Durban Rally — George Verwer

Father, you know all about us. You know our heart. You know why we're here and we pray Oh God that by your spirit you would speak hide the speaker behind the cross and exalt your son the Lord Jesus Christ in whose Name we pray.

Amen. Perhaps we could turn again to the scripture that was read to us this evening from Romans Chapter 12. I'm very grateful for this privilege of being here in South Africa this opportunity to share with you something of the ministry of the ship Logos and Something of the burden that's on my heart for other countries.

I don't want to go too long, but there is much that I would like to share. I Would be greatly encouraged if I saw even a few people taking a few notes. I'm not here to appeal to your emotions. I'll let someone else do that.

I'm not here to appeal to your sentiments. But I'm here to appeal to your will. I believe only those Who will to follow Christ with all their heart in the long run will keep on following Christ. Many begin.

Following Christ Through Suffering and Discipleship

I Don't know much about South Africa. But in England and in America and many other parts of the world where I've lived. But though I'm an American I left Immigrated to Europe some 16 years ago. That's somewhat of a reversal to say the least and Have settled in Europe though.

I've spent about half my time in Asia mainly in India and Nepal. But in all these countries, I found that many Make a profession of faith in Christ. Go to church for a while. And then when things get rough the problems come.

The way of suffering and the Lordship of Christ is presented. Many of them dwindle away. We saw tens of thousands hundreds of thousands in America. Get on the Jesus bandwagon when it hit its first bumps.

They fell off. Praise God some stayed on and that's encouraging. God is working in the world today in the universities. Among professional people among laymen, I Think in most places we're finally Finally getting to the place where we realize the world is going to be evangelized.

Not by ministers and full-time workers, though. We need those people but the world is going to be reached by mr. And ms. And mrs. Joe ordinary. What some churches call the layman and I believe that is something that God wants to keep on our hearts tonight.

I also want to appeal to your intellect. I like Christians that think. Perhaps this is why I spend a lot of my time ministering in the universities throughout Europe. I Love the hard questions. I love to see the agnostics coming to Jesus.

I love to see the atheists taking up the cross and experiencing the new birth. Perhaps that's because my own grandfather from the Netherlands was an atheist and I was somewhat of a Agnostic nice myself though.

I was more just a normal good old American pagan Romans chapter 12. We've read it. I won't read it again. But this chapter has spoken to me many times. It speaks to me above all else. Of the simple biblical fact that Christ demands all.

Christ demands all. But I sometimes wonder if we even know what that means anymore. Tozer said we have measured ourselves by ourselves for so long. That we no longer have higher plateaus in the things of the spirit.

Could this not be true? We seem to be quite content thinking that at least I'm as dedicated as the rest. That's not a very safe way to live. Just looking at other people. Saying well, I'm as dedicated as they are.

Operation Mobilization as a School of Discipleship

The burden of operation mobilization and the ship Logos is to present the message of discipleship and spiritual reality. If Logos comes to Durban, they do not come as a great group of super victorious missionaries.

But they come as a school. Logos in a real way is a school. Everybody on Tuesday night gathers for classes. Every morning, there's Bible teaching and prayer. Almost everybody is reading and studying books.

We have one of the largest cassette libraries in the world on the ship. Some young people go through 200 cassettes Taking notes and studying messages from some 20 to 50 different men of God from all over the world.

We are training young people Who after a year or two will leave Logos and go back to their churches or Back out to some mission field to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. About 600 graduates of Logos and OM Are now working with almost every major mission in the world.

I Never go anywhere without meeting some XOM errs Who received some training and challenge and inspiration? From OM and during their time on OM. Right now we are again praying forth laborers for our summer crusade.

The ship is only a small part of this worldwide outreach that has grown up over the past decade and a half. We go back to the earliest roots to Mexico almost two decades. This summer and this is an item of prayer that you may want to write down our main target.

Are the six million Muslims of Western Europe? I wonder if you knew That Western Europe had so many Muslims. Germany has half a million to a million Turks. Germany is so prosperous. There's no one to do any of their work.

They have to bring in the Turks and the Italians and people from other parts of the world. This is causing no small amount of difficulties, especially with unemployment going up in Germany. So now they're sending the Turks home.

It's interesting How all these things take place, but there's still a half a million Turks in Germany. What a challenge that is considering that there are 37 million people in Turkey and only about 50 Believers among the real Turks.

