THE FELLOWSHIP REVOLUTION!
DFO 1001
4/81
1. I really think that our Homes should get together in an area for at least a MONTHLY Fellowship Day. Now we're having Fellowship Days weekly on Sunday within individual Homes, but I see the great need of a MONTHLY FELLOWSHIP DAY of all of the Homes in an area who could possibly get together for that, who are close enough that it would be possible for them to come in for just one Sunday a month & meet together in some Home or banquet room or a rented hotel meeting-room or whatever would be sufficiently commodious & convenient.
2. Perhaps Area Fellowship Meetings would be a good name for them, because they would vary greatly in size. Some of the areas would be just one city of several Homes, others where the Homes are scarce & there might be only one Home in each city in an area, then the area would consist of several cities. Where there were several Homes in one city, the area would consist of just that one city.
3. We still feel there's a great need for more fellowship between the Homes, not only just IN the Homes. Normally all of us have good fellowship within our Homes, especially the CO-OP HOMES of two or more families, but some Homes are quite isolated & lonely & really hungry for fellowship. So I think really a ONCE-A-MONTH SUNDAY FELLOWSHIP DAY for the Area, an AREA FELLOWSHIP DAY perhaps the FIRST SUNDAY OR SATURDAY OF EACH MONTH, would be a good choice.
4. A Local Fellowship Meeting would consist of the same type of meeting as is held in the average Home on Fellowship Day: Prayer, fellowship, praise, singing, testimonies, videos, showing pictures of other Homes & of the various local ministries, their Homes in action, the kind of things we like to see on the videos.
5. It would also be a very good time for the individual Home heads to perhaps have separate meetings aside from their flocks, private meetings to discuss the major problems of individual & collective Homes & discuss needs & procedures & projects & plans of witnessing & how to take a new city or how to pioneer a new area, which will require joint cooperation & help & financing etc.
6. It would be a marvelous opportunity for the heads of the Homes to get together, the SHEPHERDS of the various Homes, husbands & wives, in this case without the children & without the helpers etc. Possibly if there are quite a large number of people it's easier to discuss things in sort of an AREA COMMITTEE MEETING. You could call it the AREA ACTION COMMITTEE or the Area Fellowship Committee--in other words, just the HEADS of the Homes, the husband & wife or individual heads of each Home to meet together in a sort of EXECUTIVE SESSION with the LOCAL VSS, if there are some.
7. And if there is not a local VS, there's no reason on Earth why an area cannot elect at such a meeting their own LOCAL AREA SHEPHERD. I'm fully in accord & agreement, in fact even enthusiastic about this suggestion which has been coming in from various sources.
8. Some areas are very scattered & perhaps even once a month would be too much for individual Homes in scattered cities to make the journey to some geographical center centrally located between them all, to have a monthly Fellowship Meeting. Then they could at least have a QUARTERLY FELLOWSHIP MEETING, at least once every three months, perhaps the FIRST SUNDAY OF EVERY CALENDAR QUARTER, of every three-month period of the year.
9. That way you could have'm the first Sunday of January, the first Sunday of the first quarter of the year, of January, February & March. Then the FIRST SUNDAY OF APRIL, first Sunday of JULY, first Sunday of OCTOBER etc., at least meeting together once every three months to have a grand AREA FELLOWSHIP. Even if they have to come from quite a distance it should not be too prohibitive if the meeting is held only once every three months for those Homes which are widely scattered & would have to, some of them, come hundreds of miles to have that fellowship.
10. I would suggest then at such a Fellowship Meeting, first of all the Executive Committee meet together. EXECUTIVE means that they are an Action Committee who EXECUTES things & gets things done, & DOES things. It implies ACTION.
11. And if you want to use a simpler word instead of executive, which is a little System-sounding & big & maybe not clearly understood even by the children, you could call it an ACTION COMMITTEE. In other words, they're not just supposed to be a bunch of dumb heads sitting around like bumps on a log wondering what to say & wondering what to do & they have nothing to say & no ideas & no action.
