Raising Support — George Verwer

The Importance of Teaching Biblical Principles of Finance

I really am greatly burdened about this whole thing of support, and I'm not sharing this talk about how to increase support just because this is a major problem on our team. In some ways, our team is doing very well, but we've been hit hard by the devaluation of the dollar here in Great Britain, and we've been hit hard by the increase of travel costs.

We're a team that travels probably as much as any team in the world. Ships, of course, are still way ahead of us. So we've been hit pretty hard, and I'd appreciate it if you could perhaps just jot down some of these points.

I really feel the Lord put this on my heart, and I've written down some of the thoughts that came to my mind. I think if there's any one mistake, I've made many mistakes over the years, but if there's any one mistake, it's been the failure to teach more about finance, what the Bible teaches about finance.

Now, I taught some, and we have a leaflet, Releasing Finance Through Prayer. I'm sure some of you have never even seen it. When we changed our policy five or six years ago, there were only a few sentences that had to be changed in that leaflet.

I think one of the things that surprised me the most, looking back over 33 years since I went to Mexico, is how many have wanted to go in full-time Christian work and have not made it. And I think it's time we acknowledge that it is a tremendous privilege to be in full-time Christian work.

There are many people, I can assure you, that would long to go out to some of these countries that Viv and Gary are going out to. Now, they may find it a hardship in some ways, and we understand that, but hardships are often a privilege.

They're part of the price of the privilege. And I'm burdened to see more of these young people who want to be on the mission field, who want to be especially overseas in Christian work. It is easier, nothing is easy, but it's easier often to get into what is called Christian work.

I don't like the term, but you know what I mean. In your own country, especially the States, churches often have 10, 15, 20 full-time paid staff. There's scope for educational people, there's scope for music people, and that's true in a few other countries.

But generally, in most countries, there is not this kind of scope for being in full-time work. You want to be a pastor, you go through the seminary training, you get the credentials, and then you get hired as a pastor, or you become a career pastor.

And in some countries, the main people who are full-time are pastors. In some countries, even pastors are not full-time. Quite a few places, pastors have to take up employment. For years, even in Belgium, that was true.

So this whole thing of how to increase our support, how to biblically go about seeing our personal support come in, is incredibly important, and it would be my prayer that once and for all we could throw aside the thought that this is not spiritual, to talk about money is not spiritual, that if we want to see support, all we have to do is pray.

I don't think we ever fully taught that, though it certainly was inferred, otherwise we wouldn't have had leaflets several pages long on releasing finance through prayer that touches on all kinds of other subjects.

Developing a Biblical Understanding of Money

What are some things to keep in mind as we try to increase our support? Number one, I've got nine points and five exhortations, and not enough time. Number one is we need to develop our biblical understanding about money.

Study the passages in the Word of God about money. Study the teaching of Jesus about money. Some of the passages I have shared, and the tape that I did, The Labor Worthy of His Hire, around the time we changed our policy, I believe is still a very, very important tape, it upset only a few people, and the Lord is, I believe, using that tape, especially to deliver people from false ideas and false guilt when they are a faith missionary.

I could spend a whole hour talking about what that means, a faith missionary. I don't even like the term in some ways, because I believe missionaries who get salaries from big denominations also live by faith.

I believe a man working in a factory is a faith factory worker. There are many definitions of the word faith, but since we are classified missiologically as an interdenominational faith missionary movement, I think we have to live with that and try to understand what kind of faith we are talking about in O .M.

So we don't have time to go into that, we are going to have to pick up from there, even though someday you may leave the Faith Mission Society, I'm sure some of you will, and maybe receive a salary, or you may go back, of course, and take up a job.

There's such a variety in thinking missiologically today, that no matter what you teach or what you believe, somebody can attack it. So you have to learn to live with that. We're not going to find the perfect way.

O .M. has not found the perfect way to do what needs to be done. But this is where we are. The decision about this support raising has been made on general council level. It is unlikely to change. You're in O .M., so let's do the best.

Let's make the best of it, even though we don't maybe understand everything. So studying what the Bible teaches, some books on giving, and books on giving contradict one another. You get books that basically tell everybody to only give to their local church, they always warm our hearts.

And you get books that are a little more broad-minded. But there are some great books on giving. Peter Maiden has written one, Take My Silver, it's a small one, you can easily get through it. Most people don't want to read a big book about giving and money.

