What on Earth Is God Doing — Peter Conlan

Whenever you pray, and I know you do pray for us, and I thank you for that, and for writing to us from your missions department in the church, we value your prayer. One of the things that, I guess one of the most important things I would always ask prayer for is my family when I'm traveling.

They carry a far greater burden than I carry. Birgitta carries a far greater burden than I carry in OM, and that's actually true in many different ways, but particularly the pressures of running the family while I'm away.

And then whenever you pray for me, you know my ongoing battle with airplanes, my fear of flying. I actually came through one of the worst experiences, I mean it's almost humorous looking back on it, but just before the summer I took a trip out to Vietnam, and to China, and to Indonesia.

And I'll be sharing a little bit later on some slides from Vietnam, from North Vietnam, Hanoi, and then down in Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City. And I was flying, I was dreading this flight for months because it was the only, there was no other way you could fly from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City except by flying Vietnam Air, Air Vietnam, it should be Scare Vietnam.

And it was an old 1955 Russian airplane. What did you say? Actually the DC, the Dakota. Oh, not as good as the Dakota, oh no, old DC -3, DC -4, I've bombed around the Himalayas in those many, many times, no trouble, but no, no, no, this was an old clapped out, dilapidated Russian aircraft, and I was a little nervous when I got on, and I saw in the ceiling there were cobwebs with spiders in there, and the thought did cross my mind, when was this last airborne?

And the other interesting thing is the baggage was all down the center aisle, so you literally had to crawl over people's baggage, I was seated right at the back of the plane, and the other thing is they actually had behind my seat a wooden bench, and they jammed a Vietnamese family in behind my, no seat belts or anything like that, totally primitive and chaotic and rather scary, and I of course was the only English-speaking person on the plane, so even my desire to communicate when I'm in those kind of frightening situations couldn't really be met.

I had, I think, a Cambodian gentleman next to me, and he was just sort of making the right signals, but didn't understand a word I was saying, and slowly, ever so slowly, we thundered down the runway, and I was praying for Bagheera and the girls, and asking the Lord to forgive me for these wild adventures, and promising him I'd never do this again, and ever so slowly, we gathered speed finally, and it seemed like we just came off, and then down again, and up, and one of those very slow climbs, and the engines are just, and I'm just claiming underneath of the everlasting arms, keep them there, Lord, keep them there, and finally we managed to get our altitude, and on our way, about a thousand, twelve hundred miles down to what used to be called Saigon, now is called Ho Chi Minh City, and I suppose it was about halfway there, when the captain came out of the cockpit, and into what the Americans euphemistically call the rest room, the toilet, and no sooner had he gone in and closed the door, than he came out, and threw the door open, and started clambering over the baggage, down to the end of the plane where I was, to give a lecture to the stewardess, and to shout, and scream at her, and tell her that there was no light bulb in the toilet.

Well, that worries me a little bit, if there's no light bulb in the toilet, are there any other essential electrical things missing? But this, this was very, I mean up to now, there were no problem folks.

Finally, he'd vented his anger on this dear lady, and nothing she could do, so he clambered all the way back down, and then just to give one last sort of protestation, he just pointed into the toilet, and then kicked the door closed, and as he sort of turned around to kick the door closed, his elbow caught the security door of the cabin, of the cockpit, and slammed it closed.

I turned to my Cambodian friend, and looked at him, and I pointed to the captain who is standing outside of the cockpit, with the door locked, then I saw an airline pilot do something I never want to see again, at 30 ,000 feet.

He went like this, he was searching for the key to get back into the cockpit. I was praying, you know, I've often prayed, you know, no man can open the door once you've closed it. I was praying, Lord Jesus open that door, and finally he got in there, and you know, as it happened, I thought to myself, I bet I'll laugh about this, but I was not laughing at the time, believe you me.

Well, I shall share with you a little of the more, I think, thrilling things that happened. Okay, that was not in-flight entertainment, but I'll tell you something, when actually I arrived in Hanoi, going through customs, that's a very interesting experience, Hanoi customs, and your baggage comes out of a hole in the wall, just the size of a suitcase, that's it, it comes through a hole, and you wait there, and when I went through the customs, this officer, communist soldier, looked at me, and in French, he said to me, Monsieur, he said, do you have any counter-revolutionary literature?

