—MODecember 31, 1977DFONO.658

© Copyrighted January 1978 by the Children of God

(Given at our New Year's Eve Candlelight Service:)

1. I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE INTERESTING FOR US TO TAKE A BRIEF LOOK AT THE STATS to see what progress has been made during the last year, as well as since our small beginnings. When I was thinking about stats, it dawned on me that one stat we ought to include is the number of Letters we did this past year.

2. "CHANGE THE WORLD," NO.565, WAS THE FIRST LETTER I DID IN THE NEW YEAR in Tenerife on January 5, 1977.

3. SO WE'VE PRODUCED ALMOST EXACTLY 100 MO LETTERS!—That's an average of about two a week! Plus a lot of other things that we got out too.

4. WELL, THAT'S MY STAT ANYWAY, mine and the Lord's, and in a way these others we're going to give you are the results of that. I was also thinking about just which year of the Revolution this is.

5. I THINK I WOULD DATE THE BEGINNING OF OUR WORK TOGETHER AS THE REVOLUTION FOR JESUS IN THE SUMMER OF '68, because that's when we first got ahold of the Club, and Teen Challenge turned it over to us. That's when Hosea begged me to come down and have Bible classes. I asked the Lord what I should teach and He told me that Bible Prophecy was what they were interested in.

6. SO THAT MEANS WE HAVEN'T QUITE COMPLETED THE 10TH YEAR of our Family as such. So in just ten years we have grown quite a bit‚ haven't we?

7. WE WERE 50 THAT FIRST YEAR AT THE CLUB, 1968, We were 100 the next year, 1969.—Then we hit the road and there were about 100 of us on the Road. But by the time we got to the TSC Ranch and had time to grow there, the next year, 1970‚ there were 300 of us in TSC and Los Angeles.

8. I REMEMBER THAT WHEN MARIA AND I RETURNED FROM EUROPE IN MAY OF 1971 THERE WERE OVER 500 OF US in about 40 Colonies. By the end of 1971 we had grown to 1,475 full-time workers for the Lord in 69 Colonies.

9. WE'RE NOT JUST ONCE A WEEK CHURCH MEMBERS who just go to church every Sunday morning, but we're really full-time missionaries. So we can honestly say that we have this many full-time workers for the Lord.

10. SO WE TOOK QUITE A JUMP FROM '70 TO '71. That was the year of the booming publicity: —Some bad, to arouse enough controversy and curiosity to keep people interested, but most of it was good.

11. FROM 1,475 IN '71 WE JUMPED TO 2,123 IN 1972 in 130 Colonies. That was an increase of about 650. From '72 to '73 we didn't make much of a jump for some reason, at least according to my figures. We only rose to 2,244 but we spread out more to 180 Colonies.

12. 1972–73 WAS REALLY THE TIME OF OUR GETTING ESTABLISHED IN EUROPE, and the time of the Great Escape and Exodus. We were beginning to pioneer Europe, so we apparently didn't gain quite as many new disciples at that time. But we were scattering out more.

13. KIND OF LIKE THE NEW REVOLUTION—FOR A WHILE OUR STATS FELL OFF WHILE WE BROKE UP AND SCATTERED OUT and re-established in more places. So according to this, we only gained a little over 100 new disciples from '72 to '73. It's hard to believe there were only that many more, but so say the stats.

14. BUT BY THE END OF '74 WE HAD NEARLY 1,000 MORE, OVER 3,000. And by the end of '75 we had jumped about 1,500 more: 4,598!

15. IT SEEMED LIKE EACH YEAR WE GAINED MORE THAN THE PREVIOUS YEAR, which is as it ought to be. If there are more of us‚ we ought to multiply more rapidly if we're winning enough souls and persuading enough people to serve the Lord.

16. BY THE END OF '76 THERE WERE ALMOST 7,000 OF US, so we had therefore jumped about 2‚500. In 1977, as you know, we were for a while over the 8,000 mark‚ but our New Revolution growth has slowed down because we've gone about as far as we could go under the New Revolution.

17. WE BEGAN THE NEW REVOLUTION IN 1975, and my birthday, this coming February 18th, makes 3 years. That was the day that I wrote the first New R Letter, when I'd heard about so many Blobs. I was so sickened that we had so slowed down as a result of all these Blobs.

18. WELL, I'D BEEN FIGHTING BLOBS EVER SINCE WE GOT TO LONDON when I tried to get Jeth to break up TSC. Well they didn't, but God did, He got us thrown out so we had to break up. But I was really whacking away at Blobs in those Letters.

