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1973 i.t. Programme
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.
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Sermon Summary
The video transcript discusses various activities and tasks related to preaching the word of God. It emphasizes the importance of studying and understanding the Bible, as well as the need for personal evangelism and follow-up. The speaker encourages individuals to actively participate in church meetings and engage in open-air meetings for evangelism. The transcript also mentions the significance of prayer and fellowship, including devotional periods, nights of prayer, and group fellowship sessions.
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Sermon Transcription
This is the first meeting of the new 1973-74 IT program. The program officially starts right now. The next six, I mean five months, you are, if you're going to join this program, are going to be in a race, a five-week race. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, five-month race, in 1 Corinthians 9, I therefore so run. You and I know, if we've got anything in our heads at all, that probably the greatest problem in the church is we stop running. And you know that after the church stops running, then after a while it stops walking, and this is what you've got, a sleeping church. And so we are going to try to, in our own lives, break through all this inertia. One great man of God once said, the greatest problem we all have is inertia. Now, I realize some of you, many of you, English is not your first language, so once in a while I'll try to define terms. Inertia is that which holds you on the earth. If a rocket has to go into space, the biggest problem is to get away from the earth. And there's the law of gravity that creates inertia factors as well. I think right from the beginning we have to admit this kind of program has weaknesses and is no guarantee for spirituality. In fact, I ask people back in Europe, if you're not already walking in the spirit, maintaining some kind of spiritual walk, you know, we don't expect you to be Hudson Taylor, don't come into the program. Men who come in the program carnal will probably graduate carnal, even with points. Spiritual life is Jesus. It's not IT, it's not Lagos, it's not George Berwer, it's not exercises, it's Jesus Christ. And I'm sure there are some very beautiful Christ-like individuals back in their home countries, never been through intensive training, they may have been in the military, they probably have had many, many other experiences in life. But we are admittedly in a different situation. So, it's no guarantee for spirituality, but for the man who is walking with the Lord, I believe it is a guarantee of growth. It is a growth program. It's a growth program, it's a stretching program. And most of your life, or a lot of your life, most of you are going to be on your own. And that's fine, that's more or less the way it should be. You're going to be free, you're going to make your own decisions. This is a unique experience, which, if done right, will prepare you for whatever avenue of life you go into. I think you know that this program is somewhat patterned after Outward Bound. Outward Bound is a proven method of making men and making leaders. Some companies invest thousands, thousands of whatever kind of currency you think in, and if you're Italian, there are its millions, to get their men through Outward Bound courses. Some of the best OM leaders we've ever had, we only discovered in last year, when we became interested in Outward Bound, they'd already been through it. Keith Beckwith, the initial pioneer of the work in Britain, Outward Bound man. Mike Evans, Outward Bound man. Outward Bound, by the way, started in Britain and spread to many, many other countries. And Mike Leith, Outward Bound man. A number of other people have been through Outward Bound. Now, we cannot do things that Outward Bound does. Outward Bound, you're, you know, mountain climbing, and rivers, and it's all out in the woods, and it's short, it's short, it's three weeks, four weeks. And it's all physical. But very much linked with your emotional, you see. And psychological and all the rest. So ours isn't the same, but a lot of the concepts are the same. And, of course, ours is very much based on building you up spiritually. I mean, reading a word, memorizing verses, writing commentaries. I mean, this is not, this is in no way to be compared with what you get in Outward Bound. But I think it's important as we begin to understand there's no quick remedy for spiritual ailments. There's no substitute for other things. Nor are we saying, you know, this is the way we should live all of our lives. I praise God that after going through intensive training last year, and I didn't do it as well as I should have because of my other few jobs I had, that my life has never been the same. My life has never been the same since going through this. The biggest thing, perhaps, that I can see outwardly is it started me in aerobics. Aerobics is a fancy name for the type of exercises that increases your breathing. And scientifically, doctors will show you if you can increase your breathing, that means your intake of oxygen, you're going to sleep better, you're going to live better, you're going to walk better, your life is going to change. And I can give you a book of 250 pages just on that subject. And through getting involved in intensive training, I started running, something I had never wanted to do. Different people said, you ought to run. I had my little calisthenics program. You know, wiggle your arms and move your toes, do push-ups. Fine, that's enough for me to go. Many times after that program, maybe one out of eight, I'd go back to bed. Anyway, I started just running. And we started right outside the ship when we