating about money but my bigger concern is about the other people the 37,000 who have had some kind of training in OM who have received the challenge about our particular kind of faith especially when it comes to money but who found shortly after leaving OM that at least for them it didn't work Many of these people who might be on the mission field today are not there. I feel, this is where I want your correction but I feel partly because of extreme practice even more than policy. Policy in some areas hasn't been clarified so that's led to extreme practice, misunderstanding it's led to inconsistency. We'll get into that later. So keep in mind that what we're dealing with at this time is something very very important as we think of the unreached people's groups as we think of the Muslim world as we think of almost every major mission society looking for more recruits and many of them looking to OM for those recruits Our credibility with mission societies is quite different than it was 20 years ago Actually our whole policy in connection with finance and not speaking about money, not mentioning money in our letters was linked very important to understand this in the historic perspective was linked with our desire to see whether we really were something that God wanted as we were just being born to esteem other mission agencies as better than ourselves and not have channeled into OM because people knew us or because our message was challenging or because of emotion that they might not channel to us money that was already designated to other missionary organizations I think it's important therefore to understand that perhaps a system that was from God 25 years ago and even 20 years ago when we were much smaller and when we were faced with a particular set of problems is not necessarily the system or the method that we should maintain today as a fellowship of 1600 people with permanent headquarters and bases in 40 nations with another 3 or 400 children and another 1,500 to 2,000 short term recruits coming in the summers and other times of the year A letter from Steve Hart a year or two ago made a big influence, big impact in my thinking as he felt that perhaps the system that the Lord had led us to use I might say Steve Hart has been really the key man in finance and accounting for more than 20 years. He joined us as we were preparing for the 1963 campaign and has been the chief accountant and leader of the whole financial thing all these years I'm sure Steve's original beliefs before he came on OM were not the same as he submitted to after he came and he has been wonderful in terms of his love, his patience his submission in this area but a year or two ago he submitted a memo to us asking us to think about making certain changes and some of these will be mentioned at this time he wrote another memo a few weeks ago as he is strongly convinced that OM's major problem is a need to increase income and to put more teeth into our support system and has recommended even that we pray and others have done this about some kind of system of pledging young people before they come have pledged support the amazing thing is though technically we're still in opposition to this in fact if it wasn't for pledged support for many of the young people including myself and churches that without particularly asking have pledged to my wife and I I just don't know where OM would be today so could it be that the system or the way we have operated the system the past 25 to 28 years is not necessarily the way we should continue in the future a great question we will always ask in all of this is whether it's biblical we've already faced many many years ago that we didn't have a whole series of bible verses that clearly taught our position and for many years now we have even been defending for example other groups that take offerings other groups that raise money we work together with groups that raise money and we have tried to restate our own policy by saying we do not overtly go into fundraising the fact is we still basically do not even mention finance to any degree in our letters and more important than that we don't allow of course some young people have broken the policy we do not allow young people on OM to mention finance in their prayer letters of course this is something so many of them cannot comprehend when they first come so we have a real problem and I've been wrestling with it and reading and praying let me just share a little more about the present policy and how it works out the policy of course above all else is to be totally dependent upon God taking those words of Hudson Taylor I guess giving our own interpretation God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply I have to be honest in saying that there are many of us that would not necessarily anymore agree with that statement because we understand more the nature of the spiritual warfare we understand more that it's not all victories there are situations in which God has wanted to supply but his people have not responded there has been sin, there has been selfishness there has been materialism therefore the money has not come, therefore the work has been hindered it is impossible to say that the work of God is not constantly hindered in many places for the lack of money just as we know that in some cases the work of God is hindered because there is too much money that has also been emphasized by some men of God as I already shared in wanting to esteem other groups and in wanting to be totally dependent on God in those early days and wanting to see everything come in answer to prayer we moved into what of course many people felt and have felt all these years including many men of God is an extreme position some people don't even realize it we don't take offerings in OM meetings if it's a church meeting and the church pastor takes the initiative of course we allow that people have been amazed by this some have even been offended because they have wanted to give finally as a compromise on Doulos and Lagos where people didn't know how to give there was never any offerings taken in the meetings finally some little box or boxes appeared where if people somehow wanted to give they could find out or they might see this box and of course they could put some money now that in some ways already represents a shift in policy greater than some of the things that I am hoping and praying we might be able to make in other areas we developed a policy even though a lot of these things were verbal that said people including new recruits could not mention money in their prayer letter could not mention money to their churches churches for a while could not even tell their churches what the support was I wonder some mission leaders and I know even members of our own board of directors felt it was ridiculous endless letters have come to us saying that people could not understand this policy we made a compromise and agreed in past general councils to finally produce a leaflet explaining finance for quite a few years there has always been some words of explanation and some literature that is given to the recruits there is always a letter that goes to the recruits so at least they know what they are to do they know the prayer target that they are supposed to be praying for so that they can go and finally a year or so ago we agreed that this leaflet telling about the financial policy could be enclosed to home churches and that brings a lot of questions because many young people are only on OM because of individual prayer partners or because of gifts coming in different ways sometimes their own money of course so in some cases there were no home churches we also in the last couple of years have committed ourselves to work with churches in a balanced way in regard to people's support this is where we have ended up doing things that at times seemingly were inconsistent with the policy on one hand we weren't letting the young people put in their letters what their financial goals were asking people to pray with them about those prayer goals but on the other hand we would call up pastors in some cases and ask them whether they were going to support a particular young person and that automatically led to all kinds of information going