Keep on Keeping On — George Verwer

Some of us, like myself, are too conscious of the time, that it's late, and we want to pray, and in myself, I think I would just sit down and say, well, let's just go to prayer. You've called us here tonight to pray, and yet, Lord, I know there are some that have come for specific ministry that you have put on our hearts, and just, Lord, really ask you to help us, even though we've had much, received much today, to just be open to what you have to say.

Thank you for your mercy toward us, and for answers to prayer, we thank you for the privilege of moving out on the homes this afternoon, and the people we met. And some of them, Lord, are already very meaningful, even though they were short conversations, their faces, their voices remain in our minds, and we yearn to see more of them come to know true peace and life, forgiveness.

Perseverance and Lifelong Commitment to Christ

We know also the enemy is counterattacking, and we just thank you that we can hold high the shield of faith, and therewith stop the fiery darts of the evil one. Guide us now, in Jesus' name, amen. I want to speak to you about survivalship, I want to speak to you about perseverance, I want to speak to you about keep on keeping on.

You know, we're not interested in taking people on OM for a summer, this is not our burden, we are interested in people becoming committed to Jesus Christ for the rest of their life. It's better you don't go this summer.

If it's just going to be soldiering for a summer, if it's just going to be a late adolescent gospel trip, we are looking for people who will put their hand on the plow and not turn back. Now when I first began in my ministry, and I started preaching when I was 17, most of my messages were about commitment and witnessing.

One of my favorite texts was in Proverbs, go to the ant, you sluggard. And I preached this in many of the youth groups around New Jersey, and young people responded to the text, go to the ant, and consider her ways and be wise.

I linked that with the whole thing of witnessing. When the ant finds a little sugar or something sweet, communicates it quickly to all the other ants, then they all go. It's a silly text, but anyway it got a lot of results.

I was always preaching about commitment, and gave invitations for young people to either come to Christ or recommit their lives to Christ. And I still do that. Those of you who have heard my tapes, and you were here, I guess the greatest liberty I had all week was the Sunday morning Sunday school.

I didn't know I was even supposed to speak. Suddenly I saw the pastor running down the road. I was talking to somebody, walking around. The pastor comes down the road and says, don't you know you're speaking in five minutes?

So I just walked in here, and the Lord set me free. And this message tonight is a balance on Sunday morning Sunday school. Survival ship. How to maintain that commitment. How to start going door to door.

I started going door to door when I was 17. I'm still going door to door at 40. It's been a habit of my life, all of my life, almost every week, in the streets or on the doors. I don't care how many telexes, how many headaches, how many people I'm supposed to be counseling.

No matter what, I believe that to stay healthy, I must get out with unconverted people and talk to them eyeball to eyeball about Jesus Christ. And if I don't do that, I don't want to preach anymore on television or to the thousands or to the tens.

And yet I wouldn't be doing that today if it wasn't for the principles of survivalship that God gave me. And I believe the same thing is true of nights of prayer. We started these nights of prayer in Ramsey High School in 1956.

We organized nights of prayer in connection with the Billy Graham crusade in New York City, 1957. And if you know anything about prayer meetings and nights of prayer, they don't last. They don't keep going on.

But these prayer meetings have been going on for over two decades. And they spread all over the world. And this is linked with this emphasis the Lord has given us on perseverance, survivalship, how to keep on keeping on.

Examples of Persevering Missionary Service

What a testimony people like Dale Roton are. Started out 25 years ago and some of the strong things he said when he was a student at Wheaton. And people were really skeptical. And yet he's been that kind of person who's just persevered as he pioneered the work in Turkey.

As he helped pioneer work in the communist world. And as now he pioneers his second ship with his family. These are the kind of people we need in God's work today. He's had plenty of battles. In the last two years when he was living in Kansas City, it really looked like he might even leave.

Do something a little easier, a little less taxing on the family. Instead we find him back in the most difficult task he's ever had. Coordinating 300 people on the second ship. And I think in many, many ways the miracle of O .M. is that somehow in God's mercy, he has brought together a group of men from many different backgrounds and women, just as much women, who have learned the secret of survival.

They have not just been another series of evangelical firecrackers. They've not just been a group of people that have gone out with lots of words and big prayers and then fizzled. But they have been people who have put their hands on the plow and not turned back.

