HomeARC ML 2450
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION & HOW TO TEACH! DO 2450 2/85
1. You're not ever going to sit in my class & just sit there like a bump on a log saying nothing, I'm going to call on you!--And if some of you guys don't volunteer to say something pretty soon, I'm going to call on you. It's almost always the same ones that raise their hands, they've got the answer. I think I'm going to start going right down the row like that music professor I had!--Since some of you are always raising your hands & some of the rest of you hardly ever raise your hands.
2. Maybe you're trying to be modest & shy & not too aggressive. Well, we don't put any special credit on modesty or shyness or non-aggressiveness in this Family! If you're going to be a witness for the Lord, you've got to be aggressive! You've got to go out & challenge them, you've got to get out there & go on the offensive, as they call it, attack attack! You can't just sit there like they do in church like bumps on a log. How many preachers did you ever hear preach where they had the whole congregation standing up & giving answers to the questions they were asking?
3. What's your picture of a preacher preaching to his congregation? Now think about it, get the picture in your mind. Who's doing all the talking? (Fam: The preacher.) How much does the congregation talk? (Fam: None.) Money talks, that's about the only kind of talking the preacher allows the congregation to do! "Put your money in the waste basket!" How many of you have a picture of a congregation where the preacher's asking questions & making people in the congregation answer? What's that a picture of? (Fam: Us!) Where else? (Fam: School.) Maybe that's why Christian congregations don't learn very much, they're not schools, the pastor's not really teaching, he's just talking & spouting off everything he knows. It probably goes in one ear & out the other & they're probably figuring out, "How much machinery can this building hold?" & "How would that wall look with pretty pictures of naked women on it & how much more interesting church would be" instead of listening to what he has to say!--Because he just drones on!
4. He never gets any audience participation!--Except in some of these more live-wire Holiness Pentecostal churches. He'll say, "Amen?" And sometimes they'll shout, "Preach it, Brother! Amen! Hallelujah!" They get some audience participation. Boy, we went & had sit-ins in some churches around Orange County where they never had anybody speak out from the congregation in their whole lives! They never knew what it was like & they were really almost scared to death when we started shouting, "Amen! Preach it, Brother! TYJ! Hallelujah!" Everything he said that was true, our folks just naturally responded, they were enthusiastic! Most of the guys were preaching Bible & preaching about Jesus, so naturally there was a lot to praise the Lord about & they really sort of got stirred up. And some of the people liked it, really loved it & came up & shook our hands afterwards!
5. The only church we ever attended where they told us to shut up was an Assembly of God church in Santa Ana!--The biggest denomination of the Pentecostals, the great big Pentecostal Bethel Temple. We were really enjoying his preaching because he was really preaching the Truth & on fire, & our kids were used to saying, "Amen! Thank You Jesus! Praise the Lord!" in my classes. But he thought we were there deliberately to disturb the service. Nearly all of those churches had been given the impression by enemies that we just went to the churches to disturb & disrupt the service, which is against the law. In the State of California it's against the law to disrupt or disturb a religious service, that's the word of the law. Boy, I'll tell you, I never read so much law in my life as when I boned up on law in the Law Library almost every night when I was going through all those legal cases in California, the do's & don'ts & no's & whatnot of the law, the legal system. Thank God they had a good Law Library section in the local public library where I could go & pull out books on different decisions & cases etc. It was very important because they were arresting us right & left for doing this & that.
6. And of course it was the odd-ball so-called "cults" that had fought most of the cases! Most of the cases on healing had been fought clear to the Supreme Court by guess who? (Fam: Jehovah's Witnesses? Mormons? Seventh Day Adventists?)--No! (Maria: Christian Scientists.)--Right! Most of the cases on witnessing, including litnessing, distribution of literature etc., were fought by the others you just named, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons & Jehovah's Witnesses, the three most active witnessing groups in the World today, aside from us & perhaps a few others. They're all notorious & famous for their witnessing. You see them downtown on almost every street corner, either them or us. You hardly know who's who, whether it's the Mormons or the Seventh Day Adventists or the Jehovah's Witnesses waving their lit. The Mormons are a little quieter about it, they go more door-to-door, & that's pretty smart because they don't get in as much trouble that way. But the Jehovah's Witnesses & Seventh Day Adventists are both strong on street witnessing & waving their literature on the street corner.