were in port. As we get more faith, we move under the water. Mind you, don't laugh, because with a sea truck, I feel that water skiing definitely should come in, but I haven't talked to Miley about that. Only for graduates, of course. But that one thing alone has helped me so much. Many other things that I did in this program helped me. As I worked on creating this program, what things we should do, I put in a lot of things that automatically I did as a young Christian, led of God to launch out and to do what we were doing in Mexico. You see, one of the great dangers, you know, and today, if not the biggest one, is that we, second generation leaders, one decade above you, are going to make it easy for you, therefore rob you of the chance to learn what we learned. When I launched out in 1957, nothing, almost nothing was done for me. I couldn't go to, brother, how do I get prayer partners? I mean, you know, there was no prayer, I had to do the prayer letter, the prayer partners, keep the list, type the address, everything. And either I've worked through and did that, and many times as a student at Moody Bible Institute, I worked 24 hours around the clock and went back to school. I can't even do that anymore, I don't know why. Maybe the Lord knows I don't need to do it anymore, because He's raised up men to help me. And that isn't His normal way to work, you know, work 24 hours. But I knew, either I've worked through and got those letters out, and did what I had to be done, because I had to go to school at the same time, plus part of this time I was also working, or that was it. OM was folded up, closed down the summer crusade, and one of the other crusades would go on. No, there was no other crusade. I was under tremendous pressure as a young man, I was only 18, 19. Now the danger you don't have today is that, man, so much is already done for you. Somebody else has got your vehicle for you. Somebody else hands you a car now. Someone else takes your passport around and gets visas for you. Someone, I mean, almost come up to blow your nose. Here you go, let me blow your nose. This program is designed to crash through that. And I am not going to help you very much get through this program. And Tony isn't either, because he's in it. He's going to lead it, and he'll help to some degree. But he has instruction already that when someone comes to it, as often as possible to ask a question how it can be done. The idea in OT, IT, is to throw it back on you. You show us how to do it, man. You show us how to do it. And this is very important. Far more important in some ways than the outward things that we do, or the process our mind is forced to go through. Figuring out how we're going to get this done in any one day. Someday you're going to be a married man with three children. The kids want to go out and play in the zoo. You've got a boss who's demanding you not only eight hours a day on the job, if you're an executive, big clients who fly in, and all kinds of things. And you're going to find that life is rough. We get the O.M. who thinks life on O.M. is rough. Why? He's never lived anywhere else. Harvard is only 18. But the fact is life is rough, and a lot don't make it through. Just living. Just surviving with a wife, and with kids, and with a job, and with all these other things. I believe that a big part of this outward-bound IT type of training is to prepare people for secular life just as much as being a full-time worker. Both are important. I've said a lot about some of these things back at the conference, but it's good to have them in remembrance. We don't want anybody to join. And it's still not too late to back out. The program starts after this meeting. We don't want anybody to join who doesn't mean business. You know, we're not lacking for men. We've got 15 men in this program, or 14. You know, we're not interested in having girls IT unless girls really want it. You know, just... Forget it, because you know, we're not pushing. But if, like last year, there were a couple of girls who really want this, they feel that this is going to do something for them, went later on, and they're producing five babies in a decade or whatever else they're doing, praise the Lord, we will reorganize the men's IT, let you work on it, and draft it up, because it has to be changed for girls. So we're not pushing you into it. There's plenty of jobs on this ship. There's plenty of other things to do. OEM's got big scope. We want you to come in freely. See? Once you get your will in enjoying, then you're in. But it's a liberty move. It's a liberty move. You have the liberty right now to come or not to come. And then after that, you're liberty. You agree to do something. That's maturity. Liberty without maturity equals confusion. You get a man who's crying out for liberty, doesn't have the maturity to use it properly, to discipline it. I mean, he just... Now you and everybody else are crazy. And so, you've got the liberty to choose this or not choose it. You can go... The galley needs people. The exhibition needs people. There are all kinds of jobs, and some of them, if you want, it definitely can be a lot easier. Now, one of the reasons IT is so good on the ship, the ship's probably changed a lot since I was here last, and a lot of these things are rooted up and gone, I hope. But I found that there is a lot of liberty on the ship, because we as leaders cannot organize the lives of 130 people, 50 shore volunteers, plus carry out our own ministries, because God has called us to preach, God has called us to pray, God has called us to do a lot of things. And so we found that you can, if you want to, on the ship, get away with quite a bit. You know, you do your job and you nickel up into your cabin, guns and get people out of the cabins. You can't go around looking at everybody in their cabin. And so, the ship, there's more