What are some of the secrets of survival that these men and women have put into practice in their life? I share these with you as someone who's still learning. As someone who perhaps has more struggles than most people.

Who's certainly not as strong in the faith as people like Dale Rota and others that I could tell you about. But at least I'm in the ring. It was a beautiful day in my life when I got delivered from the concept that every minute you have to be living at some super spiritual level.

Acceptance, Forgiveness, and Recovery After Sin

And I began to accept my humanity. The problem with many idealistic Christians and some of the types who come into O .M. is they don't accept their humanity. My first point is centered around that. It's knowing you are accepted and knowing you are forgiven.

Ephesians 1 .6. Knowing it not just in the head but in the depth of your personality. You are accepted, you are forgiven. When you know this in reality, you will no longer be so threatened by certain people.

You will no longer be so defensive. You will no longer be so insecure. The root of many of our problems is insecurity. We think the great problem today is this worldly thing and that worldly thing. They're the symptoms.

The problem is insecurity, lack of reality with God. And I believe we need to emphasize in our preaching, in our teaching, the biblical emphasis on acceptance and forgiveness. This is one of the reasons the ministry of Bill Gothard has been so widely used because he's brought some biblical answers along this line and has really helped people come off the hooks of Satan.

We are accepted in the beloved. Ephesians 1 .6. Our sins, though they were as scarlet, are as white as snow. The victorious life includes knowing what to do when you sin. This is so important. We rededicate our lives.

We determine we're going to do greater things. We're going to break this particular habit we have. We may go a few weeks. We may go a few months. We may go a few years. Depending a lot on our temperament and the surroundings.

But then, boom, down we go for some reason or other and we don't know how to get back. And some of you, if you're honest, you've never gotten back to that place you were one or two years ago in your Christian life.

And it's because you knew one aspect of victory but you didn't know the second aspect of victory brought in the second part of 1 John 2 .1. If you sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

And so you know how to bounce back. You know how to rebound. It's so basic. And I'm convinced that super spiritual and false views of sanctification have done more harm in North America than we will ever be able to measure.

And I've seen so many people so victorious for a while and then so totally wiped out. I can tell you in the history of our work, 24 years, if you go back to the early roots, there have been very few that have been with us for a couple of years and have moved into leadership.

We're very quick to get men started on leadership but we're not so quick to move them into some of the main slots. Very few in 24 years that have ever had a major backsliding, scandalous situation. Hardly any.

I believe these principles work. And I believe if you'll begin to incorporate these things in your Christian life, you will not end up another evangelical casualty statistic. You will avoid some of the things that lead to these problems, like excessive publicity, which spreads like a mania across America and has destroyed more men of God than we will ever know.

My heart weeps for some of our Christian magazines. Not only are they naive and immature, they often are an instrument of Satan to ruin the lives of men. I haven't lived long, but I've lived long enough to see too many mighty fallen after big publicity and after they were made our gospel heroes and all the rest.

Some people can handle it. God prepared Billy Graham, his servant, for many, many, many years before he received big publicity. And by the time he got that, the foundation of humility and reality was there and he stood the test of even all this publicity, much of which gets twisted and distorted.

And then the aftermath of publicity, when people turn against you, and the way Billy Graham was able to handle the terrific attack against him by the extreme fundamentalists, who, in some cases, were even guilty of spreading lies, at least as far as my research shows me.

And he stood that. I remember reading or listening to him on a tape in which he took a whole pile of these critical, acid-biting letters and he laid them on his bed and he said, Lord, I'm not going to sleep until I love all these people.

And he wept his way to the cross and forgave those people and forgot it, pressed on. That was 30 years ago. Let's not give up praying for him. No man is perfect. But he stood the test. Isn't it interesting how people will lift a man up and when he fails, down he goes.

What was on the radio this morning? That Jimmy Carter has got the all-time bad publicity record right behind Nixon and Truman. Unless that was just your Canadian newscaster's twist, but that's what he said.

Carter's public opinion poll has gone lower than any United States president except Nixon and Truman. And how many... I don't... The election seems only a few months ago. He was a great hero. And of course, he's got into this cog-like machine, this cog-like political machine.

He's made mistakes. He's blown it. And so, of course, we're ready to kick him quick out the window. Those of us from the States, you know, I think we're realistic enough to know that if we think we're going to find somebody that's going to function like some spiritual Superman in that crazy job, we must be really naive.

