—MOOctober 3, 1974NO.315B—-LT

—Ballooning Colonies!—Or How to Lick Big Colony Inflation!

—WWFL No.21

Copyrighted October, 1974 by The Children of God

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

Dear Family: Greetings in Jesus' Precious Name! Praise the Lord!

1. NOW LONDON HAS HAD IT! EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY TO GET KICKED INTO ACTION to quit snoozing when he oughta be out watching and warning! Amen? Well, I love you and that's why I have to spank you‚ and I can remember with my own little kids that was usually Daddy's job! Maybe you can find some Mamas now to sympathise with you and comfort you while I go about my business after one last lecture—or at least the latest!

2. MAYBE WE OUGHTA CALL THAT LAST ONE "PROBLEM PASTORS" WHO ARE LIKE PROBLEM PARENTS whose own fault it is that they spawned problem children!—So I suppose that includes me, too‚ since I've usually spoiled you and let you get away with too much until almost too late! Forgive me for not spanking you sooner, so that when I finally do I have to spank you so hard! I'm sorry, but sometimes you are a problem!

3. IF I HAVE TO KEEP LEAVING MY JOB TO COME HOME AND SPANK THE CHILDREN, THAT CAN PRESENT A PROBLEM, TOO, because if I'm not faithful to my Boss, we could soon all be out of a job and out of house and home as well and back on the streets dying of spiritual starvation! But who knows?—That might make us all work harder through such a bitter lesson!

4. SPEAKING OF BEING ON THE STREETS, IF YOU FOLKS DON'T FIND OFFICE SPACE SOON, YOU MAY BE THERE and all have to go back to street fighting to learn your lessons and appreciate your blessings after you've lost'em!

5. WE LIVED IN A 7 X 18-FOOT TRAILER OR CARAVAN FOR SEVERAL YEARS WITH A FAMILY OF SIX, and then for ten years we lived in a 7 x 25-foot camper with from eight to ten people a good deal of the time in virtually one small room!—And sometimes we camped downtown secretly on the public street by the curb for days at a time‚ or in a downtown auto parking lot not exactly equipped for permanent residents! So you'd be surprised what you can do with a small space for a short time if you have to and if you have no other place to go!

6. THIS MIGHT EVEN HELP TO GET SOME OF YOUR DEPARTMENTS OUT OF EACH OTHER'S HAIR!—Even if your own department is stacked a little on top of each other, at least they're all in the same business and involved in the same work projects without so many conflicting interests of other departments and such a drag on each other!

7. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FOR DECENTRALISATION AND DIVERSIFICATION, but usually I no sooner turn my back and am out of sight than you guys have built up another big blob which becomes such a monster that you don't know what to do with it, where to put it, how to control it or much less support it!

8. YOUR BIG BLOB COLONIES ARE LIKE THE VICIOUS CYCLE OF INFLATION: The more people you get into them the more people you need to operate them, so there's no end or limit until you burst out of your building into one big flop and depression, just like the world's present crazy economic system is about to do!—And all because you're unwilling to break it up and go back to the grass roots from which you came!

9. OF COURSE, NOBODY THEN COULD BE THE BIG BOSS AND THE BIG SHOT AND EVERY LITTLE DEPARTMENT WOULD HAVE TO BE NOTHING BUT LITTLE SHOTS, each operating independently on its own with its own particular ministry and merely coordinated by somebody who's willing to be nobody but a servant of all, constantly slogging around from place to place to see what they're doing and how they're doing and make sure they're doing it so that each job gets done!

10. EACH DEPARTMENT COULD THEN BE PRETTY MUCH ON YOUR OWN, responsible for your own job, so that the "retarded children" are no longer a drag on the "gifted" ones, instead of having all your eggs in one basket and trying to teach the handicapped while the geniuses are wasting time! I dare say you could squeeze into what you now have and do it if you had to—and maybe you have—if you can't find a suitable and more permanent building, which you should still be looking for.

11. MAYBE THIS IDEA OF SPLITTING UP INTO SMALLER UNITS of one or two departments each in smaller, different and more easily obtainable buildings or old houses in commercial areas zoned for business where nobody cares what you do, even if you have to crack'em like Portobello, would even be better.

12. SOME OF YOUR DEPARTMENTS COULD STILL STAY MOBILE enough that they could move at a moment's notice as often as necessary‚ such as the Administrative Office where each little secretary could just pick up her own typewriter and walk out into the next place if she had to.

13. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR OFFICE STAFF OF ONLY 20 that you said could easily handle all the mail and administration and who could easily be housed in one whole house‚ while the total Publications staff of only 20-25 could be housed in another, with perhaps the print shop in the basement or the garage or a rented shop if necessary? There might not be room for any fancy keypunch machines or computer systems, but if you had a good‚ competent office staff, you could certainly handle the small mailing list we now have with the greatest of ease, particularly with as little results as we're getting from it!

14. IF YOU HAD TO, YOU COULD EVEN DIVORCE THE MAILING DEPARTMENT FROM THE ADMINISTRATION and Colony Communications Department and put them in a third whole house! It might be more convenient if all three were closer together, but you might get more done if you weren't, so you wouldn't bother each other. I bet if I were there I could solve the problem in nothing flat as I did once with a couple other situations, such as Bromley, by just making you make do with what you can have!—

15. WHICH REMINDS ME, JETH, IF‚ AS YOU SAY, YOU COULD IN ONE DAY GO DOWN TO THE MAIL DEPARTMENT AND GET IT REALLY ROLLING, WHY DON'T YOU? As I've told you time and again, that should be one of our most important departments for both follow-up and support, so why haven't you? It sounds to me like we're playing tennis on top of the hill again while the Baby's falling over the edge during our picnic parties! Let's not forget business before pleasure! I'll bet I could put the whole works into three houses, including 20 mothers and children in one of them, if you'd start getting to work and ride herd on efficiency instead of affluency!

16. IF WE WERE REALLY EFFICIENT ENOUGH WE COULD PROBABLY CONCENTRATE THE WHOLE OFFICE OPERATION IN ONE HOUSE and keep Ho travelling the world supervising the fields where he's really needed instead of continuing to hold long chats with people who seldom ever come across with anything concrete!—I suggest‚ Ho, that you don't make another move South with hardly anybody but yourself, and that not until they come up with something concrete to offer and insist on it, as they did this last time, but they still haven't carried it through! If they do, great! If not, why not spend your time more profitably supervising the poor people we already have?

17. I LITERALLY WEPT OVER SENDING THAT "PARIS PISS OFF" LETTER and even tried to stop it, because the poor people in Paris, the kids themselves, were really not to blame nor even their leaders nor even as much the Royal Family there, as were their kings!

18. BUT I BLAME LONDON EVEN MORE FOR NOT SUPERVISING PARIS BETTER BUSINESS–WISE as I told you you would have to if they were going to get a square deal from all their labours beyond the publicity, which of course has been worth a lot to their PR there and helped us to finally crack France wide open for us and our Message! Instead you spent your few days there arguing with the Royal Family and the kids and their leaders, most of whom were doing the best they could.

19. WHY DIDN'T YOU DEAL WITH THEIR KINGS AND TAKE CARE OF THEIR BUSINESS AS I TOLD YOU TO IN THE FIRST PLACE? You've made a good start with that letter at last—now follow through and finish the job! And let's try to keep them if we can. But I wouldn't care who had the copyrights or who got the money, except for keeping our rights to use the songs and for the kids' sake and their needs, as long as our kings helps us get our message to the world!

20. EVEN IF THEY TAKE EVERYTHING WE'VE GOT, AS MOST KINGS DO‚ BUT GET OUR MESSAGE TO THE WORLD WE WILL HAVE ACCOMPLISHED OUR PURPOSE, AND GOD WILL TAKE CARE OF US!—Amen? So let the Hallelujahs roll, though you have to sell the whole to Old King Cole to save the world's soul!—Amen? Let the kids go, as we did befo', and again you'll know what I said was so! Let go and let God!

Love, DAD.

"THE BLOB WAR" (PART II)

Dear Family Only!: Greetings in Jesus' Precious Name!

21. WELL, I HOPE THAT ABOUT TAKES CARE OF LONDON, AND ALL OTHER BIG BLOB COLONIES! There are a number of office buildings and empty stores in the vicinity in such poorer sections where you might be able to get cheap space, or an old factory warehouse or something which could even hold your print shop as well.

22. IF THESE DEPARTMENTS WERE SPLIT UP INTO DIFFERENT LOCATIONS AS A SUGGESTED POSSIBILITY, EACH COULD BE PUT ON ITS OWN FINANCIALLY as much as possible to raise their own personal Colony expenses, such as housing, utilities, food, etc.‚ from their own personal street sales, procuring, or by faith in some other way or in all ways, while each receives their needed proportion of the total International Office income for the individual budget of each department's particular ministry and its needs, such as their actual expenses of production of their particular products for world needs.

23. WILD WIND PRODUCTIONS of yokes, medallions, tee-shirts, posters and all other such public products COULD ALSO POSSIBLY BE MADE A SEPARATE DEPARTMENT ON ITS OWN with its share of our total budget income in an even different location, perhaps under Arthur and Becky's direction.