out so we have a lot of problems where today because of inconsistency, it's not planned inconsistency but it just happens because the average person may be following the letter of the law, the letter of the policy so to speak but many other people do not or their leaders, they have more freedom, they can call pastors please keep in mind that OM has become a very large complex organization and that we also give a fair amount of freedom to each individual nation it's impossible to understand operation mobilization unless you understand the fine balance between the national autonomy and the international fellowship. Many of our countries are national units under national boards of directors. They have a lot of freedom they have the freedom to interpret policy again and again different national entities within OM as far as some of us who are an overall leadership are concerned have taken too much freedom in bending the policy and giving out information in one country in their prayer letters that in other countries where they're sticking closer to the policy it's not being done. You can imagine the difficulty. Also many countries are very different. British people come for a summer, they can return back home when they have more information talk to their churches, talk to their prayer partners certain information is found out by investigation or leaked. However young people who come from Australia, Singapore, other parts of the world these people are coming for one or two years they have to get everything organized before they leave. They have to have in a sense some kind of promise that may not be called a pledge but they have to in some way have seen some financial breakthrough. There are quite large airfares involved they have to when they're interviewed more or less give some impression to the interviewer that the money is going to come therefore in certain parts of the world there is more very clear communication with the churches and once it's communicated for one set of OMers then the young people who come the next year especially from the same church, they know the rules of the game and so communication goes out information including information about finance goes out considered a breach of OM's financial policy. So I think you can understand the complexity of this policy it may sound good on paper, it may sound good from the pulpit especially when there's good emotional preacher talking about believing God, trusting God using the favorite old stories from George Mueller from Hudson Taylor even though most people haven't done enough research into all that to understand exactly what was happening both in the Charney Inland Mission in those days and in the work of George Mueller and a few other similar works by investigation and research into groups that have a financial policy somewhat similar somewhat similar to OM is that in almost no case are they as rigid as we are and in most cases there are ways in which information even about important financial needs are shared with at least a certain part of the constituency as some people call the people who support a particular work, prayer partners, givers, donors share partners, whatever you want to call them so in some ways it's left OM in somewhat of an isolated position there are a few who seem to be close to us there are a few who may seem to be more strict or more rigid but the vast percentage of missionary agencies today do not agree and certainly do not practice the kind of thing that we practice in OM. Admittedly in that practice there are failures there are areas of inconsistency and we'll touch on some of that in a few minutes I think some of you of course already know most of you know what we've been trying to practice what we've been trying to do and I think up to now though there has been failure before God we have with all of our hearts tried to put into practice what we felt was God's will in the past years we have been less dogmatic saying this is what the scriptures say or this is the way we see it in the scriptures we gave that up, many of us at least fifteen years ago I spoke on revolution of love and balance on the ship Lagos around 1971 Indonesia that's now published in my book revolution of love and balance I spoke about the difference between OM particular practices and biblical policies and through that message tried to prepare young people for going into other mission agencies where they would have to raise their own support where they would have to share openly about finance and I noticed that a high percentage of all OMers who join other missions and who go out to the mission field do learn to include in their prayer letters definite information about their support, what they need etc. so I am very happy for that stand we took fifteen or so years ago now I am able to communicate that print and from the pulpit when I have question and answer sessions but the average person finds it difficult at times to discern between the OM practice and the biblical principle and then if this particular OM practice is not a biblical principle, why in the world are we continuing it? and leaders within OM a fair increase have been asking this and they have been asking it of me more and more regularly and I know the defenses that I have given even though those defenses have led to certain compromise and the changes that have taken place slowly over the years a hard thing in all of this of course is when you receive a letter from someone who is very very very strong what they feel is the way of faith some people believe, there are very few in this camp that OM is one of the last groups really holding on to God's way maybe some of us at times would like to believe this but we are unable to believe it because we esteem so many other groups and because a stronger message of OM concerning love the whole body of Christ working together is more important than certain aspects of our financial policy I really hope somehow you are able to follow me I know sometimes I am a man of too much explanation but different parts of this explanation, different parts of this struggle and burden will be meaningful and important to different people what are some of the other problems we have had to face with this particular policy I have already touched on the fact that recruits do not understand this, OM was small a lot of face-to-face, person-to-person fellowship contact, I might say that right back to the earliest days at Moody Bible Institute and the work goes back before that but especially when this policy came in because it didn't exist in the very earliest days in fact, shortly after I was converted I wanted to give out Gospels in the high school I went to dear Henry Reid who is now in heaven and I asked if he could somehow supply the money for the Gospels for the high school how mightily God blessed that the cementing of this particular policy slowly took place years later and especially as certain influences came into the work by a few men of God, there never were very many a few men of God who felt very strongly of course they commended OM for our stand they supported OM for our stand even some people who gave finance it seemed at times they only gave finance because we were a group that operated this way they even gave the idea that if we didn't operate this way then we couldn't expect God to at least supply finance through them that was never sort of the total factor in our decision in this regard it was a number of factors some of which I've already touched on but even back at Moody there were those praying and fasting who did not see the breakthrough and who didn't go to Mexico the same was true in the early days in Europe and a lot of people have been hurt by this system one of the things that's been on my conscience for years is the thought that perhaps with our rigid concept about finance we are doing in the area of money what extreme healers are doing in the area of healing they say, some of them, no doctors that church in Indiana where 60 have died because no doctors, no medicine and maybe in the area of money we've gone into that extreme no mention of finance no telling people the real facts here we are with all these different needs Bibles are needed, vehicle spare parts are needed many OMers