Probably only the Antichrist will be the one to finally make America happy. I don't know enough about prophecy to give the full predicament, and I won't get into that tonight because this is Canada. But what they may do in the political scene and in all that, that's not my interest tonight.

Restoring Fallen Leaders Instead of Abandoning Them

But in God's work, it's got to be different. One of the things that the Lord has burned into our hearts about this thing of survival is to stick with a man even when he's down. Don't desert a man when he falls.

Don't desert that man you're discipling or that is a co-leader with you when he's in a time of difficulty or struggle. And if you get involved in OM in a longer term basis, I can assure you we will not desert you when you fall on your face.

And we're not about to kick people out of the middle of the summer crusade because they have some difficulty. Because we believe that OM is not a sorority or fraternity of super saints. It's a mobile clinic for world evangelism of sinners who know where the grace is and the forgiveness is.

And if you think you're coming to work together with some great group of spiritual Olympic stars, please, please, go back somewhere else. Work somewhere else. Maybe get a loan. Climb a tree. Do something.

God's people are so fallible. The people with the strongest convictions are often the people who are the most fallible. They crusade strongly on some area, this thing, that thing, and then some major area of their life collapses on the floor.

I've watched it for many years. I almost was a part of it. The second point is that if we're going to persevere, if we're going to survive, we've got to learn what it is to cast every care upon the Lord.

1 Peter 5, 7. Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. Worry is so subtle. Tozer said it's difficult to discern between a spiritual irritation or an irritation in general and a spiritual burden.

You may think you have a spiritual burden about something, but if you're really honest and you search your heart, you'll discover you're irritated. You're irritated. Pray for me in this area. Sometimes I think I've got a real spiritual burden.

No, this is the way it should be going. This is right. But when I really get honest and I get down at the foot of the cross and the light of God's love comes on me, I discover it's not a spiritual burden.

It's a religious irritation. Some of you have got big religious irritations. It's not a spiritual burden. It's not from God. It isn't born in the cross and in the power of the Holy Ghost. It comes out of your ego.

It's a religious irritation. Repent of it. You'll survive a lot longer. Casting every care upon Him because He cares for you. Think of the emphasis in so many areas of Scripture. Be not anxious about tomorrow.

Worry not. Fret not because of evil doers. It's amazing how jealousy gets into the body of Christ. It's unbelievable. People jealous of other people's spiritual gifts. Oh, how God hates jealousy. People jealous because someone was asked to testify and they were left out.

Someone was asked to preach and they were left out. Someone was asked to preach and they said to him, Hey, man, take an hour. Take more than an hour. But when you were asked to preach, you said, Hey, can you keep to 25 minutes?

That's great for the ego, isn't it? I know, I've had the experience many times. Back in one of the big meetings I went to in the early days in England, boy, I was all wound up. I got there. I said, Well, how much time do they have?

Making God the Ultimate Goal

They said, Oh, no, you're just giving your testimony. Five minutes. Great. Great for the ego. The third principle of survival. We've already touched on it. We've more than touched on it. Make God your goal.

Isaiah 40, verse 29. Waiting upon God. He will renew your strength. Even our youthful zeal will run out. But they who wait upon the Lord shall be renewed in strength. We all go around singing the chorus.

Learning to Endure Hurt Without Bitterness

Seek ye first the kingdom of God. I love it, but it's easier to sing than it is to live. Make God your goal. Fourthly, we're going to have to move quick. Learn how to be hurt. I was singing this morning in my quiet time of Philippians 2 .21 where Paul said, No one stands with me.

Can you imagine how crushed Paul could have been at that moment? He was so totally misunderstood. He was being attacked. He was being criticized. The very churches he planted, some of them were turning against him.

And yet somehow, he stayed free from bitterness. He stayed free from bitterness. He learned to be hurt. Young people, if you want to survive the present day Christian scene, you have got to learn to be hurt.

Sooner or later in OM, one of our leaders is going to hurt you. Perhaps the greatest mistake OM has made is that we're trying to do too much at once. I don't know the answer to that. It sometimes torments me.

But I believe that most of our steps up to now, the Lord has lent us. And in studying missionary work, in studying the history of missions, it seems that often so much comes on so few. The harvest is plenteous, the labors are few.

But in our burden to do so much and to relate to many people and to try to keep a very high standard, we run out of steam, we run out of energy, we run out of time, and in the process, some people get hurt.