liberty than many other on-teams, by the very fact there's too many people for us to handle. So if the individual doesn't disillune himself and take the initiative, he's going to really hinder himself being on the ship. And in the early days of the ship, I saw people go downhill. You can go downhill spiritually on the ship. Look at yourself. Because you are on your own, and people cry out for liberty. Oftentimes, long before they're mature enough to handle it. And the idea for this program, to some degree, is that it is a program for those of us that are honest enough to admit that presently, we need a little guidance. We need some goals. Now, you know, I see some days will be very much planned for you. Some of you will find those days easy. You're the kind that likes to be told exactly what to do. Other days, you'll be very much on your own. Those days are the ones that really will count. Because if you don't make use of those days when you've got more freedom to get into the tapes, to get into the books, to get into the reading, to get into the Bible and the verses, you will not pass the course. Now, we are discussing the possibility of a demerit system. The Indian program had a demerit system. They put a little backbone, you know, when you get a little bit two months from now, really weak. If we had a demerit system in which you get a demerit for really flunking off, you know, you don't show up, you get a demerit. And that has to be worked off. Maybe run an extra rope tied to the fin of a whale. Some program that, you know, you won't particularly want to do. But we haven't decided on that yet. You can give your thoughts on it. But we, I think, the bigger backbone to determine that we're going to go. Now, we had our little mountain, our little initiation. You all made it to the top of that lower peak, which, that qualifies you, those of you who were there, to come on IT. If you weren't there, well, you're still qualified. But, it seems to me that there is a good spirit. I think the best thing now is to go over this list. We have worked on this. Can you come up here so you can read into the microphone? We've worked on this. Even mathematically, I've worked out the number of hours. Without question, this program can be completed. But it will take a lot of effort. Not just physical effort. This main crunch of this program is not physical. It is mental. It is mental. We're not interested in making Charles Atlases out of you. We haven't got the facilities for that. We'd like to get you into a thinking individual. But, we're going to read through the various sections and then allow a moment for questions. First section, evangelism and follow-up. This is men's goals. You girls, this will be duplicated soon. So, you may not want to write it down. It's up to you because it will be duplicated. But let us quickly read it. There are five main sections in this intensive training program. The first one is evangelism and follow-up. And this includes 100,000 tracts and booklets distributed, 100 personal presentations of the gospel, 75 hours bookselling in shops and from door to door, and 100 hours bookselling on the streets, 50 open air meetings, 200 hours on exhibition work, 30 church meetings preaching or testifying, 200 follow-up letters, 25 hours church book tables, 50 towns entered, 50 hours on ship evangelism. That's film shows, coffee bar, children's programs. Alright, does anybody want to ask anything? Now, of course, you all have questions, and a lot of your questions will be answered as you go along, but is there anything especially that comes to your mind? Is that every week? No, that is the total five-month hours. Basically, you do have to figure that apart from your sleeping and your eating, that's that most of your day, say, minus an hour is used up. Now, you must not think of that as being eight hours work and think, oh well, others on the ship are working eight hours, I'm working 15, because a lot of this is not work. It's study, it's the whole purpose of your life as a Christian. Study, tapes, and all these other things. So don't think, oh boy, I'm working 14 hours in IT, everybody else is working only nine, because that isn't the case. People pay a lot of money to go to college, and people pay a lot of money to go to Outward Bound, because you are receiving something. You are receiving. You will be receiving through this much more than you will be giving to the ship, though you will be giving as well, and that's the tremendous, wonderful thing about this program, is that you're giving to the Lord, and to the ship program, and to world evangelism, at the same time, you're getting something that you need to build yourself up as a strong leader. Other question on that, evangelism and follow-up. Let me just make a remark about this personal presentations. That means that you have spoken to a man at least for 10 or 15 minutes. It doesn't mean that you have to have presented the full plan of salvation. We don't want people necessarily to use that approach, and everybody gets stereotyped, oh, I've got to get the four spiritual laws in, I've got to tell them that the blood of Christ is the only thing that can save me, but we want you to communicate. If you communicate to a sinner for 15 minutes and bring forth something of Christ, your testimony, that we call a personal presentation. We'll have a session or even more on personal evangelism. There are tapes on the ship. Ray Lynch will be really setting the pace in open air meetings. Church meetings only count now if you are actually doing something in the meeting. We don't want you to have to spend too much time sitting around in church meetings, and I think the rest is self-explanatory. Of course, if you go to a church meeting and you are in charge of the book table, then of course that comes under the category about book tables, so if you do get stuck