Some of you had the opportunity About an hour or two ago to see the Turkish film strip and I believe your eyes were open as you saw. What a difficult and impossible situation that is. Our great prayer right now throughout the whole o .m. World is that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers Into the harvest.

Will you join us in that prayer? We believe that between 2000 and 2 ,500 men and women Need to unite together this summer in our various mobilizations around the world as This great campaign is taking place in Europe.

Logos will come into Cape Town and then Lord willing into Durban. It is our prayer and this is why I'm here to Pray and to seek God about the ship coming to Durban and if a large enough number of churches the leavers Feel this is God's will then we believe it will be his plan to come in mid-july.

As we're launching out among those Muslims. We'd like to launch out among these 400 ,000 Indians who? Seem to be living here. One man said to me there's less than that. But an Indian told me today there must be more than that.

So I don't know doesn't matter. We believe that If God brought the ship here, it could be a great challenge To the believers as well as a great outreach to those who don't yet Know the Lord Jesus Christ.

A Testimony Born Through One Woman’s Prayer

I think to give you a greater understanding of all this. I should give my own personal testimony. I Think that will help you why I feel so strongly About some things. Also, there may be someone here tonight Who doesn't yet know the Lord Jesus Christ and perhaps my own testimony of how I came to Christ would be of some help to you.

I Wasn't reared in a true Christian home. My grandfather as I mentioned was an atheist from the Netherlands. My father was also born in Holland. And then immigrated to New York City just outside the city.

My other grandfather was a more tame fellow. He was a drunkard from Glasgow. So I had an interesting background. My father was just sort of a typical middle-class somewhat hard-working materialist. Who injected me with a great passion for money?

Great passion for pleasure for sports and for women. This was my life. You cannot imagine how fast life goes in New York City. And what people are involved in even at 14? By 16 most of my weekends were in the nightclubs of New York.

I Started to peddle pornography in my high school. And I had two or actually three small businesses. I had this great capitalistic dream of making money and not working. Into this situation came a gospel of John an Elderly lady who wasn't really that old but everything over 25 when I was 16 looked like an antique Began to pray for me.

She prayed for me for three years. She had been praying for that high school for 15 years. Persevering in prayer. She really had the life and she really had the love and she coupled life and love with prayer and I can assure you That's an unstoppable combination.

15 years she persevered in prayer. Not only that people Would be converted to Christ in that school. But she prayed that people would go from that school that there would be a movement of God in that school.

That would cause people to go all over the world. Presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ. Operation mobilization is a direct result of the prayers of that one woman. She sent me a gospel of John through the post.

This began to melt my heart though. It took three years. She kept praying for me those three years every year. I got worse. She kept praying. The teachers who taught me. Many of them gave up on me and they blacklisted me from getting on the Honor Society, even though I had high grades.

So this little blacklisted. Nobody in this high school became more and more of a radical and I became the president of a rattle a rather radical student body. One-third of which was drunk every weekend but she kept praying and in a miraculous way.

I Ended up going to an evangelistic meeting in New York City where Billy Graham was speaking. I Did not even know what evangelism was. No one in my family knew Jesus Christ. I Did go to a very good church.

Like many Dutchman a good reformed church. But in this particular church, no gospel was ever preached. I Can't say that's true about every reformed church because my parents now because they also got converted shortly after I did Joined a different church of the same denomination that preaches the gospel.

What a difference it is back that church partially partially supports my wife and I. And it was there that night. In that huge meeting in Madison Square Garden that I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior as my master as my friend and if there's any of you that have never had that experience I I would beseech you to trust Christ tonight.

To give him your heart and let his love fill your life. It is not some kind of a religious trip. It couldn't have lasted 23 years if it was just that. It's a real experience with God. Jesus said you must.

The Necessity of Being Born Again

You must be born again. You may be religious. You may go to church. Maybe a good reform would. I've heard they had a few of these here in South Africa. In fact, I spoke in one of the biggest ones in the nation in Cape Town, but if you're not born again, you're lost.

Your father may be a preacher. But if you're not born again, you're lost. You may have been baptized in America. We baptize some people two times over backward. You're not born again. You're still lost.

I was religious. During that period of time in the midst of all the other crazy activities I decided to get involved in church. The pastor. He didn't know Christ either made me his assistant. And the Boy Scouts gave me the highest award.