12. There should be at least one delegate from each Home who would attend this area-wide ACTION COMMITTEE MEETING & that would discuss problems & plans & various actions & witnessing projects, litnessing projects, printing projects for the Area, pioneering projects & helping-the-needy projects etc.
13. But the principal thing would be the General Area Fellowship Meeting for all Family members including the children, which could occur on this once-a-month or once-a-quarter first Sunday of the month or quarter, at which ALL could attend, everybody who could possibly get free & come--including couples, singles, helpers, children, whatever--with a good musical program, praise-the-Lord program, testimonies etc., & with a final real earnest prayer service for various needs & the problems & the Family around the World.
14. Then at some time during the day, whatever seems to be convenient, perhaps while the women are preparing the MEAL or during a recess of the general crowd, perhaps these Area Delegates could get together.
15. There should be at least one person selected by each Home to represent them in the Executive Action Committee meeting of the area, & therefore in the privacy of committee without all the distraction of all the other people & children, be able to quietly discuss the various needs & problems, projects, plans, pioneering, printing & all of those things together with special prayer.
16. I think the cooperation of the Homes in each area that way will be a great boon & a great blessing & a great step forward, a great impetus to our local areas, some of which have lost heart & nearly lost faith & have just sort of gone into the doldrums, stagnated, & are seemingly almost as sheep without a shepherd with no particular direction or drive or leadership or objectives,
17. Just every man going to his own tent & every man doing as he sees right in his own eyes with virtually no organisation, no leadership, no cooperation, no fellowship, no general discussion of problems & projects, no consensus & agreement & voting for the area on what to do about this or that or the other. It's pitiful!
18. In unity there is strength, & this was one of the strengths of our early pioneering daysour COOPERATIVE COLONIES in which we had a number of families living together & working together in ONE Home, one COLONY. Some of them were too big, they were blobs & we had to break them up to try to get them scattered & go into all the World & preach the Gospel unto EVERY creature, but sometimes a certain amount of blobism is necessary for cooperation & united action, & unity & strength in the power of the Spirit, in a get-together fellowship.
19. You'll notice on the Day of Pentecost there were quite a few people! It was quite a blob in that Upper Room, 120 men there, not counting all the women & the children!--Acts 1:13-15.
20. But they stayed there as Jesus had commanded them to: "But TARRY ye at JERUSALEM until ye be endued with POWER from on high", until ye be filled with the Holy Ghost.--Lk.24:49. He said, "And then ye shall be WITNESSES unto Me".--Not only in Judea & Samaria & in all the surrounding territory, but to all the World!--Acts 1:4,5,8.
21. And as a result of that one big area-wide fellowship meeting of all the disciples, they had a tremendous praise & prayer meeting & were terrificly in unity of mind & heart--one mind, one spirit, one soul & virtually one body! You can imagine how close they must have all had to sleep together on the floor, they must have been wall-to-wall hippies for sure!
22. Until after ten days of obedience & in prayer & tarrying & waiting for the Holy Spirit to come & fill them all, there was that final tremendous explosion on the DAY OF PENTECOST when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost & spake with other tongues & interpretation & prophecy & all the rest, & it was such an explosion that the whole city gathered together by the thousands to see what in the World was going on! 3,000 people got saved that day as a result of that tremendous spiritual explosion when Peter then got up!--Acts 2:1-14.
23. They got under conviction when they saw the power of God manifest in the unified, united, fellowshipped, gathered-together Church!--When they saw all these disciples together so endued with the power of the Holy Spirit that no man could deny that it was of God & all the people glorified God that this was a miracle.
24. The Lord is for SCATTERING & preaching the Gospel in all the World to every creature, but He's also for FELLOWSHIP, & there are times when you need to get together & NOT scatter. There are times when you need to UNITE & not just wander around listless & leaderless. There are times when you need to FELLOWSHIP & share each other's problems & joys & victories & projects & plans & needs etc.
