Financing Missions in the 90s 22.1.1990 — George Verwer

Maybe I should just say a little word about myself, about OM, because most of you are new to the ministry that I'm involved in, a ministry that has most of its roots in Europe and India, and now almost completely international, with Korea as one of our main sending fields, Brazil another one, Argentina another one, a movement somehow raised up by God to be on the cutting edge of the internationalization of missions.

World Missions Today is not largely an Anglo-Saxon project, but we're seeing literally tens of thousands of people from so-called third world countries, a term I reject, involved in cross-cultural communication.

Somehow in God's purpose, he raised up a unique mission fellowship, OM, to be ready to handle these young people on an equal basis with anybody from any other country, regardless of their financial status.

Operation Mobilization and the Unreached Muslim World

A complex challenge, to say the least. But now there are 2 ,000 of us full-time. We never were, only a short-term work, though we're known for that, because of the effective short-term training about 50 ,000 people have had with OM.

But our main thrust has been the evangelization of the Muslim world. We now have 250, one of the largest agencies, working among Muslims. Pakistan, Bangladesh, church planting, 100 million Muslims of India.

Can you imagine 100 million Muslims in India? There is no church among that 100 million. They're a minority group. How many southern states do you have to put together to get 100 million? There's no church.

There are a few individual believers among that 100 million. So our first thrust, through about 15 different methods of evangelism, is the Muslim world. Our second thrust has been the communist world, where we've been laboring in Eastern Europe in ministry of renewal and prayer and literature and all kinds of other things for the last quarter of a century.

It's impossible to express how joyful and overwhelmed we are with what God is doing in Eastern Europe right now. Just come from speaking at Mission 90, the largest missions conference in Europe, we had 400 there from Eastern Europe.

I had the scary privilege of leading the prayer night from 11 at night to 1 in the morning. You would think they'd go home after that, but instead they all went into the book exhibition to buy copies of Operation World and other books.

So in a sense, Operation Mobilization has come of age, and it's taken its place as partners with so many other great mission societies. Perhaps I'm going to say some strong things on the basis of now 30 years on the mission field, though I went before that, 33 years ago, as a student of 19, down to Mexico in a short-term summer effort, which became one of the birthplaces of short-term missionary work.

There's a terrific amount of misunderstanding about short-term work. Sadly enough, even among men of considerable stature, I would have thought intellectually, but I think just being in this country and not doing their homework properly, they have come up with some very untrue and false conclusions about short-term work.

And I know now most missionary leaders on the field, not theoretical people back in school, but people on the field believe that short-term work is one of God's gifts to this generation, this unique global village in which we now live.

The Gospel, Hell, and the Urgency of World Evangelism

And from the word of God that especially was on my heart, and may help me maintain balance in my presentation tonight, is that word in Philippians that says, Esteeming others better than yourself. And I just think of how we're so divided in America, and there's so many different causes.

We all know of the abortion cause, which is such an important thing for every Christian to be thinking and praying about, doing something about. But I must confess, when I meet some of these heavy abortion people, that they seem to have almost zero interest in the fact that souls are going to hell.

These little babies that die in their mothers' wombs, I don't believe they go to hell. Maybe that disagrees with your theology. But a soul in India, in China, the hundred million Muslims, when they go out into eternity, they go to hell.

Otherwise, schools like this have no purpose in all this. Just a con, Billy Graham, conned me in. I was going, I was minding my own business. I was doing fine at 16. I had three businesses, I had money, I had women.

I was happy. And one of these Bible believers came into my life, a little Bible-believing lady who believed in hell, prayed for me that I would get saved. I didn't even know what that meant. Then she prayed that I'd become a missionary of all the audacity.

She didn't even tell me about it. Then she sent me a gospel of John through the mail, and I read that, and it broke my heart. And then I went to that fire-and-brimstone preacher, Billy Graham, who called me to repent, believe on Jesus Christ.

And I did, and by God's mercy, I was saved. And within hours, I began sharing my faith, and I've never stopped a single day ever since. And as I studied the word of God, and actually almost overthrew the Christian faith completely because of intellectual doubts, I became convinced that the Bible was true.

I became convinced that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life, that there was such a place as hell, and that all Christians should be involved in rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying. Not so popular in our day, in which universalism is one of the fastest-growing theological tidbits among the intellectual eggheads in our institutions.

I have wanted not only to reject, and being very honest, I've not only wanted to reject the doctrine of hell, I must be quite honest, I have wanted to reject Christianity. I am not a natural Christian.