Vision for Evangelism and Financial Support

The second point on this road to successful support gathering, someone once called it, or seeing a breakthrough in finance, for your own situation, a terminology that I like, is vision. We need a vision.

What we're involved in, in finding finance, without a vision, it becomes drudgery, it becomes difficult. Well, so really, we've got to ask ourselves, do I have a vision? One of the reasons I find this kind of ministry so motivating, and I really do, it's one of the most motivating sides of my ministry right now, is because I have a vision.

I have a vision of what money can do in the work of God. I have a vision for the lost, and still that is the major motivating factor in my life, that people are lost, and they need the gospel, and that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone.

Not easy for a character like me to believe that, especially when I see great Christian leaders hedging on it, especially on whether the heathen are lost. They were hedging on that back when Dale Rotom was a student at Wheaton.

He wrote his thesis on that subject to try to convince his professor that the heathen were lost, even those that have never heard the gospel. And this last week, I wrote a little blurb, reluctantly in faith, on the back of Ajit Fernando's new book on the subject of hell, an orthodox, biblical book on the subject of hell.

Interesting, it takes a Sri Lankan to come out with a book on this subject, which is going to be published by Kingsway. So we need a vision of the lost. We need a vision of what finance can do to reach the lost.

I think of one foundation on the east coast of the United States. They're very strict where they give their money, they've never given anything to us. Very strict, a lot of research, and I've watched that money and how it's used, and I just praise God because they've committed their money to evangelism and to projects that cut through in evangelism.

We would have had money from them because our work is credible enough to receive money, but we're not good at getting the paperwork together. They want paperwork, and they want it very, very clear, and we've never been able to do it.

And then they have a lot of their own projects. They take the initiative. They're a foundation that takes the initiative. They're the group that ran all these ads in the papers around Britain about the gospel and offered this tremendous gospel book to anybody who wrote in.

Tens of thousands wrote in. The churches complained that it wasn't tied in enough with the church. Maybe they're working on that. So we need a vision. We also need a vision of our own ministry. Some of you are not convinced enough about your own ministry.

I don't know whether you're too idealistic or maybe you're humble. Praise the Lord. False humility and true humility get very close. If you can give me the quick answer to that, send it to me in written form because I believe that false humility can creep in and other similar things.

I certainly am convinced about your ministry. I'm very convinced about the ministry of everybody in this room. One of the reasons I can lead this team is I have a tremendous vision for this team. And I'm looking for someone to ultimately take over this team, but he's got to be a visionary.

He cannot be a maintenance man. He's got to be a visionary who knows why each person is here and what we're doing and where we're going. Now, I don't always communicate that well enough, and it takes a lot of balance to cause it to survive.

So, vision is important, and God on this team, with all of our weaknesses, we're well aware of our weaknesses, has given us a spirit of teamwork and things, according to people I've talked to outside the team, trying to evaluate us, feel that things are going relatively well.

Redeeming Time and Caring for Financial Partners

And we're grateful for the credibility he's given us throughout the work in the midst, of course, of some, of course, who have their questions and their doubts. Number three, you've got to, if you're going to see a breakthrough in this area, because you're already busy people.

I don't think we've got any sluggards on the team. I haven't seen any. We're all different on the amount of work we can do, and God forbid that we all become a bunch of neurotic workaholics, or that people try to attempt to sort of live the style that somebody else is living, because some of that has nothing to do with commitment, has to do with metabolism, temperament, you know, tell me to take a holiday on a beach reading a book.

It drives me right out of my mind, especially the women. But when I take a holiday, I like to go in the woods and meditate on the trees. But we need a vision for redeeming the time, because these basic things in connection with support, it takes time.

It takes time. The things I'm going to talk to you about in this lecture. And I'm convinced that all of us, with a little bit of sanctified imagination, learning new ways to do things, redefining priorities, we can get more hours out of the day to give, at least moments, to this great task of support gathering.

Tied in with this, I guess I had this word written under the word vision, is we've got to be people-centered. We're looking for people that would be willing to give a greater amount of time to helping find finance.

And unless they're spiritual people, I don't even want to talk to them. I don't even want to talk to them about it, because it's such a minefield, it's so difficult. And they have to be people-centered, not firstly job-centered, well, I've got this job, I'm going to do this.

My job is to find money, I'm going to do it. No, it's got to be, I'm concerned for people, because as you get involved with people who are giving finance to the work, you will get involved very deeply in their lives.

