HomeARC ML 1368
THE EXPLOSION OF '82!--The Future of the Kingdom in 1983! DO 1368 2/83
1. USUALLY SOME TIME AFTER RECEIVING THE LAST STATS OF THE YEAR I GIVE A YEAR-END REPORT ON THE STATE OF THE NATION & THE FAMILY according to the statistics received in our year-end stats, & I have found some very interesting & encouraging things, as well as a few puzzling things, & a few things which I think need attention.
2. THERE ARE SOME THINGS TO CROW ABOUT A BIT & BE THANKFUL FOR, how the Lord has blessed us! Probably the greatest advance of the past year regarding the numbers reached & members added to the Family has been that in the field of Radio & Music Club Members which we have recently added to our total World stats & population & Homes, which has caused our Population & Home stats to skyrocket phenomenally!--Showing how many thousands of new young people, principally young people, we're reaching via our major radio programs--particularly MWMI & MCV, as well as many others in a total of about 10 or a dozen languages--whom we have gained through over a thousand radio stations reaching most of the countries of the World!
3. IN ONLY TWO YEARS OUR FIRST INTERNATIONAL SHOW, MUSIC WITH MEANING INTERNATIONAL, HAS GROWN FROM ABOUT 70 TO OVER 700 STATIONS IN 70 COUNTRIES. AND FROM ABOUT 1400 MEMBERS TO ABOUT 7,000! They have distributed nearly 20,000 tapes to those stations, having aired over 40,000 shows to date. That's quite a reaping through just one radio show! PTL!
4. MCV HAS HAD AN EVEN MORE PHENOMENAL RECENT GROWTH, most of its push being just within the past year, with again over 700 stations booked just this past year, in 30 countries with nearly 10,000 hours of programming, which has reaped nearly 10,000 members in 43 countries! They have produced & distributed about 25,000 tapes & printed over half-a-million pieces of lit, as well as handling nearly 25,000 pieces of mail. MWM in its two past years has handled a total of over 150,000 pieces of mail, including tapes, letters, lit etc. So that's our phenomenal growth in radio & Music Club members.
5. BUT OF COURSE THIS HAS RESULTED IN A PHENOMENAL GROWTH IN OUR OVERALL MEMBERSHIP, an increase in the past two years with the addition of these Radio Members of nearly 20,000 additional members in only two years, to a grand World total today at the beginning of 1983, of nearly 30,000 Family Members in over 100 countries throughout the World!--111 according to the January 1st stats, to be exact, living in over 20,000 Homes with 30,000 Members. This boost in our outreach, coverage, membership & Homes came just in time. Although we have reached at the end of 1982, this past year, a phenomenal top total of about 10,000 TRFing Members, these now constitute only about one-third of our total population--approximately 10,000 TRFers & 20,000 Radio Members in a total of about 20,000 Homes.
6. HOWEVER, ACCORDING TO THE LATEST STATS, WE HAVE HAD A VERY SLIGHT DECLINE IN THE PAST HALF OF '82 OF SOMEWHERE AROUND APPROXIMATELY 200 TRF MEMBERS, which is possibly understandable due to a number of factors--a great deal of moving & reshuffling about, & some may have gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle, as well as the recession--but somewhere over 2200 TRF Homes in the middle of '81 have declined in the past year-&-a-half to only a little over 1700 TRF Homes.
7. THIS COULD BE ACCOUNTABLE TO THE FACT THAT MANY SINGLES & COUPLES HAVE JOINED TOGETHER IN CO-OPS. However, our Co-op stats do not seem to be complete, showing a very slight gain of not more than 100 Homes, up to around 600 now from approximately 500 two years ago. This certainly would not account for the loss of 500 Homes in the past year-&-a-half, & since we have lost not more than about 200 TRF Members in the past half-year, this also certainly could not account for the loss of 500 Homes in the past year-&-a-half.
8. SO I THINK WE'RE RUNNING INTO SOME KIND OF DIFFICULTY ON OUR STAT-KEEPING, OR OUR DEFINITION OF CO-OPS & VARIOUS KINDS OF HOMES. Only 200 people have disappeared, but about 500 Homes have vanished! And even if every single one of those 200 represented one individual private Home, they still would have only accounted for a loss of 200 Homes. So where did the other 300 Homes go? Well, since our total TRF Membership has not declined that much, there must be a discrepancy somewhere in the description or the definition of Homes, because since we've only lost 200 people, the only place these folks could have disappeared would be into other Homes. Even if every one of the 200 lost represented a Home, the other 300 Homes are unaccounted for, & the only place they could have been lost without a further loss in population would have been into other Homes, combining as Co-ops.
9. SO I THINK SOMEHOW OR ANOTHER WE'RE NOT CATCHING ALL THE FIGURES which we need to record & it's either you folks who on your actual TRF do not report new members who may have formerly had Homes of their own but now have joined yours, or you CROs are either not counting the number of Homes accurately or not counting the number of Co-ops accurately. Because 300 individual Homes could hardly have disappeared into an increase of only 100 Co-ops--although there is a possibility there if several of these 300-500 missing Homes formed fairly large Co-ops of several families each, & this has happened in some cases.