in a meeting, you know, what you're not doing in the meeting, get out of the book table and do something. No, if you testify, if you testify and work the book table, of course, there are a number of different areas where you have double, and if you memorize a verse in between testifying and working the book table, then you're shooting three birds with one stone. In this program, you can get six at a shot if you try hard. All right, let's go on to study. It's the second main heading. On study, read the entire Bible through once and the New Testament twice. Any language, any language. A commentary verse by verse on one book of the Bible, or if they're small, on two books. A hundred tapes taking notes or a summary. Twenty-five video tapes taking notes. Fifty lectures or special sessions. Three thousand pages of reading with a brief summary on each book. An intensive study of the leadership manual with an exam, and two memory verses per week. Now, we kept the memory verses down to two a week. We thought of one a day, but with all the other things you're doing, and with us in different degrees of memorizing power, we've kept it limited. That can be in your own language, though you should be wanting to discipline yourself in the language that you're going to be using in evangelism, which generally is not going to be Dutch or Swedish or French, but it's going to be English. Of course, you'll be seeing later on about Hindi. Where's that listed? Oh, we forgot that. In addition to these, and the study comes identifying and locating 150 countries on the map, and knowing the names of 25 heads of state, and then learning 20 Hindi phrases also. Yes. There's a number of things we've added this year that we did not have last year, about at least 20 things, all of which don't necessarily take a lot of time, but we feel are very, very essential for total development of a person's mind and general knowledge. And if you learn, for example, these 20 phrases as soon as possible in Hindi, it will revolutionize your time in India. Revolutionize it. I never got higher than about 15 phrases, and that revolutionized the times that I've been in India. So that's something we really want to get into. Any question on that? Study. All right? Physical fitness. Includes daily morning exercises, working out to 50 push-ups, run a 6, or if you're heavyweight, a 7-minute mile, 35 sit-ups in one minute, two 10-mile track tracks, and one 40-mile track, one 3- or 4-mile cross-country race, and swimming one mile. We have a lot of people exercising on the ship in these days, so the people in this program will have a separate exercise program. You're not to go into the general exercise pool. We will meet on the poop deck when we're at sea, and on shore when we're at port. And it will involve both calisthenics, to really build up our strength, and then running, two different completely purposes in those kinds of exercises. Tony will lead this. I will be with you most of the time in that because it's something I do have time to do. It doesn't take much time, so I can be with you on that. Any other question on the physical fitness? You won't be able to do the rest of the program unless your body is ready to cooperate. Now I was just reading something this morning by Paul Tournier. Here's a brilliant, consider one of the most brilliant psychiatrists, psychologist, Christian, and he brings out how important it is also in his own unique way of saying things to make use of the body. Body is a good thing. And he shows how various forms of making use of the body in sports and exercises and other things is actually a therapy in itself. And this is something from a man like Paul Tournier. All right, let's read the next section. The full section is on work, and this includes 150 hours with deck men or engineers or mechanics, 100 hours in the galley or dishes or cleaning, 50 hours driving or cycling, and in general any job, anywhere, anytime. That is not a lot of work hours. It's not a lot of work hours. The main purpose of this program isn't just to get you working. Some of you have already worked a lot in your life, but it is part, a vital part. And we, of course, expect people to really throw themselves into it and be an example to the other members of the ship's crew who you will be working with. And this, of course, will give you the chance to get to know them and all the rest. Any question on the work? Frank Dietz is in charge of sort of work assignments on the ship when some head of the department, the whole ship is, as you know, divided in departments. This guy is running short of labor power. He's got some jobs to be done. They see Frank Dietz. Frank in turn will see Tony. People in IT, except for short, you know, tasks. Somebody says, look, can you help me carry this bundle from here to there? Cannot be directly recruited. And we had that last year. I take it that's true this year. People just can't come up and say, hey, work in my department for a day, you know. They have to go through the right channels. Usually the head of their department to Frank, to Tony. If Frank is off, they may go to Tony. But we don't want people just pinching you as if you were sort of the labor pool. We're willing to work. That's what we want. But we want it done right. On the other hand, if somebody does something, don't jump down their throat. Just check with you. You say, look, you know, I've been asked to do this. Praise God, you know, I'm ready to do whatever you say. But what's the situation? And we will try to work things out. You must realize that with the number of people we have and the number of volunteers that come on shore, it is not simple to organize all this. And so sometimes things will not go as smoothly as we would want. All right? Any other thought on this work? You have to cover what it says here. You have to have at least 150 hours with