They will share with you things they've never shared with other people, it's not a game. And you'll have information, you'll have facts, material that you'll have to handle very prayerfully and very carefully.

And you will see some of those people who at one point were supporting you, you will see them go into financial difficulty, and you will have to wrestle with supporting them. Maybe only a little bit, maybe prayer.

Because the financial world is an unpredictable thing, it's an unpredictable thing, and prayer partners who were giving to us a year ago are in trouble and need financial help today. So this whole area is something that deeply involves the work of the Holy Spirit and a commitment to people, and that's what causes some of us to count the cost as we get into this.

We do it for the sake of the kingdom. I remember flying into a city not long ago, wanting to have the courage to talk to this man who was a man of considerable resources, who was a close friend, and I felt if I talk to him openly today, I'm going to jeopardize that friendship.

And there are cases when that can happen. And the Lord spoke to me in my heart and said, George, are you willing to put that friendship on the altar of world evangelism? Are you willing to risk that friendship for the sake of another 10 million people being reached with the gospel?

And reluctantly I said, Lord, I am. And I ended up actually explaining to that man what I had struggled with before I shared with him, and he was very, very understanding. Number four, we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Dependence on the Holy Spirit and Prayer

Let us not leave the Holy Spirit out of anything that we're doing. Let us be dependent on him. There's so many people we can write to, so many people we can telephone. If you try to figure out rhyme or reason why I phone one person and not phone another, you'll have some difficulty because it's spontaneous.

I have to trust the Holy Spirit to guide me in a practical way. I have a little computer with a thousand phone numbers on it, and I flip through it praying for those people, and then I just sense I should stop and phone that person.

And then I may go several more pages on the computer and not phone anyone. I believe the Holy Spirit guides us. I believe the Holy Spirit guides us and allows human error. I think perfectionism and getting a concept of the Holy Spirit in which you basically are uptight and afraid you're going to miss the Holy Spirit's guidance is dangerous.

We need to be relaxed because the bottom line is God's grace, God's mercy, God's love, God's promises, God's faithfulness, not your ability to know the Holy Spirit. And there's been plenty of people. They thought they had the word, the guidance of the Spirit, even witnessing.

We've all heard the story of the man who knew at 62, this particular street, a soul was ready. He had a word from the Lord. This is not my method, by the way. And he went down that street. He was so excited.

He got to 62, and the house was derelict and completely empty. Nobody lived there. Now, maybe there was a tramp in there, and he didn't follow through. That's a new addition to that story. Number five, of course, prayer.

Prayer is still the bottom line in OM. I'm probably praying as much or more about these things as I did under the old policy where prayer was greatly emphasized, and some of these other things were not emphasized as much.

Praying specifically, praying for individuals, praying for them as they go to a court case in which they're liable to be completely cleaned out. One of our board members, he lost everything in a court case.

They're going to take his house. And we prayed and we prayed, and the man who could take his house never took it, just sort of had mercy. How can I? We're talking about a house worth maybe half a million.

So God answers prayer, and prayer is still the bottom line. And yet, I find a lot of people in OM, they are in the prayer meetings. They are in the nights of prayer. They do pray. Of course, there's prayerlessness as well and great room for improvement, but those same people seem to spend very little time and effort working on this whole area of support gathering in a practical way.

Boldness, Initiative, and Spiritual Warfare

Number six, we need boldness. The Holy Spirit, Acts 4 .31, gave those people boldness. That was in witnessing. Worldwide witnessing is being crippled at times because of a lack of finance. We have lost outstanding people.

Some of them have gone back to ridiculously mundane secular jobs. You can't convince me that some of these theological graduates who had abilities in communication, who were potential church planners, that it was God's will for them, God's first will if you want me to be careful, to go back and do some menial job back in their own hometown.

Of course, God can overrule. Of course, that person must never be bitter. But we must not take God's ability to overrule as an excuse for always missing God's best. I don't think that's on. Read Brother Andrew's new book, and God Changed His Mind.

That's a hot book that will just point out that we are not into Christian fatalism. We don't just sit back whenever we're punched in the nose and say, well, it's the will of God. People don't live that way on a personal level.

They don't live that way when it comes to finding their wife or their husband or rearing children. The people who have jobs don't live that way. It's not on that kind of Christian fatalism. We've got to fight.

If you believe you should be a church planner in Mongolia, you're going to have to fight or it's never going to happen. And there's not enough fight among these young people today. They just think somehow their local church is going to pick up the tab.

