In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of financial support for the work of God. He emphasizes the need for a vision in order to make the process of gathering support more meaningful and less burdensome. The speaker shares his personal motivation for this ministry, stating that he has a vision of what money can do in advancing the work of God. He also highlights the significance of effective communication skills, particularly in writing letters, and recommends books on communication and public speaking for further improvement.

I really am greatly burdened about this whole thing of support, and I'm not sharing this talk about how to increase support just because this is a major problem on our team. In some ways, our team is doing very well, but we've been hit hard by the devaluation of the dollar here in Great Britain, and we've been hit hard by the increase of travel costs for a team that travels probably as much as any team in the world. Ships, of course, are still way ahead of us. So we've been hit pretty hard, and I'd appreciate it if you could perhaps just jot down some of these points. I really feel the Lord put this on my heart, and I've written down some of the thoughts that came to my mind. I think if there's any one mistake, I've made many mistakes over the years, but if there's any one mistake, it's been a failure to teach more about finance, what the Bible teaches about finance. Now, I taught some, and we have a leaflet, Releasing Finance Through Prayer. I'm sure some of you have never even seen it. When we changed our policy five or six years ago, there were only a few sentences that had to be changed in that leaflet. I think one of the things that surprised me the most looking back over 33 years since I went to Mexico is how many have wanted to go in full-time Christian work and have not made it. And I think it's time we acknowledge that it is a tremendous privilege to be in full-time Christian work. There are many people, I can assure you, that would long to go out to some of these countries that Viv and Gary are going out to. Now, they may find it a hardship in some ways, and we understand that, but hardships are often a privilege. They're part of the price of the privilege. And I'm burdened to see more of these young people who want to be on a mission field, who want to be especially overseas in Christian work. It is easier, nothing is easy, but it's easier often to get into what is called Christian work. I don't like the term, but you know what I mean. In your own country, especially the States, churches often have 10, 15, 20 full-time paid staff. There's scope for educational people, there's scope for music people, and that's true in a few other countries. But generally, in most countries, there is not this kind of scope for being in full-time work. You want to be a pastor, you go through the seminary training, you get the credentials, and then you get hired as a pastor, or you become a career pastor. And in some countries, the main people who are full-time are pastors. In some countries, even pastors are not full-time. Quite a few places, pastors have to take up employment for years even in Belgium. That was true. So this whole thing of how to increase our support, how to biblically go about seeing our personal support come in, is incredibly important. And it would be my prayer that once and for all we could throw aside the thought that this is not spiritual. To talk about money is not spiritual. That if we want to see support, all we have to do is pray. I don't think we ever fully taught that, though it certainly was inferred. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had leaflets several pages long on releasing finance through prayer that touches on all kinds of other subjects. What are some things to keep in mind as we try to increase our support? Number one, I've got nine points and five exhortations and not enough time. Number one is we need to develop our biblical understanding about money. Study the passages in the Word of God about money. Study the teaching of Jesus about money. Some of the passages I have shared, and the tape that I did, The Labor Worthy of His Hire, around the time we changed our policy, I believe is still a very, very important tape. It upset only a few people. And the Lord is, I believe, using that tape especially to deliver people from false ideas and false guilt when they are a faith missionary. I could spend a whole hour talking about what that means, a faith missionary. I don't even like the term in some ways because I believe missionaries who get salaries from big denominations also live by faith. I believe a man working in a factory is a faith factory worker. There are many definitions of the word faith. But since we are classified missiologically as an interdenominational faith missionary movement, I think we have to live with that and try to understand what kind of faith we're talking about in O.M. So we don't have time to go into that. We're going to have to pick up from there. Even though someday you may leave the Faith Mission Society, I'm sure some of you will, and maybe receive a salary, or you may go back, of course, and take up a job. There's such a variety in thinking missiologically today that no matter what you teach or what you