MORE ON "HOW TO"!
DO 331C
3/75
--The New Do-It-Yourself Revolution!--Part 2
WHERE INCOME & SUPPORT FOR OFFICERS SHOULD COME FROM
1. NORMALLY THE UNDEROFFICERS WILL PROBABLY BE LIVING IN A HOME with their spouses & children where they will be getting their room & board, much as they do now.
2. EACH DISTRICT SHEPHERD NOW WILL HAVE AT LEAST TWO OR THREE HOMES & WILL PROBABLY LIVE IN ONE OF THEM. I don't see where his expenses or his responsibilities will be so great merely supervising the other Home or two that he will have to have any special income of any kind. .
3. EVEN A REGIONAL SHEPHERD ONLY HAS FOUR HOMES & TWO DISTRICT SHEPHERDS under him & probably should not need any special income.
4. THE REGIONAL SHEPHERD WOULD PROBABLY LIVE IN THE LARGEST HOME THAT HAS THE BEST INCOME or is doing the best or can afford to keep him. But if one Home can't afford to house & feed him without a little help, the other Homes could chip in a little bit or something.
5. KIND OF LET THEM DECIDE THIS ON THEIR LOCAL LEVEL, depending on how rich they are or how poor they are. So the Regional & District Shepherds should be able to take care of that pretty well on a local basis.
6. NOW WHEN YOU'RE GETTING INTO QUITE A FEW HOMES & QUITE A BIT OF ADMINISTRATION & probably a Sprint Centre, this is when you will be on the Bishopric or Archbishopric level. (NAS or NO)
7. IF YOU HAVE A SPRINT CENTRE IT WILL PROBABLY ALSO BE YOUR OFFICE HEADQUARTERS. So where would the income come from?--You could get your income from the PRINTING because you will be handling the printing for that particular Area.
8. I THINK EVERY CASE WILL HAVE TO BE JUDGED ON ITS OWN MERITS according to the situation, & you're going to have to try to work that out individually according to each individual situation.
SPRINT CENTERS: WHO PRINTS WHAT, WHERE & FOR WHOM
9. WHEN IT COMES TO PRINTING, REMEMBER, IT CAN ONLY BE DONE CHEAPER ON A QUANTITY BASIS. Now we don't want to have our printing done in such small batches that it's costing more than if a higher level would print it for you in a larger quantity.
10. I THINK THESE SPRINT CENTRES SHOULD BE BASED PRETTY MUCH ON LANGUAGE AREAS. For example, French is spoken in France & Belgium & Switzerland.
11. IF SOUTHERN FRANCE & FRENCH SWITZERLAND, FOR EXAMPLE, ARE IN A DIFFERENT AREA you will have to decide between yourselves how to work it out--distribution problems may enter in, transportation problems.
12. AS LONG AS THEY'RE IN YOUR AREA I PRESUME YOU DO THE PRINTING FOR THEM, but whatever works out to be the most practical & the most economical is the best thing to do.
13. I BELIEVE IN INDIGENUITY & THAT THESE HOMES SHOULD BE AS INDEPENDENT AS POSSIBLE. If one area is producing better material than the other or something, well then I'd order mine from THAT one.
GRANDMA'S SAMPLE OF LIVING-BY-FAITH EVANGELISM!
14. WHEN I WAS TRAVELLING WITH MY MOTHER IN SERVING THE LORD WE TRUSTED GOD COMPLETELY FOR OUR EXPENSES. We never charged for meetings like some evangelists who have a set fee.
15. MY MOTHER HAD A LITTLE TRICK TO TEACH SOME OF THESE YOUNG PASTORS in most of these small churches how to live by faith & how they could trust God & how she did it.
16. SHE WOULD FIGURE OUT WHAT OUR EXPENSES HAD BEEN in coming there from where she'd been before & our living expenses & a little to tide us over till the next time, the next meeting, & she'd figure out how much we actually needed.
17. THEN SHE WOULD PUT THAT PAPER OUT BEFORE THE LORD & WE'D PRAY OVER IT & say, "Lord, this is how much we need." Then she'd put it in an envelope & seal it & give it to the Pastor & say, "Now don't open that until after you have counted the love offering. I just want to encourage your faith & show you how God supplies."
18. AND THE LORD NEVER EVER FAILED to see that there was MORE in the love offering than there was on the piece of PAPER!
DISTRICT & REGIONAL SHEPHERDS LIKE EVANGELISTS OF EARLY CHURCH!
19. YOUR LOCAL DISTRICT & REGIONAL SHEPHERDS ARE LIKE LITTLE LOCAL EVANGELISTS, if they operate in the way they should & visit their Homes regularly & supervise them like they ought to.
20. THEY CAN HOLD A LITTLE INSPIRATIONAL MEETING just before they're ready to leave & have the Home give a little OFFERING to pay their way to the next Home.
21. THIS IS THE WAY IT WAS IN THE EARLY CHURCH. This is the way the disciples went from one town to the other. The local folks helped them along, they either furnished them with a donkey & the local bread & led them to the next village, or they shipped them on a boat or however it was done.--Acts 17:14; 28:10.