Religious award the Boy Scouts can ever give. I tried to get in the Girl Scouts, but didn't quite make it. And I was still lost. So you see you can be very religious. And lost and that's a scary position to be in.

You can even pray or try to pray for Logos and be lost you must Be born again. And if Logos comes to Durban that will be our message. You must be born again to Muslims. I was interviewed for television yesterday here.

Very interesting interviewer. His sixth question was loaded. But I got him so caught up in the first five we had to cut the time and he didn't get to number six. Was you know, how can we possibly think that a good moral Muslim needs Jesus Christ?

So we didn't get to that question for the television, but I handled that with him personally afterward and gave him my testimony. And why I Believe that Jesus Christ is the only way the only truth and the only life.

The problem with us sophisticated modern men is we like to be so proud of ourselves that we can understand everything. We will never understand everything. There are many things in this life. We must take by faith.

If you ever met these agnostics who say they only believe what they see. We are so inconsistent. The same man goes out to the airport. Gets on an airplane. He doesn't know anything about Flowing under a pilot that he's never met.

And even the pilot still doesn't fully understand all the laws of aerodynamics. Anymore than the electrician can fully explain electricity. They can't. I Believe the only way to live on this planet is by faith.

You can try every other road. Now the big thing in Europe is the philosophy of despair. This is the latest biggest way of life in Europe. If you want to understand it study the writings of dr. Francis Schaeffer under the teachings of philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre a great mass of Europeans now believe.

Despair is the only answer. They sit in little circles. Sometimes without clothes sometimes in other ways they just sit in total despair. Sartre said there is no exit. Men like Jaspers came along after Sartre and said the only exit is a final experience.

This is why people are going into the drug experience. This is why people can even murder someone in an attempt to get the final experience to find meaning in life. We have entered in to a whole new era and words that once had meaning today have no meaning and I believe just as in the in the world of philosophy.

It is necessary to define terms and there's this whole emphasis on relative thinking relative morals. So if we are not careful Into the church comes this relativistic thinking so that the great biblical terms No longer mean what they used to mean.

And we can talk to people about dedication sacrifice the love of God and all these things and It has no meaning. God saved me that night sent me back to my ungodly high school and Taught me to pray. The first thing that it seems God taught me next to witnessing was to pray and There in that ungodly school that that lady had prayed for for so many years we started prayer meetings.

We started half nights of prayer. Can you imagine teenagers? Football players. Coming and spending half nights in prayer. How many young people go to your prayer meetings? The one major effort with young people is to keep them from understanding the power and the way of prayer.

He gets young people to think that prayer is for elderly ladies. It is it's for everybody. But it was young men and women. I was only 17 myself That started these prayer meetings that today have spread all over the world.

There are several of them right here in South Africa that some of you are involved in they can be traced back 22 years and Then back another 15 years through the life of that one lady. The church looks for better methods.

South Africa has had quite a gift in copying America on a number of points. I hope you won't be offended by that. I'm sure most of your things are original. But everybody has copied America. We have been the mass Exporters of every kind of gimmick, especially religious gimmick.

The world has ever dreamed of may God help us. Now fortunately in the midst of it, we've exported a few good things as well a few men of God. Few dedicated missionaries and it is exciting. Because I just believe if God can change an American like me he can change anybody.

Anybody so there's plenty of scope for you. The church looks for better methods. This has been the emphasis of the American brand of evangelicalism exported in the past hundred years. But God looks for men.

That's the message of EM bounds. It's a message of many men praise God even a few Americans. For God is no respecter of persons. I Am convinced as Samuel Chadwick once said that the greatest single effort of Satan will be to destroy your prayer life.

If he gets your prayer life if he gets your quiet time if he if he drives up your church prayer meeting, he's got you. Everything else is just a matter of time and I want this time as short as it is here in South Africa.

Prayer, Revival, and Spiritual Renewal

To be a call to prayer. The need in Durban is not logos. The need in Durban is men and women. Anointed of God. Many women seeking the face of God. Men and women who will present their bodies as a living sacrifice.

Holy and acceptable to God which is their reasonable service with such men and women. Logos will never need come. If it comes it'll only be to get a blessing from you. Of course oftentimes God draws people together to work together and this is what we envision if the ship comes here.

