Fund-Raising Is Teamwork

Amen, let's just pray. Father, we thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for this opportunity just to pray together, to think together, and to honor you.

We again take to you this difficult time in which we find ourselves financially. We thank you for the funds that have come in. We thank you for the challenge of faith.

In many ways we wouldn't want it any other way, because we know it's through the testing that we often grow stronger in yourself. And we know tribulation worketh patience, and all of us need greater patience and greater flow of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So minister to us as we minister in your name together through Jesus Christ.

Amen. I want us to have a time of hopefully fervent prayer for finances, not just for our own team, but for different crises. Earlier in our prayer morning we prayed especially for Central America.

And we had already sent some money by faith from special projects to the disaster in Central America. And amazing, we just had a gift, almost like a fluke, sent to us from some church in Scotland that they wanted to make sure we channeled into Central America. It's a little difficult sometimes to outgive God, though I think we'll probably send some more in the light of what we shared this morning from that O-Emer in Guatemala.

But I wanted to just read. We've had a tremendous time the other Monday morning, at least I felt it was, looking at 2 Corinthians 8. We may have got into 9 a little bit, but if you want two great chapters for motivating you in your fundraising, then these are two chapters you will want to study. They're especially very, very sharp in some of the modern translations.

And I want to just share some new thoughts that God's put on my heart, which won't be totally new, but certainly the way I'm phrasing it. And God just gave me this outline about fundraising, and I want to just share that. And this may eventually get into printed form and go out on the internet to people, as it is so clear that if there's anything that we have in common, most of us in the work of God and in missions, is we're all having to raise funds.

If we have already our own personal support, then we're trying to raise funds for projects for other people. Why don't we get more burdened for the struggles that other people are having? It just amazes me sometimes that people have this information, but don't seem to do much about it. Some people immediately say, well, there isn't anything we can do about it.

But at least we can encourage people and we can pray. I have been greatly encouraged by feedback from a few leaders who know about our financial dilemma, who also won't necessarily have anything to give as they're battling similar things, but they've expressed on the internet that they're standing with us. And to me, that is almost equal to a gift, to know people are standing with you and are praying.

There's no need, chapter 9 of 2nd Corinthians, there's no need for me to write to you about this service, speaking about giving, to the saints. For I know your eagerness to help, and I have been boasting about it to the Macedonians, telling them that since last year, you and Achai were ready to give, and your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action. In other words, he's basically using a fundraising method.

He's telling one group how the other group is really doing it. But I am sending the brothers, see, a little bit proactive, because the sisters weren't into this yet, sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove hollow, but that you may be ready, as I said you would be. For if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we, not to say anything about you, would be ashamed of having been so confident.

Pretty strong. I have actually found trying to use that kind of terminology is not really so helpful in most situations, though I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance, and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. We have quite a few people that promise to support people on OM.

It never happens. And the little shy, timid OMer, not really knowing what to do. Do I go back and remind them that they promised me? We perhaps could give out that leaflet, six ways to tactfully remind people of what they said they would do, but we don't have that leaflet yet.

Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given. Remember this, and what a verse this is. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.

Whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man, each person, should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work as it is written, he has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever.

Now he who supplies seed for the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way, so that you can be generous on every occasion. And through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people, but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. It's like a form of worship. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.

And in their prayer for you, their hearts will go out to you because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. Just these few thoughts that I believe God's put on my heart about this challenge of fundraising.

And this is tied in with the rebirth of our Mission Mobilizations track. We had a great meeting yesterday, and thank so many of you were there. Three-hour mega meeting that I believe is going to have long-term implications in more ways than we perhaps know.

And we know if we're going to mobilize missionaries around the world, and this came up at our meeting yesterday, we have to teach them more about biblical fundraising. There are a number of agencies that have had materials for years, especially on how to raise your own support. Many, many have never seen those materials, even people in OM.

One of our most proactive donors has done his own book on this subject, which we have a large number of copies of, and get distributed. And then we know about other books that we've been distributing, not only within OM, but throughout the world, and especially to other Christian leaders, emphasizing the biblical basis of fundraising and how to raise finance. Our burden, and the burden of OM from the earliest days, never just to raise money for survival.

A book that came out of Spain, written by a Spaniard, Samuel Vila, was required reading in the early days of OM, emphasizing what he called producing faith. There's even a section in the old readership manual about that. You never hear much about this anymore, but the concept still is alive within OM, perhaps with different terminology.

And it means that we are not satisfied, and that was the vision of Samuel Vila for these missionaries that came to Spain back in the 50s and the 60s, many of them taking fairly significant risks, not to be satisfied with just your support, but to be able to trust God for the tools to do the job. And that was a very important sort of core concept that came into the work in the early days. So what the few people we had in Spain when OM was being born, the amount of money they saw come in for literature and vehicles and evangelism was phenomenal.

It was phenomenal, and it was partly fed by the vision of Samuel Vila and of course other people. I wanted to just say six things that fundraising is. I could talk about what fundraising is not, but I'd like to be proactive and share just six factors in fundraising, six realities about fundraising, six things that fundraising is.

First of all, fundraising is God's work. This is God's work. And of course we want to do it in God's way.

We have tremendous memos that need to be recirculated, one of them written by Dale Roton on the integrity and the ethics of giving. We have a booklet by Mike Stracciura, unfortunately out of print on the biblical basis of fundraising. There are a lot of other books like Peter Maiden's book, Take My Plastic, that don't get wide distribution, though I'm very committed to distributing that book and believe it's an enormous help for all Christians to read that kind of material.

But I think we need to be reminded as we pray, as we get involved in fundraising, and all of us here this morning are involved in one way or the other, even in our local fellowships, fundraising is God's work. And because it's God's work, He gets glory. He gets glory when we get involved in this.

Even when we try, even when we make an effort, God gets glory even though it may seem we didn't get anywhere. We may go home or hang up the phone and be discouraged. We may send out our prayer letter, which may have a fundraising element in it, and not much happens.

Jesus said my meat is to do the will of the Father. We know it's the will of the Father that we attempt to raise money for for kingdom work, for Bibles, for books, for food, for the starving. We recently sent a gift to this blind mission because I find their appeals irresistible.

That a pound can get this salve that can go on somebody's eyes and they may be able to continue to see how much more we should be willing to give our pounds than for the spiritual sight giving program throughout the world. Never either or physical needs or spiritual needs. It's both.

It's God leading different people in different ways. And it's not easy. So fundraising firstly is God's work.

You know sometimes when I speak it's impossible to take an outline, but you get one of these messages. It's easy to outline in case any of you want to do that. Number one, God's fundraising is God's work.

Number two, fundraising is teamwork. This message was birthed out of that one concept. And the OM needs this part of this message.

Maybe we need the whole message. If we're going to go forward in the kind of very proactive fundraising we are in, that it's teamwork. And you know I am now being listed as a fundraiser.