Well, I thought to myself, I have some very revolutionary literature, but counter-revolutionary, and I smiled at him, I said, do I look like a counter-revolutionary? And anyway, he let me through, he let me through, and I actually believe that God's going to give us something of a burden for Vietnam, not just because of the stories I've told, but I think a little later, the Lord's going to perhaps burden our hearts as I share, but I don't want to do that immediately, I want just to turn to the Scriptures, Isaiah 43, and I'll tell you right now, I'm not actually going to preach tonight, but I want to share, almost to chat with you a little bit, and share with you some of the things that God has been challenging us afresh about, in OM, and I just, as I prayed about this, I thought, well, I suspect that there's going to be some overlap, that God is going to be also, probably, and always He is, saying to us here at Kingshurst, these are some of the things I want you to be thinking about, praying about.

God’s New Thing in the Present Work of the Church

Actually, if you want a theme, it would be, God is doing a new thing, and that really is our testimony in these days in OM, and I'm not quite sure even how this session is going to go, but let's just pray together, and ask that God would, first of all, excite our hearts with what He is doing anew, not just in OM, but in this world today, and maybe give us some direction, how we, and I know we want to be part of that new thing that God is doing, in His world, and in His church.

Father, we thank you for the joy, and the real pleasure of fellowship, and friendship that we've had today. Thank you for the fresh air, even the rain, and the good food. Lord, that was a good meal tonight.

We thank you for that. Lord, we thank you for food from your Word, that nourishes our souls, and we pray that you'd give clarity, in our sharing together this evening. Guide us, as we look into your Word, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Isaiah 43, and verse 14 says, this is what the Lord says, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. So, the Redeemer is speaking. We were talking this morning about the Father, weren't we? But it's the Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Down to verse 18, forget the former things. He actually has just reminded them, of some of the great events in their history. And it is good to be reminded of the way God has led. But then He says, forget the former things.

Do not dwell on the past. See I'm doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I'm doing a new thing. It's springing up right in your midst. Do you not perceive it? I believe that this past decade, ten years, may well go down in history as the most fruitful, miraculous, amazing decade in missionary history.

I can think of many great moments, as you and I have read the history of missions. We can see the time when Carey stood up in that missionary conference, here in England. And although they shouted him down and said, look if God wants to evangelize the heathen young man, he'll do it without your help or mine.

And despite all of that discouragement, the great courage, and the stickability of somebody like William Carey, who went out to India and pioneered, not just India, but this modern era, this last 200 years of missions.

There have been moments like that, great moments in missionary history. But what is happening now, and has been happening in this past ten years, I have nothing that I can compare that with, in my own experience.

And my experience isn't that long, but I've been now serving the Lord with OM for the last 20 years. So at least I have another 10 years to compare the last 10 years with. What I have seen, and what we are seeing around the world.

Do you realize that this week, 2 ,500 new churches, new fellowships, came into being around the world. Isn't that something? 2 ,500 churches, fellowships, beginning, the beginning of a church, every week, around the world.

That is a fact, that is happening, that's being monitored, not just a guess. 2 ,500. You know, I was thinking I'm going to tell you about one of the great big ones that's been born. And we've seen a few of those around South America, when we were even last year in West Africa.

But just two weeks ago, Birgitta and I were at the OM annual Field Leaders Conference in Holland. And our workers from literally all over the world come together every year for prayer, and a bit of that refueling we were talking about this morning.

And sharing experiences, and just bonding, getting a little of heart knitting together, which is vital as you move forward. One of the most moving testimonies I heard was Brother Julian, who I think Ian you'll know him, from Turkey.

And he came up to me, I was leading some of the meetings, he said Peter I've really got something, I'm bursting, I've got to share it. Can you fit me in? I said Julian we want to hear it, let's get you up there.

And he shared with us the testimony of a German brother in OM that had been put in prison in Turkey. Don't know this brother's name, you may well know him. And he had in his cell, or in the prison there, it was in Eastern Turkey, there was also a Kurdish rebel who'd been put in prison, Muslim Kurd.

And this German brother had been brought before the local magistrate, and told look if you promise to be a good boy, behave yourself, we won't keep you, we don't really want to keep you, you're a bit of a nuisance to us here.

So if you'll just give your word that you'll cool down a little bit, don't be too evangelistic, and don't sort of rock the boat, we'll let you go. And this brother shook his head that I can't make that promise, and they put him back in prison.

He'd been witnessing to this Kurd, but it hadn't made much impact. But when this Kurd watched this Christian brother came back into prison, having been given the opportunity of freedom but refused it, this made quite an impression upon the Kurdish rebel.

