—MO March 17, 1972 NO.156C—LTA

—Exhortation on Leadership

Copyrighted March, 1972 by The Children of God

P.O.Box 31, London WC2E 7LX, England or GPO Box 3141, San Juan‚ Puerto Rico 00936

1. Greetings in Jesus' Dear Name! THANKS FOR YOUR MANY TAPES BUT VERY INFREQUENT PERSONAL REPORTS!—We enjoy them all and the great work you are doing there, and know God is certainly with you and in you! PTL!

TRANSLATING AND LINGUISTS

2. SHOULDN'T YOU TRY TO COORDINATE YOUR TRANSLATING so it's done by the best linguists and all our literature "speak the same thing"? The same negatives then could be used on both sides of the water.

3. AND SINCE WE HAVE NOW SENT SO MUCH GOOD LEADERSHIP TO EUROPE, and even a lot that wasn't good or qualified or linguists, and since the greatest need there is personnel both qualified and linguistic, shouldn't we only send you from now on only qualified linguists for workers?—Those who can speak some European language well or even fluently?

LEADERSHIP—NEW LEADERS; TRAINING NATIONALS; ROTATION; SUPERVISION

4. IT ALSO SEEMS TO US YOU'RE RUSHING SOME LITTLE FOLKS INTO POSITIONS OF LEADERSHIP TOO FAST over there, sending OUT some to pioneer or lead Colonies who have never before had even a responsible position of any kind of leadership over in the States, much less as Colony leaders! We've found that doesn't work too well in the States, as it's hard enough to pioneer a Colony without having to learn to be a leader at the same time! I don't think anyone should be expected to pioneer a new Colony who's not had previous top leadership experience, preferably as a Colony Shepherd, and at least as one of the top Colony leaders!

5. AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT TRAINING LOCAL NATIONAL CITIZENS as LEADERS for your Colonies after they have been pioneered and set up? Americans and British should only have to be the pioneers, and then be able to turn the Colony 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 British leadership is bound to be resented!—And not even wise or practical for both public relations and legality.

6. IT IS ALWAYS AGAINST OUR RULES TO SEND ANYONE ANYWHERE ALONE! And be sure to warn Amasa not to even consider citizenship in that country‚ because he would then be a virtual prisoner with little or no rights and in complete bondage to the religious dictators! I would suggest rotation of leadership in such countries in order to solve the visa problems, because we could not even qualify there 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!

7. YOU ALSO NEED MORE SUPERVISORS FOR VISITING COLONIES AND SURVEYING THEIR NEEDS, READING THEIR REPORTS, ANSWERING THEIR QUESTIONS, SETTLING THEIR PROBLEMS, ETC. Some colonies 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 and their new sheep! If you cannot take care of these, then you are growing too fast and headed for troubles which could hurt the good work you've already done! Watch!

NEW DISCIPLES—WATCH OUT FOR PROBLEMS CASES

8. 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 over there in trouble and give it a bad name with the authorities and turn them against you. Please don't do it!

NEED FOR SUPERVISORS AND INSPIRATIONALISTS

9. IT SEEMS LIKE BEN WAS MORE NEEDED TO SUPERVISE HIS DUTCH WORKS than pioneer Berlin!—Especially now that door there has closed! everybody else seems busy pioneering, and he was about the only level head left for Supervision of all those Lowlands and German Colonies! He's a good boy and one of our best men, and I'm sure the experience did him good and gave him vision. But we need men like Ben more for Supervision than pioneering. IT'S NO USE PIONEERING AND GETTING NEW BEACHHEADS IF YOU LOSE GROUND YOU'VE ALREADY GAINED!

10. ALSO SOME OF YOUR COLONIES ARE DESPERATELY IN NEED OF INSPIRATIONALISTS! The Revolution was waged and souls won with our music! Music is the one relief from our mad schedules and wearied studying! And dancing and/or calisthenics—some daily good heavy physical exercise—should be a must in all our colonies! Dancing was God's answer here! And I still can't understand why we have so many bands in the States and can't spare at least one for Europe! Why? Don't they want to go?