It's almost inevitable for you to be hurt this summer by somebody somewhere. Do you think if you don't go on OM you won't get hurt? You see, no matter what circumstances you go into, there will be difficulties built into those circumstances.

Do not make OM your excuse. Do not use OM this summer as your excuse. If you don't go on OM and you remain back home, you will have struggles, you will have problems, you will have difficulties, you probably will get hurt if you do anything.

So if you go on OM, you will have a different set of circumstances. This is the way life is. Problems we face are not just the church or this leader or that organization. No, it's life. It's the way life is.

I stopped, by God's grace, a long time ago, though sometimes I have relapses, blaming my fellow men for my problems and learning to thank God for my problems and for the wounds that even my brothers and sisters inflict, oftentimes without realizing.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's called the golden rule by some, but it seems we've thrown it out of the window and we've replaced it with, he did it to me, I will do it to him.

No. That's a trick of the devil. Matthew 5 says, Bless those who persecute you. Bless those who despitefully use you. It's amazing when I meet people who have left a particular church simply because the pastor offended them.

If the pastor's offended you, that's probably three good reasons to stick in the church. Not the reason to leave it. Every real relationship you ever build will be tested. Will you write that down? Every real relationship, your wife, your mother, your father, your pastor, your uncle, your aunt, your daughter, your grandfather, whoever, your best friend, every relationship will be tested because Satan hates God-given relationships.

And it grieves me how men, especially here in North America, one minute they're great friends, the next minute they're not on speaking terms. And if I had the opportunity to speak to the pastors, all the pastors and Christian leaders of Toronto, this is what I would ask them.

Are they on real terms with one another? Are they praying together here in Toronto? Do they love one another? Not when just Billy Graham comes to town, all the time. When things go wrong, when people quit one church and join another, when gossip gets strung around, when mud gets strung around, they stick together, they pray together, they walk in the light, they're honest with one another, they level with one another and they still love.

Until we return to that kind of Christianity, we'll never produce the missionaries that the world needs today. We won't even get out of our own hometown. Learn to be hurt. Learn to be honest. Otherwise, I believe you'll be guilty of being both immature, naive, and I won't add my other adjectives.

Genuine Praise and Thanksgiving From the Heart

The fifth point is learn the reality of praise and thanksgiving. What a wonderful thing it is to be able to praise the Lord in all things. To sing the songs. One thing to have people with guitars singing and making music, it's another thing to make it in your heart.

I'm not much on some of the music that goes around in the 20th century in the church, to be quite honest. Some of it just about blows my ears, much less my mind. And I think the great music that's needed today is in the heart.

In the heart. And I cannot tell you how grieved I've been at some of the music groups I've had to work with. Because I've seen them backstage. I've seen them backstage at each other's throats. Jealousy, two guys after the same girl, arguments, all kinds of things.

Backstage. Then, suddenly the man comes out and gives a cue. Hey, it's time to sing. You wouldn't believe what I have seen. The smile. The golden teeth. Out front, you know, and singing these incredible songs.

Then I'm back there, you know, I've got to preach. They come back immediately. I will tell you, the ministry of music, without brokenness, without Holy Ghost revival, without love, it's deceptive. Even if it's the perfect, acceptable music, the conservative variety, if the people singing it are not spirit-controlled people who are at one in one heart with one another, what is the purpose?

The main work of God every year at OM is when as leaders He breaks us. And in our coordinator's conferences, leaders get up and confess sin, and leaders get right with one another, so that the leadership within OM over these years has been a united front.

Not a perfect front, but a united front of people who are walking in the light and love with one another. How else can we minister around the world? Better to stop the work. We have stopped OM at times.

We've stopped the ship, waited on God for two, three days in prayer and fasting, got right with one another, then move forward. Believe me, this is important. And it's linked with praise in the heart.

Entering the Rest of Faith

Thanksgiving in the heart. Number six, learning the rest of faith. Hebrews chapter four. It's an amazing, it's a paradox. It says labor to enter into the rest. Beware in OM of just striving. Just striving.

You don't have to impress us with your spirituality. Now don't swing and go in the opposite direction and try to impress us with your carnality. We'll have enough of that without you making any efforts.

But I believe it's a beautiful thing, it's a significant thing when we learn not to strive in the flesh. Rest in the Lord. Very important. Number seven, realizing God is easy to live with. It's a quotation from Tozer.