I think it was two nights later in his sleep, this Kurdish young man received a vision of the Lord Jesus. Next day he told the OM brother who was there in prison, said look I've just had a dream, and I don't really understand it, but I saw the Jesus you're telling me about standing in my dream.

Will you tell me about it? And our brother had the joy of leading that Kurdish young man to Christ. Eventually the Kurd was released and went back to his village in eastern Turkey. You might think end of story, but this is where Julian now picks up the story.

He was visiting this past summer, that village in eastern Turkey, and the village name was Bingo. Can't forget that can you? What does that mean in Turkish? Bingo. To his amazement he found in this little Kurdish village in eastern Turkey, Muslim, 100 Muslim, there was a small church born.

There were ten believers, Kurdish believers now, in that village. That one young man had led to Christ. And the interesting thing is that four of those ten were what you might call head family men. They were shop owners, all of them.

So if you went to the butchers, he was a Christian in that village. If you went to the baker, he was a Christian in that village. If you went to the metal worker, he was a Christian. Can you, isn't that exciting?

In a Kurdish village in eastern Turkey this past summer, a church has been discovered that nobody knew anything about. That was the testimony that Julian gave. Every day, 2 ,500 churches, fellowships, communities of believers, born, knitting together to begin a work of God in their area.

Every day, hard to grasp this, every day, 85 ,000 people are coming to Christ. Every day. 85 ,000 people, new Christians, every day. One of the things that excites me so very much is something else. 100 years ago, if you had gone to Africa as a missionary, you would have discovered that practically all of Africa was pagan, animist, Muslim in the north, but definitely not Christian.

Today, 60 of black Africa calls itself Christian. 10 ,000 new Christians came into existence last year, and the year before, when the Doulas was in Africa. We've never seen that kind of response. Peter and I and the family were living there just to prepare for the Doulas.

We had no idea that God was going to bless beyond anything. Just as we were saying this morning, any of our plans, they all were shot through the decks. As we saw first hundreds and then thousands turned to Christ, and today are being followed up all the way around Africa.

I'll never forget an open-air meeting I attended. It was a bonfire, and we were all gathered around the bonfire. One of the new believers had brought her fetishes, her magic books, her charms, and burnt them in a big bonfire, just like the Ephesian revival of the Book of Acts.

And we all stood around and sung this, pow, pow, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb. And you just sensed in this battle between the forces of evil, and the forces of Jesus Christ, the victory was being won.

And people were being liberated, and coming to Christ. There's exciting things happening around Africa. Our ships have just, the Logos has just returned from El Salvador, and Nicaragua. And just that story alone would excite us, if we could tell you the story of what happened in Nicaragua, and El Salvador, and Guatemala.

But just to know that in the last five years, the Church has tripled in that war-torn, devastated part of the world. Something that has really excited me is how, oh I must just say this, another brother that gave his testimony at our conference two weeks ago, was Luis Perfetti.

Luis Perfetti is our Argentinian director. When we went to Brazil in 1977, my wife and I were the first OEMers to arrive in South America. And we set up camp there, didn't we, and with our young family, and wondered however they would take to Operation Mobilization.

And we had no representatives anywhere. And contacted Luis Perfetti down in Buenos Aires, in Argentina. And when the Dulas first arrived in Buenos Aires, we had about 500 churches that we knew about, that we were in touch with.

That was the number of churches in Buenos Aires, 500. Luis Perfetti, two weeks ago, stood up in our conference and said, brothers and sisters, God has been working in Argentina. You may not have heard about it, but today he said there are 1 ,500 churches, evangelical, live churches, in Buenos Aires alone.

And that's happening right the way across Argentina, and Brazil, and Chile, and even in Venezuela and other parts of South America. God is working in new and exciting ways. You know, I think one of the most significant things that's happened in missions, is the way the non-western church has caught the missionary vision.

Have you met some of them? Koreans, Chinese, some Africans, Nigerians. I tell you, when Nigerians get going for God, you better watch out. They are something very special. And today it's estimated there are 20 ,000 non-western missionaries serving the Lord around the world.

Isn't that exciting? And we see some of them just in their embryo stage, coming with OM. We've got about 40 or 50 Latin Americans with OM. About 70 Chinese young people, Africans, Egyptians, all just from all over the world.

I don't know if you've got any Eskimos. I'd love to see some Eskimos in OM. But God is working in the non-western world, and the missionary force, the dynamic of missions today, is so very much coming now from the non-western world.