I used to be listed as a great man of faith, a dynamic praying Christian. I had a lot of nice things sent about me pre-1985. Now I'm being categorized as a fundraiser.

There's quite a lot from my moles. I've picked up quite a lot of information of what people are saying about me. In some field of course I've gone overboard.

I had a letter from the main OM leader some years ago, praise God. Tried to rectify that out. He's in a good time now with Youth With A Mission.

No, he's still with OM. But I had a letter saying I felt I'd gone a little overboard. I found out that speaking about money is harder than speaking about sex.

For 40 years I've been speaking about sex and getting in trouble. I prefer not to speak about sex at all anymore. It's too complicated.

But I do if the Lord pushes me. Because I do find quite a bit in the Bible about it. But you know the same thing with fundraising.

If you talk about fundraising, somebody there is going to feel you've gone over the line. Somebody is going to feel you're manipulating. Well, we could easily say that this chapter 9, this has been a manipulation here.

You study it and write your little paper on it. Fundraising is teamwork. It's not a matter of George Verwer being some now great fundraiser.

Anything that I have done, it's a team. It involves the home office. It involves different relationships.

It involves people handling the nuts and the bolts, the follow-up. You may not get back to that person, you may not get back to that church, but somebody else does. Now sometimes they go back and do more harm than good.

But most of the time, praise God, they add to the blessing. I could give specific examples. I'm a little hesitant because that gets quickly talked about.

But I could give example after example where someone has thought a particular person has seen this breakthrough when I could show very simply it was a team effort. It was a team effort. One of the things that God had to show me in my life is that I use the word I too much.

I once thought I was really getting sanctified way back when I was about 19. I realized Watchman Knee and A.W. Tozer and I was a student leader at Moody and people were saying these things about me, people being converted to Christ all over the place, leading teams to Mexico. I really thought that I was rolling along.

Then I got God's Holy Ghost, mind-bending, stretching, never-ending graduate program known as marriage. And I discovered how unsanctified I was and the pilgrimage is still going on. And how that ties into fundraising, I'm not sure, except fundraising is teamwork and if you're married, your wife or your husband needs to be on that team.

They need to know what you're doing. They're going to sometimes pick up criticism about you that others are not going to pick up. There's people on this team, probably majority, who would find my wife a lot more approachable than me.

And so they might share with her, she's mega loyal, so watch out, they might share with her some little negative thing. And if she's on the team, she knows what's going on, then she can, in a more intelligent way, answer that question. One of the things that's so important in fundraising is to always give God the glory, to always stay humble about the whole thing, because the Word of God says, take heed lest you fall.

We may get a lot of big giving in the next month. What if we become boastful about that? Oh, the Lord's blessing on CT. Well, of course, we're going to give to others as well.

And arrogance can come into all this. And sometimes when you're low on money as we are right now, there's lessons that the Lord can teach us that he can't easily teach us when we're flying high and we're giving lots of money away and we're getting lots of thank you letters, maybe even a few pats on the back. Even in raising your own support, no matter what we do in life, there's negative and positive factors.

Raising your own support is many positive things, but it also has negative things, if you think you have done it. And you begin to judge a brother or sister who's, you know, not seeing their support come in. Specifically, if your support is over and you find out through the grapevine that their support is way under, that their support is way under, but they seem to be spending more than you and your support is over.

And so your little Mickey Mouse mind puts that together and says, hey, they're spending my money. Can't I at least get a vote? Fundraising is teamwork. Esteeming others better than yourself.

Never allow one biblical concept to be isolated from other biblical concepts. It's all got to be tied together in a wonderful way. Thirdly, fundraising is hard work.

I admire hard-working people. I know they'll never get to heaven through that. But as I see people in the world, and perhaps because my parents were both very hard-working people, I admire people who work hard.

And fundraising is hard work. I'll tell you, for me, fundraising is often harder than praying. And many times I'd rather just, I think it's several people that I phone, and just for the sheer inertia of the phone call and what's involved in that, it'd be easier just to pray.

I'll just commit that to the Lord. Isn't that sometimes a cop-out? Why don't we eventually face that in the church? Let's commit that to the Lord. I believe in committing things to the Lord as much as anyone.

But I find when I commit something to the Lord, he often commits it back to me and says, now you do it. And it's a long road putting all this together. But fundraising is hard work.

And we need to be willing to work hard. That extra phone call, that extra letter. I think of how hard my wife worked to produce our family letter.

And now Vera and Seth and putting it together in the next stage. And someone else is probably going to help fold it and get in the envelopes. And somebody's working hard to get it printed.

And it's teamwork. It's hard work. But it does, I believe, bring glory to God.

Fourthly, fundraising is fun. I bet that surprised you, didn't you? That's Tony Campala's influence to get me to use some of these words. You know, the kingdom of God is a party.

You know, his prostitute story. If you haven't heard Tony Campala's prostitute story, you know, what were you converted last week? I mean, it's amazing. And this generation has a different definition to the word fun than we did maybe 30 years ago.

We've had people, anti-fun people, among older OMers, attack our leaflets. Even the Love Europe, early Love Europe leaflets. It looked like some of these kids might be coming on OM for fun.

Boy, what a betrayal. OM was known for hardship and sleeping on the floor, peanut butter and deli sandwiches. You know, some of the leaders made things hard no matter what.

But the fact is, God's work has a fun element. You can use the word joy if you want. You can look through the book of Proverbs and find the importance of being joyful and things connected with that.

But if we like people, if we're in the people business, if we like specific things to happen... Now, a roller coaster really, really buzzes you. You know, that really gets me going. I've been on over a hundred of the major roller coasters in the world.

Blackpool's supposedly the biggest in the world. That's a piece of cake next to some of the ones that I've been on. Blackpool twice, I found a little boring.

But I will tell you, something's better than a roller coaster. When you've prayed and you've corresponded and you've phoned and you cry out to the Lord, somebody walks up to you and gives you 10,000 pounds. That makes a roller coaster doll to me.

And if I have to choose between roller coasters and fundraising or between golf and fundraising or between listening to rock and roll music and fundraising, a lot of other things that I sort of enjoy, even a good blockbuster movie, I'll take fundraising. It's more fun. Results than the dream, what you can do with that money, how you can help people.

You get enough, you can buy your own roller coaster. I've had this dream of putting a roller coaster on the do-lots. You know, right around the funnel, spinning out over the end and drop you, of course, in the water.

And then we rescue you, you know, sort of like this new film they put out, the name of which I can't remember. Are we up to fifth? Fifthly, fundraising is fruitful work. Fundraising is fruitful work.

I think fundraising is easier than, we've got fundraising and fundraising. I think it's a lot easier than people, for example, who are trying to plant a church in the middle of Afghanistan. They may have to go for years before that happens.

And that's why those of us who are in this kind of work, finding the funds to keep these soldiers going out there, we should be so motivated in this. They are our heroes. Those people in the Muslim world, they are as much my hero as Billy Graham or Alan Redpath or Eugenia Price, Francis Schaeffer, some of these wonderful people that influenced me because we're a missions movement and our missionaries out on the field are our heroes.