believe, somebody can attack it. So you have to learn to live with that. We're not going to find the perfect way. O.M. has not found the perfect way to do what needs to be done. But this is where we are. The decision about this support raising has been made on general counsel level. It is unlikely to change. You're in O.M., so let's do the best. Let's make the best of it, even though we don't maybe understand everything. So studying what the Bible teaches, some books on giving and books on giving contradict one another. You get books that basically tell everybody to only give to their local church. They always warm our hearts. And you get books that are a little more broad-minded. But there are some great books on giving. Peter Maiden has written one, Take My Silver. It's a small one. You can easily get through it. Most people don't want to read a big book about giving and money. The second point on this road to successful support gathering, someone once called it, or seeing a breakthrough in finance for your own situation, a terminology that I like, is vision. We need a vision. What we're involved in, in finding finance without a vision, it becomes drudgery, it becomes difficult. So really, we've got to ask ourselves, do I have a vision? One of the reasons I find this kind of ministry so motivating, and I really do, it's one of the most motivating sides of my ministry right now, is because I have a vision. I have a vision of what money can do in the work of God. I have a vision for the lost. And still that is the major motivating factor in my life, that people are lost and they need the gospel and that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. Not easy for a character like me to believe that. Especially when I see great Christian leaders hedging on it. Especially on whether the heathen are lost. They were hedging on that back when Dale Rothbaum was a student at Wheaton. He wrote his thesis on that subject to try to convince his professor that the heathen were lost, even those that had never heard the gospel. And this last week, I wrote a little blurb, reluctantly in faith, on the back of Ajit Fernando's new book on the subject of hell. An orthodox biblical book on the subject of hell. Interesting. It takes a Sri Lankan to come out with a book on this subject, which is going to be published by Kingsway. So we need a vision of the lost. We need a vision of what finance can do to reach the lost. I think of one foundation on the east coast of the United States. They're very strict where they give their money. They've never given anything to us. Very strict. A lot of research. And I've watched that money and how it's used, and I just praise God because they commit their money to evangelism and to projects that cut through in evangelism. We would have had money from them because our work is credible enough to receive money, but we're not good at getting the paperwork together. They want paperwork, and they want it very, very clear, and we've never been able to do it. And then they have a lot of their own projects. They take the initiative. They're a foundation that takes the initiative. They're the group that ran all these ads in the papers around Britain about the gospel and offered this tremendous gospel book to anybody who wrote in. Tens of thousands wrote in. The churches complained that it wasn't tied in enough with the church. Maybe they're working on that. So we need a vision. We also need a vision of our own ministry. Some of you are not convinced enough about your own ministry. I don't know whether you're too idealistic or maybe you're humble, praise the Lord. False humility and true humility get very close. If you can give me the quick answer to that, send it to me in written form, because I believe that false humility can creep in and other similar things. I certainly am convinced about your ministry. I'm very convinced about the ministry of everybody in this room. One of the reasons I can lead this team is I have a tremendous vision for this team, and I'm looking for someone to ultimately take over this team, but he's got to be a visionary. He cannot be a maintenance man. He's got to be a visionary who knows why each person is here and what we're doing and where we're going. Now, I don't always communicate that well enough, and it takes a lot of balance to cause it to survive. So vision is important, and God on this team with all of our weaknesses, we're well aware of our weaknesses, has given us a spirit of teamwork and things, according to people I've talked to outside the team, trying to evaluate us, feel that things are going relatively well and we're grateful for. The credibility he's given us throughout the work in the midst, of course, of some, of course, who had their questions and their doubts. Number three, you've got to, if you're going to see a breakthrough in this area, because you're already busy people. I don't think we've got any sluggards on the team. I haven't seen any. We're all different on the amount of work we can do, and God forbid that we all become a bunch of neurotic workaholics or that people try to attempt to sort of live the style that somebody else is living because some of that has nothing to do with commitment, has to do with metabolism, temperament. You know, tell me to take a