He knows all about us and he loves us still. He's quick to mark the simplest effort of sincerity. Some of you may feel condemned after your door-to-door work. You may be on a guilt trip. Maybe you didn't sell any books.

Maybe you didn't lead anybody to Christ. Maybe more important than that, you felt your motives were wrong. Do you think because your motives are partly mixed or somewhat confused that God's going to hit you on the head with some kind of a gospel sledgehammer?

If you moved out with a degree of sincerity, even though your motives may have been mixed, you may have gone out partly out of pressure, partly because you didn't have much of a choice. If there was a degree of sincerity and love for Christ, God is quick to mark that.

God is quick to mark that. He's more optimistic than you are. Otherwise, we'd never get in the kingdom. We get into too many guilt trips. And we need to realize that if Jesus said a cup of cold water will not go without a reward, you know, imagine what cups of tea get, coffee, whatever else.

God is not wanting us to be a generation of evangelical neurotics. We've already had too many generations of those. We need people who are free. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. Oh, I tell you, it's a wonderful day when the Lord sets you free from the praise of men.

And the Lord sets you free from living for the honor of men. Jesus said to the Pharisees, How can you believe? Which seek the honor that comes from one another and not the honor that comes from God alone.

We can listen to men. We need to be open to their counsel. But ultimately our burden is to hear the voice of God. Well done, my good and faithful servant. There's a lot I could say along that line. Especially the danger in our culture of giving too much praise to men.

Perhaps it's too heavy a message for tonight. 7 or 8 Accepting God's growth pattern. You found a man standing in the woods, one of your great Canadian woods. And he was standing next to a tree watching it.

And you said, What are you doing? And he said, Oh, I'm watching this tree grow. You'd wonder, Well, you're watching the tree grow, huh? You may want to make a phone call. You don't watch trees grow, but they grow.

Some of you are spending too much time watching your growth. You're discouraged. You're concerned about your spiritual progress. Get your eyes off yourself and onto the Savior. And then you'll grow in a natural, beautiful way.

Like a tree. Lane Adams has written a great book on this subject. Why is it taking so long? Read it. A beautiful message. I know a young man who's an agnostic today. Graduated from one of the best Bible schools in the United States.

He's an agnostic today and totally away from God. A very beautiful person. I pray he'll return. I've been still following him up for 18 years. He's big in the stock market. May soon make his first million.

Went on a whim just for one summer. The reason he got away is because he wanted God to do too much at once. He tried to pressure God. He wanted to be instant spirituality. He went into intensive times of prayer.

All kinds of things he did. And it didn't work, and so he said, Christianity doesn't work. You can't push God around. Even if you fast all night, he will not be manipulated. And I am sure this is a great danger with some of us.

Learn to accept not only your spiritual growth rate, the spiritual growth rate of other people. Before we judge people, before we're so critical, why don't we try to understand them? Why don't we try to understand some of the problems they've had?

Some of the families they've come from? This is why we have allowed problem cases to come on OM. And even stay for a year or two. And some of you, you're going to meet some older OMers. You're going to make a mistake.

You're going to be put off by some of the older OMers because you're going to think, because they're on OM for three or four years, they should be spiritual giants. They've got all this training. But some of these people that are on OM for a longer period, it isn't because they become our key spiritual people.

It's because their problems were greater, and we felt we should bear with them one or two more years. Because most of the mission societies today, they want the finished product. All my key leaders, they're all, everybody's trying to recruit them.

It's a miracle I've got anybody left. I have phone calls all the time. Greg Livingston called me up some months ago. Hey, what about this David Lundy? Do you mind if we recruit him? What am I going to say?

Am I going to practice what I preach? Esteem him better than myself? Esteem the North African mission better than myself? What do I do? I lose one of my best men, David Lundy. Here he sits with a big smile.

The other day, I had a phone call. They wanted to get John Hymas. Inner Varsity wanted John Hymas. I said, okay, talk to him. Anyway, John decided to stay with us. Some go, some stay. Actually, I can tell you from the depth of my heart, ultimately, it doesn't matter as long as they're walking with Jesus because I really believe we're all on one team.

Forward Baptist, OM, North African Mission, OMF, I don't care what they think, we're all on the same team. Even the people that don't want OM on their team, I'm still on their team and when I get to heaven, I'm going to tell them.