I find a lot of Christians are a real pain in the neck, and don't get on with them very easily. I've tried to be more optimistic, developed a little prayer when I feel this pain, thank you, Jesus, that I'm not a giraffe.

And in fact, to be also honest, the Holy Spirit in my heart, when I repent, has given me a great love for God's people. But if men are not lost, if Muslims are going to get there through Muhammad, if Hindus are going to get there through their thousands of gods, then I don't know what all the fuss is about.

I don't know what we're having missions conferences about, and why we have to risk lives. I have 20 of my friends dead in the cause of world missions, one of them murdered on the doorstep in Istanbul, others in motor accidents.

Our latest has totally disappeared, John Tarswell. Three months, no trace, no body, no nothing. I have to talk every other day or so, for the less now, with his wife, and try to encourage her, and explain that we're still searching, we're still looking.

She's just given birth to another son. When I think of the men who died among the Alka Indians, when I think of what men like C .T. Studriss, when he went into Africa, already a museum of diseases, I think if they're not lost, if they're all going to end up in heaven, what is the purpose of this?

Is this some kind of a spiritual boy scout adventure? Or is this just something so that more people can be employed? After all, there are people that have a gift to teach the Bible, and if somebody doesn't start a Bible college, how will they get a job?

Men are lost. I have never lost that conviction, though I've struggled many times with it, on any day in these thirty-some years. I come with a great burden to see everybody in the world given the gospel.

The Year 2000 Vision and Competing Christian Emphases

And I feel, though I didn't sort of lead the way, I feel the concept of the year 2000 movement is basically a good one. I'm always a little reluctant to join some of these things, and I've now asked to be on the Council of References for the year 2000 movement.

You may not even know what that is, but a group of Christian leaders met in Singapore. I didn't go, couldn't afford the airfare, but they met in Singapore, and they got all excited, and they submitted their various plans to evangelize the whole world by the year 2000.

Ralph Winter, of course, was there. What a thrill to see the way God has used that outspoken, one-arrow, amazing, eccentric character. Many, many people have submitted their various strategies and plans toward the year 2000 in Operation Mobilization.

We have been trying to do that. We're so diverse. Each one of our countries, we're permanently in about 40, 50 countries, have their own strategy and their own vision. It's hard for us to put it all together.

But our European leaders came up with a program called Love Europe. And so that's part of that. And I'm excited about that. But just going back for a minute, as I think of all these different causes we have in America, abortion, which is good, and especially when you get to Bible college, you feel hit by many directions, all little groups, little lobby groups.

One is saying that the key to everything is revival. And you get groups playing away and battling away for revival. I've watched such groups for 33 years. It's been one of the most depressing things in my whole ministry because in most cases it's never come, at least the way they've been praying for it.

And a lot of the people who are weeping and crying and fasting and praying for the kind of revival that people are dreaming is going to come are all dead. And it never happened. Now, I'm not against that kind of praying if it's in balance and if it's tucked in with the whole counsel of God.

I'm still doing it. I was just at Asbury College. They had a revival in 1970. They're still talking about the revival in 1970. There is some fruit from that revival. But basically, that's history. That's history.

That's 1970. This, for any of you who are little latecomers, is 1990. And the truth is, and this is going to be one of the main thrusts of my message, this message is going to blow every little homiletical idea you've ever had.

So just relax. Some of you already look very tense. If you don't get it all, you can listen to the tape. You can even search for backward masking. But now I've lost track of that particular thrust. Let's get back to the esteeming others better than yourself.

The fact that we have all these different emphases. Another one is expository preaching. Has that one come yet? That all of our problems are because we don't expound properly the Word of God. If we expound properly the Word of God, everybody's going to be mature.

We're all going to take care of all the other problems in the world. Now, don't misunderstand. I believe in expository preaching. Occasionally, I do it myself. And I esteem Stephen Olford. Tremendous.

He's over the top, like me, in some areas. But he's a great preacher. John Stott, one of my favorites. But many expository preachers, especially those who are just copying the great expositors, are awful.

Then, of course, somebody gets really uptight and says, well, if it's the Word of God, it's never boring. And we all feel miserable because some of us, in fact, find church generally rather boring and are so fed up with meetings that we would never go to another one again unless it were required at 10 in the morning.