We know their flesh and blood. We know they make mistakes. And I tell you, when I go around and I get this criticism that comes against missionaries, well, you should be there with your video camera because I really come on those people and it's grievous, the false ideas that people have.

So fundraising is fruitful work because we're tied together with men and women out in the trenches, planting the churches, giving out the Bibles. We think of Project Light. How in the world, why isn't our whole movement more excited about Project Light? What an opportunity to give the word of God to another 100 million more people.

I mean, if that doesn't get you excited, maybe you need to get your blood pressure tested or something. Again, in OM, we have to get excited about so many things simultaneously. There is the danger of various kinds of burnout.

And praise God, our guest speaker at our recent retreat spoke on that subject. We now have his tapes and books and we don't want people to burn out. So please don't take any of this to extreme.

Fundraising is fruitful work. And then fundraising is or demands intensive, consistent prayer and godly living. I don't think you can separate your prayer life from your walk with God.

There are a number of key verses that indicate, especially in 1 John 3, that as we keep his commandments, as we do his will, somehow he hears our prayer. Now that's a bit of a paradox, because there's other verses that don't seem to get that idea, just purely grace. But I am convinced that our walk with God, especially being right with God and right with God's people, having that right attitude, staying broken, that oils our prayer life.

That oils our... Fundraising has to be saturated with prayer. Sometimes when I'm talking to someone who wants to go into fundraising, I say, look, how is your prayer life? What a danger in God's work that people tend to think someone else is doing that. You know, the intensive praying, that's for professional intercessors.

I'm nervous about some of the emphasis on the special ministry of intercession for special people. And you get introduced to someone, she or he's my intercessor. Now, again, I'm not wanting to attack that, but I just don't want that to go off balance.

So we have the idea intercession is just for a select few. And sometimes it seems to be in certain cases, for people don't really have anything else to do. I heard a story just recently of someone that they really didn't know how they could fit into the mission.

And some felt really the person should be asked to leave. And then they discovered this person was an intercessor. And so they kept that person.

That's good. It's got a negative little twist to it. Intercession is for all of us, of course, in varying degrees, as God gives faith as we grow.

And many of us do find it a battle, especially actually believing God's going to hear that prayer. So fundraising, it's God's work. It's teamwork.

It's hard work. It's fruitful work. It's fun.

And it needs to be saturated with prayer. And to close, I would just say, we desperately need more people to get involved on every level. We need those who are not afraid to go after those bigger gifts.

And I have launched in my heart, in my dreams, it's not technically launched, Operation 10 million, that we could see an extra 10 million dollars or pounds. I'm willing, whatever the exchange rate, I'd be even willing for French francs. But above budget, above budget.

And some of you, if you're interested in this, I have listed this and two or three backup pages. How this, in the light of what we're facing, is not a lot of money. For me, it's a lot of money.

You know, I'm still one of these that bends over. Even though I have not the world's best back, I bend over for a five-pence piece. How many still pick up a five-pence piece if you see it on the pavement? See, my wife still goes for pennies.

Okay, so we're like-minded. So what can we say? What can we say of 10 million pounds or dollars in various currencies? We'd like to have global currency released for God's kingdom, not just for OM, but to bless other groups. Many groups are struggling much more than we are at OM.

And one of the greatest privileges we've had in Special Project is to bless other groups and individuals who are actually sometimes struggling more than we are. And I know many people within OM are quite generous, giving money to others. Of course, sometimes we need a reminder.

We can't give away what we don't have. And the board that I'm in subject to definitely reminds me of that. And praise God for the accountants and the board members, for the people that have to do the bookkeeping and do the follow-up and project coordination so to make sure money is spent properly.

We must almost be militant on that if we're going to avoid the pitfalls that come into Christian ministry in the mishandling of money, the wastage of money, and other horrendous things that can take place. Too much money often is tied to immorality. I remember a person falling into immorality and the money was a factor.

I remember another person said they wanted to do something in the area of immorality. They didn't have the money and it didn't happen. We know money can be such a curse.

It's a mystery, isn't it? It's also true of fire. It's also true of sex. It's also true of many things in life.

It can be a great curse or it can be a great blessing. So everything we do, we must saturate it with prayer. We must claim the blood of Christ.

We must keep the armor on. And we have to understand, if I can throw in a seventh point, this is spiritual work. We need some of the most spiritual people in our movement to be involved in this work.

Not some new recruit we just sort of grab out of the business world because it seems he knows a little bit about money. Praise God for such people. But they also must be spiritual people.

They must know about prayer. They must know about the crucified life. They must have that grace awakening fruit of the Holy Spirit flowing from their lives.

Or otherwise what might start to be a blessing and people all get excited when there's money involved. It ends up a nightmare because it wasn't the foundation of godliness and spirituality to make it happen on the long haul. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for the privilege of fundraising. We thank you for the funds that we've been able to see go through this building, through special projects and other ministries, out to bless people across the world. And Father, we're asking by faith for more finance.

Not only for our basic needs, which are so important and not easy to find people to commit themselves to that, but that we may also be able to bless every single OM field. That we may bless hundreds of other ministries, especially with literature and the tools to get the job done. And that we would see an army of people raised up who don't just have faith for survival, but faith to make things happen for the poor and the lost and the lonely and the homeless and the street children and the refugees across the world.

We pray, oh God, that you'd raise up a holy anointed army of spirit-led fundraisers. We know they'll do other things. They'll be sharing their faith.

They'll be having other ministries, especially in their own churches. But we pray that an army may be raised up who will have as one of their primary focuses the releasing of finance for your kingdom. That Lord, soon everybody in the world may have the gospel at least once.

And that the church may be planted in every people's group, in every section of every people's group in the whole world. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. I'd like you to open your Bibles and look at a couple of passages together.

This particular prayer meeting has been going on in Bromley in Southeast London now for over 30 years. I don't know if you've ever heard of a night of prayer that has continued every week for 30 years. Not that we boast in that, but since we do have quite a few people reminding us of prayer meetings that collapse, and we're hearing a lot about churches that don't have prayer meetings, and we hear lots of other negative things about prayer.

Maybe it is good to occasionally say something positive. As I was thinking about this, I realized, of course, that yesterday's manna will not help us next week or next year. And as we go into a new OM year, and a new sort of series of prayer events, not just the nights of prayer, but the other prayer meetings on Monday and Friday, sometimes once a month on Thursday, and meetings you have in your own churches, your own home, your own departments.

It would be tremendous if at the beginning of this OM year there was just a spirit of faith and expectation. Some of us are just longing, I hope more than I may imagine, are just longing to see bigger breakthroughs in the work of God, not just OM, but the work of the kingdom in general. Living here in Europe, we're constantly bombarded with negatives about the church.