deck, engine, and mechanics. That alone is three departments. It's mixed together. Some of you may have all that in mechanics and nothing on deck. That generally wouldn't be the case, but it may be. And the 100 hours is galley, dishes, or cleaning. Probably most of you will get all that in dishes. A little bit of galley. And then the driving. Yeah? Can you classify the singing group? The singing group can be fit in in terms of meetings. If you're singing in a meeting, that gets categorized at the meeting. An IT man in singing group would have to really get on the ball with the book tables, so he would get time off on the book tables. If he's singing on the ship, it can be counted under that category of hours of ship evangelism. All right? But if you are in the singing group, it will take a little bit extra effort. Last year, the singing group was one half IT people. Will it not be a member of the singing group? Will it not what? Will it not be a member of the singing group? Well, like I say, the singing group last year, half of the men on the singing group were IT people. Judd Lamis, Dennis, I mean, Des Harper, who's now in Gujarat. It can fit in, but it takes initiative and takes hard work. That's something I'll have to take up later. I can't answer that. I think it should be possible. The final main section is prayer and fellowship. This includes one hour daily private devotions, all devotional periods, all nights of prayer to the end, 20 group fellowship sessions, three days of prayer alone with fasting, prayer partners up to 100, and for those who have already reached 100, up to 200, correspond with 25 OMAs in at least 10 fields, correspond with 25 other missionaries, and then speak to at least, no, at least 50 people on the ship and know at least two facts about their background. 150 countries on the map. Oh, we've got that. Okay. Any question on that? We had a session on that last time. We should do that again. There was a memo given out at the conference in Europe on writing prayer letters, and we will try to give, of course, some instruction on how to improve in the area of communication and writing letters. There's numbers, there's numbers that you have to reach of people you're corresponding with, 25 missionaries and 25 OMAs. And Tony, I'm channeling through Tony a lot of addresses about other missionaries so that he will help you get some name and addresses, but then you've also got to take the initiative. And you know mission societies, you can write to them and get the list of their missionaries. There's all kinds of things you can do in that area if you give some thought to it. And then, of course, just this last point. Then there are special projects. Everyone will have at least five special projects. And in general, everyone must be ready for anything at any time, especially extra prayer and fellowship meetings. And to do all this, everyone must keep personal records of these things, and these will be on the other sheets weekly. All right. We will supply you with a sheet, this big paper, so that each day you can just tick off very easily what's been done on that day. It takes you a couple of minutes, but it is a discipline. And part of this program is the discipline to keep the records, keep the records up. Any other questions? Now, everybody in, or most people at least, in IT will be living in the dorm You cannot count on sort of a regular little Bible school schedule. This is completely different from that. If you want Bible school, you go to Bible school. This is not Bible school. Though you will get a lot of the word if you do it properly. But we specialize in throwing wrenches into people's schedule. That's the way this kind of work is. You're at sea, and you may just think you're getting on sort of a schedule, just learning how to sort of, you know, razz-dazzle. Boom! You go into port, everything changes. And interruptions, change of schedule, no planned schedule, having to make use of your own time. For instance, you may come in the morning at 9 o'clock, 3 or 4, or given jobs, the rest of the morning, tape, study, whatever's on your mind. Then it's up to you. And that means that this afternoon, if you want to get into this program, as hard as it will be, somehow you'll get in orbit. In one of these areas, you'll either get a cassette or you'll get reading or you'll do something. As hard as it may emotionally be today, when you're still, you still feel, you know, up in the air. Because this is what we're trying to teach people. Initiative. And flexibility. Adaptability. Redeeming the time. We're not going to redeem the time for you. You've got to redeem it. There's always something you can do. I have never been on this ship when there wasn't at least five things that I could do. Fortunately, quite a few of them I even wanted to do. Many times because of the job I had. I can't do the things I want to do. And so this is, this is, you know, up to you. From the time we leave here today, start moving. We don't want an operation excuse. The devil will try to bring you all kinds of excuses why you can't do it. You can't listen to tapes now because you don't have a tape recorder. Well, that is a beautiful problem. You don't have a tape recorder. Can't you solve that problem? You don't think there's any solution to that problem? There's probably about 30 of them on the ship. That doesn't mean you still don't have a problem. How to get one and then you may not have electricity, you may not have batteries. I just hope you have to fall on your knees and say, God, I don't even know how to get a tape recorder. Come to the end of yourself. Then maybe the Lord will provide you with one. But all kinds of little things come up. You're told to go out in literature evangelism. You can't find any literature. And that's the idea. That's the idea. If I find it, I'll hide it. Because we want you to