Did God answer her prayers? Did God work through those prayer meetings in the ungodly high school? I'll never forget a meeting just like this. There were 600 students. I've been out of the school six months by a miracle.

Even the principal allowed me to come back. We have seen God work somewhat before I left some had been converted the prayer meetings took place. But the work of the Spirit Continued in a greater way when I left.

And so they invited me back. Now never forget this meeting was in an auditorium about twice the size of this there in the school. 600 were in the meeting. I didn't know how to preach. I gave my testimony.

I shared some Bible verses from the little track four things. God wants you to know. And I asked how many students wanted to repent of their drunkenness their immorality their pride their middle middle class sophistication.

And 125 students Left their seats and went into the school cafeteria. Many of them with tears running down their face to repent and take Christ as their Savior. One woman 15 years. And a school is brought to its knees and a movement is born that in turn in two decades has reached 240 million not thousand two hundred and forty million people face-to-face around the world a 140 million of them alone in the subcontinent of India where we now have an army of 200 men and women.

One woman prayed. And God began to move. We often sing that chorus in the West. It only takes a spark to get a fire going. But I want to tell you with a chilly atmosphere we provide in some of our churches even sparks can't seem to get going.

Oh May God revive the church. May God revive our clergymen far too many of them who carry on their ministry for the sake of money. Instead of living for the glory of God in a humble Christlike way as it's demonstrated by the man of Galilee.

Unless revival can come to the clergyman. Perhaps I speak more for Europe in South Africa. You'll have to judge your own nation then. I don't believe we'll see revival and renewal in the Church of Jesus Christ.

Every kind of crazy sin has invaded the church. You don't need to go to the world to become worldly. You only need to go to the church. The love of money the love of ease the praise of men. Slothfulness sleepiness and even impurity that has put hundreds of our pastors in North America and Europe Into every kind of crazy situation.

Divorce is now the order of the day. I know pastors that face even evangelical congregations that have no more than 20 No less than 10 20 or 30 divorces in their own church now. Even many of our Christian leaders or to correct that I should say some are.

Having divorces. We have one man in the United States got divorced on the west coast. Went to the east coast remarried divorced on the east coast went to the west coast remarried. Of course, it's a big country.

There's plenty of scope. Praise God for Roy Hessian who has now written this book called forgotten factors. Speaking about the problem of immorality in the Church of Jesus Christ. My burden is renewal among God's people first and then evangelism.

Second though, I believe most of the time they go hand in hand. God moved in the high school. And then God began to move in the college that I was attending in the southern part of the United States. There were just a few of us.

We met regularly in prayer. We went out in practical evangelism. And no later on I spent two years in Bible College. I Learned more from the word and about the Christian life in that secular college that I learned in Bible College.

I'm not against Bible College and we send many many hundreds of our young people in the Bible College. But nothing neither Bible College nor OM Produces instant spirituality and There is no substitute for on-the-job training getting out with people.

Practical Ministry Among Prisoners and the Poor

I worked with alcoholics. What lessons I learned. I visited the prison every week working among prisoners. I Was only 18. I was scared. I didn't know what to say. But boy did I learn something in That jail first the jail and then a prison.

Some of my prisoners graduated after they accepted Christ. Went into the state penitentiary and here I was at 19 preaching to 500 convicts in the state penitentiary. The state of Tennessee and I saw God working among these prisoners.

Then I went and worked in the poor sections, you know in America. We have many many poor people. You may not believe that. We certainly did back in the 50s, I haven't been there so much in the past past 15 years.

We went down into the poor areas where many of the children didn't even know who their fathers were. And what lessons I learned working with people of a totally different cultural strata. Then I had the blessing of working with people of other races and backgrounds and nationalities.

Then God took three of us into Mexico. This led to another life-changing experience for Mexico, I met people that Were poorer beyond anything. I even thought existed on this planet. I Remember going out to a garbage dump.

I Don't know what you call it here. Rubbish tip. I think we call it in England and They're out in this garbage dump with all the garbage and a smell that could have knocked you over. People were living.

I picked up a little baby. You had no less than 60 or 70 flies crawling across her little body. Her mother sat inside a little hut made of garbage and string and tin cans as she gave milk to another baby.