holiday on a beach reading a book. It drives me right out of my mind, especially the women. But when I take a holiday I like to go in the woods and meditate on the trees. But we need a vision for redeeming the time because these basic things in connection with support, it takes time. It takes time. The things I'm going to talk to you about in this lecture. And I'm convinced that all of us with a little bit of sanctified imagination, learning new ways to do things, redefining priorities, we can get more hours out of the day to give at least moments to this great task of support gathering. Tied in with this, I guess I had this word written under the word vision, is we've got to be people-centered. We are looking for people that would be willing to give a greater amount of time to helping find finance. Unless they're spiritual people I don't even want to talk to them. I don't even want to talk to them about it because it's such a minefield and so difficult. And they have to be people-centered, not firstly job-centered. Well, I've got this job. I'm going to do this. My job is to find money. I'm going to do it. No, it's got to be I'm concerned for people because as you get involved with people who are giving finance to the work, you will get involved very deeply in their lives. They will share with you things they've never shared with other people. It's not a game. And you'll have information. You'll have facts, material that you'll have to handle very prayerfully and very carefully. And you will see some of those people who at one point were supporting you, you will see them go into financial difficulty and you will have to wrestle with supporting them. Maybe only a little bit. Maybe prayer. Because the financial world is an unpredictable thing. It's an unpredictable thing. And prayer partners who were giving to us a year ago are in trouble and need financial help today. So this whole area is something that deeply involves the work of the Holy Spirit and a commitment to people. And that's what causes some of us to count the cost as we get into this. We do it for the sake of the kingdom. I remember flying into a city not long ago wanting to have the courage to talk to this man who was a man of considerable resources, who was a close friend. And I felt, if I talk to him openly today, I'm going to jeopardize that friendship. And there are cases when that can happen. And the Lord spoke to me in my heart and said, George, are you willing to put that friendship on the altar of world evangelism? Are you willing to risk that friendship for the sake of another 10 million people being reached with the gospel? And reluctantly I said, Lord, I am. And I ended up actually explaining to that man what I had struggled with before I shared with him. And he was very, very understanding. Number four, we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Let us not leave the Holy Spirit out of anything that we're doing. Let us be dependent on Him. There's so many people we can write to. So many people we can telephone. If you try to figure out rhyme or reason why I phone one person and not phone another, you'll have some difficulty because it's spontaneous. I have to trust the Holy Spirit to guide me in a practical way. I have a little computer with a thousand phone numbers on it. And I flip through it praying for those people and then I just sense I should stop and phone that person. And then I may go several more pages on the computer and not phone anyone. I believe the Holy Spirit guides us. I believe the Holy Spirit guides us and allows human error. I think perfectionism and getting a concept of the Holy Spirit in which you basically are uptight and afraid you're going to miss the Holy Spirit's guidance is dangerous. We need to be relaxed because the bottom line is God's grace, God's mercy, God's love, God's promises, God's faithfulness. It's not your ability to know the Holy Spirit. And there's been plenty of people they thought they had the word, the guidance of the Spirit even witnessing. We've all heard the story of the man who knew at 62 this particular street a soul was ready. He had a word from the Lord. This is not my method by the way. And he went down that street he was so excited he got to 62 and the house was derelict and completely empty. Nobody lived there. Now maybe maybe there was a tramp in there and he didn't follow through. That's a new addition to that story. Number five of course prayer. Prayer is still the bottom line in OM. I'm probably praying as much or more about these things as I did under the old policy where prayer was greatly emphasized and some of these other things were not emphasized as much. Praying specifically. Praying for individuals. Praying for them as they go to a court case in which they're allowed to be completely cleaned out. One of our board members he lost everything in a court case they're going to take his house. And we prayed and we prayed and the man who could take his house never took it. Just sort of had mercy. How can I we're talking about a house worth maybe half a million. So God answers prayer and prayer is still the bottom line and yet I find a lot of people in OM they are in the prayer meetings they are in the nights of prayer they do pray. Of course there's prayerlessness as well and great