7. About the only way you can tell them apart is to look & read & see what magazine they're waving! If it's "Watchtower", you know it's Jehovah's Witnesses. If it's "Signs of the Times", you know it's the Seventh Day Adventists. They have a few other little publications, but they often change names just like we do to prevent detection. The Jehovah's Witnesses were known as the International Bible Students' Society, then they became known as the Watchtower Society, so you wouldn't know you were reading Jehovah's Witnesses literature. Because a lot of people would throw it back in their faces if they knew who they were. They were annoyed by this business of people coming to their door & shoving it in their face on the street.
8. And because they're aggressive & out there on the attack, the Devil doesn't like it!--And some people don't like it, because they're full of the Devil!--And their preachers don't like it & warn'm against'm: "If they try to give you that junk, that trash, that diabolical literature, throw it back in their face! Slam the door on their foot!" There aren't too many pacifists amongst the preachers when it comes to attacking the cults, & actually each one of them is probably a member of one of the biggest cults in the World!
WHO'S A CULT?--HEN YARD SOCIETY!
9. I like the way the Catholics in France list the various other denominations under a big long list saying "cults"! On the church page of the newspaper, Friday or Saturday, whenever it is that they put the list of the churches having services, the Catholic church is listed all by itself, & then underneath that is a list of "cults". I think they do the same in Latin American countries too, & in Spain. Didn't they put "cultos" at the top of the list?--Cults! How about that? Everybody besides the Catholics are all called cults!
10. I like what that Chinese Catholic priest said in one of his articles, "The Challenge of the Cults"! (See GN 180, Pg.5) They wanted him to write a series of articles against the cults, of course, since he's a Catholic & a leading Catholic writer in the Catholic paper. So he starts off with chapter one by virtually saying that, "After all, it's a little difficult to identify or tell the difference between a cult & a religion, the difference is usually in people's minds."--Or something like that. Virtually all of your major religions were called cults at one time, except the Catholic church, of course, & they were the first & biggest cult of all! But now they're so big & powerful they don't call themselves a cult, everybody else is a cult but them. Even all the major Protestant denominations, everything else is a cult.
11. But of course the cults themselves, these big powerful major Protestant denominations, they resent the term "cult". They don't like to be called cults now because they're recognised religions, they're major denominations, big churches! So now they just call the next little chicken on the way down in the hen yard a cult, the newest little chicks or chickens thrown into the hen yard who get pecked on by everybody else. Did you ever notice anything about the hen yard class society? You never had any chickens, huh? You guys really missed a lot in not knowing anything about God's creation.
12. You might find some nice young pullets that you want to kind of fatten up & have a nice chicken dinner, maybe you find some cheap at the hatchery, so you buy a new bunch of chickens & you thrown'm in with all the old hens & all the old chickens that have already been in there for months. You've been on a farm, boy, what happens? Anybody know? The other chickens, the old bottles that are already there peck & peck on them & they are at the bottom of society! They get all pecked-up because the others are there & in possession already & resent these intruders.--Until finally these little rascals get bigger & grow & get to where they can fight for themselves, fend for themselves, & they start peckin' back! It's sort of "to the strongest"!--Until finally each one finds its place in chicken society & they know who they can peck on & pick on & who they can't! And the guys, of course, who peck back the hardest don't get pecked so much!
13. So it doesn't always pay to just lie down & take it & let'm walk all over you, sometimes you need to strike back! Hit back!--Not actually with violence, but with the Word! Stick up for your faith! Defend the faith, God's Word tells us! (Jude 3) It doesn't necessarily mean with arms, but a lot of Christian nations have gone to war on that Scripture of defending the faith. It means you're to give an answer, speak up, speak the Truth! Paul said, "I have fought a good fight, I finished the course, I've kept the faith!"--2Tim.4:7,. He had nothing to be ashamed of, he did his job, he fought for the Truth!
14. So we're sticking to the job & some people have gradually begun to recognise us, that we're not going to just go away & crawl out through some hole in the chicken fence & run off in the woods, but that we are here to stay! We are going to keep sticking up for our faith, standing up for our faith & speaking up for our faith, defending the faith & promulgating the Word of God!--That means litnessing & witnessing, spreading your faith. See, that's the trouble with going to college, you learn so many big words that people don't even understand what you're talking about & you're shooting way over their heads! It's better to talk simple language like you children do & then we know what you're talking about.