25. And we're going to suggest officially, here & now, that you DO establish some kind of an AREA FELLOWSHIP MEETING for each area, & set a certain day & time for that fellowship between Homes, not just in the individual Homes but BETWEEN Homes. Wherever there are two or more Homes that could be gathered together in the Lord's name, do it!--Whether they be just in one neighbourhood or one city or one small area of a province or a whole province or a whole country, depending on the number of the Homes, the proximity of Homes & distances etc.
26. If there are two or three or more Homes in ONE CITY, they could even have a WEEKLY FELLOWSHIP MEETING together & have every Sunday Fellowship together--perhaps alternate Homes, meet in a different Home each Sunday. But if this is not possible, have at least a ONCE-A-MONTH Fellowship Meeting, the first Sunday of every month of the local Homes of a city or a local area.
27. And if the Homes are too scattered & not that numerous, then they could come in from outlying areas & provinces at least ONCE-A-QUARTER for a first Sunday of the quarter Area Fellowship Meeting. Or perhaps you could even have BOTH.
28. If you can't have it every Sunday for the Homes of one city in an area, have a monthly first-of-the-month Sunday fellowship meeting of all the Homes of that city or local area, PLUS a QUARTERLY FELLOWSHIP MEETING of all the Homes of the whole province or the whole country to which people could come from hundreds of miles away if necessary, to have a quarterly Family Fellowship Meeting of the whole area.
29. Where the Homes are numerous you could have oth, in local cities a number of Homes could have a Monthly Fellowship Meeting, first Sunday of every month. Then they could ALL gather together from all the cities, at least the FIRST SUNDAY OF EVERY QUARTER. And this way you could then get together & discuss, first of all in the Action Committee of delegates, who you think would be a good AREA SHEPHERD, a good AS.
30. To make it truly democratic & to choose your own leaders that you know & you know well, you live with or live near & you have seen them in action, you know who has the anointing, who has the power, who has the wisdom, the love, the genuine direction of the Spirit, in that Executive Committee Meeting or the Action Committee meeting, the delegates could then nominate at least three nominees right from the Committee. They could propose or bring forward the names of three of their own number right there, the different ones can nominate each other.
31. I think Area Fellowship Meetings are a tremendous NEED, not just a good idea but an absolute MUST! So I'm going to hereby proclaim & officially issue the Royal Decree that in every area where there are TWO OR MORE HOMES IN A CITY or even in a LOCAL AREA or a GENERAL AREA, a PROVINCE or a STATE or a whole COUNTRY, whatever, that they ought to get together at least once every month, quarter or year!
32. Now if that seems to be impossible, you're really so far apart, hundreds or maybe thousands of miles apart like you could be in Australia etc., 2,000 miles wide, or the U.S., 3,000 miles wide, Europe 2,000 miles wide etc., you couldn't all get together very often. Maybe then you could at least have a country-wide meeting or a tremendous continent-wide meeting once or twice a year, perhaps every six months or at least every year, to which you'd send delegates at least, one person from each church.
33. And perhaps you could even have one of these every six months or at least once a year as we did in the Alliance, which I thought was very good, as at this time they did not just elect local delegates & local Area Shepherds, local District leaders or District Superintendents. At this National Meeting they elected the NATIONAL officers, the National leaders of the whole National Church. They were nominated by these official delegates & voted upon & selected.
34. So now we lower the boom & we tell you that it is a command of the Lord by the Holy Spirit through His Apostle that you should ASSEMBLE YOURSELVES TOGETHER!:
35. "Neglect not the assembling of yourselves together!"--Heb.10:25. That is a law of the church, in a sense, it is part of the LAW OF LOVE to have fellowship together, to cooperate together. "Behold, how these Christians love one another!" "Love one another! Bear ye one another's burdens & so fulfil the law of Christ."--1Jn.4:7, Gal.6:2.