Really. So let's be patient with one another's spiritual growth rate. And then the number nine, the freedom. The freedom of the discipline in ordered life. Discipline is not bondage. Discipline is not bondage.

Freedom, Discipline, and Life in Christ

Somebody says to me, hey, all these OMers, they're getting bondage to the quiet time. They're going to have a quiet time every morning. This is bondage. I ask the same fellow, I say, look, how many times a week do you have breakfast?

He said, what do you mean? How many times a week do you have breakfast? Seven times a week, every morning. Hey, man, breakfast bondage. You're really in trouble. No breakfast bondage. And I believe that the quiet time, like everything else in life, of course there are struggles.

Of course there are times when the Bible is dry. Of course there are times when you're looking at it for ten minutes and then you discover, oh, it's upside down. You turn it around. Do you think because you make a mistake like that, or you, and that's, that God somehow says, well, that's the end of you.

Some of us, I believe, God's mercy has slipped out our theological back door. And we have put ourselves under the law. And if, oh, heaven's going to put you under the law, I don't want you to come. Go work in a summer camp.

I'd love to work in a summer camp. Oh, I'd love to work in a summer camp. Tennis, water skiing, oh. God's never called me to that ministry. You probably know I backslide on the second day. But I'd rather you go work in a summer camp.

You know, I don't know what you do here in summer camps. I guess you ride moose and all kinds of things. But I don't want you to come on a summer camp. If it's going to be bondage, if it's going to be legalism, if you're going to get all uptight, like a clock being wound up by an elephant.

No. I want you to come because you're free. You're coming into a voluntary work. It's true, you're going to have to submit yourself, but you're doing that as an act of freedom. And you're free in Jesus Christ.

Rest, Recreation, and the Missionary Life

Number ten, learning to refuel and relax. Learning to enjoy life. It's an area where we need balance. I was greatly helped through Jesus Christ giving his disciples some food, making fish for breakfast.

Helped me understand that it's not wrong to enjoy a meal. Some of you have been having trouble these days. Mainly because you're spoiled. But I will tell you, you will have a few changes. Those of you who get out of India for one or two years.

After being in India for months, not seeing a milkshake for five months, not a single milkshake. You almost grab a cow in a field, shake it. And I really believe I really believe that those of us who learn to live on less, we learn to lay aside some of these things, we actually enjoy these things more when they come.

When I get my teeth into a steak, maybe once a month, once every other month. I mean, this is an experience, I'll tell you. But you think of these people that have steak every night. You know, I've gone to restaurants with such people.

It's slightly overcooked. I was with a guy some time ago, slightly overcooked. Send it back. Poor cow. I really believe the disciple, the person who has put his life on the line, the person who is forsaking all and learning to forsake all, he enjoys these things when they come more than the man who has them all the time.

I could write a book on that subject. The next point, number eleven, is learning real fellowship and real sharing. How to relate to people. If you get the emphasis on discipline and OM, on evangelism, on dying yourself, and you don't get the emphasis on fellowship, sharing, being open, you're going to become lopsided.

And I won't take responsibility for you. I have to, but I don't want to. You've got to get both. And this is such a beautiful thing as it happens. One of the things I like about the ship is we have a number of key leaders on each ship.

Anybody who wants fellowship with a leader, wants to open his heart, the people are there. I've lived on that ship for two or three years. Some people were critical because at times they couldn't understand what the leaders were doing.

But they don't understand that often the main ministry of a leader is a hidden ministry. You don't see him. He gets with someone and he gets away for two hours. I cannot tell you the time that some of our leaders in OM pour into individuals.

Whole mornings. When a man's down, when a man's in trouble, they'll forget their sleep to help them and to minister to them. Meanwhile, of course, they cannot be seen in the general fraternizing. And so they get misunderstood.

And it's a cross they must bear. The way of fellowship is a main principle in this movement, I hope it is, in your life. You think of Hebrews 10, 25. Don't neglect gathering together. OM is a very church-centered movement.

I don't think people realize this. Most of our long-term people are all commended from their churches. We are one of the few movements that even brethren assemblies, dozens of them, commend men into OM.

Because people, even from the brethren, are very local church-centered. They see this as a basic principle within OM. We work with a local church. In some countries, we plant local churches. Yes, we have other aspects of our work and mass crusades, but ultimately, we move out from our churches and we go into our churches.