praying about leaving for lack of support houses need painting I could list a hundred needs, many of them that we face right now but we don't, in a sense, tell the doctor or we say, well the doctor is Jesus we're only going to tell Jesus and I've seen people hurt through extreme teaching on healing and OM is an arch enemy of extreme teaching on healing and yet we know that some people and some churches have been hurt through OM's teaching about finance and this goes way, way back into history now another strong conviction I have that you must understand is that within every spiritual movement, every church and every man of God there will be some error, there will be some deception we're all growing, we're all learning in past years you've heard me emphasize the human factor and so I've had to search my own heart where has OM erred? what are our blind spots? what are still remaining extremes, unbiblical extremes? for us, extremism is error it's selfishness it's neglecting certain basic biblical principles spiritual balance is the blending of different strong biblical principles a book has recently been published, a very extreme book another one of the many factors leading me to share at this time in which of course the word balance has been viciously attacked OM has been a movement that has emphasized love has emphasized fellowship of all of God's people we've steered a middle balanced course in many areas touchy difficult areas like the gift of the Holy Spirit like mode of baptism many things in regard to church government and I am convinced this is God's way forth and yet in this particular area we seem to steer our own course which in some cases separates us or causes us to be misunderstood by many of God's very beautiful people it's impossible for us to accept that all these people are wrong and we are right now we've had the teaching that the local churches should be doing the teaching about money, they should be doing fundraising quoted that verse about money being set aside on the first day of the week Peter Maiden has written a whole book about giving initially I was even opposed to a book about giving because I thought people are going to think we're writing this book in order to hint that we need money I have done some of the most ridiculous things in overreacting to the fear that people were thinking that we were hinting or that people were thinking that well we say prayer but we mean money, searching my own heart and I know my heart is deceitful most of the time when I have said prayer I have meant prayer but I could not say that in some cases money was not also in my thinking and of course I have written a whole leaflet how to release money through prayer though initially that was only for private circulation for O.N. people and we have, you know in some people's minds have become at times almost paranoid about this a new recruit would mention something in his prayer letter about money we'd circle it, send it back to him and say this is not allowed all in the name of faith all in the name of wanting to obey God and unfortunately we've discovered that pride can come into this a subtle form of pride has almost gripped my own heart when I thought that I've almost never asked a man, a person or a church for money in the last 27 or 28 years there may be a few exceptions understand that if people take the initiative and ask us if there are any projects or ask us if there is a need for money we can explain our situation to them that's other organizations, other churches taking the initiative that is a very important sort of loophole that we agreed to many years ago because otherwise we would get into things even more ridiculous so in OM we're always praying that people will ask whether there are any needs we're always praying will people ask whether they're eating today in India we're always praying will people ask so then we can submit our burden or our project even in terms of corporations, we've had people say go to the corporation ask for money, we've never gone to corporations asking for money except in a few cases where they have taken the initiative and have come to us we have also built up ongoing relationships with groups who in fact are into fundraising but who need movements like OM and want to work with movements like OM in order to see their own ministry fulfilled for example people who are publishing literature for free distribution I can name a number of tremendous groups, they want to work with us so it actually ends up they are almost raising money on our behalf we always say well they're raising money for their ministry but we're helping them in their ministry but it gets very complicated especially when they mention our needs in their prayer letters so what we are not allowed to do in our own letters especially the young new recruit battling for his small amount of support other groups are doing sort of on our behalf and of course in the minds of some, even leaders within OM it's ridiculous I have tried to explain this and I have tried to defend it I can see the expressions on their faces I'm sure there's been a lot of patient people around OM who have not agreed with me on some of these things that I have said but who love me, who esteem me and perhaps quietly pray I know some are Lord in your time change George Verwer in this area now if you are one of those persons this is the time for you to not only pray quietly but to write me very clearly what you really feel, what you really believe so that I can wrestle this through so if I speak on this subject at field leaders or general counsel I will be able to not only have what I feel and think myself but I will be able to have what other leaders, board members, prayer partners what you also feel and think in this very very important matter I touched on the fact that new recruits so often don't understand this I think of that scripture was it the Pharisees who put burdens on people they could not bear and some of us feel that sometimes this is what happens in our financial policy we know, I think most of us know we would have many more recruits and it includes quality recruits if they were able to clearly communicate their financial situation in fact sometimes the ones who make it to us are ones that didn't understand it and did communicate and the ones that don't make it are ones that sometimes did not communicate we've had situations in the past where the churches have asked a particular brother what are your needs and they've actually said we can't tell you, now that wasn't actually the policy but that's what they thought, they didn't know about the initiative church takes the initiative and you can share that's not happening so much now because of the new leaflet that we have explaining the policy, but up to now that leaflet cannot be given out generally to prayer partners, to friends here are students that don't have a good church situation often it would be their fellow students that would be willing to support them but at present they're not allowed to tell those students nothing that ever happens, they're not allowed to even give out that leaflet I've shared also about how the size of the work makes this all so much more complex another problem is that so many men of God that we greatly admire and I could list at least a hundred never believed in this kind of financial policy C.L. Moody certainly never did William Booth, Oswald J. Smith, one of the strongest influences if not the strongest in regard to missions in my own life was absolutely opposed to this policy and he brought in the church pledge system which of course revolutionized missionary giving I've almost always said that I believed in that but of course then I played the OM policy and said it had to always just come from the church and that we ourselves could not get involved so I think in preaching in certain places I have spoken well of that particular system of course churches have complained to us that unless we're open and honest about the needs including the financial needs, about the support then how can they function properly in that kind of faith promise system and plan that Oswald J. Smith has started and maybe others that has spread all over the world recently a man of God wrote an article against what