36. You MUST get together, Beloved, for more FELLOWSHIP & more UNITED praise & prayer & cooperation & action & planning & printing & projects for witnessing, more united unified action & helping with the needs & discussing & praying over & solving the problems & all the rest: You've just GOT to do it!--It's a MUST!
37. I'm going to recommend now that we call our Home Servants SHEPHERDS to let the local Home know & feel that they have a little authority & that they are their SHEPHERD of the SHEEP, they are their PASTOR, which is a Latin word meaning the same thing as Shepherd. In the New Testament church they had Shepherds, Pastors, Deacons, Deaconesses, Bishops, Apostles, all these various officers.
38. So I think we need to get back to the New Testament plan again & not be so completely out of fellowship, out of LEADERSHIP & out of ORGANISATION that we're just like a bunch of dumb sheep drifting around the World hardly knowing where we're going, just as the wind bloweth where it listeth, being led of the Spirit & the Letters as best we can, with very little synchronisation or very little cooperation or very little organisation of our moves or plans or projects or printing or pioneering or anything!
39. We now need to GET IT TOGETHER! We really NEED to get together more now. We have become strong now again in the Spirit & in the Letters, the RIGHT spirit, the RIGHT leadership, going the RIGHT direction doing things the RIGHT way according to the LETTERS & MY leadership under the LORD.
40. I think now it's time that we should have some good local LEADERS who have developed OUTSIDE the Chain-Saul & not all cut up by the cruel teeth of the Chain, but FREE of that terrible tyranny & its horrible extortion, & free of their training & leadership! We still have a few of those old Chain-Saul bottles hanging around, but we've tried to break'm up so that maybe they can then pick up the pieces & try again, & we have reclaimed quite a few of those old Chain-Saul members.
41. So it's time to get it together! It's time for a SECOND PENTECOST! Hallelujah? Praise God? Are you ready for another PENTECOST? Are you ready for another outpouring of power on a united church, united disciples, a united Family, a strong united unified organised cooperative fellowshipping, working together, fighting together Family! GBY! I think we are!--It's TIME!
42. I think we've had three-and-a-half years of PURGING & that's ENOUGH! I think you've had three-&-a-half years of nothing but MY leadership through the LETTERS & almost no other leaders, & I think that's long enough, maybe it has been even too long! Maybe a lot have been lost by the way because of a lack of leadership & a shortage of Shepherds. So Lord help us now in Jesus' name to RE-UNITE! (Prays:)
43. We ask Thee to lead & guide us & help our families to GET IT TOGETHER & to learn how to fellowship & learn how to strengthen each other, strengthen the brethren, hold each other up so that if one stumbles the other will lift him up. Help us now to feed each other & bear one another's burdens & share one another's cares & share each other's ideas & projects & promotions & printing & pioneering & cooperative efforts of all kinds & self-help of the needy & all the things that need to be done in cooperation & done together in unanimity by unanimous consent & cooperation & united effort & fellowship etc.
44. Lord Jesus, help each one to get the burden, to have the conviction that is of Thee, Lord, that we have gone too long not assembling ourselves together. Now it's time to fulfil & obey Thy commandment by Thy Apostle who knew how necessary it was, that we are NOT TO NEGLECT THE ASSEMBLING OF OURSELVES TOGETHER. Amen!
45. If it's difficult for you to fellowship together every Sunday or you're too far apart in the city or the province, county or whatever, at least the LOCAL AREA Homes can get it together one Sunday a MONTH, the FIRST SUNDAY of each month in a LOCAL AREA FELLOWSHIP Meeting. And if not, at least in a ONCE-A-QUARTER, first Sunday of the Quarter Fellowship Meeting.
46. If you're numerous enough to do BOTH, the LOCAL HOMES can meet together either EVERY SUNDAY or the first Sunday of EVERY MONTH, & then the area-wide Homes, province-wide Homes, county-wide, State-wide, country-wide Homes can meet together perhaps at least the first Sunday of every quarter month, or every six months, or on their New Year's Fellowship Sunday, the first Sunday of the New Year!