Talked to another little girl because I'd learned Spanish. I asked her what she had for lunch and she said garbage soup. Perhaps the next time you complain about one of your meals. You may remember the little girl in Mexico With her garbage soup.

I Couldn't believe it. I Remember vividly walking away from that garbage dump. Looking at the sunset and Recommitting my life again to Jesus Christ. I knew I never could be the same After that experience in Mexico.

I Knew I never could return to my middle-class way of life. And I had to go Wherever God wanted me to go. But especially among the poor and the masses who don't have the opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Mexico when we went there 50 of the people Had never had a scripture portion and as we sit here tonight in this beautiful church in this incredibly prosperous country. Half the people in the world have never had a gospel tract.

That cost one South African cent to print. Half the people in the world have never received the gospel. And we don't believe this is right. We believe this is the crime of the century. And so as we came back from Mexico We came back with a new vision.

Little did we realize because the name operation mobilization didn't even exist. Little did we realize what God was doing. That this was the birth to some degree of what today is known all over the world as short-term missionary work.

And though this was considered rather wild and we were widely criticized. Today almost every major mission and denomination has started their own short-term work. Many of them in many cases can be traced back to OM and to this work in Mexico.

We saw that we could help the missionaries during the summer. We saw there was a job to be done literature could be given out. Records gospel records could be played. Physical work could be done and in the process we could at least begin to learn the language.

We went back. I went back to this very interesting college and I knew I could not continue with my studies. We don't challenge young people to leave their studies. Most people on OM if they're studying finish their studies, but I could not.

I could not go on and get a university degree. God would not let me. And I transferred out and I did something that my parents thought was completely insane. Though they had already just become believers themselves and were beginning to understand.

You know, it takes time for Dutchman to get the message. My father was beginning to understand The way that the Holy Spirit works. And so I transferred to Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. Didn't know anything about the place but it was in Chicago and why my one main burden was to get into a big ugly city with lots of drunks and Chicago seen and more drunks in people at least where I was living and so I spent two years working among alcoholics in Chicago and Did some studying on the side.

I also went door-to-door among the Spanish-speaking people. I Found that what I was getting in class was becoming real in my life. Because I was constantly using it winning people to Christ in the summertime going back to Mexico.

Through this a whole unique System or method has been developed of training people. Letting them go to Bible school, but Taking them in the summer in evangelism. So what they hear what they study what they learn becomes a functional practical reality in their life.

This was the birth of OM in practical terms somewhat new way. First not accepted by mission leaders. Today accepted by almost all. Because it works. Because teams doing this kind of work in France with the missionaries have been planted 13 churches because these same teams have pioneered unreached areas in more than 20 nations and have seen even churches born in some of those nations as Believers or people are brought to Christ and trained and discipled and brought together in a local worshiping community and once again this summer In Europe an army will move to reach a continent for Christ.

International Missionary Mobilization and Indigenous Leadership

I've actually more or less just come back from Mexico. When we first went to Mexico, of course, we were told this was fly-by-night. How could teenagers and people 20 years of age? Establish a proper work for God.

Well, if it's fly-by-night you can judge. But I think we just finished our 18th Christmas crusade. And our young men Mexicans who were converted and who worked together in the early days are still going on.

In the Christian bookshops, we open they're still going on and the radio broadcasts are still going on. And today God has opened the door in most of the churches in Mexico to work together in evangelism.

Mexicans have even launched out to work in places like Nepal India from the very beginning of our work. We took a very unusual step. That was not accepted 19 years ago. Total internationalization. Any national from any country coming with us worked on an equal level with us.

This now has been accepted in the past decade by almost every major mission society because we cannot continue to evangelize India to evangelize various parts of the Middle East if We from the United States go out on one level and expect the man from the Middle East or the Indian to be on another Level we have to work with them and treat them as brothers.

Not only that the only way our work can continue in a place like India is now Twelve years after the work was born. We have to work under them they have to be the leaders in their own country and God has blessed this and has raised up an army of leaders all over the world.

Most of the nationals in their own country. They know their own culture. They know their own language. They know how to face the problems in their own society and this has led to tremendous blessing and the and and and thousands thousands have come to profess the Lord Jesus Christ.

The work quickly crossed from Mexico to Spain and to abbreviate. What happened. I can only say that in those days we had two main visions. One was the Muslim world. The other was a communist world. Soon as I arrived in Spain with my wife who always manages to hide somewhere in the back row.