So the church today is moving in many, many, many directions. Even in missionary work, we have at least 50 major controversies among missionaries. I must confess, in counseling, pastoring, and working with missionaries over the years, that they are some of the most stubborn, impossible, bullheaded, obnoxious people I have ever met.

I always feel like giving them Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I can just imagine some of you who read Seduction of Christianity by a hunter, or a man named Hunt, that even mentioning that book would be dangerous.

You probably now think I'm a New Ager. That's another big thing. That sort of competes with Amway. There must be a hundred different directions that people are going with. And you come into Bible College and they're all there lurking.

They either have displays or cameras or they sort of meet you at the door and they've got a leaflet or a free T-shirt trying to get you to go in one particular direction. And tonight it's George Brewer.

What direction do you think he's trying to get you to go to? Some haven't even come because they thought if they came here tonight they'd end up in the Muslim world. And that's the last thing they want to do because this little guy who once had an interest in the Muslim world married little silly Sally who is not going to the Muslim world.

She's already told the Holy Spirit she's not going to the Muslim world. She's already purchased I'm not going to a Muslim world T-shirt. And he is just going to bring his whole marriage into difficulty if he comes here tonight and gets a challenge for the Muslim world.

Or maybe a challenge to the Communist world. That's not so bad now that the iron curtain is sort of melting. But we don't really know what's going to happen next. But I want to surprise you. My great burden tonight more than anything else is not to get you into one of these causes.

Love, Humility, and Esteeming Other Christians

I believe they all have a degree of legitimacy. And I believe the key in our mega mega super world class kind of pluralism that we've created in our unique society with all of our different churches and 22 ,000 denominations.

I believe the key is love. And love will involve listening to people. And love will involve the fruit of the Spirit. And love will deliver us from judgmentalism so that we're always going around putting other Christians down.

You're not doing enough for abortion. You should be laying out in front of the clinics even though you're way overweight and the police won't be able to remove you. Or you shouldn't be just giving your testimony.

You should shut up until you're an expository preacher. Or you should be attending all the concerts of prayer because if you're not praying you're straying, which is true. And we want to see you. We need to learn to love one another.

We need to learn to esteem one another. I think of how many people have rejected certain Christian leaders, certain Christian movements on the basis of hearsay. Let me give you an example. I have a book here called C .T. Studd.

I was a student at Moody Bible Institute. I was a young student. I read this at college before I went to Moody. And when I went to Moody I brought up with somebody the subject of WAC, World Evangelization Crusade.

And all I could get was negative reports. I thought, this group must be really off the wall. WAC! And I never saw this book anywhere at Moody Bible Institute. Fortunately I had it before I got there. But I decided not to reject WAC.

I had the fortunate position of always being a bit stubborn, a bit radical, and if someone wants to get me positive about something all I had to do was say something negative about it, especially if I don't like their face.

Of course I always repented that. But in the last 29, 30 years since I graduated, I actually did graduate from Moody. I just took their missions conference. They gave me another copy. It was quite an amazing meeting.

It was the final meeting of six meetings and the president of Moody, I had thrown my tie in the first meeting. I won't do that tonight. And he said, I'm going to give you this copy of your diploma but you must promise not to throw it at the audience.

I said, I will promise if you will take off that tie. And the president of Moody, most of the students thought it was actually painted there, took off his necktie and revival almost came. But in the past 30 years in going around the world researching and reading and looking and interviewing and loving, I've come to consider the World Evangelization Crusade one of the greatest missionary works I could ever, ever bump into.

It competes with my favorite China in the Mission OMF. They both really born out of Great Britain. Both had unique influences of the day and age in which the Mission was born. So often we make evaluations on the basis of hearsay.

So often we only have half the picture or a third of the picture. And this creates disunity. This creates confusion. And my plea tonight, and I just hope this sets the pace for your Missions Conference, your World Mission Week, to esteem others better than yourself.

Mobilizing Those Who Stay Home

Now you have a lot of people in America now who feel that they need to get into Christian education in America. Sometimes, I haven't even opened my mouth with someone because I know I represent foreign missions to some degree, and they're telling me automatically why they're staying in America.

And they describe America as such a pagan place that to leave it would be really to be a traitor. I remember speaking at Trinity Divinity College once and a fellow jumped up at lunch in a question and answer session and he said, it was amazing, he said, why are you missionaries taking all the cream overseas and leaving us here in America with just, I forget what he said, we left behind.