10. BUT TO MAKE SURE WE KNOW EXACTLY WHAT OUR HOMES CONSIST OF & GET OUR DEFINITIONS EVEN MUCH MORE ACCURATE regarding the types of Homes, I'm going to suggest that we enlarge our definitions of the types of Homes from only 3 or 4 kinds now listed, to about 6 or 7 kinds. For example, TRF Homes are now divided into three categories--Co-ops, Single Families & Individual Homes. These terms are a little misleading & vague, I believe, because "single" sounds like a single person. But so far we have meant by Single Family Homes a mated couple with or without children. And the Individual Homes sound like they could be individual Homes with families, but they actually mean one single adult with or without children. The Co-ops have been defined as more than just one couple & children living together, or several singles living together.
11. SO TO MAKE THESE DEFINITIONS MUCH MORE EXACT, we're going to request that your statisticians define the Homes more clearly hereafter. I'm talking about TRF Homes now, we also have LIN Homes & the Music Club Homes, or Radio Homes. I think it would be almost even better, perhaps, to define them as Radio Homes, which gives us a clearer concept of how we are reaching them. So I would like to see the TRF Homes themselves divided into the following six categories:
12. FROM NOW ON A SINGLE HOME WILL MEAN A HOME OF JUST ONE ADULT, NO MORE, NO LESS, ONE ADULT WITHOUT CHILDREN. That will mean a Single Home. A Single Family Home will mean one adult with one or more children. A Couple Home will mean a Home of two adults & no children. A Couple Family Home will be a home of two adults with one or more children. A Co-op Home will mean a Home of three or more adults with no children, whereas a Co-op Family Home will mean a Home of three or more adults with one or more children.
13. IN OTHER WORDS, THE TERM FAMILY HOME WILL BE APPLIED ONLY TO THOSE WITH CHILDREN. Whereas a Single will mean one adult, a Couple will be two adults, a Co-op will be three or more adults. A Single Family Home will mean one adult with one or more children. A Couple Family Home will mean two adults with one or more children. And a Co-op Family Home will mean three or more adults with one or more children.
14. I HOPE THAT IS CLEAR so we can more clearly define these types of Homes & see what is happening in each case according to our stats, & when there are changes, increases or declines, we can know exactly what type of Home these changes are occurring in & perhaps figure out why. And thus when there is a strange decline of only a few in population & yet hundreds of Homes, perhaps we can find out where they went!
15. I'M CONVINCED THAT SINCE OUR POPULATION OF TRFers HAS REMAINED NOW FAIRLY STABLE at somewhere close to 10,000 TRFing Home Members, that the decline in the number of Homes over the past year-&-a-half has been the result of some of these single Families in individual Homes disappearing into Co-ops, as there has been a considerable decline in the same period of time of at least a couple hundred single Families & a couple hundred Individual Homes, which would probably account for the decrease in the number of Homes without much of a decrease in the total population.
16. HOWEVER, SINCE THE CO-OP HOMES ARE NOT REGISTERED AS HAVING INCREASED THIS FOUR OR FIVE HUNDRED, but staying at about the same level or not much more--haven't increased more than about 100, somewhere around five to 600 Co-ops--this must mean that these Co-ops, though not increasing in number of Co-ops, are increasing in population. In other words, the Co-ops are growing in size as they absorb these Single & Individual Homes, as they have been called. And I believe this is where these former Homes have disappeared, into Co-ops of varying sizes, a number of them consisting of many more than three adults & many children. In fact, we have some that are again now Homes running as high as 25-50 people, 25 adults, 25 children.
17. THESE CO-OPS & COMBOS HAVE BEEN GROWING PHENOMENALLY DURING THE PAST COUPLE YEARS AS MORE OF YOU HAVE GONE TO THE MISSION FIELD, & in so doing you cooperated with others in a place to live. This would account for the fact that though our actual TRFer population has remained fairly stable at around 10,000, our total number of Homes has decreased by 4 or 500, who either have gone together in more Co-ops or existing Co-ops. The decrease in the number of total Homes has not necessarily increased the number of Co-ops in the same ratio, because a number of Single & Individual Homes have cooperated together in one single Co-op, so that the actual increase in the number of Co-ops has only been about a hundred. Whereas the decrease in the number of Individual & Single Homes has been 4 or 500.
18. --WHICH SOUNDS TO ME LIKE THE CO-OPS ARE GROWING, & obviously the Single & Individual Homes are decreasing & going together more in the large Co-ops & Combos & larger Family Homes--which now we consider better & stronger types of Homes, particularly for the foreign mission fields into which many of you have gone & where it is more difficult to survive individually & minister individually & alone, whereas it is much more easy to survive cooperatively & to minister cooperatively.
19. EVEN IF A NUMBER IN THE HOME CANNOT EVEN SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF THE FIELD, THEY CAN WORK IN JOBS INSIDE THE HOME such as housekeeping, cooking, maintenance, childcare & many other types of work being done cooperatively within the Co-op. Whereas those who know the country & the people & the language & the witnessing can get out & devote their full time now to witnessing & litnessing outside amongst the people while the others keep the home fires burning. Some soldiers can stay home & stand by the stuff, while those others go forth to battle as already trained & experienced soldiers in that field.
20. AS THE LORD SAYS HIMSELF IN HIS WORD, AS DAVID ORDERED HIS ARMY, HE SAID "THEY THAT STAND BY THE STUFF"--in other words, stay home & take care of the kids & the house & maintenance & all the jobs that can be done & need to be done within the home as well as feeding the whole tribe & the soldiers that go out to battle--King David said by the inspiration & anointing & wisdom of the Lord in I Samuel 30:24, that those who stayed home by the stuff would receive their share equally with those who went forth to the battle.