some people think of as the George Mueller system in terms of looking to God alone not making financial needs known his article was very good there were things we had already thought about, wrestling with a person very strong for our particular way of doing things wrote a letter against that particular article I agreed with some of the things he said in his letter but other things did not ring true to me those are things I felt and believed then another OM-er, leader, wrote a letter countering the other OM leader's letter and when I looked at those two letters I had to confess before God that the second letter seemed to ring the bell in terms of honesty and in terms of many many other areas though I still see an amalgamation of what two OM leaders said in their different letters another problem with this policy as it is practiced at present is that it tends sometimes to communicate super-spirituality we've had to redefine within OM again and again the very word faith because we were giving the impression years ago that we're living by faith but the man who gets a salary on the mission field much less the man who's back in a factory he's not living by faith and again and again in our messages over past years we've talked about different kinds of faith we've esteemed the factory worker and the other missionary again and again better than ourselves messages on balance I know many of you have heard those messages that's why some of you are linked with us but there's still the problem because many of the young people when they first come cannot communicate these things properly and so it brings a distortion to the message of faith now today we're living in a day in which the word faith is greatly misused and we have I think a whole organization that uses the word faith as their main word it gets linked with the name it, claim it type of extreme you can do anything, the prosperity extreme the last thing we want to do is through some absurd confusion get caught into that kind of thing so this is a real problem that we're wrestling with and trying to find the answer to another thing that creates a problem in my own heart is that the original goal of this was to cast us upon God in more prayer and for those of us in OM when the money stops as so often it does, we find the overdue bills it does get used of God to cast us upon Him in prayer by the way I'm sure that no matter what changes we make in practice or policy we are still going to have financial struggles no matter what we do it's not going to be some easy answer we're still probably in God's providence going to have some stage ones and we're going to have to call the special prayer meetings and there's no leaning away from the basic fact that it's through prayer that we're going to see finance released for the glory of God but I'm convinced that many times for our prayer partners and the great mass of people who are linked with us but do not have proper financial information we are actually reducing the amount of prayer many months ago and after much discussion and prayer among us we just had to share a little more about the ship problem and so we presented the facts about the generator and at least for the Great Britain Letter because the doulos was coming back to Britain we felt we had no choice, whatever road we went there were problems we allowed one sentence in the prayer letter to state that the doulos had been held back in Europe largely because of financial difficulties just that sentence in the UK prayer letter never went out in America was of course considered a breach of policy by a few I had some internal criticism of course people immediately can say OM goes around saying that we don't ask for money, we don't mention money but we of course are always dropping hints I've tried to answer that explaining that no matter what we do, we're always going to be accused by some people as hinting, I've even said in big meetings one look at skinny George Verwer knows this is a needy movement maybe the problem is that a vast percentage of our prayer partners in various parts of the world have never seen George Verwer much less hear him preach in person at least maybe they've heard a tape on balance or marriage or something so in some cases I think this particular way we're going about things is actually producing less prayer and it's interesting certain churches that take the initiative and do really get involved with and they then somehow find out there are not so many in this camp but they find out, we often find there's more reality there's more prayer, there's more recruits there's better relationships with that kind of church in the early days not enough emphasis was given to the place and the importance of the local church I might say that even as early as 1959 and 60 we began to see more and more just the importance of the local church and began to believe that and we did I guess to some degree before that see that the local church should be sending out people and that became a policy from the earliest days but somehow we never got to the place where we felt we could give them real information in the area of finance we thought we were perhaps esteeming them and not putting pressure on them we felt churches were so bombarded by different groups giving money and so many people coming and taking offerings we felt we should avoid that and just be cast upon God and let the Holy Spirit speak to their hearts about supporting us so we always believed in the local church and that they should be responsible for sending out the workers and that we were the outreach agency of the local church in order to do the job decently and in order out on the field and in places of the world where they could not go but somehow we never until in recent years got the whole communications area cleared up where we felt we could tell them at least what we believed about finance but it seems to me it's still very very fuzzy and it seems that the fact that we can tell the home churches of the young people puts many young people in O.M. on a very good and an easier position and for many other young people in O.M. it doesn't help them at all which can lead to the two-tier system those that have really good supporting churches and they're seeing their money come in and then others who don't have that situation we need to understand there are churches that oppose O.M. certain denominational groups are somewhat opposed there's certainly quite a few churches that wouldn't recommend their young people to come and yet some of those young people end up coming they get a recommendation from some Christian leader when you're dealing with a sheer number of young people we're dealing with despite all of our various policies, Christian leaders recommendation forms we're getting young people from a wide range of different situations of course after being with us for a year often many things get sorted out but it's a constant hindrance to sorting some of these things out that we don't have the freedom to really talk in many cases to the churches or to the prayer partners of these individuals about what we really believe, what we really practice in the area of finance let's face it that no matter what you say in some situations and in a letter some person who has a strong particular conviction maybe through reading a particular book or hearing a particular story of answer to prayer will accuse you of hinting I believe once and for all though that's hardly the case we need to by faith deal a death blow to this worry our goal is world evangelism it's not to build up our own coffers I think it needs to be understood that most people in O.M. today are living very close to the line I'd like to make another whole separate tape on how after visiting most of the O.M. fields throughout the entire world and both ships I have observed that most O.M. people are living a relatively sacrificial life the word sacrifice is a complicated word they are practicing as they see it to their degree of ability and psychological, spiritual and emotional strength they are practicing a simple lifestyle some of you know I attacked extremes and ideas about simple lifestyle in a memo some years ago a few people didn't like that memo but I think most people eventually