room for improvement but those same people seem to spend very little time and effort working on this whole area of support gathering in a practical way. Number six we need boldness. The Holy Spirit Acts 4.31 gave those people boldness. That was in witnessing. Worldwide witnessing is being crippled at times because of a lack of finance. We have lost outstanding people. Some of them have gone back to ridiculously mundane secular jobs. You can't convince me that some of these theological graduates who had abilities in communication who were potential church planners that it was God's will for them God's first will if you want me to be careful to go back and do some menial job back in their own hometown. Of course God can overrule. Of course that person must never be bitter. But we must not take God's ability to overrule as an excuse for always missing sort of God's best. I don't think that's odd. Read Brother Andrew's new book and God changed his mind. That's a hot book that will just point out that we are not into Christian fatalism. We don't just sit back whenever we're punched in the nose and say well it's the will of God. People don't live that way on a personal level. They don't live that way when it comes to finding their wife or their husband or rearing children. The people who have jobs don't live that way. It's not on that kind of Christian fatalism. We've got to fight. If you believe you should be a church planner in Mongolia you're going to have to fight or it's never going to happen. And there's not enough fight among these young people today. They just think somehow their local church is going to pick up the tab. The mission society is going to handle all the paperwork. No wonder so many people are disappointed with O.M. We don't have a magic carpet between here and the unreached people in Kurdistan. It's going to take a fight. It's going to take in-house struggles. It's going to take misunderstandings. And too many people in their first term on the field they lose their fight because their first term on the field is rough and it's tough. And there are obnoxious missionary leaders. Bless their hearts. May they be cleansed and filled. But may you develop the fight to be able to get under them or bypass them or join another mission. In Acts chapter 20 we read about the Apostle Paul night and day for three years warning people. Do you know that verse? What do you do with that verse? Do you think that's an evangelistic verse? I think I thought that thirty years ago. But I soon discovered that verse talks about warning the believers. And we need to. We need to warn the church about the wrong direction we are in in regard to money. We need messages on finance. And I am preaching messages on finance and I'm getting a phenomenal response. I get very little negative feedback. And I take some big risks. Now I'm not saying you can take the same risks that I take. But I believe we've got to teach everything that we find in the word of God contextualizing it into the day and age in which we live. That takes boldness. Even in one-on-one contact it takes boldness. And we, especially people who maybe don't feel they have a great gift to communicate you've got to learn to take the initiative. You're going to be frightened even to talk to your prayer partner about this subject. Even much less say something else. That might be a little more controversial. So number six. Boldness. Initiative. And let's stand against intimidation. One of the greatest works of the Spirit of God in my heart is giving me grace to stand against intimidation. I'm convinced this is one of the gifts God has given me and helps me be a leader in this work. Because the kind of person I am in social life in some ways I would be so intimidated I would I've offered of course my resignation. I've offered Peter Maiden my job. I don't want to hold on to anything too hard. But as long as I have this job and have this ministry I'm not going to be intimidated by Job's advisors. I'll listen to them. Praise the Lord. But by God's grace at my age I know where I'm going and by God's grace I'm going to get there. Of course I'm going to heaven and that's already paid for by Jesus. But I believe God has given us these two ships. God has given us 2,000 people maybe 5 to 10,000 in the short term in the summers and that is that we may reach hundreds of millions of people with the word of God. We have already given the gospel to 450 million plus a huge chunk of them in India. We know that we're not going to be able to reach people perhaps as fast as we used to because of the church planting emphasis the helping the poor emphasis that's going to be the hottest debate in the general council just what that means many other beautiful emphasis friendship evangelism enemy evangelism all these things coming in. But by God's grace as long as He gives me breath I want to press the mark to reach the masses and that's going to take money. We could use millions of pounds and dollars right now just to reach the masses. Actually teams on Love Europe are complaining that they don't have enough literature. Isn't that interesting? We need more literature for Love Europe even using it the sort of careful low profile way and pray for those that are involved in that. Number seven of course we get to the