19. REMEMBER THE OLD "MO'S FAMILY NEWS LETTERS" we were getting out then, cracking away at some of those guys and naming some of them by name because they wouldn't listen to me? So I thought I'd expose them publicly‚ including Jeth and Josh and some of the rest of them, God bless them, and God help them, they need it! Some of these old bottles are really a problem sometimes.

20. SO I WAS WHACKING AWAY AGAINST THE BLOBS again all during '74 from Tenerife. But it didn't seem to do any good, no matter what I did.

21. FINALLY WE JUST HAD TO CRACK DOWN WITH THE NEW REVOLUTION RULES IN '75. Remember that? Well, it was the New Revolution‚ but it's pretty old now. In fact, we're about to change it and have another one!

22. WHENEVER WE SLOW DOWN WE'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING TO SHAKE PEOPLE UP and out of the nest. Usually it hurts our stats for awhile because we're getting moving and on the road and invading new territory.

23. SOMETIMES IT TRIMS DOWN OUR FOLLOWING LIKE GIDEON DID HIS BUNCH.—We've never lost quite that many yet though. He started out with 33,000 and had to trim it down to 300!

24. WE'VE CONSTANTLY GROWN VERY CONSISTENTLY. We've held our own pretty well and we haven't yet in any year lost any ground, thank the Lord!

25. BUT IN '75 WE INSISTED THAT THEY SCATTER, and I used the only weapon that I had and that was to excommunicate people who didn't obey.

26. WE THREATENED TO WITHHOLD THE LETTERS from the people who didn't do what they were supposed to do. If they either had a colony of over a dozen or they weren't winning souls, if they weren't keeping up their lit stats‚ if they weren't winning disciples, if they fell short in any of these areas we were going to hold back some of the Letters—which we did.

27. AND IN THOSE EARLY DAYS WE HAD SCORES AND SCORES OF COLONIES WHO WERE RECLASSIFIED as either Associates or Friendly Colonies because they didn't meet the requirements. But I am pleased to note that according to these latest November stats on classification of Colonies,

28. WE NOW HAVE NO FRIENDLY COLONIES, AND ONLY 7 ASSOCIATE COLONIES! All of them are either Ideal or Member Colonies, and both the Ideal and Member Colonies get all the Letters. But we like to exemplify an Ideal Colony as one who has as little as six or fewer members.

29. SO APPARENTLY THEY STILL WANT TO GET THE LETTERS.—I hear that in some places people who are out of the Family but want to get the Letters go around visiting the Colonies and try to talk them out of them or buy them, or black-market'm!

30. ANYHOW, WE'RE STILL CLIMBING, THANK THE LORD! And since we only jumped about 1,000 this year, that was a little slowing down over last year which was 1‚500. I've been speaking in round numbers so you won't have a hard time remembering, and my head isn't that good at figures anyhow.

31. THANKS TO THE NEW REVOLUTION WE HAVE A LOT MORE COLONIES THAN WE USED TO HAVE TOO. At the beginning of 1968 we only had one colony of about 6 people.

32. IN 1969 WE HAD ONE COLONY OF ABOUT 50, as we told you. My stat sheet doesn't go back as far as 1970, but I believe it was about 300 in 2 Colonies.

33. BUT BY 1971 WE HAD 69 COLONIES. '72 it had doubled—130. '73 it slowed down a little bit, 50 more, 180. '74 nearly 50 more—228—growing slowly.

34. BUT LOOK WHAT THE NEW REVOLUTION DID! We jumped from 228 Colonies in '74 to 679 in '75! That's about three times as many. The New Revolution worked!

35. I STILL BELIEVE THE CHAIN OF COOPERATION WOULD HAVE WORKED better if it hadn't been so dependent on poor leadership. We tried to push the leadership down and get them to do the job, but there was too much Blobbery!

36. SO NOW WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE OVER THE DICTATORSHIP AND RULE FROM THE TOP through as few people as possible to make sure that the sheep are taken care of and that things operate as they should, with 300 more potential colony leaders!

37. WE'RE NOT GOING TO HAVE MANY MORE OFFICERS now. There's not going to be much more in the way of Shepherds or officers above the Colony level—very little!

38. THESE COLONY VISITORS ARE NOT GOING TO BE OFFICERS WHO THINK THEY CAN DICTATE or tell people off or what to do. They're just going to be our little spies running around to see what's happening. Then if we don't like the way things are going we'll give them a phone call if we have to. Or just send in one of these potential 300 to take their place.