21. IN OTHER WORDS, HE CONSIDERED THE HOME-KEEPERS WHO STAYED AT HOME & OPERATED THE HOME, STOOD BY THE STUFF, JUST AS IMPORTANT & valuable & worthy of compensation & sharing in the fruit & the profits of the home, as those who actually went out into the battle. Because what could the soldiers do without logistics, & what army is it that doesn't travel on its stomach? What home can survive without homekeepers & childkeepers & cooks & housekeepers & maintenance men, repairmen & school teachers, all of the various jobs which must be done at home & within the home?
22. EVEN THOUGH THOSE PEOPLE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SPEAK THE LOCAL LANGUAGE OR KNOW MUCH ABOUT LOCAL WITNESSING & may not be in some respects as good witnesses or litnessers because of their lack of knowledge of the language, they can be very valuable as Home members in taking care of the home & the cooking & the housekeeping & the children & the teaching, maintenance & all the rest to set the experienced witnessers, litnessers & those familiar with the language free to go forth to the battle & devote their full time to it, while the others stand by the stuff & take care of the home base.
23. THIS HAS PROVEN EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL IN DAYS GONE BY, IN FACT MANY YEARS GONE BY! This is the way we started, this is the way we survived--except that during a certain period our Homes grew too large, some of them with as high as two & three hundred members, which made them top heavy & unwieldy & ungainly & expensive & with too many cooks spoiling the broth & too many chiefs & not enough Indians, so that we also were confined to too few locations & not spreading out into the field. We were not really getting the job done & going into all the World to preach the Gospel to every creature.
24. SO WE BEGAN BLOB-BUSTING, trying to break up these huge ungainly & ridiculously enormous blobs of hundreds of members in one single Home, one single address, one single either huge office building, hotel, apartment house or whatever, & scattering them out in smaller Family Units throughout the World. And this has succeeded in spreading out our Family & our Ministry into many much more needy fields & freeing many for much more active field service throughout many more countries, so that we have grown from just one country, originally the United States, to over 100 countries throughout the World, & from only about 50 Homes during the first year to now over 20,000 Homes. And from only about 500 to 2,000 Members or so during those first couple years, now to about 30,000.
25. I WOULD SAY THAT THE BLOB-BUSTING DID US A LOT OF GOOD! It scattered us so that we went into more countries, more fields, reaped more harvests, got more disciples & as a result we increased in both Homes & Members & fields & fruit & souls saved! But for awhile there we almost went to the opposite extreme of too small Homes with too few people, so that the one couple with several children could not accomplish very much except to take care of their own home & little family & kids & all of its various duties, as well as earning a living, & at the same time trying to witness & litness & win souls, which was very difficult!
26. WHEREAS NOW THAT WE ARE STRIKING A MORE HAPPY MEDIUM & forming more Co-ops & Combos, some are able to stay home & devote their full time to "standing by the stuff" & taking care of the kids & the Home & the meals & the maintenance & keeping the home fires burning, while others are relieved & released from most of these duties to be free to get out into the battlefield & witness & litness full-time, particularly those who are more familiar with the country & the people & the language.
27. SO THIS HAS NOW WORKED OUT VERY PROFITABLY FOR THESE COOPERATIVE HOMES ON THE MISSION FIELDS to join together & designate various duties for various Family Members with their increased population in the Home, so that some can stand by the stuff while others go forth to the battle. But they shall receive equally as far as the Lord's concerned in both care & respect & appreciation, as well as their share in what is being accomplished in the field, & certainly will be rewarded by the Lord equally accordingly. He says so in His Word & there you have King David's own word for it, surely inspired by the Lord, that "they which stand by the stuff shall receive equally with them who go forth to the battle."
28. BUT A HOME MUST HAVE SUFFICIENT MEMBERS THAT THERE ARE ENOUGH TO STAND BY THE STUFF & ENOUGH TO BE FREED FOR THE BATTLE! It's pretty difficult when there's only one couple with some children & you expect one dear little woman to do all the housework, all the cooking, all the childcare, all the teaching & all the maintenance while the man is out in the field trying to witness & litness & minister as a missionary, as well as earn a living. It's a little hard on both of them.
29. SO MEDIUM-SIZED CO-OPS ARE VERY ADVANTAGEOUS!--Not the gigantic monstrosities, the horrible blobs of hundreds of members which we used to have--but I would say that Co-ops consisting of certainly two or more couples with their children are very advantageous when there are four or five or six adults who can have a number of different responsibilities, plus perhaps an equal or greater number of children.
30. THE WORK CAN BE SPREAD AROUND MORE EVENLY & MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK! Those who are talented in home care & child care, maintenance, even provisioning perhaps, can specialise in these fields, while those who are talented in witnessing, litnessing, FFing & the language can specialise in the actual missionary work & invading the field & reaping the harvest--not forgetting that the others who have to stay at home to take care of the stuff & the kids deserve just as much credit as those who have gone into the field & witnessed, litnessed & won souls. The folks at home will share in those souls & God will give them just as much credit for them as those who go out & witness to them, litness & win them. That's God's fairness & equality of sharing, in both the responsibilities, obligations & the burdens, as well as in the rewards.