agreed with it the content of that memo is very important I'd be happy to send it to any of you that don't have it if we're going to evangelize the world if we're going to reach unreached people in the communist world, the muslim world if we're going to reach out and touch between 12 and 20 million people every year not counting radio and television which touches untold millions then it's not possible at the same time to give an extreme emphasis in the area of simple lifestyle lately I've been spending some time painting my house and as far as I can see, evaluating that time it's been a great hindrance to getting the job done in terms of world evangelism now I'm willing to do that but how much more sensible for the sake of world evangelism if I pay someone a little bit to paint my house and I get on with making a tape like this or with taking another evangelistic meeting where I may have a thousand people now that needs to be all kept into balance because a little work around our homes, that's recreation it's going to be with our families tomorrow I'm hoping to go help my son paint his house that's a different set of goals now the ideal goal in OM of course is to have maintenance people to help us to release us for traveling, for preaching and carrying the gospel this is why behind the scenes workers are so important equally as important as those who go forth and that's one of the deepest burdens on my heart as I make this tape the very fact that so often those who have more outward ministries do see finances come in now we know God answers prayer but we know also ministries that are public ministries generate a certain amount of finance it's not just only answers to prayer God uses communication, God uses people's ministry when these people are exposed openly to a lot of people some of those people ask questions about the ministry then you're able to explain the situation and again and again the result is finance for that person's ministry but my burden is for the mechanics my burden is for some of those engineers my burden is for that new recruit who's unknown my burden is for many OMers who are not communicators who never get asked to take a meeting and yet we turn around and we tell them they can't even put one paragraph in their prayer letter telling what their financial goals are we're not even thinking maybe we should be but we're not even thinking now in terms of fundraising if any of you thought and maybe were nervous in this tape up to now you thought I was going to launch a great program that OM would get into fundraising we're not talking about that some will probably if we have more liberty and I would say reality in communication some will no doubt accuse us of fundraising and so we're not going to put up a big campaign saying we're not fundraising once we're mentioning finance in our prayer letters and putting definite specific prayer goals in some of our information in connection with projects in connection with people who don't have the finance the vehicles that don't have the spare parts I hope you can follow what I'm trying to say on this there are hundreds and hundreds of proofs that God doesn't just use prayer but he also uses the facts you see if we think it's only prayer in a sense we deny both the intellectual and emotional aspect of man and we cannot do that we know fundraisers come to town maybe for a good cause and he shares from the platform and people get emotionally excited and they pass the plate and maybe $100,000 goes out to feed orphans in Korea or build an orphanage in India some people have tended to think well this is totally wrong I don't think we can say this is totally wrong it happens in our churches all the time and I still prefer to see more of the giving within the churches and through the churches some of us have felt this is dangerous because it's too emotional and we expect people just to sit down and the way we at times in OM have taught to sit down praying and praying and then the Holy Spirit would direct them what to give and what to do even though they might not have the facts or as is in the case with OM they may have some facts and of course we then have said well with spiritual discernment they'll see there are financial needs and they'll write to us but people are busy, people are being hit from every side and some of the things that they're being hit with are not good things and a lot of God's money as far as many of us are concerned people outside OM more than in gets wasted I just think of some of the buildings that God's people are putting their money into right now in comparison to some of the needs I've seen in India the Muslim world, the communist world and in our developed countries so much money is put into buildings, it's put into recreational camps it's put into all kinds of things which we're hesitant to say are not God's will but certainly the reaching of the unreached people Bibles for Africa food and relief goods for those Afghan refugees we're working with bicycles, scriptures, literature meager support of our Indian nationals who we're trying to support surely these things are more on the heart and mind of God for this generation in the light of the need and I feel that if groups like OM are silent or we're vague in regard to the challenge and we're always afraid of mentioning anything about finance especially in any emotional way that we are just acknowledging defeat we are just saying, well, let them give all their money to all these other things and we'll be last on the line if somehow there's a little left over after this building program and this recreational facility for the saints in New York City if somehow there's any left the Lord will supply. We've even said things I've even said things similar to that but that not only denies the emotional side of man which is part of man but it denies the intellectual side because men, especially thinking people and especially people who God has committed resources to God and His providence, not by some theological law of prosperity but God and His providence has committed the goods of this world to different people they have to obey scripture in regard to being faithful stewards OM was very strong on forsaking all those first couple of years but even in the very earliest years we brought in Philippians, God will supply all of your needs that's why for the last 20 years we've been not going around judging everybody who has money or judging someone because they had a particular size house or expense because we know God leads different people in different ways we do however believe that people who have been entrusted with resources and that is a holy trust, their task, their job is as difficult or more difficult than ours and the word of God indicates that when speaking about those who have this world's goods I must say that some of the people who are wealthy at times seem to me to be less materialistic and closer to God than sometimes even people within OM who have nothing and again and again we've had to humble ourselves and acknowledge the facts about spirituality that spirituality is not one thing or two things but it's many things we're all growing, we're all learning one man's weakness may not be our weakness but his strong points also may not be our strong points communicating the facts being honest even in the areas of finance as to what the situation is so that people can use their minds and their emotion if that's brought into it together with the will together of course waiting upon God in prayer to get his enlightenment to me this is God's way this is what we practice in the area of recruiting this is what we practice once it's considered a person's home church at least to some degree they at least get some kind of a leaflet this is what we practice in many many other areas in fact OM has come to be known as a movement that has amalgamated common sense with biblical faith a movement that's pioneering and has been for 17 years in the use of video and film film of course more than 15 years a movement that has been pioneering to some degree in the area of computers a movement that has pioneered the whole area of using ships pioneered at least certain ways of using large trucks in world evangelism carrying armies of young people