24. THE ADMINISTRATIVE COLONY COMMUNICATIONS AND MAILING LIST DEPARTMENTS MIGHT ALL BE ROLLED INTO ONE in even another location and put on their own to raise their own needs, also, except for their allotted percentage share on a budget basis from their slice of our total International Office income pie.

25. BY TOTALLY DIVIDING THE DEPARTMENTS AND EVEN THEIR LOCATIONS INTO SEPARATE COLONIES, it would not only be safer and less drag on each other, but also give each department a feeling of personal responsibility for their own personal needs, as well as a sense of individual incentive and inspiration to accomplish their individual tasks as separate departments responsible for their job alone and to get the individual credit or blame for getting or not getting it done!

26. THIS MIGHT EVEN UNLEASH THEIR OWN INITIATIVE in a cooperative competitive spirit to see what they could really do on their own without hampering or bothering each other. We'd soon find out who's really got the faith and the ability to get things moving, almost like a Shiners and Shamers comparison!

27. THIS WOULD ALSO BREAK THEM UP INTO SMALLER, MORE INTIMATE FAMILY-LIKE COLONIES where each Shepherd could keep closer track of his flock and where closer track of his flock and where each would be responsible for his own and not so much another's, although all would work in cooperation together, as a total team for the going goal!

28. THIS WOULD ALSO BREAK UP THE BLOB and definitely inhibit its constant recurrence! Maria and I are willing to put our own selves together with our ML staff of ML Publications on this basis and give it a try so it can operate, independently and unhampered by your other departments, on its own specific income from ML Publications or its fair share of the total, and we do not see why others cannot do the same.—Are you with me‚ Kids?—Will you help me try to make it work?—Then start helping us make it work now:(Commercial:) Send some of your gifts to M&M's ML Dept.! OK?—Tks! GBY!

29. THIS WOULD ALSO INHIBIT DICTATORIAL CONTROL BY THE WOULD BE BIG SHOTS, including any members of the Royal Family, so that each department would be personally responsible to us only through its departmental head and overall coordinator of the whole, who would merely act as a supervisor and reporter, like a Regional Shepherd responsible for them to us alone.

30. THE LORD SHOWED ME HE WOULD SOONER HAVE AND TRUST TEN YOUNG TREES TO MAKE IT THAN ONE BIG HUGE OLD ROTTEN ONE THAT'S READY TO TOPPLE and crash under its own crushing weight! Every one of you present top leaders there in London has always wound up with a big blob, whether it be TSC, L.A., Bromley, London‚ Paris, or otherwise! So if this cannot be accomplished under your present RF leadership, we may have to start a Revolution within the Revolution of younger, newer bottles who can take it and do it!

31. BECAUSE WE CANNOT GO ON LIKE THIS AT YOUR PRESENT RATE OF INFLATION OF BOOMING TOWARD A BUST‚ even if I have to start a war to pull us out of it! As the RF knows, I have been bugging for the budget idea for over a year‚ but "all things continue as they were"! But now as I foresee the impending burst, as already proven by your inability to find quarters, I believe God is forcing you to it and we insist it be done at once, like it or not! GBY!

32. EVEN IF—AS FRED DID—YOU DO FIND A BUILDING LARGE ENOUGH TO ACCOMMODATE ALL OF THESE DEPARTMENTS together, each department should be put on a separate floor or section and operated separately and independently of each other as outlined above, and only supervised by a man who's going to get around and check up on every one of them every day and report to me as to how they're doing each week.

33. IF THEY DON'T LIKE THE WAY HE SUPERVISES OR HE ENDEAVOURS TO EXERCISE DICTATORIAL CONTROL‚ THEY MAY DELIVER THEIR INDIVIDUAL REPORTS to us personally through our personal secretary and her emissaries directly to us so we can judge the situation for ourselves and correct it if need be.

34. WE'RE GOING TO DO A LITTLE LEVELLING OF LEADERSHIP and put everyone pretty much on the same plane, including the RF‚ and anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to start his own revolution elsewhere—not within, I hope.—That's my privilege!—Ha!—Do I make myself clear?

35. MOST OF YOU HAVE BEEN DOING A GREAT JOB AND ACCOMPLISHED A GREAT DEAL THE BEST YOU CAN THE BEST YOU KNOW HOW‚ since the Big Blob seems to be the only way you know how, and may God forgive me if you learned this from me from past experiences even in our humble beginnings!—But I don't believe you did, for as fast as you've created them I have always tried to break them up, as you so well know, but that's the only way some of you seem to know how to operate!