There are new books, there are articles, there are all kinds of Job's advisors telling us just how bad everything is, and increasing numbers of people that don't really believe that sending out European missionaries is any more really an option, since Europe is so needy itself. We're thinking not just of Southern Europe, which is so obviously needy, but other parts of Europe, like Germany and Great Britain and other nations. And I somehow, by the grace of God, want to not grow weary.

I do find myself growing weary, doing the same thing now more or less for 40 years. And again and again I take old verses like be not weary in well-doing, as I pick up my dictaphone for the 10,000th time and try to dictate some letters, um, those words often come to me, be not weary in well-doing. I really wouldn't, I had no plan to speak here tonight until on the plane, and God seems to meet me in airplanes these days.

But on this plane in from Belfast, God just gave me a message that I have never shared before. And though lately I'm so hesitant to share here at this prayer meeting, I make these tapes privately in my attic. This one I've decided to share here, especially with so many people who I may only see once or twice, and then you're off to the ends of the earth.

Turn with me, first of all, to, um, the Book of Acts, Chapter 2. The Book of Acts, Chapter 2. Such an encouragement to see my faithful, uh, former gopher sitting here in the front row, taking notes. Certainly we'll throw an extra few hundred in your support for that. But, uh, we'd like to hear from you a little later on on what happened in Belgium after we, uh, went our separate ways.

But, uh, Graham, uh, came to mind just then because, uh, he's had to listen to a lot of, uh, tapes and make outlines. And even as he went off, he left a whole pile of them back there on one of my desks. And, uh, it's very interesting to read, especially this outline of this tape.

The laborer is worthy of his hire. If you missed that message, which I only gave once in the whole history of OM, you probably missed, uh, well, certainly in my mind, a major, a major message that God was trying to give to us the time we were changing the financial policy. And I stood there at the conference, the annual conference, and shared this message, which I hope, I was hoping would prepare the way, uh, for people understanding the changes.

I remember one leader very upset with it, but most people seemed to accept it. But I was amazed as I read this outline, uh, I don't ever remember a message with so many points. Do you remember that particular message? It seemed to have a lot of, a lot of points.

And Graham was, uh, confused, which is not unusual. But anyway, touche. Acts chapter two.

Turn to the latter part of the chapter. We know Acts chapters two records the day of Pentecost. Hope you've all studied that.

But let's look at, uh, the end. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe.

Many wonders and miracle signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods they gave to everyone as he had need.

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God, enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who have been saved.

It's interesting how people take different parts of that, uh, passage according to their particular beliefs. But not many take the whole passage. Especially that part about selling their possessions.

We had an interesting man here, a man here at the luncheon last week, Missionary Leaders Luncheon. And he stood at the door, an elderly man who, by the way, has just been awarded, uh, a great award. Member of the British Empire Award by the Queen, MBE.

And he's the only one here, I think, standing there giving out tracts. Frank Brooks gave him permission, I believe. And he gave out leaflets about Wellington's missionary auctions.

And, of course, this wouldn't exist if people were not continuing to do what these disciples did back there in the Book of Acts. Sold some of their possessions. I don't think the scripture teaches that was a law.

I don't think the scripture, uh, teaches that this is something you have to do to get into heaven. For we know salvation is by grace alone. But they did it because they loved people and they saw a need and they wanted to give.

One of the things that continues to amaze me as I go all over the world is the lack of, of passion to give financially for the work of God. I don't even mind so much when people actually don't give. A lot of my friends, uh, are not able to give that much.

Some of them perhaps even give too much. I'm a very fortunate person with some very unusual friends. Many of whom are dynamically committed to Christ.

I'm going to use some fictitious names. But I think of, uh, I think of Tom and Jane who were on OM years ago. And, uh, Tom got quite sick when he was on OM and he really wasn't cut out in many ways to be a missionary.

His ulcers got bleeding. And, uh, when he met me in Bombay, he sort of in a meeting like this where I just poured out my heart made a real commitment of his life to Jesus. You're actually supposed to do that before you get to India for any of you new recruits.

Uh, but somehow in a meeting in Bombay, he, he made a commitment of his life. He began to confess things that were not right in the Overland trip. Those were the days when we drove all the way to Bombay, Overland, some of the worst roads in the entire world.

You cannot even believe how miserable of an experience that was. And yet when people had that, they rejoiced. It was sort of like, you know, something happened to you, uh, in a fraternity or something going through the initiation.

Now you're part of the club, the overlaying club. You'd suffered, uh, you've had dust down your throat. You've had probably one or two good bust-ups with a guy leading the thing, uh, at least verbally.

But you made it. And there was a great, great bereavement when, uh, OM took to the air, traveling to the subcontinent by air, as this present generation. That, by the way, can offer you also some very miserable, scary opportunities, but we won't go into that in detail, uh, tonight.

That particular brother and I ended up living together in another country when we launched one of the great tent-making, money-making endeavors of OM's history that has never been written up. Hardly anyone even knows about it. But it was when we were in Bangkok, Thailand, and, uh, we launched an effort to buy U.S. Army surplus and sell it to make money for the kingdom.

That was one more of God's rebukes to me that I should not get too involved in attempting to sort of make money. That my priority should be faith and prayer and trusting him to supply and leave other people to making money. Though this brother had made considerable money back in his home country, there in a foreign country, he was out of his depth and it was a fiasco.

And some of you know the sleeping bags that floated around OM for a while and a few other things that came out of the Vietnam War. I have followed that particular brother and his wife now for, uh, about 30 years. I have never seen them without their passion to give.

Now they might be extreme. He probably at times should have purchased a little bit of a better car. I think of all the defenses I've heard all these years about how we must all have such a better car.

Here's a brother that could buy many better cars, but he didn't. Now he has been a mechanic, so that's easier than for someone else. But he always wanted to just give all the money he possibly could.

I think even at times to the point of not caring maybe for himself quite properly. I doubt if he's purchased too many clothes, this particular brother, over the years. I think his wife is maybe a little more liberated than women usually are.

And, uh, that's not really the point of the message. The point that I want to share is why there are not more people today who, who have a passion to give finance for the work of God. The subtitle of this little talk, which is really more of the words that God gave me, uh, coming here today, is how does the lack of money actually hinder the work of world evangelism? I've spoken on the subject of giving, and I'm not going to speak in a general way about that again tonight.

I've spoke, spoken in written articles on how to release, uh, finance through prayer and faith. OM has been very famous for that. Even when we changed our policy, uh, only a couple of paragraphs in that leaflet.

I think Jerry Davian, I don't know who helped to do that. Was that your wife or? Jerry and Jean updated that leaflet, and only a couple of paragraphs had to be changed. And we still believe that we can release finance through prayer.

But the word is out in OM, I hope I'm wrong, that generally people are not praying for money anymore. Not in our public prayer meetings. Somebody wrote me from the ship, and they said, how can the ship be so much in financial difficulty? This admittedly was some years ago.