47. So you 2 or 3 Homes that are closest to each other, why don't you decide to get together EVERY SUNDAY for your Fellowship Meeting & ALTERNATE HOMES. Meet one Sunday in YOUR Home & one Sunday in THEIR Home etc. if you can.
48. There is a lot of flexibility in how to do this. But YOU get together & YOU decide on how to do it, what is possible & what's not, & what's convenient & what's not, what's the best thing to do & what is not.
49. You 2 or 3 Homes that are nearest each other start meeting together EVERY SUNDAY if possible, all the Homes that are closest to each other. Start having at least a Local Sunday Fellowship Meeting every Sunday. I think that would be very good.--Not just one little local Family meeting & just one little local Home of just that Family that lives there--unless you're so many hundreds of miles away from others that there's no other Family you could possibly fellowship with every Sunday.
50. I'd say that if you're at least within an hour or two of each other, you certainly ought to get together every Sunday. That's not too hard for a Sunday drive, a nice outing for the family & the kids.
51. Try to have it in a commodious enough place that everybody's comfortableeverybody has a seat or a chair if possible, even if you have to borrow a bunch of chairs or rent'm or go down & get some canvas stools or something to have something for everybody to sit on, or PILLOWS at LEAST! That old floor can get pretty hard after an hour or two or three--& that's about how long those meetings usually last!
52. You've got from three to six o'clock as time for meeting: First hour music & all kinds of special things, praise & prayer etc., & then the next hour for all kinds of testimonies, special speakers & whatnot, & sometimes that runs into about two hours with your pictures & videos & all the rest. But finally wind up at DINNERTIME about SIX.
53. Have a SET TIME when you've GOT to CUT IF OFF. These interminable endless unending meetings get really tiresome for some of the poor hardworking folks & mothers & children especially. I think it's just cruelty to poor dumb animals to carry on & on & on for hours & hours non-stop without any chance to rest or stop or get out of it. And yet they feel like if they leave the meeting they're disloyal or some kind of a backslider or something!
54. I suggest those Sunday Fellowship meetings shouldn't be more than TWO OR THREE HOURS IN LENGTH in the afternoon, from some time between three & six when people have time to get there from afar after their LUNCH. Then we used to always feed the folks there or they brought food or money or something so that we could all eat together, either outside or inside depending on the country & the climatic conditions & the facilities. And be sure there's just plenty of ROOM for the size of congregation you're gonna have, the number of people you're going to have, & be sure there's plenty to EAT!
55. I suggest you try to CLOSE your meeting at the end of the DINNER so that people who don't necessarily want to stay later & want to get an early start home, can leave after the late afternoon hours about suppertime. They can either go, they don't have to stay for dinner, or they can stay for dinner & continue to fellowship, those that want to do so voluntarily as long as they want to.
56. I suggest you have everything together in the afternoon, get it over with & dismiss for dinner. Have a good dinner & say goodnight & everybody get home early in plenty of time for a good night's rest.
57. First before you leave home you've got to decide on who is going to be your representative, or your delegates: At least one delegate from each Home. Of course, preferably the Home mother & father if possible. And come together as a special SEPARATE MEETING sometime during that Fellowship Day, you DELEGATES.
58. Perhaps you could have your committee meeting during one of the RECESSES, if there is a recess, & maybe you OUGHT to have a RECESS after about an hour or an-hour-&-a-half! Maybe you should declare a half-an-hour or one-hour recess so people will have at least a chance to go to the toilet, & have your COMMITTEE MEETING, so that your plans, programs, nominees, projects, proposals & promotions can be brought together afterward before the whole Family for their approval at the second half of your afternoon Fellowship Meeting.