31. SO PRAISE THE LORD, I THINK THAT ABOUT COVERS OUR STATS OF OUR HOMES, of first all our TRF Homes & their members, & our radio shows & their members, & we are thereby urging you urgently to form more Cooperative Homes, which we believe are better suited for both ministry & survival & support on the field. In this way more income can be generated & shared more equitably as well. Some may have better home support than others, some might even get local jobs, some may be FFers, some may be good provisioners, & there is a much higher percentage of possibility of success when there are more people to share more responsibilities & more support & more of the work in more different types of work & fields than when there are so few.
32. IF THERE'S ONLY ONE COUPLE & A FEW SMALL CHILDREN, perhaps neither one of them has much home support, & maybe neither one of them are FFers or good at provisioning, yet they may be excellent at childcare & mechanical maintenance or teaching or home care, cooking etc. Nevertheless, if they don't have sufficient support through the various supporters, their talents can be lost & buried, talents which they do have & which are just as valuable contributions to the Home as monetary support.
33. SO I URGE YOU TO FORM BETTER COOPERATIVES WITH MORE VARIED TALENTED TEAMS, & as you recall long ago, we highly recommended that an ideal Home consist of perhaps a half-a-dozen to a dozen adults with perhaps half-a-dozen to a dozen children--in which case they're bound to have sufficiently varied talents & abilities to care for all of the various needs of that home, both inside & out, as well as its ministry & support etc.
34. SO PLEASE BY ALL MEANS TRY TO FORM WELL-ROUNDED CO-OPS & COMBOS containing team members with all the various talents that you need, talented in the various supporters, as well as the various ministries, including the ministries within the Home--cooking, cleaning, housecleaning, homecare, housework, childcare, teaching, repairing, maintenance, transportation--many many very important & vital & necessary ministries which can be performed by some of the family within the Home, even if they are ignorant of the language & the people & the methods of ministry in that particular field.
35. WHEREAS THE EXPERIENCED BATTLEFRONT SOLDIERS CAN THEN THEREFORE GO INTO THE BATTLEFIELD & fight the battle face-to-face with the Enemy & do the experienced witnessing that is necessary, litnessing & soul-winning ministry so vital to the fruits needed to be gained in that particular field, & the witness needed to be made faithfully in that particular place.
36. YOU DON'T WANT TO BECOME TOO NUMEROUS & TOO TOP-HEAVY & TOO MANY IN THE HOME, & as we've suggested before, a total of a dozen to two dozen people is more or less ideal, with from 6 to 12 adults & 6 to 12 children. In such a Home with that many there are bound to be a number of varied talents, & in choosing your Home members & forming your Co-ops & Combos, I highly recommend that you seriously consider the various talents of the individual Home Members & organise your Home accordingly, & receive new Home Member recruits accordingly as you have need of certain talents & ministries you may be lacking, & look for those who minister in certain fields which you may not have in your particular Home.
37. YOU CAN'T ALL NECESSARILY BE FF'ERS, although we do have some FF Homes who do that almost exclusively with very good support & with a very good witness, but even they usually have to have a few men around to take care of the house & the maintenance & provisioning sometimes, & somebody has to stay home with the children to teach & cook & clean etc. So there are always places of ministry for those who do the simple & seemingly more lowly, but just as vital & just as necessary & just as needed ministries within the Home, as well as the exterior ministries in the field. So try to round out your home.
38. WE USED TO EVEN DESIGNATE THE TYPES OF INDIVIDUALS WHICH SHOULD FORM A TEAM, if you go way back in some of the old Letters (see Nos. 59 & 62), that each team or Home, mobile home, mobile team, should have at least one or two good leaders who are experienced in getting along with people & leading & shepherding, organising, getting folks to cooperate & work together, managing & good at administration & business, organisation, etc., a good leader, good shepherd & his wife probably. Or perhaps she's the one who is best at that & he's perhaps better at maybe even cooking or housekeeping or taking care of the kids. So each team or Home should have good leadership.
39. AND THEN, OF COURSE, IF POSSIBLE, AS WE POINTED OUT, EACH ONE NEEDED AT LEAST ONE GOOD INSPIRATIONALIST, preferably an instrumentalist who could play & sing & lead the home in inspiration & fellowship & also be valuable in the field in busking & witnessing etc. Each Home also needs someone who is a good secretary, who if possible can type & write reports & carry on correspondence, take care of the mail ministry & the home support & writing prayer letters & all the various duties that are necessary secretarily in every home. Sometimes the wife of the shepherd has these talents, or some other individual, boy or girl within the Home.
40. SOMETIMES THE SHEPHERD HIMSELF IS TALENTED ALONG THESE LINES, AT TYPING--I WAS! I typed, I wrote my own Prayer Letters & I kept up a Mail Ministry & got Home Support & supported my little family that way for many years. Whereas my wife did very little typing, but she did a lot of cooking & childcare & teaching & even leading the little team of children out into the field in witnessing & litnessing & busking.
41. MY MINISTRY WAS ACTUALLY MORE IN THE HOME IN THOSE DAYS, teaching the children & writing the letters & doing the typing & publicising & raising support by mail. I would say that most of my ministry & more of it was within the home than it was on the outside. Whereas her ministry with the children was outside in the field in witnessing, litnessing, busking, soul-winning & all the rest.
42. SO BOYS, DON'T FEEL LEFT OUT IF THE WIFE & KIDS SEEM TO BE MORE IN DEMAND & MORE TALENTED IN THE PUBLIC MINISTRY THAN YOU ARE & you seem to be left at home alone a good deal while she's either doing that or FFing or whatever her talent may be. Maybe she's a good inspirationalist, instrumentalist, singer, player & good at dramatics or whatever that may be, & she's out busy in the public ministry while you're left at home to take care of the baby & the car & maybe even the cooking & the housekeeping & washing dishes & maintenance & the mail & the business &the office & the correspondence & raising home support, as I was.