22. IT'S A VERY SIMPLE THING, ALMOST ON A BARTER BASIS on the local level. So that's no big problem. They just need to learn how to do it & how to do it by FAITH. If the local Shepherd loves his SHEEP enough they will love HIM enough to make sure he doesn't lack, right?
MIRACULOUS SUPPORT FROM THE LORD!
23. WE DIDN'T KNOW HOW THINGS WERE GOING TO WORK OUT WHEN WE FIRST STARTED OUT EITHER. To think we're now being supported by LITERATURE instead of by SCROUNGING & windfalls & forsake-alls is one of the unforeseeable miracles of God!
24. SO THE LORD MAY HAVE A FEW LITTLE MIRACLES UP HIS SLEEVE THAT WE ARE NOT EVEN THINKING ABOUT. But I know God's going to take care of them SOMEHOW if they're FAITHFUL, just as He ALWAYS has done with His servants.
25. MAYBE IT'S GOING TO KEEP THEM LIVING A LITTLE CLOSER TO THE LORD & taking a little better care of their sheep if they realise it's the SHEEP who are going to take care of THEM!
26. IT WOULDN'T HURT THE HOMES TO GIVE THE DISTRICT OR REGIONAL SHEPHERD A LITTLE LOVE OFFERING every time he passes through to help him with his expenses. Most of the expenses will simply be actual TRAVELLING expenses, & the Home they LIVE in will take care of their LIVING expenses.
LIVING BY FAITH & MAIL SUPPORT FROM PRAYER LETTERS!
27. I SPENT MANY YEARS IN EVANGELISTIC WORK, ON THE ROAD LIVING BY FAITH WITH THE KIDS & ALL. Once in a while we'd go into a church & we'd get an offering, but it wasn't too often because we were kind of OUT of the churches then & just witnessing outdoors.
28. MOST OF OUR INCOME CAME FROM THE LITTLE PRAYER LETTER I GOT OUT EVERY MONTH with those funny little pictures on it. I'd take one long legal sheet & stick a bunch of snapshots on it & paste labels under each one & write a little story to tell our friends what we were doing & mail it out to a few hundred people. (See Dad's "Oldie Goldies" Mag!)
29. WE HAD A FAIRLY REGULAR LITTLE INCOME JUST FROM FRIENDS WHO WROTE IN to support what ONE LITTLE FAMILY was doing. So for God's sake, with all that YOU guys are doing, if you can't write prayer letters & raise some support from some of these systemites & friends & sympathisers & kings & queens that should donate to you & your worthy cause, then something must be wrong with you!
30. WE'RE DOING A BETTER JOB THAN ANYBODY ELSE I KNOW OF IN REACHING YOUTH & helping youth, & almost everybody wants to help youth.--We've got what the old promoters like Fred would have called one of the best kind of projects you could possibly solicit sponsorship for!
31. SO I DON'T THINK YOUR INCOME IS GOING TO BE ANY PROBLEM--the Lord will supply. "Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out the corn" (1Cor.9:9-10), so whatever kind of CORN you're treading out is probably where you're going to get your FEED from. Praise the Lord?
WORLD SERVICES: A NEW NAME, A NEW IMAGE!
32. HOW DO YOU LIKE THE NEW TITLE "WORLD SERVICES" FOR THE INTERNATIONAL OPERATION? That was such a big bulky title that we had before. We talked about International Services, International Communications, International Information Centre, blah, blah, blah, blah, & finally we said, "Well what about just WORLD SERVICES?"
33. IT'S A WHOLE LOT SHORTER & it sounds a lot less like the CIA! We can even call all the other departments SERVICES instead of MINISTRIES.
34. "WORLD SERVICES" EMPHASISES THAT WE ARE PERFORMING SEVERAL SERVICES FOR THE WHOLE WORLD & therefore the WORLD should appreciate them enough to SUPPORT them besides. If they don't, the services won't be able to continue to operate.
BACKSLIDER/GRADUATE LIST: ITS ORIGIN & USE
35. THIS BACKSLIDER/GRADUATE LISTING WAS MY OWN IDEA because I found out that a lot of these people, though they couldn't stand Home life & they got fed up & they wanted to go back, they still wanted to get the MO Letters.
36. THEY WERE STILL "DISCIPLES" OR "FOLLOWERS OF THE TEACHINGS", BUT THEY WERE JUST WEAK DISCIPLES & they went back, but they still wanted to HEAR from us. We get the most pitiful pleading letters, "Can we please have the MO LETTERS at least?" and "We still love you & we're still trying to do a little distribution in our local town."
37. THEY JUST COULDN'T TAKE OUR HOME LIFE. Your Backslider/Graduate list is like a semi-active list, but we want to make sure that they're on the MAILING LIST for LETTERS. (They now get LINs.)
OVERBEARING SHEPHERDS PUSHING THEIR KIDS TOO HARD LITNESSING!
38. I AGREE THAT DUE TO THESE CHANGES NOW & THE GREATER EMPHASIS ON SMALLER HOMES & MORE DISCIPLES THAT IT WILL POSSIBLY TEMPORARILY RESULT IN A LITTLE LESS LITNESSING in order to do more WITNESSING & more WINNING. But on the other hand, I've heard some stories about how the TOP SHINERS are the ones who bring in the DISCIPLES, so I don't necessarily think it HAS to cut down litnessing that much.