59. I suggest you have a good hot one-to-one-&-a-half-hour Family meeting, & then have a Committee Meeting while the rest of the Family just relaxes & fellowships or takes a nap or goes to the toilet or plays ball! Maybe you can have a special CHILDREN'S MEETING during that time too for the childcare workers while the mothers have a meeting. Have a Children's Meeting & a MOTHER'S MEETING while the men or the leaders or the delegates have their Action Committee Meeting.
60. From now on the leaders of each Home are going to be called Home Shepherds, & then the leaders of TWO OR MORE HOMES are going to be called LOCAL AREA SHEPHERDS. At that first meeting you should have your Committee Meeting & nominate at least two or three different people for the Local Area Shepherd of two or more Homes.
61. Nominate and select those nominees, so when you get back together as a Family as a whole, announce to the whole Family the two or three nominations that have been made of suggested Area Shepherds, & have EACH ADULT MEMBER VOTE by SECRET BALLOT on scraps of paper, just scribble in the name of the one that they prefer. SECRET ballot so nobody will be pressured by social pressure into voting for this one or that one or have a special following or fan club.
62. If no candidate gets a MAJORITY of all of the qualified votes, more than half of the possible votes of all of-age members of the united families who are meeting at this united meeting, then I suggest you have a RUN-OFF VOTE between the TWO TOP CANDIDATES who got the most votes, a plurality of votes, & decide between those. And whichever one of those candidates wins a MAJORITY OF TOTAL VOTES then will be your AREA SHEPHERD.
63. You can decide whether they should be chosen by a majority or by a TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY or a three-quarters majority. It's pretty hard sometimes to get a UNANIMOUS vote, but of course in the long run it would be nice to MAKE it unanimous, to all agree that that was a good choice. But anyhow, VOTE!
64. Now in cases where there are great distances to be covered & perhaps whole families can't come, they may only send one or two DELEGATES to the meeting, the Family SHEPHERDS, or even Mama may have to stay home & take care of the kids while Papa goes. If it's a great distance & it's expensive & you have to go by maybe train or bus or otherwise, then you might not ALL be able to attend, you'll just have to send Delegates to a very large Area Meeting.
65. Of course, if there are families who can afford it & have cars & they can all drive in together, all the better! EVERYBODY should attend who can. But at least in those very much larger Area Meetings where you perhaps have to travel hundreds of miles or more, at least have a DELEGATE from each Home come if possible, & maybe some of the rest of you can help them a little bit on their fare or their expenses or their gasoline if they have to come an especially long ways & it's particularly difficult for them.
66. Try to make it possible for them to come, give them a little extra help, those of you who didn't have to come so far & it didn't cost you so much. You should be able to share with them, take up a little offering for them who come from afar or give them a little gift in the hand to help them. Of course if they're rich Homes that can afford it, you don't have to help them.
67. As you're organizing these first local areas, in the more NUMEROUS LOCAL AREAS where there are a NUMBER OF HOMES, quite a few people, you might even want to have SEVERAL different AREA OFFICERS. You may not only need an AREA SHEPHERD, you may want to elect a businessman who's good at business & money & banking to be your AREA TREASURER to handle your area finances, special Area Fund for pioneering or printing or the needy etc., things which require a united effort & united support.
68. In the more numerous areas where there are many Homes & lots of members you may need more personnel to help to guide the Area & communicate etc. You may even have to also elect an Area Secretary for correspondence with the various Homes etc., & to take care of the writing of letters or notices & various secretarial work, keeping the minutes of the meetings & the business meetings & what went on each time, a log of each business session, committee session & all of it.
69. In extremely populous areas where there are scores of Homes in a small area & hundreds of members, you may find you even need more officers than that. You may need a number of COMMITTEES & SECRETARIES to handle the various things, like a MEETING COMMITTEE to decide on the times & places of meetings & who's in charge & who's responsible for the FOOD & the ENTERTAINMENT & the INSPIRATION & the MUSIC & all that sort of thing, the PROGRAM COMMITTEE.
70. Then you may have to have a committee which is in charge of PRINTING & its needs, & PIONEERING & its needs, pioneering new areas, various special projects etc. You may have several different committees to handle these various projects & various jobs in an extremely numerous Area where there are many Homes & many many members.