39. SO WE OUGHT TO BE GETTING OUT A WHOLE LOT OF NEW MISSIONARIES, NEW PIONEERS, NEW COLONIES. So if these 300 so-called leaders above the Colony level have got what it takes, we should boom in colonies this coming year, Lord willing. Brave Pioneers!

40. WHICH IS ONE OF MY PRAYERS AND WISHES FOR THE COMING YEAR. Of course after the New Revolution and splitting up we didn't grow quite as fast‚ but we had about another 50 Colonies in '76, up to 736, steady growth now.

41. THIS YEAR ALREADY‚ 1977, WE HAVE GAINED OVER 100 COLONIES, brings us to over 800 this year. So the New Revolution is working in that respect to keep people moving, to keep colony size down.

42. OUR COLONY SIZE IS AVERAGING A LITTLE LESS THAN 7 PER COLONY NOW. I can remember when it used to average about 50!

43. LIT DISTRIBUTION HAS BOOMED AND WE'RE RUNNING HIGHER THAN EVER! This year in one month alone for the first time we passed the 8 million mark in pieces of lit distributed!

44. I'M SORRY THAT OUR STATS DON'T GO BACK FURTHER but we didn't start keeping them soon enough. When I was at TSC I begged them to start keeping stats, but only by hammering away in the Letters did we finally get them to do it.

45. IN 1971 OUR LIT OUTPUT WAS 3/10 OF A MILLION. '72 it jumped to nearly 3 million! That's ten times as much in the next year.

46. IN 1973 IT JUMPED TO OVER 19 MILLION. From 3 to 19 is about 6 times as much in the next year!

47. 1974 IT WENT UP ABOUT 2 1/2 TIMES MORE to almost 55 million! Then the New Revolution—I know we were going to suffer a blow from the New Revolution in some respects.

48. WE BEGAN PUTTING MORE EMPHASIS ON OTHER THINGS THAN JUST LITNESSING. Getting out, splitting up Colonies, pioneering new works, winning souls, getting disciples, and our litnessing fell off, so that we only gained about 3 1/2 million more copies in the year of 1975: 58 1/2 million.

49. 1976 THINGS BEGAN TO PICK UP! We were out in new pioneer areas, and with a lot more colonies, and so our lit picked up nearly 10 million more from 58 in '75 to 68 million in '76!

50. DO YOU KNOW WHAT OUR TOTAL WAS IN 1977 just through November? 72 million! We've at least jumped another 4 million, maybe 5 by the end of the year.

51. OUR TOTAL WITNESS HAS REALLY RISEN about 80 million in '71, jumped to 444 million in '72, over a billion in '73‚ 2 1/2 billion in '74 and nearly 4 billion in '75!

52. THIS IS THE TOTAL NUMBER OF PEOPLE WE REACHED WITH THE MESSAGE through the media, lit, everything. We went down to a little under 3 billion in '76 probably due to the New Revolution.—But guess what it was in '77?

53. JUST THROUGH NOVEMBER OUR 1977 TOTAL WITNESS WAS OVER 5 1/2 BILLION, almost double that of last year!—Largely due to the Family of Love and the FFing, we have gotten a lot of publicity! praise God? Are you thankful?

54. CONVERTS ARE WAY UP,—THANK GOD! THE HIGHEST IN OUR HISTORY! Converts in '71, 8,000; '72, 143,000 how's that for a jump! In '73 it dropped to 67,000; '74 it went up to 71,000; '75 here's what the New Revolution did!

55. THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE SAVED JUMPED FROM 71,000 IN '74 TO 377,000 IN '75, over 300,000 more converts! That's about 5 or 6 times as many in '75 because we lowered the boom and said we've got to get out and win souls!

56. THAT'S OUR BUSINESS—WITNESSING AND WINNING SOULS and not just selling lit.-Not passing out tiny squares of paper that have been dwindling down to first minis and then midgies! I'm telling you, if I hadn't put a stop to it they probably would have been distributing postage stamps pretty soon!

57. IN 1976 THE NEW REVOLUTION DOUBLED OUR NUMBER OF CONVERTS. We jumped from 377,000 to 774,000! So you kids have been really getting out there humping and winning souls‚ not just selling lit.—Three quarters of a million souls saved in 1976!