39. ALTHOUGH I THINK THAT SOME PEOPLE WERE OVERDOING IT & must nearly be nervous wrecks from being pushed so hard to set the World records! Now when they start doing it for the sake of setting a World record, then I don't like it.
40. I LIKE TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE & where guys are really working hard & doing a great job, but not if they're doing it just to hit the Top Ten, just to have their name in the paper!--Then it begins to sour on me.
41. IT'S AWFUL EASY TO TELL OTHER GUYS TO DO THINGS, BUT I DON'T TELL YOU TO DO ANYTHING I HAVEN'T DONE MYSELF some time or other & proven I can do it. I've been THROUGH it now, & I can't DO it much anymore. I've got other BIGGER responsibilities, & you can't get out litnessing ALL the time yourselves if you've got a lot of responsibilities.
42. BUT I THINK A HOME SHEPHERD FOR EXAMPLE OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO GET OUT AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK & SHOW WHAT HE CAN DO, that he CAN do it, that he can get the quota out in one day or in a weekend. Every Home Shepherd & every officer in every Home needs to get out, if for nothing else than just for the RECREATION, just for the EXERCISE, the SUNSHINE, FRESH AIR, & a little WALK for an hour or two every day.
43. IT'S ONE THING TO SERVE THE LORD, BUT IT'S ANOTHER THING TO MAKE ABSOLUTE SLAVES OF YOUR SHEEP! You push them too hard & they're going to want to quit like this one Top Shiner we had.--She just got fed up & didn't want to do it at ALL anymore! It's like killing the goose that laid the golden egg!
44. YOU PUSH THEM TOO HARD UNTIL THEY GET SOURED ON IT & SICK of it & they don't want to even TOUCH another piece of lit! Well, not to push so hard might hurt your INCOME, it's possible, but it may save your DISCIPLES! I don't think you should push them too hard.
45. WHAT I DON'T LIKE IS THE WAY SOME OF THESE GUYS HAVE BEEN PUSHING THESE POOR KIDS until they must be near the breaking point!
46. I DON'T LIKE TO PUSH THEM SO HARD UNLESS THEY PUSH THEMSELVES. But when some slave driver just wants to make a World record & see his men at the top of the list--I'm leery of that sort of thing!
47. I THINK YOU OUGHT TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO DO THEIR BEST, but I don't think you ought to just NEEDLE them & DRIVE them & WHIP them, "We've GOTTA make that Top Ten, & we've GOTTA steal the World record & WE'RE gonna make a NEW record!"
48. THE POOR KIDS GET OUT THERE & THEY GO FROM DAWN TO DUSK & HALF THE NIGHT & nearly drive themselves crazy trying to do it! What're we doing this thing FOR?--Are we doing it for RECORDS? Are we doing it for GLORY, GLAMOUR?--Or are we doing it for the LORD?--And are we doing it to get out the MESSAGE & feed the SHEEP?
49. WELL, YOU'RE GETTING OUT THE MESSAGE, THAT'S FOR SURE! BUT YOU'RE KILLING THE MESSENGER DOING IT! So it may temporarily reduce some of your inflated income from these possible changes in litnessing, but we're not making RECORDS the major emphasis!
SENSIBLE PIONEERING: HOW TO DO IT!
50. I THINK THE MOST SENSIBLE FORM OF PIONEERING IS FOR A MOTHER HOME THAT KNOWS OF ANOTHER AREA THAT HAS A NEED, TO GO THERE & find a HOUSE & THEN SPLIT & move HALF of them to THAT place. They don't have to go wandering around like Abraham for YEARS looking for a place to land!
51. I THINK THEY OUGHT TO DO IT THE SENSIBLE WAY--SEND OUT SCOUTS & FIND their Jericho or something before they MOVE, even if they have to tear the walls down, praise God! But I don't think it's going to be all that big a thing. It shouldn't be. We've done it for years & it hasn't been. What are you going to do when you get ready to send out these pioneer teams?
52. FIRST YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO PRAY & LOOK FOR A NEW LOCATION. "Now let's see, WHERE did we really have some fruitful RESPONSE from some of these ROAD teams? Where did we really make a HIT & got some good CONTACTS & we found the people HOSPITABLE? Well it's time we found a LOCATION there to send part of THIS Home that's too big to, & establish a HOME there." Of course we don't know WHAT'S going to happen except for the LORD--HE knows the NEED.
53. BUT WE KNOW ONE THING: IF WE OBEY GOD HE'LL SUPPLY!--Amen? Hallelujah! He NEVER fails! Just keep on PLODDIN' & PLOWIN' & SOWIN' & REAPIN' & you'll have PLENTY!--Amen? Praise God! TYJ! HE never fails!--Don't fail HIM! YOU do YOUR part, & HE'LL pour out such a BLESSING there won't be ROOM to HOLD it!--Mal.3:10. He's gonna BUST those BARNS & scatter'm EVERYWHERE!--Amen?
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family