43. SO DON'T FEEL TOO BAD, I'VE BEEN IN THAT POSITION MYSELF & I DIDN'T CONSIDER IT A DISGRACE! I didn't consider it was beneath me or that I was too big to stoop to that, I considered that my job. That was my talent, my ministry, typing & writing & the Mail Ministry & raising support, as well as teaching the children at home & caring for some of them at home while some of them sometimes went out, or all of them went out. I wasn't usually very good at cooking, but the Lord usually supplied somebody to cook for us. I usually did cook my own breakfast, at least, & was able to usually furnish my own lunch, if necessary. But I was thankful if Mom came home in time to cook dinner, & if not, she often left it in the pressure cooker on the stove so all I had to do was light the fire.
44. SO DON'T BE DISMAYED, DEAR HUBBY, DEAR MEN, IF IT TURNS OUT THAT YOUR ROLES ARE SOMEWHAT SWITCHED & you turn out to be the homekeeper & the fire burner, keeping the home fires burning & keeping up the correspondence & the home support & the typing, the business & the office, while your wife is perhaps even more talented in the field. I'm speaking of that switch in particular because it is in some ways a little more unusual than the other way around in which the man is usually the supporter & out in the field or on the job & the soldier who goes forth to the battle while Mama stays home & keeps the home & the home fires burning & the kids & takes care of the duties within the home. But don't be surprised if it can be either way.
45. BUT WHATEVER IT IS, IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH HOME MEMBERS WITH ENOUGH OF THESE VARIOUS TALENTS, & enough of the various skills & ministries, you have a broader range of capability of both survival & ministry with a higher percentage of possibility of survival & good ministry by the...what do they call it in gambling?--The odds!--Or the law of averages. Your possibilities are broadened with your range of talents & capabilities increased by the number of the people in the Home. Where one can chase a thousand, two can put ten thousand to flight, & go on up the scale & you're really winning battles! (Deut.32:30)
46. SO WE HAVE GONE FROM ONE EXTREME TO THE OTHER--from the huge blobs of hundreds, to the tiny little single Family Homes of only one or two adults, & none or one or more children--& now we need to strike a happy medium as we first idealised in the original teams sent out from Laurentide in Montreal when we tried to break up the big blob which we had toured with on the road of over 100 people in about 30-some cars. When we reached Montreal & the Camp at Laurentide, we endeavoured to break up into teams of about a half-a-dozen to a dozen people to more effectively minister & scatter out in more places, but not to be so small that they couldn't effectively handle all the needs & all the ministries as well.
47. SO WE EVEN AT THAT TIME RECOMMENDED TEAMS OF AT LEAST HALF-A-DOZEN TO A DOZEN, & later on in the New Revolution, as you recall, we recommended homes of half-a-dozen adults with perhaps half-a-dozen children, to a dozen adults & a dozen children, Homes anywhere from 6 or 12 to even more members. And we highly recommend that constituency now of your individual mission-field Homes in particular, where many talents are needed & many cares need to be cared for & there are many needs & many ministries, so you need many people to take care of them.
48. THEREFORE OUR COMBOS ARE BECOMING VERY SUCCESSFUL with staffs of half-a-dozen to a dozen adults & as many children, spreading out in a broad range or spectrum of many different talents & skills able to handle all the various needs & ministries. So please keep that in mind as you seek to form a successful & effective Home, that you make sure you have a broad range of talents sufficient to care for all the needs & all the ministries of your particular Home. We can't very well all be cooks or all be maintenance men or just all mothers & all childcare workers or all FFers or all litnessers.--You need a variety of various talents, skills & ministries to spread over the broad range of needs of that particular home, including its support, its care & its ministry. So please keep those points in mind as you seek to organise a good well-rounded, effective, efficient & fruitful Home. PTL? GBY!
49. WELL, I HADN'T INTENDED TO GIVE YOU A BIG TALK ON THAT, but I guess the Lord knew that that's what you really needed most of all to hear today. You need to strike that happy medium, no longer blobs of hundreds nor a tiny little one-room Home of one lone single individual, or one little couple with perhaps none or only a few children, but we need to strike something in-between. And as I have recommended before in the beginning & in the middle & now in the ending, you might say, I highly recommend homes of a dozen to two dozen members including the children, where you have sufficient skills, talents, supports & ministries to meet all of your needs, a well-rounded home with many skills, talents, supporters & ministers to take care of all of your many & various needs, support & ministries. Amen? PTL! GBY! Enough said, I think, on that.
50. WE'RE NOW OBSERVING OUR 15TH ANNIVERSARY of the birth of our present larger Family beyond my own little family, from 1968 to February 1983, praise the Lord, & in those 15 years, excluding the first couple of years when we didn't keep stats, our total lit distribution has reached in actual recorded stats about 2-2/3 billion pages of Gospel literature throughout the World in about 40 languages in about 100 countries, with a potential witness to over 36 billion individuals!--Showing that some of those individuals heard many times since there's only about one-tenth that much population in the World.
