THE FAMILY IS UNIQUE!
DO 2768 8/91
--The Difference Between the Family and the Churches!
(Dad talking to the Family:)
1. Well, here I am! I'm still going! But the main thing is I got you going! I'm not doing it. I don't have a great big church. I don't preach to thousands or millions. Really I do, through you! We are preaching to millions, and we've won millions of souls! But I didn't do it! The Lord did it!--Through you, through others, through our Family!
2. I had learned enough about the mistakes of other preachers that I was determined to hook this wagon to a star and make sure you're hitched on to Jesus, and then I knew you couldn't fail. And our Family has just exploded all over the world!--Preached to billions and won millions to the Lord! Isn't that wonderful? It's terrific!
3. Thank God I never built a church building! I did build a church building once upon a time in Arizona, but I mean since I've come into my real ministry in the Lord's work of witnessing and soul-winning. I never built a building, I never built a big TV ministry, never built a great congregation of thousands in one building and all that kind of stuff. But I've had a great congregation through you, our Family! I've literally preached to millions. But it's been the Lord, and it's been you.--Not me personally.
4. I'm a recruiter, like an army recruiter, and I've persuaded others! I volunteered for the mission field myself and the churches wouldn't let me go. So what did I do?--I recruited thousands of soldiers for the army to win the battles for the Lord! And they're doing it! They're doing it because I encouraged them to go and helped to make it possible. So it's a great ministry, thank the Lord, but it's not built around a big church building or personality, it's built around Jesus! Praise the Lord! Amen!
5. I know a lot of people love me and they're always giving me the credit for it, and I always tell them, "Thank the Lord! Thank Jesus!--Not me!"--Because it's the Lord. The Lord did it and so far I don't think I've failed the Lord. I'm getting old and I have had afflictions, and the Family has to pray for me, but you're still going on! I can go on to be with the Lord and our work would still go on!
Soul-winning--The Greatest Ministry!
6. Praise God, I think we're still on the right track! Don't you?--Still preaching and teaching the right things! And it's all Jesus! Praise the Lord! I've tried to keep people's attention and minds focused on the Lord and His work and doing His will and witnessing and winning souls. To me, that's the greatest. I don't think even healing is as great. I never had the gift of healing or a great healing ministry, but what could be greater than winning millions of souls to the Lord? What's greater than witnessing to billions? We've witnessed to billions, till nearly the whole world has heard about us! We've won millions to the Lord, and what's better than that?
7. Our Family has won to the Lord almost 15 million souls! (1996: Now 19.3 million!) What's better than that?--To have a miracle ministry?--A healing ministry? We've stayed on the right track and put people's minds on what they ought to do, and I think they've done it, and they've won millions to the Lord! Praise the Lord! And who knows? If the Lord can trust us, perhaps we will even also have a ministry of healing to the world as the end gets closer, as a sign to them to help them believe!
* * * * * * *
Building Mania!
(Later, talking with Mama:)
8. There have been many famous healing evangelists, such as Dowie, Wigglesworth, Branham, Jack Coe, A. A. Allen, Kathryn Kuhlman, Aimee Semple McPherson and Oral Roberts. They were great, famous, sensational, had thousands of members, preached to thousands of people at a time. They also built great temples and huge tabernacles.
9. So many men of God have been sidetracked into the building mania, it's pitiful! Even Aimee was. They all built their big tabernacles. Paul Rader built the Rader Tabernacle, a huge big thing in Los Angeles. That's the church that invited me to drive the school bus first and then teach school.
10. (Maria: Did Raymond Richie have a tabernacle too?) Oh, yes, a huge big temple in Houston that held thousands of people! Nearly all of them went for some kind of big temple or tabernacle, but very few of them left lasting works to speak of.
11. (Maria: I guess Billy Graham never established a big temple, did he?) No, but he established a big college somewhere in the U.S., where he lives. Oral Roberts used to have a huge television ministry, and then his Bible college and hospital in Oklahoma. (Maria: Yes, I guess that's more the type of thing that's in vogue today, a university or college. Even Pat Robertson's "700 Club" has a university.) Nearly all of them established some kind of a building--tabernacle, temple, college, hospital, something--which I think they figured was going to perpetuate their ministry, something solid that they could leave behind as a memorial.
12. I think we're the only outfit that ever refused to have any buildings, or even any large congregation.--The only outfit that has emphasized only witnessing, soul-winning, missionary work, and has, as a result, probably won more souls in proportion to our size than any one of them! Remember, we've won millions and witnessed to billions!