36. IF YOU, THE PRESENT LEADERSHIP, CANNOT BREAK UP THESE BIG BLOBS, WE WILL HAVE TO FIND OTHERS WHO CAN do it for you, if I have to take your underlings and put them on their own and give them a chance to see if they can make it, like little cuttings from the main dying tree or seedlings from the falling giant!

37. IF WE CANNOT POUR THIS NEW WINE INTO YOU OLD BOTTLES OR PATCH UP THE OLD GARMENT, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO FIND SOME NEW ONES! This has always been God's way if the old bottles and the old garments couldn't take it! He has always had to use new young blood to do a new young thing, and you are no exception! If you cannot stretch and change to accommodate this new situation, God'll have to find others who can do it!

38. WE ARE STARTING WITH OUR OWN PERSONAL DEPARTMENT OF ML PUBLICATIONS and give them a chance to give it a try, if they have the faith to find a location and get it moving from their portion of the total income for their starting budget, if I have to write personally to the kids all over the world to help give them a hand and the help they need to get started financially!—Are you with me?—Thanks! GBY!

39. THE MAILING LIST DEPARTMENT COULD BE NEXT OR THE OTHER DEPARTMENTS of other publications, etc. Or maybe the Office itself is more capable of starting on its own first!—I saw Fred do it‚ once a great and wise king, so I know it can be done! Each department was put on its own budget with its own fair share of the total International Office income, and each had to operate according to its own faith and raise whatever extra funds were needed on its own—and it worked!—As we have proven through two past Declarations of Independence, through dispersion, decentralisation and diversification!

40. THE KIDS HAVE EACH IN EVERY COUNTRY GONE FURTHER ON THEIR OWN INDIVIDUAL FAITH THAN THEY COULD HAVE ON OURS and have released so much energy by their own faith that they have literally exploded worldwide! Instead of trying to control everything and organise everything and plan everything only from the top down, we have allowed them to explode according to their own faith and individual initiative, and they have done it with a thunderous roar around the world!—Why not London?—And Paris?—And any other Big Blobs?

41. WE HAVE MERELY ACTED AS A GENERALLY GUIDING, SUPERVISORY, ADVISORY AND COORDINATING INFLUENCE, a central exchange of ideas, messages and glorious reports! We would now like to see what the London departments can individually do in their own fields of exploring, pioneering and conquering their own territories in their own ministries!—Are you ready to see what you can do? Are you willing to pioneer in your own field and ministry as the kids on the other fronts are doing? Are you ready to put your department in the front lines on your own faith and your own initiative and your own Godly leadings as you expect our kids to do on all other fields?

42. I AM LAYING IT ON THE LINE TO YOU!—I AM SENDING YOU TO THE FRONT LINES—all of you, each and every department and every member of every department: Are you willing to step out by faith and see what God can do through you and your department alone on your own with as little help and direction from us as the kids on any other field?—We hope so! Because we believe you can do it if given a chance and you really try!—Are you willing?—Then start TODAY!

43. IF EVERY REGION WOULD USE THEIR OWN REGIONAL OFFICE ADDRESS ON ALL THEIR OWN LITERATURE AND ANSWER YOUR OWN MAIL, WE WOULD NOT EVEN NEED AN INTERNATIONAL OFFICE‚ except to receive Colony correspondence and coordinate Colony activities and to distribute our original publications to each Region to produce their own lit for their own Colonies in their own Region in their own language with their own address!

44. THIS COULD REDUCE THE LONDON OFFICE TO LITTLE MORE THAN A REGIONAL OFFICE WHICH COULD BE HOUSED ALMOST ANYWHERE, decentralise our leadership and broaden our power base so far and wide as to be virtually indestructible, as God said!—They can't kill us all! PG!

45. ARE YOU WILLING TO GIVE IT A TRY?—THEN LET'S GET IT GOING NOW!—Some of you are already doing it and even doing your own publicity and promotion with your own advertising—those glorious, ingenious individualistic independent publications, your Regional Newsletters and beautiful magazines and glowing Poorboy Club reports and suggestions for skits, etc.! You're terrific! I love you!

46. AND THE MORE YOU CAN DO WITHOUT ME OR LONDON THE BETTER! Hallelujah! It's a Revolution!—Keep turning and changing and moving and speeding toward the goal: Millions for the Billions!—You're already doing it!—With millions of pieces of lit for billions! I believe you can go ahead everywhere on your own with God alone! Don't let us be a drag! Please keep going for God! He'll be with you all the way!—Amen? PTL!

(HALLELUJAH!—"Into all the world!—Amen?-D)

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family