51. EITHER EVERYBODY'S HEARD ABOUT TEN TIMES, or some people have heard even more than that. But at least we've been faithful & we have gotten out the witness & we have saturated the World with our doctrine & we have delivered our souls & washed our hands of the blood of most of them, although we still have a few more to go, PTL!
52. OUR TOTAL CONVERTS HAVE NOW REACHED OVER SIX MILLION, 6.2 million, with baptisms at 2.7 million, praise the Lord, which is a pretty good-sized harvest for such a small group as ours. Whereas many denominations have hundreds of thousands of members. Even including all of our Radio Members we only number at the best now about 30,000, & actually only about 10,000 full-time or part-time TRFing missionaries. So I think that's a pretty good record for such a small group as ours, & thank the Lord for it! We may not be very many in number, but we certainly have done a big job!
53. OUR NUMBER OF CONVERTS THIS PAST YEAR HAS REACHED THE HIGHEST TOTAL IN OUR WHOLE HISTORY--1,576,893 souls won! In fact, the last month of last year of '82, the month of December, the last month for which we have the stats all in & tabulated, we won nearly 300,000 souls to the Lord, or a World average of about 62 or 63 souls per adult per month for this last month of last year!
54. THAT IS A TREMENDOUS ACCOMPLISHMENT & I want to congratulate you on your all-out drive in reaching the World with the Gospel unto every creature that you possibly can, so that you are now winning more souls per month than you ever have in our entire history, & more souls per individual! This has resulted in quite a remarkable increase in the rating of some areas, particularly those in the Eastern mission fields, so that Southeast Asia is now ranking first amongst you in converts, lit, Homes etc., with the India Subcontinent area 2nd, Latin America 3rd, Pacific 4th, Europe 5th, the Mideast & Africa 6th & North America 7th. Well, that was in December, maybe in the previous months some of those positions have been switched.
55. SO GOD BLESS YOU, YOU'RE DOING TREMENDOUSLY considering the trying days in which we live & scatteration into so many countries, & many of you separated far from others, & some with almost little or no fellowship until recently. Thank God for the new Fellowships being so well-organised, here just a year or so later from when we first began to organise the various Fellowships.
56. YOU HAVE DONE A STUPENDOUS JOB IN GETTING IT TOGETHER, & as a result have developed much more potential leadership & good leaders, getting better organised with a more effective cooperative ministry & cooperative helping each other & support etc. so that you're much stronger today than you were yesterday.--Not only more numerous, but much much stronger in being united & knit together in heart & spirit, soul & body & support & ministry than ever before, thank the Lord! I'm trying to just cover the general overall picture of what we've accomplished this past year & where we're at right now, & it looks very good from here! TTL!
57. WE REACHED OUR HIGHEST POINT OF LITERATURE DISTRIBUTION IN OUR HISTORY DURING 1982, the end of 1982 in particular, at which time our lit shot up to nearly 12 million pieces distributed in one month, the highest record in our history! Our number of pieces of literature has been running somewhere between its early lows & its last low in early 1979 of only about a million pieces in an early month there, up to about three or four million a month for the past 3 or 4 years.
58. BUT NOW THIS PAST YEAR OF 1982 IN JUST THE LAST MONTH ALONE IT HAS SHOT UP TO NEARLY 12 MILLION PIECES distributed in that month, & many more over the total year! We did have an all-out high in 1977 just before the RNR of 328 million pages, then due to the RNR in '78 we dropped down to almost half that, 180 million pages, & still on down to 102 million pages. Then we began in 1980 to climb back up again, partly due to not only your faithfulness but the increase in WS Publications.
59. SO THAT IN 1980 OUR TOTAL WAS 165 MILLION PIECES, IN 1981 IT WAS 217 MILLION PIECES, & NOW IN 1982 WE'RE BACK UP TO 253 MILLION PAGES for the total of that past year, about back to where we were around '75, '76 & hoping to hit even higher in this coming present year, God willing, if you will be faithful to keep up the good work! Because that is our major job--witnessing, & one of our major means of witnessing, of course, is litnessing, preaching the Word, getting out the Word!
60. OUR WITNESS HAS INCREASED, SKYROCKETED!--In fact, during the last few months of the last year, from only around 1000 or less pieces per month per adult, to nearly 3,000 pieces per month per adult! That's a 300% increase! So God bless you for your renewed fighting in the field & your "Attack, attack!" & your drive to get out more lit to more people, more places, more Word, sowing more seed to generate more souls for His Kingdom! And you'll not be sorry! For God is Love, & He loves it, because He loves those souls & He loves you & He likes the way you're winning them! PTL! You'll be happy forever in the Heavenly Kingdom when you see them there forever with you because of your diligence & hard work & faithfulness in fighting the good fight, keeping the faith & finishing the course! PTL!
61. THE OVERALL FF TOTALS TO DATE LOOK VERY GOOD with nearly a half-a-million souls witnessed to through FFing & nearly 45,000 won to the Lord at the end of '82. In the total number witnessed to compared to the number actually won, our FFing type of witness has been winning at least one out of ten who are witnessed to. And as I mentioned before, the number of souls won equals about half or one out of two of those actually loved! The final total so far is 43,761 souls won out of 95,142 loved, which is almost exactly one out of two--50%! That's a real high average, showing that that's the most efficient, effective & fruitful soul-winning ministry in which we are engaged!
62. GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU DEAR FFers, BRAVE LITTLE SOUL-WARRIORS WHO RISK YOUR LIVES & YOUR BODIES TO LOVE THEM INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD! You'll never be sorry, you'll be thankful when you see them there, forever! TYJ! And I'm sure lots of you are thankful now, thrilled with what you've accomplished through your FFing witness! God bless you & keep you & keep you going till Jesus comes!
63. AND AS I HAVE SAID, FFING IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE THE MOST SURVIVING WITNESS OF ALL, the best adapted & adopted to these Last Days of great persecution & Great Tribulation, great opposition, when the only ministries that are going to survive are going to be the undercover & undercovers ministries, & you are one of the principal hopes we have for the future. There will still be more witnessing & litnessing & prophesying & open preaching of the Gospel by those who are willing to lay down their lives for Jesus & be martyrs for His cause & to risk themselves for souls, but the ministries which are most apt to survive the most safely & still be the most fruitful & effective & efficient will still be ministries like FFing! God bless you!
64. YOU FFers HAVE ALSO WRITTEN A LOT OF LETTERS, almost 162,000 letters, & praise God, received almost half that many answers, over 70,000 answers. So that's a good follow-up! Work on that follow-up! All the soul-winning in the World is not going to be effective if it is not followed up with teaching & care of the baby so that he can grow & mature & become a witness himself. PTL!
65. THIS IS ONE THING I'VE BEEN STRESSING LATELY TO THE RADIO SHOWS & MINISTRIES, THAT WE NEED MORE PERSONAL FOLLOW-UP & individual ministration to those who are interested & respond, are receptive & won. We need much more emphasis on follow-up to try to reel them in & catch them in the net! "I will make you fishers of men!" (Mt.4:19) And we need to not only reap them & get some response, but follow-up that receptive response of those who have responded & are hungry & are nibbling at the bait, to make sure that they swallow the hook of God's Word & really get saved & on the line for Jesus! PTL?
66. WE'RE STARTING A NEW PROGRAM THIS YEAR OF ESTABLISHING RADIO OFFICES IN ALL OF THE NATIONAL OFFICES, NROs, who can push & emphasise the radio ministry, as well as the DM ministry in the newspapers & on radio & television, these Mass Media Ministries. We're going to have tremendous emphasis upon these MMMs--Mass Media Ministries--of radio, television & newspapers in particular, with both the radio shows & the Daily Mights.--With full radio shows of half-hour & quarter-hour on radio & Daily Might devotionals of a couple minutes on both radio & television, as well as Daily Might devotionals in the newspapers.
67. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE AN OFFICE, at least a desk & a secretary if possible, & maybe an outside salesman in every National Office, God willing, who can handle this push into MMM Follow-up!--Mass Media Ministry Follow-up!--Including radio, television, newspapers etc., pushing our radio shows on radio & the stations & Daily Might ministries on both radio & TV & newspapers, & effectively faithfully efficiently following-up the response both by mail & by personal visitation of individuals, or travelling minstrels, local radio parties, drawing the net & drawing them closer into fellowship with each other & with us & into the Family & into more of a full-time ministry for the Lord, a more effective ministry for the Lord, & make them real witnesses for Jesus & soul-winners, pulling them in all the way, as many as possible, right into the Family itself completely, living, fellowshipping, working & ministering with us.
68. WELL, AS FAR AS OUR FAMILY DISTRIBUTION & MIGRATION IS CONCERNED, TO SEE THESE STATS, WE THINK WE'VE BEEN EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL IN MOVING SOUTH, because since adding the radio members, it looks like about 95% of the Family have moved South!--Ha! And that the East & West are almost exactly evenly divided, about half & half, half of the Family in the East & half in the West. But when I realised that this was including the Radio Membership, I had to do a little re-figuring to figure out how many of the original TRFing Family had actually moved around & relocated. Here's what I came up with, & I hope our stat-keeper will include this hereafter, specifying the actual percentage of TRF Homes that have moved, so we can figure out how effective we've been in persuading you original TRF Families to move South & East.
69. I FIND BY FIGURING THE TRF HOMES ALONE, WE HAVE BEEN FAIRLY SUCCESSFUL IN MOVING A GOOD-SIZED CHUNK OF THE FAMILY SOUTH, as we are now nearly 58% of us in the South, going on 60% or two-thirds soon, God willing, with about 40% still in the North right now, but we hope soon not more than a third or even less. So you folks better keep busy & keep moving South if you want to get out of that horrible holocaust of the atomic war that's soon to come, & get down & save not only your life & your wife & your children, but your ministries for the Lord, to win many more souls to Jesus before He comes!
70. --SO THAT YOU CAN HEAR HIM SAY, "WELL DONE, THOU GOOD & FAITHFUL SERVANT, ENTER THOU INTO THE JOY OF THY LORD!"--& not be ashamed & in contempt at His coming for having failed in the only job that He's really given you to do, & that's to go into all the World & preach the Gospel to every creature! So please, get movin'! Get down here, get out here, get busy for Jesus, all of you who possibly can!--To save your lives & your wives & children & ministries for the Lord & to save millions of souls for Jesus! PTL! Amen? Praise God!
71. WELL, I DON'T HAVE TIME TO NAME ALL THE SHINERS, but we've got some phenomenal shiners in both lit & converts & FFing. You'll just have to read that page yourself to see what a terrific total some of them have piled up in their distribution, particularly now due to mass media witnesses in the lit regarding the number of newspapers that the DMs are in. So this has greatly increased some people's lit stats. So if you want to really up those lit stats & get on the Shiner's page, get the message in the newspapers or on the radio or television in the Mass Media Ministry, the MMM!