We never hear prayer for finance in the prayer meetings. Now, maybe they weren't at the prayer meeting at the time that request was presented. I like to try to believe the best.

I was thinking tonight that this is the time of the year, in the early days, about 20 years in which there was phenomenal prayer for finance. Because we had a policy, if we don't see all the bills paid, you don't go. That got people praying who never really prayed much before.

Because they, they had been to enough conferences. They wanted to go. They wanted to go to India.

And they wanted to go to the Middle East. And so they prayed and prayed. And all of us who were around then can testify, unbelievable, phenomenal answers to prayer.

I remember some money that was floating around between two banks here in Great Britain. Actually found this story out later, because the bank teller was a Christian. And he told about this check that actually came from Mexico.

I think it was 70, 50 or 70,000 pounds. And it had been floating around while we were praying and some people even fasting. Then finally the money got to us.

I confess even here in our prayer meetings at Forest Hill that often we don't really pray that much for finance. I don't know anything about how it is when I'm not here, when I'm here and if I'm responsible for the meeting. I usually have some small session and maybe after most people have gone or we always have about 10 times more to pray over than we can manage to pray about.

So what I want to say at this point is that I'm not so wound up over the fact that people can't give. I'm more wound up over the fact that so many don't seem to care. So many don't seem to care that much.

In fact, we're living now in a day in which is a tremendous amount of negative coming from mission societies about financial problems. We witnessed the closing of a mission society right here in Britain. And what burdened me wasn't so much that people weren't giving and that huge amount of money of promised support was never paid.

And so the mission society folded. What really burdened me was not that many people seem to care. There weren't many articles about it.

I never heard anybody say much about it. It came up occasionally as a sermon illustration. Isn't it true that some Christians too easily say, well, that's probably just the Lord's will, brother.

He'll overrule. Do you ever hear terms like this? Do you ever get the feeling that Christians are better at making excuses than the raw unsaved guy down at the pub? Or maybe you don't go to the pub. I'd urge you all to go to pubs and talk to people about Jesus.

I wouldn't urge you to get drunk. But it does seem to me that you're not going to reach unconverted British people in the church because not many of them are going there. Most British people, a very high percentage, go to pubs.

There are all different kinds of pubs. And you need to perhaps study it. I'm not going to get into a major research on it.

But I do remember invading a pub not far from here with Peter Conlon many years ago. And he sang and my knees shook as we attempted to witness for Jesus in a rather aggressive way in that pub that evening. But it does seem to me that it's so easy for us to make excuses We recently heard five people from OM Russia have left the field, I think Catherine Parker shared this, because of lack of finance.

I've heard hardly anyone mention anything about that since then. What's the big deal? Five people have packed it in because of lack of money. Surely it was God's plan, right? God didn't want those people in Russia.

God blocked that by freezing the finance and sending them back. He used a pastor in Argentina who didn't believe these people should have that money and other little things. It's not easy to know sometimes whether it's God or the devil who's at work.

Do you ever have this problem in your life? You know, is this thing from God or is this thing from the devil? If you've got that all sorted out, you can write your thesis on it and maybe send me a copy. I like to lean myself a lot more on the sovereignty of God. So my dear Calvinistic friends, you know, don't write me off before you get to the end of the message.

But I do believe we need to be careful about excusing sin, excusing the lack of compassion, the lack of zeal, the lack of just ordinary concern that we know sometimes even unconverted people have. It's interesting that right now in trying to find people to work in refugee camps and to work among the starving and the poor and the AIDS and the Rwanda victims, that generally most of the volunteers are professional non-Christians. We don't always like to hear that.

We've got this idea somehow God's people, we're the ones that have the love. The world doesn't know anything about love. The world doesn't know much about passion.

The world, they're all a bunch of greedy materialists who just want everything for themselves as if the church were, you know, free of that. But in fact, if it was not for the professional people working among AIDS victims, which we prayed about in the beginning of this meeting, if it wasn't for professional people with different relief organizations, I think the world would be twice as worse off as it is in all of those areas. There is a danger that a misunderstanding of certain scriptures and acceptance of certain traditional phrases that are acceptable cliches among God's people become excuses.

In fact, that which may be a watchword of challenge in one generation becomes an excuse in another generation as we take it out of context and don't understand really what the person was talking about in the first place. Turn to another passage of scripture real quickly. 2 Corinthians chapter 8. 2 Corinthians chapter 8. If you ever want to do an interesting study about money and giving and resources, study these two chapters.

We've spoken about these chapters I think on one or two other occasions here. Reading them in that new version that Richard just read, the message, I think we did that once, is really quite powerful. Let's read this NIV.

Now brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. This is clearly grace to give and grace to suffer. Let's read on.

Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty. In other words, they were in trial, they were in extreme poverty, welled up in rich generosity. Isn't that brilliant? For I testify they give as much as they were able and even beyond their ability.

Entirely on their own. Now remember, Paul is writing this to the Corinthians. He's writing this for a purpose.

And this, if I gave a similar message to this in certain situations today, I definitely would be accused of manipulation or at least some kind of fundraising tactic. To write a letter to one church and tell them how this other church is suffering, how this other church is going through this time of poverty and yet they were generously given. Is that not a hint? In the early days of OM, we got really bogged down about the sin of hinting.

I think there was a time when in OM we considered that hinting about money was a sin. I'm sure I must have rebuked people for hinting. And yet, I was an automatic hint just looking at me.

People knew there was financial need. I used to have people give me money at the door, tell me to buy a meal. But we would have thought that Paul here writing to the Corinthians is doing a little bit of hinting.

Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing. Now, how many of your prayer partners have written you in the past few months and begged you for the privilege of sharing? My wife and I visited dear elderly prayer partners in Ireland yesterday afternoon. And before we left, a dear little lady went back to the back room and got out her purse, got a little bundle of notes and pushed them into my hand and said, now this is for you, this is just for you personally.

And I said, well, you better give it to my wife then. And I gave it to my wife and haven't seen it since. But we all have had that experience of people counting it a privilege to be involved with us, to give to us.

And it's quite humbling. It's more blessed to give than receive, the word of God says. It's often also easier.

A distinct reason why young people in this generation do not want to go into missions according to a survey in North America was they do not want to raise money. They do not want to beg for money. Pray for me as I just in a few moments attempt to deal with that subject at Urbana and try to share something of the privilege and the joy of raising money and being involved in receiving money.

If we're not willing to receive, then how can other people give? It's got to be a partnership. What an amazing passage of scripture. And they did it.

Verse 5. They did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will. So we urge Titus since he had earlier made a beginning to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But just as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us, see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

This is a command from God for every believer to excel in this grace of giving. And surely the work of God, I'm sure you've heard me say this, is held up for the lack of finance. Now, even the moment I say that, I know that is not acceptable terminology for some people.

And that's one of the reasons we're recording this little session, that you may at least think these things through. We should be able to openly and honestly talk about the problem of money. It is now more of a hush-hush subject than sex.