71. Where two or more Homes meet together every Sunday, that can be established as the LOCAL AREA FELLOWSHIP a LAF, & should have a LOCAL AREA SHEPHERD, a LAS. Maybe it'll be a laugh sometimes as you get started, but it can get pretty serious as you go on.
72. When two or more Local Area Fellowships, two or more LAFs, decide they want to get together for a United Meeting at least once a month, the FIRST SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH, then that should be called a DISTRICT AREA FELLOWSHIP MEETING, a DAFM!
73. I would say it would be well to try to perhaps limit these LOCAL fellowships to about two or three Homes or not too many more so you don't get the house too crowded every Sunday.
74. But then the DAFs should consist of SEVERAL LAFS & meet in a large enough Home that at least if not ALL the people, at least the official DELEGATES from each Home will have enough room to meet & talk & visit & eat & carry on the Lord's work & your committee meetings & your programs & your plans & projects & printing agreements & pioneering efforts & all the rest.
75. First the Local Area Fellowship meeting, LAFM, that's two or more Homes meeting together regularly EVERY SUNDAY. Next, the District Area Fellowship Meeting, the DAFM, that is two or more LAFs meeting together on the FIRST SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH if possible. If not possible, at least the FIRST SUNDAY OF EVERY QUARTER if you're really scattered. But I would say the DAFs should generally meet together at least the first Sunday of every month.
76. First there's the Local Area Fellowship, then the District Area Fellowship, then we could call it the GREATER AREA FELLOWSHIP consisting of TWO OR MORE DAFS, & that'll be the Greater Area Fellowship Meeting, the GAFM! A LAFM consists of two or more Homes meeting every Sunday. A DAFM consists of two or more LAFs meeting once a month. And a GAFM consists of two or more DAFs meeting at least once a quarter.
77. And finally now the national or language area fellowship meetings on a larger scale such as national or nationwide at least ONCE A YEAR. Now in areas where there are some very small countries & the distances are short, you might want to have a yearly Meeting.
78. Well, according to tongues, we could call it a TAFM! It would be a Tongue Area Fellowship Meeting, so for lack of a better term for the moment I'll just call it a TAFM or NAFM. This will be a National Meeting which will meet at least once a year on the first Sunday of the year, God willing, & it should be even a weekend-long meeting or perhaps even a week-long meeting, your National Convention or your Language Area-wide Convention.
79. It should plan to be such a large meeting with people coming from such long distances that they don't want to just stay for an afternoon, but be prepared to stay for at least a three-day weekend, or even a week. Which reminds me that in your GAFMs also, your delegates may be coming from such great distances that they won't want to just come for an afternoon or a day, but at least a two or three day weekend. That's your Greater Area Fellowship Meeting consisting of two DAFs & a number of LAFs!
80. At each of these successive levels, by the way, successive steps, you'll not only have a LOCAL AREA FELLOWSHIP SHEPHERD, but at your DAFM or District Area Fellowship Meeting, you should choose a DISTRICT AREA FELLOWSHIP SHEPHERD, a DAS, who will be the overseer of the other two Local Area Shepherds, of two or more. He's not to be a dictator, he's not to be a tyrant, he's not to be an extortionist, he's just to be a sort of a friendly counsellor & guide to sort of counsel with & to fellowship with & ask for guidance & leadership for your general District Area.
81. Then at the GAFM, the Greater Area Fellowship Meeting, there should be a Greater Area Fellowship SHEPHERD chosen who will be over the GAF, the Greater Area Fellowship of two or more DAFs. At each successive step then your Area Meetings will choose their particular SHEPHERDS for that particular area--either Local Area, District Area, Greater Area or National or Language Area: LAS, DAS, GAS & NAS.