The Mission Society is going to handle all the all the paperwork. No wonder so many people are disappointed with O .N. We don't have a magic carpet between here and the unreached people in Kurdistan. It's going to take a fight.

It's going to take in-house struggles. It's going to take misunderstandings. And too many people in their first term on the field, they lose their fight because the first term on the field is rough and it's tough.

And there are obnoxious missionary leaders. Bless their hearts. May they be cleansed and filled. But may you develop the fight to be able to get under them or bypass them or join another mission. In Acts chapter 20, we read about the Apostle Paul night and day for three years warning people.

Do you know that verse? Well, what do you do with that verse? You think that's an evangelistic verse? I think I thought that 30 years ago, but I soon discovered that verse talks about warning the believers.

And we need to. We need to warn the church about the wrong direction we are in in regard to money. We need messages on finance. And I am preaching messages on finance and I'm getting a phenomenal response.

I get very little negative feedback. And I take some big risks. Now, I'm not saying you can take the same risks that I take. But I believe we've got to teach everything that we find in the Word of God, contextualizing it into the day and age in which we live.

That takes boldness. Even in one-on-one contact, it takes boldness. And we, especially people who maybe don't feel they have a great gift to communicate, you've got to learn to take the initiative. You're going to be frightened even to talk to your prayer partner about this subject, much less say something else that might be a little more controversial.

So number six, boldness, initiative, and let's stand against intimidation. One of the greatest works of the Spirit of God in my heart is giving me grace to stand against intimidation. I'm convinced this is one of the gifts God has given me that helps me be a leader in this work.

Because the kind of person I am in some ways, I would be so intimidated. I've offered, of course, my resignation. I've offered Peter Maiden my job. I don't want to hold on to anything too hard. But as long as I have this job and have this ministry, I'm not going to be intimidated by Job's advisors.

I'll listen to them, praise the Lord. But by God's grace, at my age, I know where I'm going. And by God's grace, I'm going to get there. Of course, I'm going to heaven, and that's already paid for by Jesus.

But I believe God has given us these two ships. God has given us 2 ,000 people, maybe 5 ,000 to 10 ,000 in the short term, in the summers. And that is that we may reach hundreds of millions of people with the Word of God.

We have already given the gospel to 450 million plus, a huge chunk of them in India. We know that we're not going to be able to reach people perhaps as fast as we used to because of the church planting emphasis, the helping the poor emphasis.

That's going to be the hottest debate in the General Council, just what that means. Many other beautiful emphases, friendship evangelism, enemy evangelism, all these things coming in. But by God's grace, as long as he gives me breath, I want to press the mark to reach the masses, and that's going to take money.

We could use millions of pounds and dollars right now just to reach the masses. Actually, teams on Love Europe are complaining that they don't have enough literature. Isn't that interesting? We need more literature for Love Europe, even using it the sort of careful, low profile way.

Communication as a Ministry Skill

And pray for those that are involved in that. Number seven, of course, we get to the big seven, the number of completeness, and that's communication. We could use a whole message on this. There are books about it.

There are some tapes about it. Here are five things we need to do if we want to improve in communication. Number one, we need to increase our skills. Communication is a skill. I have failed so many times, and yet I'm classified as a gifted communicator by some people.

I tell you, God's grace, because I do miscommunicate. I was reading one of these books by William Backus some time ago, just how to speak, just how to talk. Do you realize even on our team, sometimes we don't know how to talk to one another?

We don't know how to talk to one another. I don't know how to talk properly at times to Vera. And I thank God for her mercy and her patience toward me. I don't know how to talk yet to my own wife. Sometimes I don't talk properly to Dennis or to Carol.

I'm hyper. My brain is going always in different directions, and I start speaking. And people just, you know, what is Vera actually trying to say, especially on the telephone? I sort of still hear the coins dropping in the old phones from years ago.

I remember offending Jonathan on the telephone from Italy. Terrible. Oh, I really came down hard on him. And I was convicted. I phoned him back, and that wasn't easy in those days. And I repented. And Jonathan years ago told me, that's the thing that won his heart.

How do you keep people like that in the work for 28 years? It's not your cleverness. It's not your ability to stand up and preach in public. It's brokenness. It's Jesus. It's bonding in the midst of your failure.

So we need to increase our communication skills. We used to ask everybody how to read, how to win friends and influence people. Probably the most neglected book in OM's leadership training. And I'm convinced probably 25 of all the mistakes we make in OM and communications are touched in that book and his book on public speaking.