People now are loosened up a bit. We've got a lot of books about sex. We've had Lois Mowdy in The Snare.

We've had Erwin Lutzer, Living With Your Passions. And we've got this new book by this brotherhood group on moral purity. We seem to have a new book on sex about every month or so, especially if you include the books on marriage.

We even have major sex guides and manuals how to make your way through all the challenges of the most intimate parts of marriage. But money is still something, at least in certain places and certain churches, and often as missionary agencies, we don't always feel comfortable in talking about. You know, and we have freedom now to take offerings, but I don't think we actually take too many.

It's sort of not our thing. And by the way, how do you take an offering? I spoke on this Sunday morning in a Baptist church in Ireland about how when we take the Sunday morning offering, often nothing is said. There's not much encouragement.

Why don't you give a little more or maybe mention some need? There's just one sentence. And you and I know that most of the offerings in most of our churches are fairly miserable. Why don't we at least be honest about that? How do we at least be honest about that? We're trying to be honest about the sexual thing.

Statistics are there. There are beautiful exceptions, both in certain churches and certain individuals, but overall giving among God's people, all statistics show it is more or less a scandal. It is more or less a scandal.

So to me, it should be spoken about. And I'm sorry that I haven't given this message a long time ago. I'm aware of the clock, and so I want to give you very, very quickly eight ways that the work of God is hindered.

Because I find many people don't have a vision. They are not giving in some cases because they don't have a vision what their money can do, what even one pound can do, one dollar, one deutschmark. I don't know about you.

When you see 20 pence laying on the pavement, do you feel, well, I'm not going to reach down. That's not worth reaching down for. I could put my back out.

20 pence is worth about what two pence was worth 20 years ago. It's certainly not worth picking up 20 pence. What can you get with 20 pence? But I bet most of us do pick up 20 pence if we see it.

And yet how many of us, you know, thinking about giving, bring the measuring down to 20 pence and try not to waste 20 pence if we can help it. Because we know that 20 pence will buy at least a couple of Gospels of John. And our whole movement is indebted basically to one Gospel of John.

Sent by Mrs. Clapp to me that led to my conversion. And so I thought I would just share in closing these specific points that somehow all of us may grasp a little more why we should have a passion for giving. Why we should learn how to release finance through prayer.

Why we should be praying more for finance in our small groups, in our personal prayer time. Why we should be more upfront and more honest and open, willing to risk offending some. It's impossible to do anything as a child of God and not offend someone sooner or later.

It's interesting that the 60s at times are held up as the great glory days of OM. Come on. We were offending people all over the place.

We had more enemies and friends in Britain in the 60s. They had a Jerusalem meeting with the Evangelical Alliance versus George Verwer and Gilbert Kirby had me there with these people surrounding me. And I'll tell you, they had a serious go at me that afternoon.

I'll never forget it. Some of it was because of our own faults and our own mistakes. It wasn't all one-sided.

First of all, the lack of money hinders us even in the work of promoting prayer. From day one, OM has been a movement praying and promoting prayer. We've probably distributed more books on prayer than almost any mission in history.

And by God's grace, we have tried to practice that. Yet I can tell you, we could mobilize more prayer if we could see some finance dedicated to that vision. Postage is more than ever.

Phone calls are more than ever. We're told what a bargain email is. Yes, email is a bargain after you've purchased the hardware, after you've upgraded it, after you've bought your modem, after you've had lessons on how to use it, after you've prayed in a miracle worker to keep it all functioning.

Definitely after that, it's cheap. I get a lot of Christian magazines and some of them, I read the ads. Very expensive to run ads in Christian magazines.

Yet some groups seem to have unlimited money. One group that is very strongly attacking the American missionary program at present, and not the one quite a few of us are familiar with, a more extreme group than the one most of us know about. I'm trying to protect myself.

I don't want to get in court. They seem to have a lot of money to run ads. Very seldom has OM ever run any ads.

We just never really had the money for that or thought that that was a good use of money. The few times we have tried it in Great Britain, we have had great results. We tried a similar thing in America in Moody Monthly, disaster.

So, we're learners. But whether we're trying to promote prayer or we're trying to promote, and my second point is mobilizing the church, it costs money. Postage, videos, audiotapes, books, leaflets.

We're trying to get this new global action leaflet launched and widely distributed. Quite a few emails are circulating around about that. Why? It costs big bucks.

The Evangelical Alliance introduced us to some new leaflets. The Evangelical Missionary Alliance. We wanted to get some of those.

We thought we heard maybe the 30, 40 pence. That seemed like quite a lot for one leaflet, but it's a nice leaflet. But now we've had the word back.

There's 70 pence. Isn't that right, Vera? 75 pence each. But we want to use them.

A lot of work went into that. We don't have that much material like that. Promoting missions, mobilizing prayer is being phenomenally held up for the lack of money.

How many people ever designate money to those things? Very few. We have to somehow take it from some general fund. Praise God for money in which there's no strings attached.

And we can use it to pay for a leaflet or something to present the challenge of prayer. There's that little AX13 breakthrough leaflet. Took us many months to get this finally in this condition and get it printed.

I don't know how much this costs. Is it 10 or 12 pence each? It's a much smaller leaflet. And we think about some of them, of course, actually get wasted.

When people sometimes hear characters like me praying for large sums of money, they wonder, what are you going to do with all that? What are you going to do with all that? And do you think really in OM we'd have trouble spending an extra 10 million? Do you think this would be a major setback for the movement? Maybe you'll be embarrassed to hear the total OM budget. So I won't bother putting it on this tape, but it is a lot of money. You don't get 2,800 people and 800 children and all the travel we have to do, plus all the literature we have to buy, plus 2 ships.

You don't get that going on a few million dollars a year. And the story of God providing is an amazing story, but it has always been in the midst of perpetual cutback. Perpetual is saying no to this, no to that.

Some fields can do things, but other fields can't. Because money is not necessarily distributed the way we human beings think is fair. Definitely within OM, you have wealthy fields and you have poor fields.

Sorry to say that. Let that little secret out. Now, I'm told that the wealthier fields, there's none that are that wealthy, by the way, are supposed to be helping the poor fields.

But that doesn't always work out because when you have money, then you see this needs to be done, that needs to be done. That in terms of projects, in terms of things to do, none of these fields, even the most wealthy field in OM, there's only a few, they would never, never have the money to fulfill their dreams and all their goals and all their aims. They're constantly having to negotiate, say yes, say no.

How much money are we actually putting into prayer mobilization? How much money are we actually putting in to the whole basic challenge of mobilizing the church? I would say quite a lot in one way, but probably 10% of what we could. And I believe if we could increase what we put into mobilizing the church and mobilizing prayer, I believe in some ways we could see 10 times the results. In fact, by increasing the partnership, we would have much, a greater synergy.