We're Built on Publications!
13. We're just about the only religious group ever built just on literature, and just on preaching by mail only! We have no building, no huge headquarters. Most of them have got huge headquarters, like the Alliance, and they've got several colleges.
14. We have no huge building, headquarters, temples or churches! (Maria: Or radio or TV.) No, just, you might say, a mail order religion. Our whole organization is built on publications alone and organizing an army to win souls to the Lord, strictly a soul-winning missionary organization.--Supported by the Lord, by faith, and led by the Letters, inspiration!
Go to the Cities!
15. (Maria: There are some missionary organizations, like the New Tribes Missions and Wycliffe Missions, for example, that go into all the world and don't have huge buildings. They do have a headquarters; however, it seems a shame that they waste so much of their time, years in fact, going into the jungles trying to learn the languages and translate the Bible into them, when they could be winning nationals of those countries who could much more easily reach their own tribes.) Yes, and frankly, I think they get rather bogged down.
16. I agree with Fred's doctrine on that, to go into the cities and preach your message to the intellectuals who speak your language and who can then go to their own in their own language. Let them go into the country and into the boonies, or win souls that can, instead of wasting your time trying to learn the language! The Alliance operate a lot like New Tribes; they go in and spend years learning the native languages and culture, then more years translating the New Testament or Gospels into that language. It's the type of ministry that takes forever.
Pioneers of Communal Living!
17. (Maria: We have a couple of other things about our ministry that are rather unusual, if not unique.) Our belief that God has given us sexual freedom, for one thing, ha!--For which we are notorious. (Maria: Oh, that wasn't one of the ones I was thinking of, but that's a good one.) It's one of the things that's made us famous and gotten us tremendous publicity! We didn't intend it that way, but it was the Lord's intention, obviously! (Maria: It certainly has influenced some of the world for good. But more than that, our ministry of telling people about the Endtime with the posters has probably been one of the biggest ones too! We couldn't have helped but make a very big impact worldwide with all of our millions of posters!
18. (And part of our ministry and example has also been our lifestyle of living together communally. Who else does that?) Yes, who does it? (Maria: They can't! Even New Tribes and other missionaries who have to get together for the work's sake, they crumble, they mess up, because they can't make the sacrifice that's involved in a whole bunch of people living together and submitting to each other.)
19. What other great evangelistic or missionary movement has no churches, no halls and lives communally only in homes? What groups of Christians do you know of? There are a very few scattered individual communal homes, but what worldwide missionary organization lives communally, pooling their resources to invest in full-time missionary work? There may be some mission stations that sort of live communally. (Maria: Yes, like they try to do in New Tribes, but it doesn't usually work very well, as you saw in that documentary.)
20. I can remember when the Alliance was saying that they had more trouble amongst their missionaries on the foreign field than they had with the people! There was jealousy, infighting and all kinds of problems. And they don't even live communally except in very rare mission stations and exceptions. (Maria: You can understand their problems. If our people hadn't started doing it at the ages of 16, 17 and 18 when they were new bottles and pliable and moldable and able to grow up with that way of life, I don't think they could have done it either!)
21. And in a generation when that was popular--the hippies! They were accustomed to it. It was nothing new or rare in the hippy culture; it was the norm. So they transferred readily into a communal culture which had a real basis, the foundation of the Lord, and tremendous cause and ministry, to evangelize the world! They had a purpose and an inspiration for sacrifice and communal living. (Maria: Yes, and it's really a sacrifice! Still, after 20 years, it's rough going! They're still learning to do it. They're still learning to submit to each other, help care for and train each others' children, and share their possessions with each other.)
22. It's supernatural! It's miraculous that we have survived that way and it worked! It's just the Lord! (Maria: So it's like the Lord's example. We're the forerunners of the Lord's people, who are having to learn to do it in advance of the others.) That's what I've always said. We're the pioneers of the way they're going to have to live in the Endtime. (Maria: Yes, and in the Millennium and all the way.) And their churches will be closed and locked, their hymn books destroyed, and their pastors liquidated! (Maria: Yes! Right now if you'd tell any other Christians to do it, not only would they not want to, but they wouldn't be able to. They just couldn't! The idea is so foreign to them and they're so unused to submitting to each other and yielding and being unselfish and sharing, that I don't think they could! Poor Christians!)
23. So praise the Lord! We're pretty unusual, I must admit! It was Fred's dream to begin with, only I've carried it on and fulfilled it!--The Lord has, through me and us!