72. LET'S HAVE MORE MMM, MASS MEDIA MINISTRY TO MILLIONS! PTL? The 4 M's! Let's get out there with the DMs & the radio shows & get'm on the air & in the newspapers so we can still reach millions that we have not yet reached through these Mass Media Ministries to Millions! Praise God! Hallelujah! GBY! I just haven't got time to name all these Shiners in this little summary of our ministry to this point, the State of our Nation, the State of the World, the Family, the Worldwide Family, but that's something you need to study & contemplate & see what you can do to increase your ministry & maybe hit the Shiner's page!
73. OUR PRINTING HAS BEEN PHENOMENAL, COLOSSAL, STUPENDOUS, GIGANTIC & MONUMENTAL, PARTICULARLY THAT OF WORLD SERVICES, MORE THAN EVER IN ALL OF OUR HISTORY! When just a few years ago I was telling you I thought we'd almost reached our peak, we have surpassed that each year since then & doubled it, tripled it, quadrupled it, quintupled it, until we are now producing more than ever before! This past year of '82 has been a phenomenal year of great production, great publications & tremendous accomplishments in the field of both World Service printing & your printing & local distribution, our total GP printing in the last month of last year having reached 31 million pages, or a total of 193 million pages this whole past year of 1982! Think of that! Nearly 200 million pages last year altogether.
74. MEMBERSHIP PRINTING REACHED NEARLY SEVEN MILLION PAGES IN DECEMBER WITH A TOTAL OF OVER 44 MILLION PAGES THIS PAST YEAR. World Service printing alone reached 6.4 million pages in December with a total of 41 million pages for the total year of 1982, the greatest in all of our history! The LIMs also did a terrific job reaching a million pages in the fourth quarter & nearly four million pages this past year. You yourself will have to read who the Pub Shiners are, as we don't have time to include them in this already lengthy report.
75. I'VE ALREADY TOLD YOU WHERE WE ARE IN OUR MIGRATION & FAMILY DISTRIBUTION, & it is really phenomenal how well you have obeyed the Lord & followed Him to the uttermost parts of the Earth. He's promised to go with you to the ends of the Earth & never to leave nor forsake thee, for "Behold," He says, "I am with you always, even unto the ends of the Earth!" Praise God! (Mt.28:20)
76. IT'S REMARKABLE ALSO TO SEE HOW MARVELLOUSLY WE HAVE NATIONALISED, both among TRFers & particularly now that we have absorbed the thousands of new Radio Members. So that now our largest membership, believe it or not, almost 23% of the whole Family are now Indians in India!--6,574! Our next largest, 11% in the U.S, 8% in the Dominican Republic--we really have gone over there--6-1/2% in Chile, 6% Indonesia, 5-1/2% Costa Rica & almost 5% in Mexico. Then comes Colombia, Brazil, Great Britain, Canada, Peru, Australia, France, Uruguay, Venezuela, Argentina, West Germany, Japan, Italy & Panama--the top 21 nationalities of the Family. So we are really spreading out & we now have actually 116 different nationalities in the Family, praise God! We are really getting nationalised & spread out into nationals of many nationalities, well over a hundred! Praise God!
77. SO THERE YOU HAVE IT, THAT WAS OUR PROGRESS AT THE END OF 1982, the near completion of our first 15 years of Family ministry which you should truly celebrate at your 15th Anniversary celebrations February 18th, or somewhere in February, 1983!--15 years of Family ministry with phenomenal, tremendous, terrific, wonderful, glorious results! It's all been worth it & well worth our while, amen? TTL! TYJ! PYL! Hallelujah!
78. THANK YOU LORD FOR ALL THY WONDERFUL WORKS AMONGST THE CHILDREN OF MEN, PARTICULARLY IN OUR FAMILY, LORD! Thank You for how marvellously You have blessed us, how wonderfully you have used us, how widely You have spread & scattered us throughout the ends of the Earth in over 100 countries, Lord, & many nationalities, tribes & languages & preaching the Gospel throughout all the World to almost every creature! Lord, do bless & continue to make us a blessing until You come, & even after that, Lord, we believe You'll still use us for Thy glory.
79. THANK YOU FOR HOW YOU'VE KEPT US, PROTECTED US, PROVIDED FOR US & PROSPERED OUR WORK & rewarded our ministries & given us great fruitfulness in the reaping of Thy great harvests throughout the World in so many souls!--Millions of souls won to Thee, Lord, who would not otherwise perhaps have been in Thy Heavenly Kingdom unless we had been faithful with the job You gave us to do. Thank You, Lord, for all those who have been faithful & done their best, worked hard, sacrificed, suffered & given their all for You. TYL! PYL! Hallelujah!
80. BLESS THEM & CONTINUE TO MAKE THEM A BLESSING THROUGHOUT ALL THE WORLD UNTIL OUR JOB IS DONE & You'll call us Home with all the souls that we've won for You, to enjoy You & them & Heaven on Earth forever! We'll be glad we did! TYJ! It'll be worth it all! TYL! And it is even now, Lord! We've had a great time even getting this far & we thank You, Lord, that there's all this & Heaven too! Thank You Jesus for being so good to us & making us so happy, fruitful & such a blessing to so many & using us throughout the World to millions for Thy glory, millions of souls for Thy Kingdom, to enjoy You & them forever, in Jesus' name. Amen. PTL?
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