Here's something else new that God has done in this past decade, past 10, 20, 30 years. Today, one in every 20 Chinese person is a believer. One in 20. Isn't that something? There were one and a quarter million Christians in China in 1950.

Today, well five years ago, we were saying there are 50 million. But that, that is just going up way out of all recognition now. We used to say the fastest growing church in the world was in Brazil. Leslie Lyle has written, he believes that the fastest growing church in the world today is in Communist China.

And I can believe it. Just coming back from a church, I'll share a little bit later with you, in South China. And I just see the way the Spirit of God is moving there. It is something incredible to behold.

God’s Work Among Government Leaders

Something else I've noticed that God is doing new. And maybe this is not so new, but I, I've just become conscious of the way God is working in the lives of government leaders. I guess in my job, and Behita and I in our job, we're traveling ahead of the ship very much.

And so often we're meeting church leaders and government leaders to try and get permission for us to have the ministry that we want to have in their countries. And as I stop and think about all of the Christians that I've met in high office, last year I'm meeting with the Prime Minister, or the year before, of Grenada.

A Christian. We had prayer in his office before we left. And he said to, he said to me, look brother, the only reason I'm Prime Minister of this nation is because God has put me here. And he said, you pray for me.

I feel that I've got a responsibility before God to serve these people. This is the Prime Minister of Grenada. Two months ago when I was in, three months ago when I was in Indonesia, had the joy of, of fellowship with the Minister of Finance.

It's always a joy to fellowship with any minister, any Minister of Finance. But you know, Indonesia, as I shared this morning, is a Muslim country, the largest Muslim country in the world. And I must confess, I felt very insecure arriving in Jakarta and wondering, Lord, how are you going to open the door into Indonesia?

We don't have any great contacts. I did have with me a letter from one of the Indonesian young men on the doulans. And it was to deliver to the wife of the Minister of Finance, who we thought was a believer, but knew this boy's family.

That was the connection. So we phoned up the wife and she said, oh look, why don't you come tomorrow night and have dinner with us? And I think my husband will be there. I'd like you to meet my husband.

So they picked us up in their car from the hotel. We arrived for dinner with the Minister of Finance, the third most powerful man in the country. I discover he is a Christian. He was converted as a student when he was studying in Holland, met with a Christian union there.

And that, that as a result, he became a Christian. His wife is a believer. And the end of that story is that the next day they invited me to spend the whole day with them in their country house. It was a weekend, and we had the most amazing time of just knitting hearts, fellowship, prayer.

Remember over dinner, on the Friday evening, he said to me, well now, is there anything I can do to help? And I said, well, as a matter of fact, I do have to see the Minister of Religion, who is a Muslim.

And we have to get permission from the Ministry of Religion if we want to bring the Dulas to Indonesia. So the phone was right by the table. He said, just a minute. He phoned the Minister up, said, excuse me, but my friend Peter Conlon is here having dinner with us, and I understand you're going to see him next Wednesday.

Don't you think you should try and see him tomorrow morning? And he brought the appointment forward, and we had a very good interview with the Director for Religion. And then he said, is there anything else we could do?

We really want to help. I said, well, we do want to sell books when we bring the Dulas to Indonesia. That's what we do. We sell Christian books and Bibles and other books. He thought to himself, books.

I said, yes, sir, we need permission from the Head of Customs. So his wife nudged him and said, darling, aren't you in charge of customs? You're the Minister of Finance. He said, yes, I think I am. I'm in charge of customs.

And he said, I think perhaps we can help you in that area. But you know, I don't want to sound trite, because the truth is that God does have his men and his women in very strategic places around the world.

And I just would encourage you to pray for these leaders of government, not just in our own government, but other governments around the world. I do believe God is doing a new thing in that whole area of the leaders of government.

Last year, 30 million people came to Christ. God is doing. There's never been a time like that in history. We need to be aware that we are living in very special days. And I'm so excited for you as a church, because I just sense that you're about to sort of come into the second phase, if you like, of your ministry as a church.

And somehow that is coinciding with what God is doing around the world, and I believe in our own country. I want to come back to our scripture now, because I want now just to share with you, in the light of that little report that I've shared with you, I want to share some of the things that God is laying on our hearts, as we look towards the 90s in O .N., and as we sense that God wants to do something fresh, something creative, something new in our own fellowship.