We might see 20 times the result with a little bit of a greater investment. Thirdly, the recruiting is constantly held up for lack of funds. For years, we've known and we've talked about the fact that if we had a scholarship fund, we could always get several hundred more on any summer campaign.

We could always get more on any year program. We have never had very much in our scholarship fund. We have had some.

Germany has quite a good fund and a few fields have small amounts of money, but it's very small compared to the need, not compared just to the need, compared to the opportunity. Fourthly, the lack of money hinders the follow-up of the recruits. Some of you have heard me say that I estimate, and we have about 35,000 people around the globe.

It's just a very word guess. As part of the 82,000 movement and the track for the mobilization of new missionaries, I'm supposed to know a little bit about what's going on. And I estimate about 35,000 minimum.

Young people, I've made some kind of initial decision, like the three and a half thousand over there in Korea. No, 1,300. I initially gave a figure 1,500.

I had the exact figure. Remember people who signed. It's about 1,300.

That kind of initial decision, what we saw in Stellenbosch University, what they have at Moody Bible Institute every year, what they have at Wheaton, Briarcrest, Prairie, all these colleges, what they have at Urbana, thousands. I estimate if we add Latin America, Brazil and Argentina and all the churches, all the things happening in the denominations, there are probably 35,000. We are going to lose, we are losing 95% of those people.

And I believe a major factor is the failure to have finance there at the right time with a vision of how to use it properly. With a vision of how to use it properly. What is my dream in Operation Support Breakthrough? And I'm going to continue to dream about it despite all the heartbreaks is that we can release literature in at least six of the major languages of the world, plus other languages that can be given immediately free of charge to everybody in the world who makes any kind of missionary recruit, not including Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses and Ku Klux Klan and other people who are off track.

But Bible believing people, young person, working through the network of 82,000 WEF, Losan, working through all the existing mission societies, it would mean quite a few millions of dollars or pounds to supply this literature free of charge, to ship it across the world, to have it at every place, in every location, throughout the entire globe so that from now on when someone makes the most serious decision in their life, and it is, it wasn't mine, we have something there to show what do you do next. How do you raise the money? How do you present this to your church? How do you tell your mother about this? Especially if your mother is not a Christian. Immediate follow up material.

We often do this in evangelism. Do you realize the money that is spent on evangelistic campaigns? And I think every dime of it, generally speaking, every penny is well spent. Do you know how much money was spent on evangelizing the Olympics? I think everybody in the Olympics got the gospel 10 times over, maybe more.

And everybody thinks it's wonderful. And those people who are in that kind of fundraising for evangelistic materials, do you know what they're telling us? They need 10 times as much money. But when it comes to literature for missions, for discipling missionary candidates, no one is hardly even talking about it.

There's not even that much material, except when it is something very, very high powered and unique like TEMA and Urbana. Hopefully everybody there who makes some kind of commitment gets some material. When they do, by the way, it seldom has anything to say about raising money.

Yet you and I know that if you're going to become a missionary in a faith missionary society, you better learn how to raise money or pray for money and all that is connected with that. Praise God that we now have books like People Raising and Friend Raising and Serving as Senders and other materials. And yet the distribution figures on those materials, especially in languages other than English, is incredibly low.

And many of those projects all over the world are held up right now for lack of money. Sheer lack of money. We don't like to hear that, do we? We always like to say it's something else.

Well, it's the lack of faith. Well, that's true. You see, faith is so easy to talk about.

Watchman Nee once said, I don't know if he said it when he was in this building, but Watchman Nee once said that if we can't believe God for material things so we actually see the result in the form of material things, then how can we trust God for things that are much more complex, much more difficult to measure? That's sort of a paraphrase, but that's what the quotation was. Even the whole recruiting work within the body of Christ, the actual task of recruiting and mobilizing people is held back for the lack of funds in OM. There is so much more, so much more we could do.

The word is out that we may get a good part of our money back from New Era. Some of you don't know what that is. That's no problem.

But some money was lost. Word is not only back that we'll get 60%. Word is coming through now that the insurance company involved, it looks like they're going to lose their case.

That means a huge amount of money is going to come into the pot. It means everyone may actually get 100%. That will be surely one of the most unusual things that I've seen in my lifetime.

When I was jogging yesterday morning, I listened to a one-year-old tape about New Era, including interviews with a newspaper article, writers who wrote the original article. Boy, I tell you, that was quite a jolting tape to listen to. But a lot has happened since then.

If suddenly that amount of money comes back to OM, do you think we're going to have a real struggle in knowing how to spend that? It's going to be a real problem. We'll probably have to launch something new that we don't really need in order to spend the money that suddenly we have. No.

The money is all seemingly wanted and accounted for three or four times over. So if we could still multiply it, that would be helpful. Fifthly, finance is needed in the whole area of training.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if thousands of young people who want to get into training, especially in two-thirds world countries, could apply for scholarships? Some people are very hesitant about that. We don't seem to be hesitant when one of our young people wants to go to Wheaton and then they need mainly scholarships to get there. I just heard of another OM child going to a very, very good school and I said, well, how are you doing that? Oh, well, it's all scholarship.

We don't seem to have a problem receiving scholarships when we want to get our kids through school and school is expensive. And it's interesting that the country where it's the most expensive, the United States, is where more people seem to want to go. Actually, quite complex when there's just not that much money around.

Why can't we be the ones to give some scholarships to people in the third world who would like one year in Bible college? One year on the ship Lagos. Two, one year, maybe at a Caponry crash course kind of Bible college. The training aspect, because the moment we talk about 200,000 missionaries, the moment we talk about this desire to mobilize all these people into the 1040 window, the training guys are on us real quick.

I mean, I tell you, we got a lot of reactive people in the body of Christ. I think there's four reactives for every one proactive, but praise God, we can learn from them. It's interesting that some of the people who are speaking so negatively about these things have in fact, if they added up their total education costs, spent 100,000 on their own education.

And they are not ready to see some other brother or sister get 1,000. It seems to me things are a little off balance. Let us at least be concerned.

I know many of you listening to me are hearing this tape. You're already in debt. You've got financial problems.

You're giving to your own church. You've got commitments to existing missionaries. There's not much more you can do seemingly right now.

But if you get this vision, if you get this passion, if you get this concern, if you take it to God, maybe he'll do a new thing in your life, in the area of finance. Maybe you'll have the opportunity to share this vision with others who may have finance and may have resources and may have some antiques laying around that they could send to Wellington's missionary auctions or sell them in a garage sale or a boot sale or whatever. Every aspect of preparing, recruiting and training workers for the harvest field as well as both home and abroad takes finance and in many places in the world it is being greatly hindered for the lack of money.

I had a Bible College letter from a Bible College leader. I read in the car coming over here they have very few students. I'll tell you one of the reasons they have very few students.

People don't even know about their Bible College. They don't believe in much marketing. They print maybe a few leaflets.

We're told as Christians word of mouth is the most spiritual method of communication. Word of mouth. That was true in John Wesley's day and it's certainly true to some degree today and we believe in word of mouth.