Well, if we've got all the cream on the mission field, some of it's gone sour, but I think he was a little bit over the top because only a tiny percentage, only a tiny percentage of people out of all of our colleges and universities and Christian institutions, a higher percentage from here than most places, go to the mission field.

Let us understand that. You can get a wrong idea here. How many of you, for example, are praying about seriously moving toward overseas service? Raise your hand. Okay, that's 80%. Does that give us a picture of the situation in the United States?

No, that would be a ridiculously foolish conclusion. I could take surveys in other meetings and only a few hands would go up. The fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, only a tiny percentage are going overseas.

Many who actually raise their hand in meetings like this who say they are going, never get there or never stay because it is complicated, society is complicated, the financing of mission work is one of the most complicated things I've ever studied.

And the key is that I wish that tonight I had all of those sitting here who are absolutely convinced that they're not going to the mission field. That's the group I want to speak to more and more. I wish I had here tonight 200 businessmen from Columbia, South Carolina.

I spoke to a few in the churches I spoke at yesterday because unless we see a grassroots movement in the churches among businessmen, among those who have the resources, among those who own all this land in all of America, then a high percentage of those who want to go will never go or they will never stay.

One of the leading missiologists in the nation just wrote me a letter and said in the 90s he believes the greatest mission in this problem will be the financing of those who want to go to the mission field.

Yet we know that all of these other various emphasis and various movements also have tremendous demands on our finance. And these things that are all around us, taking care of drug addicts, which I believe, working against abortion, which I believe in, having good contextualized spontaneous churches that can reach pagan Americans, which I also believe in, all of these things consume hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hundreds of millions of dollars. We have a million people, I believe somewhere near a million people in America who are in some kind of Christian employment or Christian work. It's incredible, huge amount of money to keep all of these different things going.

And something in me says somehow they should keep going, except those things that are cults or false doctrines or heresy. And therefore, the only way I can see world evangelization taking place between now and the year 2000 and beyond, is if we band together and the person who remains at home, who is convinced that he should stay at home, becomes a world Christian.

Winning Friends and Building Missionary Partnerships

Now, if you want to become a missionary, if you are really serious about this thing, not just playing games or somehow following in some kind of missionary following, then you are going to read that little book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

You know where I got the idea to push that book? Columbia Bible College, 30 some years ago, a man taught here. Was anybody here when Arthur Glasser taught here? Praise God, Arthur Glasser made his students at Columbia Bible College, in one of his classes, read How to Win Friends and Influence People and put scripture references to some of these things that Dale Carnegie sort of distorted and used for a more human approach to winning people.

It's a brilliant book. Many a marriage has been saved by that book. So you can start that again 30 years later. I don't have any copies. You don't have to order them from your bookstore. You've got to find a bookstore.

What am I saying? You have to learn to win people. I want you, each one of you, thinking about the mission field, to target 25 businessmen in the next six months. I want you to learn how to win people.

I want you to win some of the people here on the campus who are a little bit anti-missionary. You actually make them a little nervous. They're not going to go to your missionary prayer meeting. They feel God's leading them to stay here.

They're going to be a pastor, or they're going to be a Christian educator, or they're going to work among drug addicts, or work among youth, or plant churches in Columbia. That's the greatest need, more churches in Columbia, South Carolina.

And you need to not put them off as I do, but you need to win them. You need to esteem them. The next time you get real angry about something you see, you let love cover. We're going to talk about a book by that title in a little while.

You need to repent of your wrong attitude, repent of any superiority feeling, any missionary pride, any prayer meeting pride, any verbal messages pride, any other subtle forms of arrogance, and just love them, and win them.

I have a couple of friends, even from my high school, that somehow, somehow, despite all of my outspoken arrogance, they know I love them. Well, that's not true. The lack of teaching about support raising, about winning friends, about mobilizing God's people, about finding the resources, is hindering world evangelism as much as anything I can think of apart from just unadulterated lack of love and lack of faith or materialism, the real biggies.

And I pray that as you think about the field and you get this vision and you want to go, you will make friends. I was listening to this on the word of God this morning. I jogged down to the river early this morning.

It's a wonderful walk. You jog along the pipeline wondering if it's going to explode as you go. But I was listening to this scripture today about how often the people of the world are wiser than the people of light.

You know that scripture? We need to come together. We need to esteem one another so that we can say to this brother who feels he's led to stay here, well, if that's what God's leading you to do, that's tremendous.

I want to pray for you. Let's exchange names and addresses. I'll pray for your ministry. You pray for my ministry. I sense God is leading me to Copacabana. I sense God is leading me to India. Let's correspond.