82. These are not a dictatorial chain-of-command of tyranny or extortion, but simply a matter of sweet & lovely voluntary Family Fellowship where we enjoy each other for a short time--the local ones every Sunday, the District ones every month, the Greater Areas every quarter, & the National or Tongue Lingual Areas every year.
83. We need a little more fellowship, a LOT more fellowship!--A little more organisation, a little more unity, cooperation, synchronisation of effort, a united promotion of projects of printing & pioneering & helping needy areas, needy churches, needy missionaries & all that sort of thing. PTL? Good idea? You like it? OK, let's TRY it, shall we?
84. This would be a very good thing to have, I think, a very wonderful thing to be able to get our heads & hearts together in one place with one spirit, one mind, one heart & one meeting or more & be able to discuss & share & pray & praise & plan for our Worldwide Work.
85. This is going to be a marriage of our Family around the World, a get-together, "Let's Get It Together", let's all get married in body, mind & spirit & have a wonderful time together & much greater fellowship & much greater unity & much greater power, much greater cooperation for projects & promotions & pioneering & printing & distribution & all the rest! Praise God? Hallelujah? TYJ! (Prays:)
86. We ask Thee in Jesus' name, Lord, to give them wisdom, to give them great soberness & seriousness of mind as they select very seriously the leadership who's best qualified, who's not just the most popular & the easiest going who will be the easiest on'm, but the one who really has the best spiritual leadership, best leadership qualifications, who is already a leader & has already been proving himself to be a good Shepherd of his OWN Home & even helping OTHER Homes, this man or woman or couple who are worthy of being Area Shepherds of whatever size the Area.
87. We ask Thee in Jesus' name to help them make wise choices, to nominate not foolishly or fools, but to nominate the serious & well-qualified wise leaders & Shepherds to lead their flocks & to get this done quickly & as soon as possible, Lord, so that we can have a Worldwide Fellowship which is closer & tighter with more communication & cooperation & unified effort, synchronisation & a fighting front that will be strong & unified & working together, fighting together & planning together to reach the whole World with Thy precious Gospel of Love as quickly as we can before it's too late. We feel we have just a little time left, not much, so we need to do more to work together in order to do it. In Jesus' name we ask it for Thy glory. Amen.
88. In areas where you have full-fledged Churches of Love every Sunday that are going very well & it would be out of the question for your fish & friends who come over to go any long distance & go from house to house, in some cases perhaps bad security & you wouldn't want them to meet the other Family members, you could decide to have the Fellowship meetings on a MONDAY or perhaps a SATURDAY or some other day. Or you could change your Church of Love to another day or even an evening or Saturday afternoon.
89. Saturday afternoon might be a good time for the big fellowship meeting of all Homes, because most people are off & people are not usually working, children are home from school. These things are purely voluntary & should be adapted to your own particular situations & what you can do & what's best for you in your own situation & location. You can do it if you want to & if you think it will work for you, & if you don't or can't, then you don't have to!--But,
90. We need to balance between the two: The need for security & the need for fellowship. I think that we're going to have to strike some kind of a happy medium & not go to one extreme or the other. We started at the one extreme of total public fellowship & wide publicity, & we went to the opposite extreme of NO Family fellowship, isolated Homes & no publicity & total security. And now we have got to learn to have some kind of FAMILY FELLOWSHIP, even at some slight risk of security. The urgent need of fellowship in some cases is more than the need for security.
91. I think that we can have Family Fellowship in security if we're wise. (Maria: And perhaps this might be a way of even IMPROVING their security by getting together & deciding what they can do as Homes to be more secure.)
92. There were always Judases in the Church, you'll never be able to get rid of ALL the Judases. There will always be spies & traitors & backsliders. We cannot hinder the Work of God & stop the progress of the machinery just for the sake of a few mutineers. The best thing to do is just chuck them overboard & keep on going if you find them, but not just stop the whole ship & never go anywhere or sail anywhere or reach any goals or harbors or havens just because you're afraid to let your crew know where you're going or what you're doing! Amen? Happy Fellowship!
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