That's still the best way to recruit people into OM. You recommend OM to your best friend but that doesn't cover all the bases. Don't put other forms of communication, cassette, email, telephone, internet, video.

Don't put those things in competition with word of mouth. It's not either or. It's together.

It's both and some are a little more expensive. If people had certain tools, certain tool kits, certain packets given to them it would create a lot more word of mouth. Why shouldn't we give every single person who leaves OM when they arrive back home 25 books for mission mobilization with video and cassettes and a how to do it instruction booklet.

I mean to give it a whole year to working with us. Couldn't we at least do that when they get back home? I have experimented with this for many, many years and a lot of people who would never dream of giving out a video or a cassette or a book when they get a packet, guess what? They give it away. Not that many are visionaries initially.

Even as you look at people who are non-Christians it's only a small group of people in the whole world who are shaking and moving our world and our culture. The majority are passengers. The majority are not doing that much and I pray you'll not be in that majority but you'll be in the minority of people who want to be an influencer, a shaker, a mover, a person of passion and therefore you'll appropriate this vision and you'll begin to pray for finance and you'll begin to see the importance of finance in the work of God and talk about it and share about it and raise some of it up for God's kingdom.

Seventhly, or number six, actually sending out the workers we all know that's where that's where so much just actually stops because the amount of money needed to send out even a short-term missionary is just often not available. If we're going to see the people we need to have in global action we have to have a paradigm shift in OM in the next six months or it will not happen and in AD 2000 without a paradigm shift we will never see the goals and aims we set out at some years ago quite a few people actually have already given up and when we talk about seeing 200,000 missionaries mobilized or whatever number your group may be into because numbers isn't the most important thing at least the way I think that doesn't mean that's going to happen. That doesn't mean it's going to happen.

It means it can happen. In my mind as far as plan A I believe God wants it to happen but he has put us responsible so we will determine whether it actually happens or not. Do you know why many people never give that much money? Because they don't understand they don't understand that if they don't give it it's not going to happen.

Forgive me I'm a little angry at this point but if you've seen what I've seen for 40 years you'd know why my engine purrs because the wastage that I've seen the materialism I've seen the lack of vision that I've seen while millions go out into eternity without Christ is sometimes just overwhelming beyond words. If we're going to send out missionaries we must learn how to release finance. We must learn how to compassionately biblically raise finance or whatever terminology you want to use.

We must somehow learn from this passage in Corinthians that generosity can often come from the midst of suffering and trial and difficulty. It doesn't necessarily come from an overflowing cup and excess. And then seventhly when we send those workers out there we know the money that's needed to keep them there and we know the money that's needed to give them the tools to complete the job.

Churchill said to Roosevelt in that war give us the tools and we'll complete the job. Have you ever watched the D-Day invasion films? Have you ever watched any military film? Has your mind not been blown by the wastage? Wasted tanks wasted parachutes a vast percentage of all military hardware in the world which represents almost the greatest expenditure money in the entire planet most of it is hardly ever used. Bombs, bullets, grenades atomic weapons praise God I'm glad a lot of it isn't used.

Unfortunately in some places like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka and the Middle East it's being used way too much and the arms industry is one of the biggest businesses on planet earth. Have you ever when you saw a jumbo jet fly over you realize that's five, six, seven years entire budget of operation mobilization we're now considered a major mission movement with a big budget one jumbo jet flies over there's three or four years of OM's budget. I remember sitting in one of those planes going up to the pilot and ask him how much it cost at that time it was 125 million that was a long time ago I think it may be double that by now it's absolutely amazing.

Why should Christians specialize in being small minded? Why do we have to magnify certain things by calling them extra spiritual? Why can't we just be a little more open a little more honest? Why can't we somehow get the bigger picture?

Billy Graham is one of those who went beyond the average person raising phenomenal sums of money Bob Pearson later World Vision in a similar way he of course went to heaven went into the great very very frightening ministry of raising large sums of money I personally would not want to get into those quantities of money not for OM and for myself but you see there's so many different missions there's so many different groups if God and God's people suddenly release a huge quantity of money and if it spread out through the whole body of Christ including all these new missionary agencies and all these different movements that are being born it really wouldn't be too much books videos tools vehicles bicycles we could put a list on an overhead projector maybe I should have done that of things

that workers on the field are crying out for from a little video player to maybe a bicycle to sometimes something more expensive like a car to get the word of God out I listened to a tape this morning by a missionary in Mexico incredible tape who got out to the villages on a motorcycle cost money cost money and then finally we need the money to meet the physical needs that's a whole message in itself the challenge to be more holistic the challenge to help people in their physical needs this this is a phenomenal pressure on OM right now phenomenal pressure because we're launching all kinds of projects to help in people's physical needs those projects are very attractive and so people in quite a few cases would rather do that than support some OMer so don't think for a minute that OM

support money is not going off in some of these more attractive projects we have people that through their own study and research the complexity of supporting individuals getting involved with people maybe having them show up on your doorstep for a visit giving to projects for certain people is more attractive and I'm not against it it's not either or it's got to be both but I close with this plea that to put this challenge on the whole body of Christ as we did in Lausanne as we continue to do to put this challenge on the whole body of Christ to be more holistic and to help people in their physical needs and not parallel with it come up with some kind of strategy and vision to raise the money is to I believe put people eventually into problems and guilt that they will not be able to live

with and when I launched my big push toward raising money for famine relief and had that interview in the center of London and that article went out around the world I had some of the strongest letters from traditional missionaries that I ever had saying you know it's great for you to say this back in England we're living out here in Africa already we're already short of money short of people we're already overworked and now you lay something else on us that we're all supposed to do solve the famine problem in our country no wonder someone eventually wrote a book against guilt trip manipulation a real hot book I can't really recommend it brothers and sisters the handwriting is on the wall in the body of Christ in the evangelical world we are strong on talk and we are weak on walk and we

are weaker more on raising the money to enable the walk to be converted to the talk think about it listen to the tape again if I spoke too fast play it back at a slower speed let's pray Lord I just thank you that I could at least get this off my heart and that I could share this burden that somehow we would realize how important finance is in your work and how your work is being hindered in almost every way so often for the lack of money which we know is linked with a lack of love it's linked with a lack of understanding of your word it's linked with a lack of passion and compassion and many many other spiritual factors but at least somehow I've been able to share it in this way like I've never specifically done before and we ask God that by your spirit a greater armory of people like my

dear friends who have been linked with us these 30 years and many many others in that category though certainly a minority group and many many more people would be raised up who would count it a privilege to give who would have a passion to give who would have a vision to give who would understand how important it is to give and they would give joyously and hilariously even if they had a Macedonian situation and we'll be sure to give you all the praise and all the glory as we continue to trust you for the impossible as we continue to daily surrender our lives totally to you whether the money comes or not we will be irrevocably I'm sorry to say that that is all there is of this recording