Operation Mobilization
 |
|
| Founded | 1957 |
|---|---|
| Founder | George Verwer |
| Type | Evangelical Missions Agency |
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Area served
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110 Countries |
|
Key people
|
Lawrence Tong, International Director |
|
Employees
|
6800 |
| Slogan | transforming lives and communities |
| Website | www.omusa.org, www.om.org, www.omships.org |
Operation Mobilisation is a Christian missionary organization founded by George Verwer to mobilise young people to live and share the Gospel of Jesus. OM, as it is known, started in Mexico and had spread to Europe and India by 1963.
OM currently has 6,800 people working in 118 countries around the world, seeking to "see vibrant communities of Jesus followers among the least reached". OM's core values are knowing and glorifying God, living in submission to God's Word, being people of grace & integrity, serving sacrificially, loving & valuing people, evangelising the world, reflecting the diversity of the body of Christ, global intercession, and esteeming the church. They accomplish these core values through church planting, evangelism, relief and development, justice, and mentoring and discipleship.
George Verwer, OM’s founder and leader until 2003, received a Gospel of John from a local woman while still in high school in the 1950s. In 1955, Verwer became a Christian at a Billy Graham meeting at Madison Square Garden, and made a commitment to global missions and spreading God’s Word on a massive scale.
Operation Mobilisation started in 1957 when Walter Borchard, Dale Rhoton and George Verwer traveled to Mexico to distribute Christian literature and Gospels. The Gospels were very important to the men and the beginning of OM’s long history. The trip in 1957 was the first of three summer trips to Mexico. By 1960, the men turned their attention to Europe, focusing on mobilising the national churches to global missions. Verwer’s vision for global mission was that leadership would come from the local Christian community, wherever possible, rather than from foreigners (Randall 2008).
In Summer 1962 OM's first short-term missions teams moved into Europe, coming from the UK, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, the USA and elsewhere. In the summer of 1963 more than 2,000 people blanketed Europe to encourage Christians and to carry God’s Word throughout the continent and find creative ways of getting it behind the Iron Curtain. OM teams were also starting in India and the Middle East in 1963 (Randall 2008).
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