across the Middle East to India our own driver training program so many aspects of OM is a combination of teaching, training, information with dynamic faith, believing God for the impossible trusting Him, willing to take a risk after counting the cost, Luke 14 after examining the facts but when it comes to this area of finance we take a leap and do what we don't do hardly in any other area and we expect people to give we're crying out to God day and night we're calling more prayer meetings for new recruits who are just learning how to pray we're getting ourselves at times into division and even into judgmentalism expecting people to give large sums of money to particular needs and burdens and situations that they don't even have information about God has been gracious with this seemingly blind spot maybe it has acted as our brakes I've often said that, it's like putting the water on the fire that Elijah was lighting it's been God's brakes, and maybe we needed brakes we still need brakes, but now we have budgeting we have a financial management department we have a lot more, I believe, wisdom and leadership and control by churches, by boards of trustees I'm not sure we need these brakes a car needs brakes, but I don't think you drive the car with the brakes on all the time and this lack of clear-cut communication on this vital area of finance and money which Jesus Christ talked about so much which the apostles talked about so much I was just looking again and reading here in the Bible before I started this message 2 Corinthians, chapter 9, the whole chapter and many other chapters deal largely with money and yet in OM, through, I'm sure, good intentions this has become the secret thing and it's produced fog it's produced confusion and I'm sure it's hurt many, many people I know you've been listening a long time and I would just plead with you to bear with me just a little longer because this is so incredibly important for many years I was part of the Indian field and my whole thrust, though it was still OM worldwide a lot of it was India, where I lived later, when I could not be in India, I lived in Nepal my work in India has been patterned upon the original principle of supporting nationals and because of the financial complexity of the work there we felt that nationals should be supported by book-selling and by the money that we could trust God for from overseas we always prayed more money would come in from within India but that has been an ongoing dilemma because you see, no communication and this is not only true in India, but other parts of the world brings miscommunication and so the churches in general do not give to OM India because there are foreigners involved and where there are foreigners, they think there's a lot of money there's some vehicles involved, they see these vehicles, they don't have vehicles they figure there's a lot of money and then, of course, when two ships come on the scene you can imagine the miscommunication some of you may not realize that we have had to constantly cut back on the number of workers in India because of the financial dilemma, now God has used that and we would not wildly just increase those numbers even if we had the finance but we've not been able to build a relationship between churches and Indians to any great degree because unless we communicate clearly on this issue the obstacles are just too great the amazing thing is that when I personally ministered around India and spoke with my stories, my illustrations my challenge from the whole of the word of God about total commitment often gifts would be given to me personally, even huge gifts this is what makes the present practice and the way we go about this so difficult for me personally because to say that OM does not communicate of course would be completely ridiculous we've got endless books, memos we are communicating in 50 different areas but when it comes to this area about finance we are unable to really communicate now when there's someone like me preaching and I tell the stories, I remember speaking on the ship in Mexico and telling about the old elderly ladies that sacrificed to buy the Lagos I've spoken for years honestly about the real situation, people respond I remember those Mexican pastors jumping up and immediately taking an offering for India after I shared with them about India and the amazing thing is I have had freedom in the pulpit because you can't very easily control a preacher like me not to raise money but to give facts, to give information even if it was so often indirect but I have a freedom that the new recruits don't have and that many other behind the scene workers and other leaders who don't do much speaking that they don't have because we don't allow this kind of information to go into prayer letters and not everybody is gifted to communicate in the sort of indirect way and promote the questions and the thoughts in a way that sometimes it would happen, sometimes even without me even knowing it please try to understand that even if you have to sort of rewind your tape and listen through it again taking notes because it's an incredibly important point after all of my effort in India I got involved of course in the ship ministry keep in mind the ship ministry was 5 years or so before we ever got the ship and all during that time money was being saved some people think money was never saved but other OM teams were allowed to temporarily use it now the moment you just talk about ships most people can comprehend that money is needed and it wasn't just prayer that brought in the money for the ships it was clear information but you see that kind of information we could give without mentioning anything about money in terms of specific amounts and so therefore we didn't sort of break the financial policy and even when we communicated about the generator we saw quite a response we didn't really communicate that much and we still haven't seen the breakthrough about the generator and the finance but we have no provision in OM to explain in a prayer letter exactly the situation now concerning the generator we had some degree of freedom to say if you want more information write in even that we're still wrestling with and there's not total unity in terms of some people feeling well that's hinting or that's some indirect method of trying to get money all kinds of things get said and all kinds of misunderstandings come in and some people they think we're only doing some of these things now and that this freedom is just coming now I had this freedom from the earliest days and went about my own particular way of communication and in those days with the size of the work and with the size of my own ministry and communication and others who had similar ministries to me perhaps we could make it through but now we're dealing with 1600 people and all of their children we're dealing now with many of our children that need to get higher education and certainly something needs to be said in their prayer letters about that education and what it's going to cost and asking prayer partners and friends to pray for breakthroughs I had such a burden to create a higher education fund for young people in OM I had a burden to have an emergency fund that I could communicate to praying people that they would know that it exists, that they would know what it's about because in OM we're constantly hit with finance emergencies a lot of our money is designated to particular fields and yet there are emergencies that pop up sometimes only I know about them now I've had something similar to that for years called special projects but been very limited in what I could even say generally I had to say, well, if you want information about special projects write in that doesn't, together with all the other challenges and things that people are thinking about it doesn't produce very much of a response now through prayer and battling on there has been some breakthroughs in regard to special projects but 90% of all the projects that we wanted to get into that could reach millions, that could result in churches being planted book shops being opened, unreached peoples being reached 90% of those projects that have come across my desk and into my heart have had to be just put into