79. MAIL MINISTRY        --page 640--

         But to do good & to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased (Heb.13:16).

         1. Do not underestimate the magnitude of the ministry of the mail!
         2. You can hide your witness in an envelope! You can mail it undercover!
         3. Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark; you know what you're doing, but nobody else does.
         4. Thank God for the Postal Service! You have no idea how valuable it is, & you don't appreciate it until you're without it!
         5. Your life's blood, your lifeline as a missionary: Names & addresses!
         6. Street ministry with no follow-up is like scattering seeds without plowing, fertilising or watering!
         7. Don't answer letters--answer people!
         8. If true friends know the score, they'll support you even more!
         9. No Peters, all Pauls--no home support, house falls!
         10. You've got to write that letter with your heart & with the help of the Holy Spirit & write it so it will touch people & move people & motivate them as well as feed them & guide them, but also to help you! Because somebody's got to pay for it!
         11. You can offend & lose people or you can win permanent friends by the kind of letters you write. Not only that you write the letter, but what you say & how you say it is extremely important.
         12. Raise your support at home before you go, & keep up a faithful mail ministry with your faithful supporters with monthly prayer letters about your activities, & a personal thanks for every gift.
         13. Prayer Letter: You owe it to those Systemites out there to get them under conviction to help you do God's Work!--And because you need it! "Ask & ye shall receive!...Ye have not because ye ask not!"
         14. I consider this mail follow-up one of the most vital, responsible & essential parts of our whole worldwide ministry, & I hope that every mail centre feels the same & is taking care of these little babes & potentials & needy souls with the greatest of faithfulness & diligence!
         15. Form letters can vastly multiply your ministry far beyond the limited horizon of your bodily presence, & even your immediate generation!
         16. Consider again the Epistles of the Apostles, & how they've been duplicated by the billions over nearly 2,000 years, by means of printing--therefore "form letters" if you please--but look at the ministry they have had, & what would we have done without them in the "form letter" of the Bible, God's Love "form letter" to us! What a "form letter"--& how wonderful it is that we have gotten to know the Author through His Form letters to us, for "faith" cometh by hearing (& reading) the Word of God", & even your word, your testimony, your witness, your letter containing the Words of God to a friend, relative, or interested party!
         17. Mail is important! The nation's business depends on the mails--the World's business depends on the mails, & God's business depends largely on the mails! We could hardly live without it! Thank God for it! Use it!
         18. What can we do more than we are now doing? We can pour out more! We can give more! We can write more! We can answer more! We can send more--And God will send us more--in blessing, fruitfulness, ministration, support, helpers, labourers, & new disciples for His Kingdom! We cannot stop!
         19. You have to put something into it to get something out of it! You have to give to get; pour to receive; sow to reap; invest to profit; die to live; bury to resurrect!--Just as you do in any witnessing.
         20. If you answer your mail as soon as you get it, you won't have to go around long with that guilty-conscience-wish-I'd-answered-that-letter feeling!
         21. If you want to enjoy life, put business, God's business, like the mail, before pleasure or studying, memorising, teaching, witnessing, & fellowshipping; because the mail is one of your most important witnesses, your window on the World, your life-line to lost souls, & sometimes, your own source of supply; so you better get with it & get it done, even before some of these other things. It's one of the most urgent jobs in this business, & should have top priority, seniority, partiality, & special consideration, above & beyond most of the other things.
         22. We have only begun to scratch the surface of the possibilities of this ministry--they're as limitless as the Kingdom of God, as boundless as the needs of mankind! We cannot possibly minister to them all personally. This is no more possible for us than it was for Jesus when He was here in the flesh, or for Paul or the other Apostles, prophets & men & women of God throughout all time! There has to be a way to multiply ourselves manyfold.
         23. There are never enough people who really want to work in the harvest, so we must duplicate & multiply ourselves, & propagate, not only through personal disciples & those reached through personal contact, but also through every other means & media at our disposal!
         24. We must use not only the far-flung publicity of what others write & say about us, such as newspapers, radio, magazine articles, television, word-of-mouth, etc., but also the mighty & massive ministry of the printed word--a means at our own disposal & under our own control!--Such as the Words of God in the Bible in publications containing His truth as we see it, explanatory brochures & pamphlets regarding our history, ministry & purpose, designed to make it simple & clear to the outsider, understandable even to the Systemite.
         25. What small minds we have--what limited comprehension--what a finite conception we have of the almost unlimited possibilities of even this one ministry--the ministry of the epistles, letters & personal mail.
         26. Pour more, witness more, send more, mail more, & God Himself will do more, more than we ever dreamed!
         27. You can secrete your witness in an envelope & even send it across borders, through iron curtains, bamboo curtains, oil curtains, through whatever kind of curtains there are!
         28. By mail we can reach souls we could never reach in person! But you need to gather names & addresses of your daily acquaintances, contacts, friends, relatives, backsliders, fish, people you meet.--And get the names & addresses of their friends.
         29. We kept ourselves in fulltime work for the Lord for years through the mail ministry, local offerings, gifts in the hand, etc. We never knew which way it was going to come, but it always came.--TTL! But we worked at it, we didn't just sit around on our fannies waiting for it to roll in! We got out & did what we could. We witnessed all day, the kids played & sang in the parks, streets, cafes, hotels, etc., & we had church meetings at night--& I wrote prayer letters. Every month we got out at least one prayer letter.
         30. There's no need for us to try to reach the World if we don't answer when they call in response to our literature! If we neglect this correspondence follow-up to their pitiful appeals for help, we'll be like a shepherd who is calling for his lost sheep, but is so deaf he cannot hear nor heed their replies, & so blind he cannot understand their plight, & so slothful he makes no move to really help them.
         31. Are you living where people can pass under you window? Are you ministering to those who do? Such is the ministry of the mail! There are people passing under your window out there! Are they going to receive what they need?
         32. The P.S. is the most important part of your letter, because if people don't read anything else, they always read the P.S.!
         33. The worst thing you can do in some countries is to register the mail, because it then becomes a primary target for theft.
         34. A major source of funds for the Home should come from its prayer letters specifying your needs, outlining your accomplishments, & asking parents & friends for support!
         35. Never forget a sheep--never let a sheep forget you!
         36. Always put your best foot forward, your best point first to make a real good powerful impression first off! Then you can either put your second best one last & your not so strong point in the middle, or start out with your second best & then your third best & wind up with your best.

         (See also No. 51, 51A, 52, 55, 60, 67, 311A, 754, 755, 808, 1069.)

         37. PRO.25:25 As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.



Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family