But she is with me. When we when we arrived in Spain a missionary told us just before we got there. He said if you hear anything big is happening in Spain, you know, it's a lie. It's real encouragement, but within two years God broke that country wide open.

Within four years we had taken the gospel to every town village crack-and-corner of the entire nation churches were being born a Land that was closed open though for the two years. We were there when it was closed.

It didn't matter. We sent nine hundred thousand pieces of literature through the post. Soon Spaniards were taking over the leadership. My wife and I were looking for another place to go. I Thought and in those days that this would be the Soviet Union.

I had studied Russian. I had learned to type in Russian so in 1961 I Went on my first trip into the Soviet Union. We went into Yugoslavia first distributing the Word of God secretly then in the Czechoslovakia flooding out the Word of God in the night.

But in the Soviet Union due to my own error, I was arrested by the Soviet secret police. This was a very important and significant experience in my life. Because I had to humble myself realize I had made a mistake.

Secondly realize I wasn't ready for that work. Thirdly on the way back from that Soviet Union experience with a lovely submachine gun escort God brought into view This name operation mobilization up to that time.

It was unheard of didn't exist. We were working under an old name called send the light. And it was in a day of prayer in southern Germany on the way back to Madrid Spain. Then I realized that first of all, we must make an impact in Western Europe.

First of all, the church in Western Europe must be revived and renewed to some degree and That as we were trained in Western Europe in a more easy environment. Then if it be God's will it could flow over more carefully into this communist and into these communist areas.

This is exactly what has happened in the past decade. Though all that happens in these communist areas is not officially called operation mobilization. And when people ask me if we work there, of course, I tell them and officially we don't.

God's Spirit is and The Word of God is going out by a number of different groups. Some groups allow publicity other groups say nothing. But I can tell you sometimes the ones that are seeing more done.

But the Word of God is going out, you know all the Soviet block and I believe as we pray. Now we can see even more take place. By the next summer the vision had exploded. 300 young people joined in Western Europe to go through our training program.

This is when a young girl Named Heather Wiles found out about OM. After receiving her wonderful university education in one of your great universities. She turned her back on it all and went to France.

Spent part of her life there working among prostitutes. She joined OM in 1963 and That's when we had two thousand young people Unite together and move out across France Italy Austria Belgium and many other countries.

It was Heather who eventually got some of us, you know, I'm aware of South Africa and Really if it wasn't for her and then her mother I wouldn't be here. Heather was with us a log house when we sailed around Africa and then labored with us in the land of India and later in Nepal.

How we praise God? For one girl who was willing to turn her back on this all-too-comfortable country. Don't misunderstand me. But I do believe that comfort is a great enemy of spiritual reality. Not that God never wants us to be comfortable.

We in OM have Incredible comfortable situations and usually after we're in them for a while we get kicked out of them again. God is not calling you into asceticism. He is calling you into a warfare. The good is the enemy of the best and so oftentimes God's people are involved in good things instead of the best.

The Church’s Mission in a World on Fire

This is a very nice church. Makes me think I'm back in the United States. Cleaning the windows is good. Cleaning the carpet is good. But if the church was burning down I wonder how wise it would be to bring in the vacuum cleaner or start cleaning the windows and Beloved the world is burning up.

AW Tozer said the whole world is a disaster area. Nothing is right nor will be right until put right by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. When is the church going to rise up in March as we sung about before we have this message tonight.

AW Tozer a man with tremendous insight. Said this he said if any secular company Needed so much raw material to get so little finished product as the Church of Jesus Christ. It would go bankrupt in six months.

You are an industrial nation if your industries ran the way the church runs. They would no longer be in business. I Believe we've got to go back to this book Which teaches that every man and woman in the church is active for God.

Every man and woman who loves Christ is in the prayer meeting every week. Unless they're sick or out in some kind of special work. Every man and woman in the church filled with a spirit and moving forward in the power of God.

Many of our young people Cannot get their church to stand behind them when they go out. The church is not interested. They're usually building a new building or paying for another electronic organ or raising the pastor's salary or doing something else.

They're not interested in sending missionaries out to the uttermost parts of the earth. Except maybe a few but they go anyway. Because ultimately we must obey God rather than man. Ultimately if Jesus tells us to evangelize the world we will go.