think. If you have to print tracks on the banana leaves, we want you to learn how to overcome the problems and get on with the job. Not come crawling back to George Miley who's got 188 things to do or anybody else and say, look, I can't do this because I can't find my pencil. Or you help me, I've lost my trousers. We want you to break through. We don't want people coming, I can't find a private place to study. Look, if we were out on one of those warships, if you think this is crowded, have you ever been on a submarine? I've been on a Dutch submarine, one of the top in the Dutch Navy. And I want to tell you, this thing is a palace. On a submarine, officers are sleeping in hammocks above engine, moving parts. And this, and if you can't find a private little place here to listen to your recorder and put the earplug in or write your letter, especially when we get on shore because you can go off, then, you know, you're failing the program because this is what we want you to learn to do. Someday you may all get stuck on an aircraft carrier. Some of these aircraft carriers, two thousand people living on one ship. Can you imagine? Two thousand people. Can you imagine one of the new recruits going to the officer in the aircraft carrier and say, look, I can't find a private place for prayer or for study, you know. You've got to make use. And if you learn to concentrate, you can learn how to study and do things even when there are noises going. You say, I can't do that. I'm not like that. That's just what we're after. We're after breaking through your psychological barriers. You're not, you know, if a man's fifty years of age and he tells me, I can't sleep unless I have a perfect environment, you know, I'll do everything I can to get in that environment. But if he's nineteen or twenty-five, I'll do everything to teach him how to overcome that problem. If, after all the effort you make, you feel you really do have a psychological or emotional hang-up in some area, you not only can come to Tony, you can come to me. I'll be more than happy to sit down and talk to you about your emotional problems. But let's make an effort for quite a few weeks on that. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. If you don't make lots of mistakes in this program, you will fail. Fail. You're probably going to put your foot in it. You'll probably do something stupid concerning one of the officers. You'll probably break some dishes. You'll probably end up sleeping with too many pillows. Seems that you got some pillows today. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. And if someone chews you out, one of the officers chews you out, praise the Lord. Someone tells you off, wonderful. All part of the program. But don't shrink back because you're afraid you're going to make a mistake. Well, what will George Borger think? Look, I'm linked with the ball droppers. My fellowship is close with the guys that are real floppers. Floppers. I have trouble with the smoothies. My guilt complexes react. So don't worry about making mistakes. You're not trying to please me. I may say, if you do something stupid, I may say something to you. One minute later, I generally forget. I may not even know who you were when I said it. Because my problem has always been that my tongue goes faster than my brain. And so, we're not running around trying to please everybody. We're afraid we're going to make mistakes so we don't launch out. Because, you know, you're never going to learn that way. You're never going to learn that way. Now, I don't know if there's anything assigned for this afternoon. I'd rather doubt it. You're free to try to screw your head on and decide whether you want to continue. A few moments of prayer may help you somewhere. At times, Tony will be assigned a job that may only need a couple of men. He'll grab the first couple of guys he can find. Maybe clean the door. Maybe wash vehicles. I hate vehicles when they're not clean. There's all kinds of things that make me With a large number, generally, a good part of you often won't have the time to get in the tapes, get in the books, don't wait until the last month to do your Bible commentary. Don't put all those things off that look a little bit hard. When? Start at noon now. And, uh, there's a good library down there. A really good library as far as I'm concerned. There's not the University of London, but there's plenty of good books. And, uh, later on when we get to India, there'll be a lot of evangelism. So these times at sea every hour counts to get that paper and the tapes and readings and other things. There'll probably be a program, if not tonight, tomorrow night, I guess. And videotapes can start going because of it. Yeah, we'll have a program. Look, we will have programs especially at sea every night and sometimes two, meaning tonight. Videotapes, Bible study times. So, uh, at sea always counts as a lecture. Yeah, yeah. And films, too. Okay, let's close in prayer. I'd like to have a few minutes with the girls, uh, now, um, just to see what we're going to do about that side of things. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to meet together. And we pray that this thing may go off with a cannon blast that hits the devil square between the eyes because, Lord, these things we're doing are not just things we do for the sake of doing most of this. It really counts. It's real warfare. There's no trial runs. The devil's not taking a holiday so we can have a training program. It's a live war with live ammunition. And we thank you for it. And though we feel weak and inadequate, and, uh, we may have other emotional struggles today, we're looking to you in Jesus' name. Amen. That's the end of this meeting concerning intensive training program.
1973 i.t. Programme
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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.