Let's become partners. You're going to remain here. I'm going to go there. No more one-upmanship. No more we full-time Christian workers are God's elite. This poor turkey working down for IBM or this poor guy working down here in the local gas station, he's second-class.

We don't say that, but we infer it. We over-magnify, in America, so-called full-time Christian work. My opinion after 30 years is that many laymen are more committed to Jesus Christ than full-time Christian workers.

In fact, I think a lot of full-time workers are a bit lazy, including some in operation, mobilization, and one of the privileges I've had is to ease some of them out, and believe it or not, when they got home, some of them couldn't get a job.

My people are. It might be good for you to learn how to type, after all. It might be good for you to learn a trade. Somebody had a bumper sticker on their car. I follow a Jewish carpenter. Yes, unless we learn to esteem one another better than ourselves, unless we somehow are willing to take 1 Corinthians 13 and incorporate it into the heart of our life and our ministry, things aren't going to gel.

That revival isn't going to really come, and that world by the year 2000 isn't going to be reached. Now, a lot of people talk as if to reach the world by the year 2000 is really relatively easy. I always get a kick out of this.

They're usually from California, and the way they talk, it's quite humorous. The British and the Europeans in general can barely stand even to listen to these people. You cannot believe how many Europeans are against some of the things that come out of this country because of the way that it's stated.

They mean well, but their brains run just a little slower than their mouths, and so then it gets into print, and it comes over to Europe, and Europeans think differently than Americans. And, of course, every country in Europe is different.

And I know some people that are actually reacting to some of these statements, and they are convinced it will not happen. The world will not be evangelized by the year 2000, and we're just going to have to work up a big load of steam and all get disappointed in the next ten years.

Now, I'm somewhere in the middle. I believe it can happen. A lot depends on definition. Some are saying world evangelism. I notice the movement has now put and beyond. They just changed their name. Isn't that madness?

I think that was good. And beyond. For any of you that are still around, the year 2001, and missed the rapture, and beyond. Don't quote me on that. I don't believe we know the times and the seasons. So some believe that by the year 2000, we'll have a church in every people's group.

I think that would be the goal of quite a few. And then they add other things. A multiplying church. An indigenous multiplying church. An indigenous multiplying church that's able to indigenously multiply.

I have someone, I've worked a lot in Pakistan, one of my favorite countries, and I have someone that thought there were only a few unreached people's groups left in Pakistan. They weren't interested in working among the massive Muslim Urdu community because they heard there were some Urdu-speaking converts.

I mean, it's completely ridiculous. The great mass of the people of Pakistan, even though there are Urdu-speaking churches, are unbelievably unreached. Because those Urdu-speaking churches, and Urdu is not the first language of most people of Pakistan.

They are mainly people from an outcast background. Hardly any of them are from converted Muslim background. Therefore, they are unable to reach cross-culturally to their Muslim neighbors. So in fact, it's not just the Baluch and the Patans and a few others that are unreached in Pakistan.

A hundred million people in Pakistan, most of the people in Pakistan, of these huge Punjabi, Sindhi, other populations, are unreached. Jump over the border and you get to India. India has a hundred million Muslims.

Did I mention that already? Let me mention it again. A hundred million Muslims, a minority group, and as I already stated, they have no church. Now our leader of our work in India, we have 300 full-time people in India, some of the finest people I've ever met in my Christian life.

Our executive director is Joseph de Souza. He went to Lausanne. That was the next big thing after the Singapore thing. People can always criticize these big events, but my own personal conviction is that in the light of the task, in the light of the problems, in the light of all the factors, these events are needed and are used of God.

It's so easy to criticize what we don't really understand, and especially if it involves big money, because in fact many Christians, and we had quite a few of them in OM, are small-minded little people who are better at saving pennies than they are at believing God for the big money that's going to be needed to evangelize a world of 6 billion people.

So the money we spent on Lausanne, I didn't put much in. I think I sent a little bit to Prime the Pump in the early days. I've got a thank-you letter back. The money we spent on Lausanne or the Singapore year 2000 meeting, or the money you're spending to go through college or to throw up a few buildings and TPs and whatever else you've got around here, this is nothing.

This is small compared to the money we need to evangelize the whole world. Do you realize what our goals actually are? 6 billion people. In 1840, we had 1 billion in the whole world. 1840. That's not so long ago.