A New Vision for Every Generation

What are some of those new things that God wants to do? Acts chapter 2 and verse 17. In the last days God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions.

Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days. The first thing is, God wants to give us a new vision. That's what we feel in O .M., certainly.

God wants to give us a renewed vision, and a new vision. O .M., as I shared this morning, is 30 years old. That's a venerable age, isn't it? 30 years old. We began with a vision to mobilize the church, and to train young people.

More than 40 ,000 young people have been through the training program with Operation Mobilizations. Gave us a burden to evangelize the world. But I never forget, more than 10 years ago, our leader from Austria, Johann Van Damme, standing up in an O .M. conference of all the heavies, all of the leaders.

And he said, brothers and sisters, I believe O .M. must be born again. I thought to myself, that's a bit odd. We're all born again. And then he went on to share the burn of his heart. What he was saying was, that that vision, that God had given the pioneers in O .M., George Berwer and others.

He said, we in this room, it's got to be born again, in our lives. We as a movement, as a fellowship, cannot just rely on the vision God gave George and the other pioneers 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago.

We have to be born again. God's work, every new generation, I believe, must have a new vision. I would just share that with you from my heart, that you need, not just the leaders, but as a fellowship, we need to own a vision ourselves.

Ask God to just give us that vision. I'm excited when I get with people who have got vision. You know, don't you? You recognize. I'm not talking about people who shout, or people who, you know, wave their arms about.

But people with vision, it's very simple. They are the sort of people that can see beyond what others can see. They can somehow see what is on God's heart and mind in a situation. And then they're able to move into that situation and bring change, and do something about it.

Visionaries. I was with a man like that in Bombay a year ago, Pastor Joseph. He actually had been converted in an open-air meeting, converted Hindu. And he'd begun a small church. Now it was about 35 members.

In 1981, 1980, God began to just burden him about his church. And he was conscious that it was never getting any bigger, it was never getting any smaller. Somebody died, somebody joined the church. More or less, the same thing was ticking over all the time.

Nothing really new. And God just burdened him to get with some of the elders of that church. And they went away, not just for a weekend, but I think for actually a few weeks. I don't know how they got off work.

And they prayed, and they fasted, and they sought God about the future of their church. 35 members. And God gave a vision. And the vision was this. First of all, they were going to see a tithe of Bombay City for the Lord Jesus.

Now Bombay has 10 million people. So what would a tithe be? One million. That was the target. One million people. And the second thing was that every member of the church was going to be an evangelist.

That was something. So they came back and shared that with the church. This is the vision God has given us. Here's the target, and now here's the strategy. Every one of us is going to be an evangelist.

That was in 1980. I was with Pastor Joseph in Bombay, just under a year ago. And I asked him how things will go. And this is the story. Today, there are 6 ,000 members of that church in Bombay City. They've planted 19 fellowships all over the city.

I traveled down to meet our team in Mangalore, way down in the south of India. Lo and behold, the church they were fellowshipping with was an offshoot of this movement of God in Bombay. He was a man of vision, and it was exciting to be with him.

Let's make sure that we are people with new vision. Second thing God is showing us in OM, is that we need a new strategy. A new strategy. Somebody said this. I don't know if you ever heard any country and western music.

Do you like country and western music? Usually they sing the same. It goes like this. Same song, second verse, ought to get better, but it's going to get worse. And it goes on. It does get worse, usually.

And I sometimes think that it's like that with our strategy in God's work. The same strategy ought to get better, but it's going to get worse. And certainly for us in OM, God is showing us that we need a new strategy.

We came in with the revolutionary, the radicals, the hippie movement, the counterculture, and everybody was rebelling against the status quo. And we all had hair down to here. And OM came in at that time and just hit that need.

People were drawn to OM. Young people, radicals, wanting to change the world. But now the situation has changed. And if OM isn't able to somehow adapt its strategy to meet the needs of this generation, we've lost the game.

We're finished. And so we're really seeking God about His strategy for this coming years in Operation Mobilization. God is giving us a new strategy. I was with a pastor in South China in May. And he told me, it was amazing, he said, I had never met him before, but I'd heard about him.

His name's Pastor Lam. And when I entered his home, or it's a little church he's got there, he said, oh brother, you've come on my anniversary. I thought he was talking about his wedding anniversary. But it was his prison anniversary.

He'd just been released. He was celebrating his 30th anniversary from the time he was put in prison. He'd spent 21 years in prison. And he said, when I came out of prison in 1979, I had no money, no church, no future, no family.