15. We're sticking & staying, until finally many people, even psychologists etc., have come to the recognition that here is the beginnings of a new denomination! That's the way they look at it. "This looks like a cult that is not just passing, but is here to stay."--Like the other bigger cults who have finally become gigantic & recognised & powerful, & nobody dares call them a "cult" any more except the Catholics in the Spanish & the French papers. Maybe they do that in Italy. How many of you ever lived in Italy? Didn't you ever read the paper? The Chain never gave you time to read the paper, huh?--Or you probably didn't have a nickel to spend on the paper, poor guys. They wanted you to bring every nickel home, & if you bought a paper they'd probably crown you with it!
16. But a so-called "cult", in the eyes of most of the World & the other religions, is nothing in the World but a new religion or a new religious group.--And they're usually very small, not very big or powerful or rich or numerous. They're like new little chicks in the hen yard & they've got to really grow & get strong & fight for their lives as well as their faith! Until finally, some of them get big enough & strong enough & powerful enough that the others don't dare attack them any more. They just become resigned to their fate & resigned to accepting the idea that, "These people are here to stay, they're not going to go away. We can't get rid of them, we can't chase them away. And after all, they're not as bad as we thought they were." And most of them get more like the other churches all the time, till by & by you can't tell the difference!
17. The only ones that the other Protestant denominations & Catholics & all don't like are the aggressive ones, the witnessing & litnessing ones!--Like us & the Seventh Day Adventists & the Jehovah's Witnesses & the Mormons, even the Christian Scientists! They even used to stand down on the corners waving their Christian Science Monitors.--And at least they have Reading Rooms right downtown in almost every city. It's a nice, polite, suave, aristocratic way of witnessing, having an open Reading Room like a library where you can go in & read their books & magazines & sit in a comfortable chair with air conditioning & have somebody there, a secretary that can answer questions if you have any or recommend books etc. That's their nice, polite, sort of off-the-street type of witnessing, but it's witnessing nevertheless.--Although most of them are after people who are interested in religion, sad to say.
18. I'll give the Jehovah's Witnesses credit for one thing, & maybe the Seventh Day Adventists too, they go out & try to find the lost sheep, not proselytise from other denominations. When I was a kid, proselytising meant trying to convert somebody of one religion to another religion. That's all it meant. Now in some of these countries, if you do any kind of witnessing or any kind of litnessing, even if the people had no religion at all, they call it proselytising. And of course the trouble is always stirred up by the other religions who are jealous & envious. Besides that, they don't like the way you expose them & their faults & their failures & their mistakes & shortcomings & lacks etc., so it's always jealousy.
19. We provoke them to jealousy! Paul even recognised that about the Jews, he said, "We provoke them to jealousy by our zeal," by being zealous.--2Cor.9:2, Rom. 11:11.--How? They wish they were as zealous, they wish their folks were on fire & witnessing & talking to people about their religion & out getting converts. Their folks are about as dead as doornails! But that's the way they made them, that's the way they allowed them to get! They permitted them to get like that by having those preachathons!--Not open forums, not classrooms, nobody answering questions, nobody asking any questions, just the big guy up front who knows all & tells all!--The great big guy who knows all, sees all & tells all from the pulpit, who never gets anything from the congregation!
TEACHING TIPS!
20. I want you to answer questions! That's why I ask'm! I'm going into a whole long spiel here on how to teach & how to witness again! But that's why I ask questions, get the point? That's why I like to conduct my meetings like classrooms. I told you recently I was first, last & always a teacher most of all. I was a teacher before I was ever a preacher, I was a teacher before I was ever a Prophet, I was a teacher before I was ever anything! Well, before that I was a student. In order to get to become a teacher you have to first be a student, to learn.
21. What's a student, children? (David: A person who learns from somebody else.) Usually it's somebody who's learning from a teacher, but you can even learn from books or life! You can learn from anything that you can learn from. You can learn lessons out in the street. You learn plenty of lessons. If you cross the street when you're not looking or if you go around the corner too fast on your bicycle, you'll learn! That's the hard way to learn. The easy way is to learn from a teacher who can tell you from their experience & others' experience what to do & not to do. Experience is the hardest teacher. They say it's the best teacher, but it's the hardest teacher because you get a lot of knocks & bumps learning by experience!
22. So I was a teacher first of all & I'm trying to tell you how to teach, & really I'm telling you how to witness! Isn't that what I've said? First of all, ask questions. But every teacher must also be willing to listen to the answers. Get answers!--Even if they're the wrong answers, even if they don't know the answer, try to get'm to answer! That'll put the question in their mind & make them want to answer, want your answer, if they don't have one. If they don't know the answer, they're going to want to know what the answer is! GIVE'M GOD'S ANSWERS FROM THE WORD!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
