DEAR HO & FAITH! DO 156C 3/72

LEADERSHIP--NEW LEADERS; TRAINING NATIONALS; ROTATION; SUPERVISION

1. YOU'RE RUSHING SOME LITTLE FOLKS INTO POSITIONS OF LEADERSHIP TOO FAST, sending OUT some to pioneer or lead Homes who have never before had even a responsible position of any kind of leadership! We've found that doesn't work too well as IT'S HARD ENOUGH TO PIONEER A HOME WITHOUT HAVING TO LEARN TO BE A LEADER AT THE SAME TIME! I DON'T THINK ANYONE SHOULD BE EXPECTED TO PIONEER A NEW HOME WHO'S NOT HAD PREVIOUS TOP LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE, preferably as a Home Shepherd & at least as one of the top leaders!
2. AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT TRAINING LOCAL NATIONAL CITIZENS AS LEADERS OF YOUR HOMES after they have been pioneered & set up? Americans & Europeans should only have to be the pioneers & then be able to turn the Home over to local qualified personnel as soon as they are able.--BUT HOW WILL THEY BE ABLE IF YOU DON'T LET THEM LEAD? Sooner or later American or European leadership is bound to be resented!--And it's not even wise or practical for both public relations & legality.
3. I WOULD SUGGEST ROTATION OF LEADERSHIP IN SOME COUNTRIES IN ORDER TO SOLVE THE VISA PROBLEMS, where we could not qualify for a renewal!--Which is all the more reason to train local citizens for leaders as soon as possible! Sooner or later we'll have to leave! Prepare!
4. YOU ALSO NEED MORE SUPERVISORS FOR VISITING HOMES & SURVEYING THEIR NEEDS, reading their reports, answering their questions, settling their problems etc. Some have been writing you for answers for weeks!--Or asking you for desperate needs apparently unheeded! I realise you have problems of your own, but YOUR FIRST DUTY IS TO YOUR YOUNG NEW LEADERSHIP, THE UNDERSHEPHERDS & THEIR SHEEP! If you cannot take care of these, then you are growing too fast & headed for troubles which could hurt the good work you've already done!

NEW DISCIPLES--WATCH OUT FOR PROBLEMS!

5. WATCH OUT ABOUT THE KIND OF SHEEP YOU'RE TAKING IN TOO!--It only takes a goat or wolf or two to spoil the flock! PEOPLE WITH PROBLEMS WITH THE LAW SHOULD NOT BE ACCEPTED, as I've always told you!--It's NOT WORTH RISKING THE WHOLE ARMY FOR JUST ONE SOLDIER! Don't do it! It could get the whole work in trouble & give it a bad name with the authorities & turn them against you. Please don't do it!

PERSONNEL CHANGES & CHOOSING LEADERSHIP FOR PIONEERING!

6. LET ME WARN YOU AGAIN AGAINST TOO MANY & FREQUENT PERSONNEL CHANGES! You just get a good team built & then you break it up & destroy it & have to build another all over again by shipping everybody off to other parts! TRY ESPECIALLY NOT TO SHIFT TOP LEADERS TOO OFTEN. A TEAM CAPTAIN BUILDS A CERTAIN KIND OF TEAM AROUND HIM OF THOSE HE CAN WORK WITH & WHO LIKE TO WORK WITH HIM--& this is good!--If he's doing the job, don't destroy his team while he's winning!
7. WHEN CHOOSING NEW TEAMS FOR PIONEERING, TAKE THE LEADERSHIP RIGHT OFF THE TOP if it's time for them to have a change, BUT DON'T DESTROY THE WHOLE TEAM!--His understudy should be able to take over & carry on just like he did with virtually the same team & keep it intact! Either that or ship his whole team out with him & send in an entirely new team that's used to working together to take their place! If you GIVE LEADERS THEIR CHOICE OF PERSONNEL, this will help do it. I believe in trying to give a man his choice to do what he has faith for!

WARNING ABOUT DICTATORIAL LEADERS--RECOMMENDED POLICY OF VOLUNTEERS!