58. NOW WHAT OTHER DENOMINATION CAN CLAIM SUCH A RECORD? And we're probably one of the smallest in the world! Did you know that nearly every major church is dwindling? The Catholics are dwindling, the Presbyterians are dwindling—and you know very well they don't often win souls. If the Catholics didn't have a lot of babies, born they would really be in a fix!

59. BUT WE HAVE JUMPED FROM THREE-QUARTERS OF A MILLION NOW TO OVER ONE MILLION SOULS SAVED ALREADY IN 1977, just in the first 11 months! We were at 774,000—now we jumped to 1,157‚000 how's that?

60. 2 1/2 MILLION SOULS HAVE BEEN SAVED JUST IN THE LAST 6 YEARS! I doubt if any other church can compare with that! Well, we're increasing by the natural birth canal as well: —We've got nearly 1,500 children now!

61. WE ALSO HAVE 99 COLONIES THAT ARE CATACOMBERS, of whom we have nearly 3,000, thank God! We put the B on the idea of getting the New Bottles and they're doing it, thank the Lord!

62. WELL‚ WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO PRETTY GOOD TO TOP THAT THIS COMING YEAR, right? But with the Lord's help, and I think with these 300 new leaders we're going to ship into the field, we ought to have 300 new Colonies‚ instant Colonies who ought to get a lot of new sheep, praise the Lord?—Won for the Lord, to follow the Lord and be His disciples and soul winners!

63. BUT RATINGS DON'T MEAN MUCH IF THE PEOPLE AREN'T DOING WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. Even lit stats which mean just a little postage stamp don't mean a damn thing! They're not really getting the job done with those tiny things!

64. I DON'T GIVE YOU THOSE FIGURES JUST BECAUSE I'M CRAZY ABOUT FIGURES, BUT FIGURES DO PROVE SOMETHING. I always knew if we'd keep stats it would be an encouragement. They show we are progressing and we are growing and we are winning and we're getting the job done‚ praise God?

65. "FOR I HAVE RECEIVED OF THE LORD THAT WHICH ALSO I DELIVERED UNTO YOU." (1Cor.11:32.) That's a good theme verse for the New Year! I just hope I'll still be able to deliver what I receive from the Lord. I asked the Lord this morning for a verse for the New Year and I thought,

66. "LORD, WHAT WOULD I RATHER DO THAN ANYTHING ELSE?"—and the first thing that came to me was that I'd rather please the Lord, that's what I would rather do.

67. I'D RATHER PLEASE THE LORD THAN YOU!—And I've had to displease a lot of people and a lot of people have left us. You know that we have won I think about 3 times as many disciples as we still have?

68. A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE LEFT US BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T TAKE THE NEW WINE, or they didn't want to obey. Well, that's not as bad as Gideon's record, and that's not as bad as the way some of these churches are dwindling away.

69. BUT IF THEY COULDN'T TAKE IT, WE'RE BETTER OFF WITHOUT THEM. I've said time and again I'd rather start all over with a Gideon's Band that believes and will obey, and I mean it!

70. I RISKED THE WHOLE REVOLUTION WITH THE NEW REVOLUTION BECAUSE I BELIEVED IT WAS RIGHT.—I didn't care what anybody thought‚ I didn't care whether they liked it or not, I knew it was right!—And it was what we were supposed to do! And I said either obey and do it or you're out, no Letters!

71. WELL, WE LOST A FEW‚ BUT THANK GOD, MOST EVERYONE OBEYED, got out and did it, and we have as a result got results, thank You Lord! And immediately the Scripture came to me:

72. "WHATSOEVER YOU DO IN WORD OR IN DEED, DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD!" (1Cor.10:31; Col.3:17.)—I think that will be my Scripture for the year. That is my prayer for the coming year, that we will please the Lord and do everything we do in word or in deed to the glory of God!

73. NOW WE'RE RISKING THE WHOLE REVOLUTION AGAIN by going for broke with the "RNR". It's either gonna make us or break us! Maybe that's what some need to be—broken‚ humbled again!

74. SOME GOT PRETTY HIGH AND MIGHTY with those fancy big titles, and forgot how small they really were! Now we're gonna see if they've really got it, real leadership ability as New Pioneers or if they're just a lotta hot air!

75. LET'S GET WITH IT, MATEY! LET'S HIT THE ROAD AGAIN AND "GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD." We're in over 70 countries and have been in over 100—but there are still about 150 we've never touched! Let's go! Souls'r 'waitin'!—Find a new country TODAY! BIG SHOT want BIG JOB? PIONEER!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family