a file because we're just struggling with the ships we're struggling with all kinds of support problems we're struggling with India and so how can I get very involved in those special projects now with India and the ships there was something challenging there was something that people could emotionally and intellectually respond to and so eventually we did see the breakthroughs and sometimes people think it was only prayer then, so it must only be prayer now but that really isn't the honest truth and God has humbled me through my new entity some years ago for practical and financial purposes I was asked to, as my team got bigger in Bromley the international coordinating team some of you have seen a little leaflet about that to have my own financial entity also they could measure, financial people could measure exactly whether we were paying our own way and so a small group of us in Bromley were pushed into something that nobody hardly knew about, nobody understood how was it financed, most people would just figure an international headquarters operation would be financed by the rest of the work but on this team we have had to battle through mainly with all of our different ministries and the literature and all the expenses in telecommunications Telex, coordinating this whole work around the world mainly up until recently with our own financial support and many of our people, some of our people could not even see the support even to live because you see the difference between talking about a ship and we want to get a ship and here's 25 reasons why we need a ship and what a ship can do and trying to talk about a behind the scene ministry in Bromley, Kent coordinating the work, people can't relate to it they don't understand it, OM traditionally has been coordinated sort of out of my suitcase with one secretary and one helper we've delegated a lot off, we've created other bases that have handled certain parts of the work Mosbach with a ship, Zaventem for Europe Manchester for Britain, etc. and we want to continue that way, by the way many of the bases right now have the same financial problem that we have in ICT, we're $100,000 in debt to the rest of OM but because the rest of OM doesn't have it, somewhere mounting up are these overdue bills and so we feel an extra burden for all of these overdue bills since our own team is not seeing its money come in traditionally everybody, individual and unit within OM has to trust God for their own finances and yet we are not really able to spell this out very clearly to our prayer partners if they write in, they may be able to get a little more information and we always sort of say well, this is going to take more faith than we need to just somehow believe that the victory is going to come many, many people feel it is ridiculous in fact, I go back to what I said in the very beginning that this creates something that when people leave OM, they cannot live with this creates something that when young people leave to go into other missions they will not accept, they will not accept and so quietly, of course, these missions have to attack our policy and some of them have spoken to me and I've picked things up indirectly people are very kind to us now, we have a lot of credibility there are a few groups and maybe churches and perhaps denominational groups that are perhaps happy we have our policy because in that way at least we don't get any money that they hope they're getting some of the strong attacks against parachurch groups especially recently in Scandinavia have come because certain parachurch groups come in and they grab big money, big programs big money and the small people, small churches, small denominations they feel threatened by this and that's certainly a plus of our present policy but in fact we have already a fairly close relationship with about a thousand churches they would like to know, they would like clear cut black and white communication that they can pray about and that's got to include specifics about finance and then there are many, many other churches that want to send their own young people not a matter of some huge project, we're talking about minimum support in some countries it's a laughing stock $150 a month for a Brazilian or Argentinian someone from Singapore and many, many other countries we don't talk about minimum so much in certain developed countries we try to talk about the full support figure which is now supposedly what it costs people to live on if they're more than a couple of years on OM if they're new, it's supposedly double the minimum support the amazing thing is that often many of the under-supported people and people who because of that are praying about leaving the work and of course that's been happening for 20 years are actually from developed countries as well even the states and England in fact the situation in Britain is incredibly difficult we want to go very sensitively because we know small churches, missionary minded churches already are having difficulty meeting their missionary budget many of the new groups do not have a missionary vision but doesn't this make it even more important to have clear cut honest and open communication even in the area of finance I hope that you will really give thought to what I'm trying to say at this time the amount of time and effort I have to just give and many leaders are included just to money saving tactics is to me in the long run a great hindrance to getting on with the job I was sharing about ICT just the financial pressure that we have been under and all the things we have not been able to buy not been able to get for the audiovisual department for the vehicle side for special things that we wanted to do generally on behalf of the rest of the work not been able to do it and often the pressure cuts right into the family most of the families are constantly cutting back and not buying things many times even for the children there are exceptions we have a wide range of families some are more liberated and perhaps they are the ones that are going to live longer and they develop alternative sources of income through tent making through things that sometimes we don't even find out about generally nothing dishonest but for the man who perhaps lacks ingenuity and initiative the man who is trying to follow the letter of the law and when he hears stage one he starts to squeeze his own family many of us do that I will tell you it becomes very very complex especially in a movement this large where at that moment when we are squeezing perhaps our own family and supposedly only on a volunteer way but you see when we are under financial pressure I have heard leaders say things that have just immediately put people into enormous guilt we are told about a prayer partner who is living on less than we are we are told about prayer partners who give money to missions and therefore they don't have a car but we have a car, generally it's an old car mainly used for the work of God and to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth but we come out of some of these meetings and we hear some of these statements and we read some of these memos and enormous guilt comes and I want to be very honest there are going to be increasing numbers of people who leave including longer term people because they don't want this guilt some have already written me saying I'd rather just go get a job I'd rather just go work and support others can you see the hurt and the confusion that comes when things get out of balance in this area and so people make statements that OM no longer has a simple lifestyle and the rumors out that some OMers own their own houses now the amazing thing is very few OMers own their own houses many OMers have no bank accounts, they have nothing saved up for the future but to avoid being cultic, to avoid being legalistic we have no fixed rules on a lot of these areas so some have got houses by inheritance others have got houses with incredibly low mortgage which was cheaper than rent others maybe were given a little better car some people feel free to buy things for their children or spend money in this way that others don't feel free about I've written about these things, I've pleaded for love and for balance but I think as