big seven the number of completeness and that's communication. We could use a whole message on this there are books about it there are some tapes about it. Here are five things we need to do if we want to improve in communication. Number one we need to increase our skills. Communication is a skill. I have failed so many times and yet I'm classified as a gifted communicator by some people by God's grace because I do miscommunicate. I was reading one of these books by William Backus some time ago just how to speak just how to talk. Do you realize even on our team sometimes we don't know how to talk to one another? We don't know how to talk to one another. I don't know how to talk properly at times to Vera and I thank God for her mercy and her patience toward me. I don't know how to talk yet to my own wife. Sometimes I don't talk properly to Dennis or to Carol. I'm hyper my brain is going always in different directions and I start speaking and people just what is Vera actually trying to say especially on the telephone? I sort of still hear the coins dropping in the old phones from years ago. I remember offending Jonathan on the telephone from Italy terrible oh I really came down hard on him and I was convicted I phoned him back and that wasn't easy in those days and I repented and Jonathan years ago told me that's the thing that won his heart. How do you keep people like that in the work for 28 years? It's not your cleverness it's not your ability to stand up and preach in public it's brokenness it's Jesus it's bonding in the midst of your failure. So we need to increase our communication skills. We used to ask everybody how to read how to win friends and influence people. Probably the most neglected book in O.M.'s leadership training and I'm convinced probably 25% of all the mistakes we make in O.M. in communications are touched in that book and his book on public speaking. In the secular world they're so much rougher. Can you imagine if this were a secular company like McDonald's and I was the head manager? You wouldn't some of you would hate my guts but some of you who hate my guts for the sake of money would learn to love me. You'd learn to grin and bear it. Every weekend you'd be telling your wife I'm quitting I can't stand this guy he's pushing me I went in to quit and the turkey offered me another 20% raise. You don't think they play these games in the world? Are you living in a little evangelical fantasy jungle? Now even in the world less and less people can get away with that because things have changed. Those real leaders in the world they have to learn how to win people but they win some and they lose some and they fire some and they hire some and the world has a tremendous advantage. They generally have a line of people trying to get a job. How many people do I have queued up to work on ICT? Would you show me the queue? So I'm going to go the extra mile and keeping all of you as long as I can and I hope you'll understand and I hope that you'll work on your own communication skills and read books. Now deal with that. B, I've got letters now I've jumped from numbers to letters. B, we've got to write letters and stop waiting for the right moment when you feel like writing a letter. Old C.S. Lewis said you've got to deal with moods. If you can't deal with moods you can not only be can't be a sound Christian you can't even be a sound atheist. Some OMers won't even make good atheists. They can't deal with moods. I'm not in the moods to write a letter. We need to write letters. Now I'm a letter neurotic. If I told you all the places I wrote letters you'd be offended. You know it is amazing for the typists who have to hear a flush in the background so I try not to do that anymore but write letters and don't think oh well these people have a dictaphone it's nothing for them. Many, many letters I've written over the years I typed out myself in those early days. It was William MacDonald that taught me about dictaphones amazing enough. Buck Singh many of his letters were handwritten. You don't have to write big epistles. Most people don't want long letters. Your girlfriend she likes a long letter. Write her a long letter. Kisses and love. But the average person doesn't want this kind of epistle. They like short letters. There are exceptions close friends, parents. So a short letter Buck Singh's letters were the shortest in the world but there are thousands of Indians that had those letters saved. I probably got a couple. A little short letter from Buck Singh God bless you how are you doing I'm praying for you a couple of verses Buck Singh Wow Now you're probably not in that category yet so you may have to say a little more. Those enclosures you can put in with the letters. They can be used you may not be good at communicating the work but we have semi-professional people and professional people producing enclosures or papers or leaflets they can be sent. C. Phone calls Now we can't launch everybody out making long distance calls. We're not going to give you all a cellular telephone but you can make local calls and in the evening they're fairly cheap. Some of you have people right in this area who are financing you or some people would like to finance you have you ever phoned them just to ask them how you're doing you don't pick