24. These great healing evangelists, though they had wonderful works, where is their work now? What permanent organization or work did they leave outside of buildings? Hardly any of them have lasting works.
25. (Maria: Yes, and most of those healing evangelists didn't attempt to pass on their gifts and their ministry to others. One book I had someone read for me not too long ago was by an Australian healing evangelist, Stewart Gramenz, who had been a healing evangelist in India. But he trains groups of Christians, both Indian nationals and Westerners, to do the same job. He just teaches them about healing from the Word and teaches them to do the same thing. It's probably what these other healing evangelists should have done. Instead of just being set up as some big personality that was the only one that could do it, they should have taught other people about healing.)
The Indigenous Church!
26. Well, I don't know of any other church in the whole world that is just like us, of course, ha! We have several distinguishing features! The one the world and the church know most about, of course, and emphasize the most, is our sexual freedom. But of course what they don't accept or emphasize at all is that we preach real Salvation, genuine Pentecost, and real witnessing and soul-winning and worldwide missionary work! You hardly ever hear them talking about those things; they're always talking about the "evils of the way we live, the promiscuity, too much sexual freedom," etc.
27. Now they're trying to bring out that it's a bad influence on our children! They've been trying to use it against us now for years--viciously! But in spite of all enmity and opposition and persecution, the Lord has blessed us, has prospered us, and we're still carrying on and doing better every year! (Maria: Oh, yes! Thank You Lord!) It's a miracle! Thank You Lord!
28. We preach and we have practiced the indigenous church! Fred preached it, but he never quite got it going. We're self-propagating, self-supporting and self-governing! That's been the ideal of our Homes and they live it, practice it, and that's what has kept us going!
A Glorious Harvest of Children!
29. (Maria: We're also having all the babies we can! That's a little unusual too, nowadays.) Yes! We've had so many children we've had to organize schools! (Maria: Yes, worldwide! We're unique in that. Well, maybe not unique, but we're rare in that today, because people worldwide have stopped having so many children. They don't think of it as something that's good or wise to do.--With the exception probably of the fundamentalist Mormons and a few other rare groups.)
30. And that's partly due to our sexual emphasis. We've emphasized sex. As the Methodist said, "We believe in backsliding and we practice it too!" Well, we believe in sex and we practice it too!--And we've been very fruitful! Praise the Lord! As a result we have a glorious harvest of children to raise in the Lord and His service! They've been a great asset. I told you that one day our children would be our greatest asset, the proof of the pudding, and that's what they are! That's probably one reason the System is so angry about us. The Devil is trying to promote the lie that it's not good and we don't raise good kids, and we're a bad influence on them and all of that baloney, but he can't win, praise God! "The Prince of Darkness grim--we tremble not for him! His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him!"
We're Everything All Rolled Up into One!
31. (Maria: We probably put more responsibility on our people than any other group in the whole world, because we require them to be not only a Home, but a church, a school, a business, an infirmary if they need one. ...) And a mission station. (Maria: Yes, practically everything all rolled up into one!) Self-contained, independent. (Maria: It's a big responsibility on them.) It is! (Maria: But they're surviving! It's difficult, but the Lord's helping them.) It's the Lord! (Maria: The Lord is going to really reward them for their sacrifices by making them into great leaders who will have learned the maturity and responsibility to properly care for the Lord's Kingdom.)
32. I don't think even Fred had any idea of how far we were going to go with his initial idea. His idea of "Church in the Home" simply meant that a group of homes, so to speak, would have their own services in their homes.--They'd join together in one home for church in the home without building a building, but they would still live their independent lives and have their own jobs and their own homes and that sort of thing. He had no idea of the communal home that I know of. But it worked! The Lord made it work and we've got the proof and the fruits of it around the world, thank the Lord!
33. Hallelujah! Thank You Lord for answering prayer and for giving us the faith to try!--And giving our Family the faith to do it. Thank You Jesus! Bless them and keep them now throughout the world, where it's day and it's night, and where some are sleeping and others are working. The sun never sets on Thy Family! Thank You Jesus! Praise the Lord! Do bless and keep them and strengthen them, protect and provide for them, and thank You for how You have, and have made them fruitful and a blessing.--In Jesus' name! Amen, Lord! Thank You Lord!
34. In a sense we've evangelized the world by mail.--Not exactly, but we fed His sheep and organized them and inspired them and led them to do the evangelizing, and they've done it! Thank You Lord! (--Are you?--D.)
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family