long as we have this particular mentality about mentioning finance in our parameters as long as we have this mentality about what real faith is as long as we continue perhaps to overreact to extremes and excesses in fundraising we know that happens but one man of God said that's even more reason why we should get in there with clear, honest communication I remember a mighty man of God and many have talked to me about these things saying he felt OM was one of the greatest movements in history and it breaks his heart when he sees money being given often to causes where a lot of it is wasted and not given to something like OM because we have this particular policy this particular man almost walked away in disgust admittedly he is a fundraiser that man has raised millions of dollars for his particular cause at times perhaps in a way that we wouldn't feel totally happy but the point is still there brothers and sisters, my dear friends we're not talking at this stage about any kind of overt or active fundraising as so many groups do and never have totally condemned them it depends really on how they've done it and in an OM we've not always been in agreement with what different ones have said but we're talking about information now on paper this is already our policy information without solicitation but the truth is that the practice is information except finance without solicitation and then now as in the last one or two years information except finance unless it's your local sending church then they can get one leaflet giving a few facts but this is not to me the communication that the churches need, that prayer partners need and that we need if we are going to be able to really move forward in the way I believe God wants us to something is happening young people are getting interested in missions I've been preaching more lately in the last two years about being a sender why? we seem to have more young people who want to go certainly this is true within OM but we still need more than we can find sending churches or sending businessmen or sending individuals it's got to the point of the ridiculous and we must wrestle with this important issue I believe God has a significant role for us to play in the great task of world evangelism part of that role will be done by our own longer term personnel on the front lines of the Muslim world, the communist world the Hindu world, other parts of the world but another major part of that role will be with the people we recruit we still have one of the most effective recruiting networks in the world for any mission movement today and we must be able to get those recruits not only into what we believe and practice within OM but we must be able to take them past OM and integrate them to existing new and older movements so that every mission agency that's biblical can benefit by what the Holy Spirit has given us in the area of prophetic ministry and recruiting and training and discipling of others if this is an area where we have been deceived or where we now need to grow up and change then let us seek God's face as we have at times when we have been at the end of ourselves in other areas let us seek God's face for that wisdom that comes from above and let us come together and unite to be more united with the whole body of Christ and all these other mission agencies through dealing with anything anything in our philosophy or our way of communication and information that is not pleasing to Him and does not accomplish the purposes that He would have us accomplish I know this has been a long tape but we are dealing with probably the biggest single practical problem we are facing in OM I could easily speak for another hour or more I welcome your questions or prefer letters that will be to the point typed out, prayed over and somehow believing the best let us pray Lord Jesus we are cast upon you we know for some this tape alone, though no decision has been made we are just struggling we are just verbalizing, we are just sharing for some this tape perhaps we will give them the idea that OM is departing from the real original vision and the original principles Lord I don't believe that this would be so I believe there are much bigger issues and there are bigger issues in which we have already failed our lack of love, our lack of discipline our judgmentalism our lack of being able to go forward at times with clear programs and plans that seemingly you were giving to us maybe it was our lack of faith maybe it was our unwillingness to be more effective and more bold in communication maybe Lord it has been the fear of man that in times has ensnared me because as some prayer partners perhaps decide if we go this way that they will not stick with us perhaps we will be just so hurt by that perhaps we have a fear this will bring disunity Lord we already have disunity in some areas we thank you that the foundation as far as we can see among OM leaders today is one of basic unity in the midst of much diversity many differences of opinion but we know Lord that just around the corner we have seen it, we saw it last year lurks very very big disunity and we don't want that but Lord we want the truth we have sometimes criticized other missions for we felt they were stuck in traditions and they were doing things that weren't totally biblical and we felt that if we're going to get recruits and we're going to have a larger advance in the world missions we'd have to deal with some of these traditions but Lord it seems that here is an OM tradition that we really can't find a range of scriptures that we've explained in ways like saying it was the way you were leading us but some of us are not sure any longer that you are leading us this way and perhaps all along it's been part of our blind spot or deception or something that you've allowed because we're human beings and we have to grow into truth and we have to have things happen to us sometimes before we see certain things in life the whole problem of suffering and pain we didn't see it 20 years ago as we see it today we were more naive we were more total answerist so Lord we beg of you take us further take us further, take us deeper bring us together through this crisis that we're in now and we've been in for a couple of years and bring together those people we need many who are not coming because of the tremendous support problem and the lack of sending churches and sending businessmen and sending students and others who will sacrificially give and who will respond to the challenge so that people can go and so that literature can be supplied and so that vehicles can be purchased ships can get fuel Lord Jesus use these feeble burdens I ask in your preciousness and bring forth any areas any other areas where there's confusion or deception we ask in Jesus name Amen I look forward to hearing from you I'll be in and around Bromley, Box 17, Bromley, Kent a lot of August and I'm trusting that I am going to hear from you among other things I would like your advice about my burden to set up if the Lord gives us the freedom that we'll take a united decision and emergency funds art, special projects, it's an already existed technical field in which we can trust God to bring in finance, to meet emergency needs in and out of O.M., around the world that somehow this work may go forward in a more sensible way I don't even have the money to send this tape out in one cent I guess I'm going to have to believe the Lord between now and when this tape gets to you one of the tasks we have here in ICT is to get this kind of communication out thank you for your tremendous patience listening to this I pray you might listen again and take notes because if we don't somehow get God's mind and get unity the time you've spent on this tape will look like nothing compared to the endless discussion and debate and argumentation that will take place in the coming years even weeks so it's a serious thing I made very serious changes including not going to the August conference which is taking place right now in order to deal with this area and I spent a lot of prayer and a lot of time I've got a lot more notes here that I haven't even incorporated into this I have a feeling it was already a little long God bless you, thank you very much