         8. I DON'T SEE HOW WE CAN HAVE THAT BOSSY, DICTATORIAL, TOUGH KIND OF ATTITUDE OVER OTHER HOMES and their affairs, when they're supposed to be independent and indigenous, a fellowship of the Spirit, merely melted together in love and not just frozen together in formality!
         9. We must get the idea through our thick skulls that WE ARE NO LONGER JUST ONE COLONY OR ONE SMALL FAMILY WITH CENTRALIZED, TOUGH LEADERSHIP! BUT WE ARE A WORLDWIDE FELLOWSHIP, A VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION OF THE SPIRIT, in which each Colony is usually totally supporting and governing itself locally, and owes us nothing except the loyalty of love and the same Spirit, and are bound together only by these and a common doctrine, vision, message and method, history and the Lord's Leadership.
         10. NOT ONE OF THEM HAS TO DO WHAT WE SAY. THEY'RE LIKE GROWN, MARRIED CHILDREN ON THEIR OWN, who should listen to fatherly counsel and perhaps heed it if they are wise--but we can't force them to! Do you all understand that?--Our children are no longer at home eating at our table under our roof!--They are grown, married and on their own, earning their own living, and we can't boss them around like we used to! We can no longer threaten to throw them out if they don't behave! We can only disown them, disinherit them or cut them off from among their people and our fellowship and cut our communications with them--excommunicate them!--And notify the rest of the Family they're no longer one of us! But we can't even keep them from continuing to use the Family name!
         11. HOWEVER, IF WE HAVE TRAINED THEM UP IN THE WAY THEY SHOULD GO, NOW THAT THEY ARE OLD, THEY WILL NOT DEPART THERE FROM! Neither will they want to depart from the fellowship of the Family nor disgrace its name! Nor will their Father's advice and counsel go unheeded!--Neither will they want to cease communicating with the rest off the Family!--And they will help one another when needed!--And they will value the aids we send them, the Lessons, Letters, Literature, etc., and follow their instructions or advice because they know we love them and are only trying to help them. But we cannot force them to!--They will cooperate because it's to their advantage, and they know that in unity there is greater strength and wisdom, and they enjoy the fellowship and mutual help: voluntary, not forced!
         12. It's still strictly a voluntary army--no draftees! Most of these kids were dropouts, nonconformists, individualists, iconoclasts, and unconventional disillusioned youth in the first place or they wouldn't have joined us!--They got tired being forced to do things they didn't want to do and couldn't see any point in!--And You're not going to get them to trade one forced System for a new one! They just won't dig it!--They're tired of being pushed around! They won't take it!
         13. WHERE SOME OF THIS DICTATORIAL ATTITUDE GOT STARTED, I DON'T KNOW It certainly didn't start with me! As you all well know, it was always my policy to ask you if you'd like to do a certain thing or do you thin kyou should do so-&-so or do you think the Lord wants you to do! I usually tried to give you your choice, within certain limitations of possibility, and let you move according to your own faith, choose your own team, and set your own steam!--And you got a lot more done that way, if you let a man be led by the Lord according to his own faith, initiative vision and courage.
         14. IT'S OUR BUSINESS TO PRESENT THE NEED AND VISION AS WE GET IT FROM THE LORD, and ask for volunteers of those who'd like to try to do the job!--Not command them like slaves and fore them like draftees! We just can't do it, haven't the right to, and will never do well that way! If their obedience doesn't come from the heart because of love and loyalty and devotion to both the Cause and its leadership, you're going to have discontent, disillusionment, dissatisfaction, murmuring, disobedience and even open rebellion!--and a lot of backsliders!
         15. COULD THIS BE THE PROBLEM WITH SOME OF THESE HOMES AND LEADERS? They're trying to run them like some kind of a little Hitler and be the Big Boss ordering people around like slaves!--When they should be loving and wooing them with gentle persuasion and reasoning and faith and Scripture and trying to get them to voluntarily decide on their own to do what they know they should and want to do! GHU!
         16. SOME OF THESE LEADERS HAD BETTER WAKE UP SOON, OR THEY'RE NOT GOING TO HAVE ANY FOLLOWERS! The greatest Leaders the World has ever known won their followers through personal love and loyalty either to themselves or their cause--or both! The greatest Shepherds called their sheep to follow where they themselves were going, and called them with a voice of love and persuasion. Hard chastening and chastising should only have to be used on the rare stray sheep--not the whole flock! They should be following because they love you, know you're right, know you love them and are doing it for their sake and their good and to please the great Shepherd of all, and because they therefore want to!
         17. WE'D BETTER WATCH OUT FOR UNDERSHEPHERDS AND HIRELINGS who only are there for the loaves and fishes of power and glory! Watch out for any who are not doing it because "the love of Christ constraineth me"! (2Cor.5:14) Watch out for those who are not willing to set the example, be a servant of all and lay down their lives for the sheep! Watch out for those who want to be "lords over God's heritage" (1Pet.5:3), who are not truly willing to share the load, bear the burdens, lift up the downtrodden, help the weak, wash their feet and lead by example!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family