In the secular world, there's so much rougher. Can you imagine if this were a secular company like McDonald's and I was a head manager? Some of you would hate my guts. But some of you who hate my guts for the sake of money would learn to love me.

You'd learn to grin and bear it. Every weekend you'd be telling your wife, I'm quitting. I can't stand this guy. He's pushing me. I went in to quit and the turkey offered me another 20 raise. You don't think they play these games in the world?

Are you living a little evangelical fantasy jungle? Now, and even in the world, less and less people can get away with that because things have changed. Those real leaders in the world, they have to learn how to win people.

But they win some and they lose some and they fire some and they hire some. And the world has a tremendous advantage. They generally have a line of people trying to get a job. How many people do I have queued up to work on ICT?

Would you show me the queue? So I'm going to go the extra mile. I'm keeping all of you as long as I can. And I hope you'll understand. And I hope that you'll work on your own communication skills and read books.

Writing Letters to Build Support

Now deal with that. B, I've got letters now. I've jumped from numbers to letters. B, we've got to write letters. And stop waiting for the right moment when you feel like writing your letter. Old C .S. Lewis said you've got to deal with moods.

If you can't deal with moods, you can not only be, can't be a sound Christian, you can't even be a sound atheist. Some OEMers wouldn't even make good atheists. They can't deal with moods. I'm not in the mood to write a letter.

We need to write letters. Now I'm a letter neurotic. If I told you all the places I wrote letters, you'd be offended. Uh, you know, it is amazing for the typists who have to hear a flush in the background as they're, so I try not to do that anymore.

But write letters. And don't think, oh, well, these people have a dictaphone. It's nothing for them. Many, many letters I've written over the years. I typed out myself in those early days. It was William McDonald that taught me about dictaphones.

Amazing enough. Buck Singh, many of his letters were handwritten. You don't have to write big epistles. Most people don't want long letters. Your girlfriend, she likes a long letter. Write her a long letter.

Kisses and love. But the average person doesn't want this kind of, uh, epistle. They like short letters. There are exceptions. Close friends, parents. So a short letter, Buck Singh's letters were the shortest in the world.

But there are thousands of Indians that had those letters saved. I probably got a couple. Little short letter from Buck Singh. God bless you. How you doing? I'm praying for you. Couple of verses. Buck Singh.

Wow. Now you're probably not in that category yet. So you may have to say a little more. Those enclosures you can put in with the letters. They can be used. You may not be good at communicating the work.

But we have semi-professional people and professional people producing enclosures or papers or leaflets. They can be sent. C, phone calls. Now we can't launch everybody out making long distance calls.

We're not going to give you all a cellular telephone. But you can make local calls. And in the evening, they're fairly cheap. Some of you have people right in this area who are financing you. Some people would like to finance you.

Have you ever phoned them? Just ask them how you're doing. You don't pick up the phone and say, hey, I need money today, Sam. Just ask them how they're doing. Share a recent answer to prayer. People appreciate that.

Keep the phone call short. Learn how to read what's coming on the other end. That guy wants to hang up. I have ways of hinting that I want to hang up. Some of it's a little too blunt. I can get away with things that you won't be able to get away with.

Number D, everybody wanting to see support needs to have what I call an intro letter. When you're thinking of support, don't just think of money for yourself. Money for ministry. Maybe you already have your support.

Fine. Go for ministry money. That ministry money can help other people who support short. That's the only way our team has survived. Some on the team have extra. They're just leaving it in the pot. And that's one of the key things that keeps us going because we don't get many support gifts.

Let's have many field gifts. Let's pray for more general gifts to ICT. But meanwhile, praise God that he uses many different things. So I have an intro letter presenting your ministry, preferably with a photo and a coupon on the bottom.

Would you like to continue to receive this letter three or four times a year? Most people aren't sending more than three or four letters. Our goal used to be once a month. That day's over. Three or four times a year because of postage.

So you take that letter with you. My wife is terrific at this. She's always rebuking me for not having enough family letters. She wants to carry a whole suitcase of family letters. Actually, we don't need any more family personal support.

I mean, I had somebody put a hundred pound in my pocket yesterday. So now this is just for you and your wife. What am I going to do with a hundred pound? I mean, my wife's got some ideas. So don't just think of yourself, but think of others.

