Fund-Raising Is Teamwork — George Verwer

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.

Prayer for Finances and Missionary Crises

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. 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. So 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.

2 Corinthians 8–9 and the Biblical Basis of Fundraising

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 2 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 Attei 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 and it never happens. And the little shy, timid OM-er, not really knowing what to do, you know, 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, 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.

Training Missionaries in Biblical 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.

We know if we're going to mobilize missionaries around the world, and this came up in 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 OL. 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 OL, 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 OL 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 OL, 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 OL, 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 OL 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.

Fundraising as God's Work

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.

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 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 sad 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 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, and 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, 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.

Fundraising as Teamwork

If we're going to go forward in the kind of very proactive fundraising we are in, that is teamwork. 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 said 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, trying 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's 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 Berwer 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 receipts, putting the money in the bank, it involves 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. I could give example after example where someone has thought a particular person has seen this breakthrough where I could show very simply 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'd watch my knee in 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 people, others are not going to pick up. There's people on this team, probably majority, 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 ye 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 not seeing their support come in.

Especially 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.

Fundraising as Hard Work

I admire hardworking 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 hardworking 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.

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 then someone else is probably going to help fold it and get in the envelopes and somebody working hard to get it printed and it's teamwork, it's hard work but it does, I believe, bring glory to God.

Fundraising as Joyful Work

Fourthly, fundraising is fun. That surprised you, didn't you? That's not Vera's big buzz word, is it? Fun. It took Tony Campala's influence to get me to use some of these words. The kingdom of God is a party.

His prostitute story. If you haven't heard Tony Campala's prostitute story, 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 jelly sandwiches. 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 buzzed, 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 it 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 leave seem dull 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, then 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 lot, 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.

Fundraising as Fruitful Work

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 Schaefer, 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 hundred 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. Obviously, 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.

Fundraising Requires 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.

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.

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 who 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.

Operation Ten Million and Financial Stewardship

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 Ten Million, that we could see an extra ten 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? Yeah, my wife still goes for pennies. Okay, so we're like-minded. So what can we say? What can we say of ten 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 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.

A Thirty-Year Prayer Meeting and Perseverance

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 anymore 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, 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 the book of Acts, chapter 2.

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

But Graham came to mind just then because he's had to listen to a lot of 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 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, well, certainly in my mind, 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 was hoping would prepare the way 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, I don't ever remember a message with so many points. Do you remember that particular message?

It seemed to have a lot of points, and Graham was confused, which is not unusual. But anyway, touche. Okay, Acts chapter 2. Turn to the latter part of the chapter. We know Acts chapter 2 records the day of Pentecost.

Hope you've all studied that. But let's look at 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 had been saved.

It's interesting how people take different parts of that 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 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 a great award, a member of the British Empire Award by the Queen, MBE. And he was 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 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.

The Passion to Give and the Example of Generous Believers

One of the things that continues to amaze me as I go all over the world is the lack 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 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 Tom and Jane, who were on OM years ago.

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. When he met me in Bombay, he was 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. But somehow in a meeting in Bombay, he made a commitment of his life. He began to confess things that were not right in the Overland trip.