His wife had died while he was in prison. And he said, I just didn't know what to do. And I asked that God would give me a strategy. I wanted to do something here in Canton. And the one thing he could do was, he could speak English.

So he started to teach English. And he taught, he got one student the first week, he advertised, got one student, a girl. He taught her English the first week. He told me the second week she came, he taught her Jesus.

And she came to Christ. The next week she brought four friends. And he was able to lead them to Christ. That was in 1979. I was in their church. It's now become a church. He has now baptized 932 people.

It's the fastest growing church in southern China. This all began with a man who had absolutely nothing, but asked God to give him a strategy to begin a work of God in that area. You can't believe that.

I was in that church. They crammed them into the rafters on three floors. They have a loudspeaker, a primitive loudspeaker system through. I was thinking myself, if everybody shouts hallelujah at the same time, this place is going to fall down.

I've never been in such a packed church. But God had given him a strategy. I, you know, I thought we raised some excellent questions this morning in our discussion groups about strategy. What actually is God's plan?

What direction is he going to lead you as a fellowship? I just want to say this though, that I don't believe the church of Jesus Christ grows through new ideas, or even through strategy, having said that.

It's actually prayer, isn't it? And it's people, and it's spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6, our struggle is against the powers of this dark world. And if we're not ready for battle, then I believe we are dreaming.

In OM, if we're not ready for battle, we're dreaming. We better forget the plans and the strategy. But may God give us battle, and also a clear strategy. The third thing, very quickly, that God is showing us in OM, is that we need a new, we need to be a new demonstration of the gospel.

Demonstrating the Gospel Through Presence and Compassion

Not just talking about it. People need to see the gospel in our lives, and in our ministry. Paul said to the Thessalonians, because our gospel came to you, not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction, you know how we lived among you, for your sake.

People somehow, don't they, they need to see the gospel. We need to be relevant in our ministry, as a church, as a ministry in OM. We need to be relevant to people. They need to see. They're hurting. They need to see that we care about them.

I'm so moved when I read about Ezekiel, when he came to the exiles. Do you remember the story? He says, I was overwhelmed. Just stop there for a moment. I was overwhelmed with their situation. That's a beginning point, isn't it?

To have a ministry in Kingshurst. To have a ministry in Bromley, where we live. To be overwhelmed with the needs of the area, of the people that God has placed us among. Then he says this, I sat among them for seven days.

I believe that people need us to sit among them. Not to preach at them, but to sit among them. We're going to make an impact in Kingshurst, in Birmingham. It's not going to be from the pulpit. It may be.

I mean, I believe God uses the preached word, but I believe that people want us to sit with them. I'm not talking physically now, but to somehow identify with them. To feel their hurts. I was over in Northern Ireland earlier on this year, with an evangelistic team.

I was just shocked. Just beginning to feel the fear, and the terror, and the pain, and the uncertainty, and the insecurity that people live with over there. How can I go and just throw a gospel tract at them, and hope that they will come to Christ.

A New Generation Taking Responsibility

A new demonstration of the gospel. The fourth thing that God is painfully showing us, maybe this is something that's going to happen here as well, is that God wants a new generation of people. You know, we, I'm 42.

I used to go around to meetings and say, we in OM are a young people's movement. Actually, OM began with teenagers. That's right, I'm 42. OM began with teenagers. George Verwer was 17 years of age when he came to Christ, and OM was born by the time he was 18, 19 years of age.

Well, I believe the time has come in Operation Mobilization for a new generation of young people to be taking responsibility and leadership in our ministry. Paul wrote to Timothy, and the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

I was so impressed in Jakarta, Indonesia, to go and speak to a youth group. The place was packed. They were sitting around on the floor and almost hanging off the walls, and it was a throbbing. We've got one tambourine.

I think everybody had a tambourine there. One of these churches where everybody's involved doing something. Very exciting, and after the service I asked them, how did this all start? And this, this wispy, shy little girl was introduced to me.

Welcome. Boy, we've been waiting for you. And this, this little, oh, we've got lots of people coming. I'm gonna start again from the beginning. Amen. So they introduced me to the, to the person that had begun that fellowship, and it was a girl of 16 years of age.

And I said, what are you, how did this happen? She said, well, two years ago I was suffering from asthma, and it was really very severe. And people had prayed for me, and, and, and she said, we had a special time of prayer, and God healed me.