And it's more blessed to give than receive. Now, I know when we can give that money personally, we can hand it out. We feel better vibrations. Some of the money going through the O .M. Treasury, you may not feel those same feelings as some people have the experience of writing out checks, but it accomplishes just as much.

You may not have the same personal link, but any money that you can leave in the Lord's Treasury, to use an old-fashioned word, and many of you do, that's keeping this work going. So be encouraged by it, even though you don't get the same feeling as a businessman who writes a check and hands it to me or hands it to someone.

And then the last point under communication, third-party letters. I know you feel a little shy about third-party letters because you don't know what they are. What's a third-party letter? You get a letter from me.

If you hassle me or love me or take me to McDonald's for pancakes and say, hey, I'd like you to write a letter about my ministry. You can't talk about your ministry easily, can you? Vera doesn't know how to talk about her ministry.

I've followed her letters for years. It's bad news. I can talk about Vera's ministry. And some of the people I've talked to about Vera's ministry send money to Vera. Great. We can talk about one another's ministries.

Church Support and Individual Support

Get a third-party letter. Some offices are specializing in that. Jumping back to our main outline, we get to this thing of church support versus support from individuals. Which is it? Which is the better route to go?

History shows it's both. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. You depend on just one church. That church divides. It's happening all over the place. They write you a letter. It's all over. Return. Hey, no way.

So you should get a number of churches to support you. If you have your home church that gives you 50 of the support, praise God. That's as much as most churches do. Those churches who aim at full support, they don't support many people.

And they have all kinds of interesting verbal games when they explain why they can't support many people. So I believe it's both. There are many, many people who want to give individually to people. They want your prayer letter.

They want to hear from you. They want those thank you letters. It should be considered an unforgivable sin in missionary work not to write a thank you letter. And as fast as possible after the gift. Because often they're thinking about another gift and they haven't heard from you.

And people again and again with me have raved how they appreciated those thank you letters. And of course, this does take time. It does mean going the extra mile. I can't understand OMers going home after their day work in the office, sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have any relaxation. But writing letters for people who are not in Christian work, writing a letter is not part of their job time. They write friendly letters in their free time, in their personal time.

People go on a holiday and they spend hours. What are they doing? Writing postcards. Writing postcards. They don't consider this high pressure Christian work. Postcards are a beautiful way. Now we used to be so tight in OM we wouldn't spend any money on postcards.

I will tell you, you buy a stack of postcards, I'll be happy to finance that. Nice little postcards about Bromley. People don't know where Bromley is. They don't know a forest, they think this is some place where they're playing tennis in America.

We need to communicate a little bit about this country. A fellow just sent me, a prayer partner, and he may get a gift out of me, sent me a map of Alaska. I've never had anybody send me a map of Alaska.

I'm going to save it. It's tremendous. He's working in the Yukon or somewhere in Alaska. So a little sanctified, that's probably in Canada. A little sanctified imagination will help you. And then number nine, in this whole area, we need to rest in the Lord, do everything we can, and leave the results with God.

Resting in God and Guarding Against Pride

If I didn't do that, I'd be very uptight this morning, because we're not yet seeing the breakthroughs. Do everything you can, the letters, the phone calls, the prayer, and leave it with God. Don't worry about your supporter.

How much support are you going to get worrying about it? How much support are you going to get getting uptight with your wife about supporters not coming in? God doesn't hear my prayers. All kinds of things we get into when we get uptight about support.

God's going to test you. He's going to hold back some of that support, because he wants to see you getting that victory over worry. And in my final sort of eight bewares, beware of pride. That's one of the big things that hinders us in all this, because we do have to, at times, live on the general fund of, oh, and praise the Lord.

Deal with pride. The worthy is laborer of his hire. The laborer is worthy of his hire. We have as a policy that is legitimate for people to receive from the general fund, from the field gift, money to make up for personal support.

That's part of the policy. We debated that, and that's what happened. So beware of pride. Beware of tradition. Tradition can be such a hindrance, tradition in the way we do things. Let's experiment a little bit.

No harm in trying something. If you offend someone, you can always apologize. If you don't take risks, if you don't take risks, you're never going to amount to much for God. Christianity is a risk operation, and I think we need to take some risks.

Beware of false guilt. Beware of sidestepping and failing to get enough training. Now, I'm thinking here in terms of being a missionary. Some churches, when they make decision about some ex-OMers, they say, this person doesn't have enough training, enough expertise.