I know you weren't there, but it's not so long ago. 1 billion people. Now in the Indian subcontinent alone, where missionaries are finding it harder and harder to go, especially India, we have a billion people.

In China, we have more than a billion. Population explosion. Please study it. It'll depress you. It'll frighten you. If you're a committed Christian, you'll probably start screaming reading some of the books, but population explosion must invade our thinking if we are to reach the world by the year 2000.

Now my goals are not quite as high as some other people, though I'm more than willing for their goals, and I'm praying for my unbelief to be delivered and to grow in faith and all these things I need.

But my goal, and it's hard enough even having my own goal, which is much less than what I just talked about, is that everybody in the world would at least have the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ.

Now that's a lot easier. That's still impossible, but it's a lot easier than seeing a church planted in every single unreached people's group, which basically is meaningless. That means an escalation of what's been going on in missions by tenfold, by a hundredfold.

I don't know if we could classify it. But with radio, with technology, with mass mobilization of the man in the pew, mass mobilization of students and young people, think of the Mormons, they've got 26 ,000 on the field, one little cult, how many could we, the Church of Jesus Christ, if there was a major move, could mobilize?

And those mobilized people will mobilize others when they return to their own country, some of them after short-term work. They will leave behind, as we have seen all over the world, other people that have come to Jesus who live in that country.

They can't go anywhere else, but stay there. So I believe that through prayer, through hard work, through spreading the vision, through a much greater effort to release resources, through a revolution of love, that we can make Jesus Christ known to every man and woman in the world by the year 2000.

Whether we say it's evangelized or not, that doesn't matter so much to me. I don't think we can ever complete evangelizing. We have to keep re-evangelizing. I believe, together with this work of evangelism, we must also commit ourselves avidly, militantly, to renewal and restoration in the Church of Jesus Christ, that the principles we read about in the Word of God will be restored.

Prayer, Worship, and Renewal in the Church

Prayer as the heart, prayer and worship, as the heart of the Church's activities, as the heart of the worship, the missing jewel of the Evangelical Church. A high percentage of Christians I meet here in this country, it seems to me they do not understand worship.

What it is, just to worship God. I want you to pick up a book, if you can, from your bookstore. We have a few there on the back, called Destined for the Throne. Destined for the Throne. Billy Graham said something about this that I thought was very, very interesting.

If I can find out where he got it. He wrote it. Just hang on there and don't run away. Dedication to his wife. There it is. I have just read the manuscript of Paul E. Bilheimer's book, Destined for the Throne, and have been inspired and challenged by the insights and fresh interpretation of Scripture regarding prayer, praise, and the Church's place in the world.

Every Christian who feels impelled to find a deeper dimension of Christian witness should not only read this book, but study it prayerfully and apply its principles to his life. Billy Graham. Worship is our highest calling.

Whatever else we may be doing, whatever else we may be crusading for, whatever else we may be studying, the center of all of it should be our worship of God. Knowing God. Growing in God. Many writers, including Watchman Knee, have indicated that God is going to allow a lot of things to go wrong in your life to get you to that place where eventually you can say, this is the enough.

Have you ever had that? I believe revival and restoration within the Church of Biblical Christianity, which to me includes personal revival, is equally as important as world missions. I do not believe these things should be in competition.

This is why I don't believe the first need for Americans is to run off to the mission field. I believe they need to seek guidance from God. I believe they should seek guidance from God. Seek counsel from godly people.

I believe they should discover what their gifts are. I believe they should consider also what nationals can do living in their own country who already speak the language. And that's another great controversy that I find myself right in the middle of, since K .P. Yohanan dedicated his radical book to me.

And he and I have had some lively discussions on the subject because I am strongly committed to continuing to see Americans going out as missionaries and missionaries. But my plea is that they may be the right Americans.

They may be godly men and women. They may be humble men and women. They may be men and women who are dependent upon God. They may be men and women who know reality in prayer. No church in the world today that I know of is going to refuse committed, crucified, humble, godly people, whether they are Americans, Chinese, French, or Russian.

Why, those days, he here, these days here at Columbia Bible College are incredibly important. If I were you, I would consider it a rare privilege to be able to study in such an institution with such a godly leader as Robertson McQuelkin, where missions is so emphasized, where the Word of God is so emphasized, where faith has been a foundation principle from the earliest days of the college.

That doesn't mean it's perfect and nothing is perfect. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be changes for any college or any institution. That doesn't mean because anything for God, including operation mobilization, must be willing to change.