them up and say hey I need money today Sam just ask them how they're doing share a recent answer to prayer people appreciate that keep the phone call short learn how to read what's coming on the other end that guy wants to hang up I have ways of hinting that I want to hang up some of it's a little too blunt I can get away with things that you won't be able to get away with. Number D D everybody wanting to see support needs to have what I call an intro letter when you're thinking of support don't just think of money for yourself money for ministry maybe you already have your support fine go for ministry money that ministry money can help other people who support short that's the only way our team has survived some on the team have extra they're just leaving it in the pot and that's one of the key things that keeps us going because we don't get many support gifts many field gifts let's pray for more general gifts to ICT but meanwhile praise God that he uses many different things so I have an intro letter presenting your ministry preferably with a photo and a coupon on the bottom would you like to continue to receive this letter three or four times a year most prayer people aren't sending more than three or four letters our goal used to be once a month that day's over three or four times a year because of postage so you take that letter my wife is terrific at this she's always rebuking me for not having enough family letters she wants to carry a whole suitcase of family letters actually we don't need any more family personal support I mean I had somebody put a hundred pound in my pocket yesterday now this is just for you and your wife what am I going to do with a hundred pounds I mean my wife has some ideas so don't just think of yourself but think of others and it's more blessed to give than receive now I know when we can give that money personally we can hand it out we feel better vibration some of the money going through the O.M. treasury you may not feel those same feelings some people have the experience of writing out checks but it accomplishes just as much you may not have the same personal link but any money that you can leave in the Lord's treasury to use an old fashioned word and many of you do that's keeping this work going so be encouraged by it even though you don't get the same feeling as a business man who writes a check and hands it to me or hands it to someone and then the last point under communication third party letters I know you feel a little shy about third party letters if you don't know what they are what's a third party letter you get a letter from me if you hassle me or love me or take me to McDonald's for pancakes and say hey I'd like you to write a letter about my ministry you can't talk about your ministry easily can you Vera doesn't know how to talk about her ministry I follow her letters for years it's bad news I can talk about Vera's ministry and some of the people I've talked to about Vera's ministry send money to Vera great we can talk about one another's ministry get a third party letter some offices are specializing in that jumping back to our main outline we get to this thing of church support versus support from individuals which is it which is the better route to go history shows it's both don't put all your eggs in one basket you depend on just one church that church divides it's happening all over the place they write your letters all over return hey no way so you should get a number of churches to support you if you have your home church that gives you 50% of the support praise God that's as much as most churches do those churches who aim at full support they don't support many people and they have all kinds of interesting verbal games and they explain why they can't support many people so I believe it's both there are many many people who want to give individually to people they want your prayer letter they want to hear from you they want those thank you letters it should be considered an unforgivable sin in missionary work not to write a thank you letter and as fast as possible after the gift because often they are thinking about another gift and they haven't heard from you and people again and again with me have raved how they appreciated those thank you letters and of course this does take time it does mean going the extra mile I can't understand OMers going home after their day work in the office sitting around twiddling their thumbs I'm not saying you shouldn't have any relaxation but writing letters for people who are not in Christian work writing a letter is not part of their job time they write friendly letters in their free time in their personal time people go on a holiday and they spend hours what are they doing? writing postcards writing postcards they don't consider this high pressure Christian work postcards are a beautiful way now we used to be so tight in the way we wouldn't spend any money on postcards I will tell you you buy a stack of postcards I'll be happy to finance that nice little postcards about Bromley people don't know where Bromley is they don't know a forest hill they think this is some place where they are playing tennis in America we need to communicate a little bit about this country a fellow just sent me a prayer partner and he may get a gift out of me