PERSONNEL CHANGES AND CHOOSING LEADERSHIP FOR PIONEERING

11. LET ME WARN YOU AGAIN AGAINST TOO MANY AND FREQUENT PERSONNEL CHANGES! You just get a good team built, like a band‚ and then you break it up and destroy it and 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 and like to work with him—and this is good!—If he's doing the job, don't destroy his team while he's winning!

12. 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 and carry on just like he did with virtually the same team and keep it intact! Either that, or ship his whole team out with him, and 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. To pioneer L.A., I took leader right off the top and sent them with a team of their own choice, and they succeeded and we weren't hurt!

13. I BELIEVE IN TRYING TO GIVE A MAN HIS CHOICE TO DO WHAT HE HAS FAITH FOR! And what are you going to do with those Spanish teams? Whose idea was it to send so many over there in the first place, when there are more doors and possibilities in the Latin American countries? Maybe you'd better ship some of them back or direct to South America! And how's Little Esther doing?—Give her my love! God bless her!

LIT DISTRIBUTION AND BACKPACK TEAMS

14. IT SEEMS TO ME THE NEW TRUTH PAPER WOULD BE GOOD FOR YOUR ENGLISH as a general paper for the streets, for both kids and Systemites, and especially your mailing list—which you should have by now! It's part radical and part conservative, so should appeal some to all and all to some. You'll never have anything that appeals all to all!—You'd have to get out two completely separate and different papers: one for kids and one for older and more conservative Systemites, friends and church people—and I don't know that that's worth it!—Write a nice brochure and prayer letter for the latter. But I think Deb's got a good paper!

15. YOUR PLANS FOR BACKPACK TEAMS THIS SUMMER SOUND GREAT! The kids will be swarming all over Europe and Asia! I just hope we can give them good training and preparation. Having the lessons and Letters in 3 x 5 Little Books should be a great help, easy to carry and convenient to read, and nearly everything in them they need to know. Keep printing!

WARNING ABOUT DICTATORIAL LEADERS—RECOMMENDED POLICY OF VOLUNTEERS!

16. I don't know if you know what the problems really was or not: It was not a mere matter of lack of communication and reporting‚ although that was part of it. His biggest trouble was a hangover of that old dictatorial spirit of ---- and —-- at TSC and L.A., that hard-boiled, tough attitude with the kids like he and --— had that scared the kids spitless so they were afraid to say a word or make a suggestion without being accused of murmuring or being lifted up in pride! ---- got it too, and --— and a lot more of the oldtimers, including even ----.

17. I GUESS YOU CAN BLAME IT ALL ON ME, because that's the way I ran my own family and our early schools and Colonies to some extent, because you were my sole responsibility, slept under my roof and ate my food and I was your sole support, so I could expect you to do as I said and that was that or get out! Although I do think I USED A LITTLE MORE LOVE and reasoning than some of them have, as they seemed to go even further to the extreme in that hard attitude. You need discipline, but it must always be tempered with love and mercy.—Remember that prayer?

18. May be you can still do that in your individual Colonies, where you are furnishing their every need, but when they themselves help supply it‚ I don't see how you can. Especially I DON'T SEE HOW WE CAN HAVE THAT BOSSY‚ DICTATORIAL, TOUGH KIND OF ATTITUDE OVER OTHER COLONIES 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!

19. 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.

20. 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?—We're not back at dear old TSC or L.A. where we can rule with an iron hand!—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!

21. 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!

22. EACH LITTLE COLONY CAN BE A TOUGH LITTLE ARMY IF IT WANTS TO‚ BUT EVEN THERE THE KIDS STILL DON'T HAVE TO STAY AND OBEY if they don't want to! 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!

23. 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 think you should do so and so‚ or what do you want to do, or what 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 goals, and forge ahead under 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.

24. 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 force 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!

25. COULD THIS BE THE PROBLEM WITH SOME OF THESE COLONIES 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! God help us!

26. 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!

27. 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! I like Faith's tape and prophecy on this subject, heartily agree, and published it! Let's follow her example and that of others like her, and not that of those who have a tendency of liking to be "lords over God's heritage"! (1Pet.5:3)—and 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! God bless you who have! That's what keeps us going! There have been already martyrs and there will be more!—Are you willing to be one today!? God bless you all!—Love,—Dad.

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family