sent me a map of Alaska I've never had anybody send me a map of Alaska I'm going to save it it's tremendous he's working in the Yukon or somewhere in Alaska so a little sanctified that's probably in Canada a little sanctified imagination will help you and then number nine in this whole area we need to rest in the Lord do everything we can and leave the results with God if I didn't do that I'd be very uptight this morning because we're not yet seeing the breakthrough do everything you can the letters the phone calls the prayer and leave it with God don't worry about your support how much support are you going to get worrying about how much support are you going to get getting uptight with your wife about support it's not coming in God doesn't hear my prayers all kinds of things we get into when we get uptight about support God's going to test you He's going to hold back some of that support because He wants to see you getting that victory over worry and in my final sort of eight bewares beware of pride that's one of the big things that hinders us in all this because we do have to at times live on the general fun of O-M praise the Lord deal with pride the worthy is labor of his the labor is worthy I was going to say the worthy is labor of his hire maybe I didn't get enough sleep last night the labor is worthy of his hire we have as a policy that is legitimate for people to receive from the general fund from the field gift money to make up for personal support that's part of the policy we debated that and that's what happened so beware of pride beware of tradition tradition can be such a hindrance tradition in the way we do things let's experiment a little bit no harm in trying something if you offend someone you can always apologize if you don't take risks if you don't take risks you're never going to amount to much for God Christianity is a risk operation and I think we need to take some risks beware of false guilt beware of sidestepping and failing to get enough training now I'm thinking here in terms of being a missionary some churches when they make decisions about some XOMers they say this person doesn't have enough training enough expertise this person doesn't have what it takes we're not going to put 30,000 behind them as a church planter in Saudi Arabia and you know what I say? I agree I agree I don't believe these churches can obey God and send people without the skills and the training and the qualifications at 30,000 a couple or whatever and I think we got too many misfits on the field because they think church planting is the end all and we got people going out to do church planting that I believe should be back packing books and one of the secrets of XOM is that we found people's gifting and we put them in the right slot and though it didn't look very great to the church that wanted to support pioneer missionaries they were used by God they were part of the team and we need that kind of teamwork if we're going to get those churches planted among the unreached people so if you're win people they need to know how to bond they need a lot of skills they are the surgeon and they need the right training and two years in XOM is not enough unless the person of course is a 10 cylinder operator if the man is a 10 cylinder operator if you know my expression he probably can go into church planting right after a year on XOM but if this fellow is a Volkswagen two cylinder I don't know how many cylinders a Volkswagen has he needs more training the story of my life I am not that smart I'm made up with sheer fight discipline stubbornness love for Jesus what other people can do just like that I know there are people that can do in 8 hours what it takes me 13 but I'm not one of those persons I don't have the smart I don't have the IQ so I make up through commitment and prayer and love so if you don't have the smart and the language ability and all these other things you need for some of this heavy missological guerrilla warfare then you're going to have to work mighty hard or you're not going to make it and you're going to add to that long list of casualties I don't think they are all casualties who go back after the first term and they never never return so let's let's work in our skills so that when we go to a church and we ask for support and they look at our credentials they say hey this person is not worth 30 they're worth 60 let's get them we might lose this guy to the church down the road sign him up give him the money he needs and send them out and some of you in this room you know you have skills and you can walk right out of OM and make 3 times as much as the support you're living on so hey stick around and let's fellowship if you get any wild ideas let's pray Father we just thank you for this opportunity to talk about this important subject and as this tape goes all over the OM world pray it will not upset too many people or make them nervous and if there are people who are outside of OM who listen to this tape may they understand the joy the privilege of getting in partnership with a group of people like this who do mean business for you who want to go the extra mile who live and breathe and dream church planting world evangelism revival of the church who've got 400 vehicles and 2 ships that is all there is of this recording