HomeARC ML 1200
THE FUTURE IS HERE!--& Needs Leaders!--By Father David DO 1200 18/2/82
--Are You one? OK, C'mon, Let's Get Aboard & Go!
1. THE ORIGINAL VS PLAN WAS WHAT? HOW WERE THEY SUPPOSED TO BE SUPPORTED? (Peter: They were supposed to take collections from the Homes as well as litnessing.) When we sent out our first VSs, do you remember who they were? You weren't there but David & Carmen visited just the Madrid area first, then around through Spain. We expected them to be able to just about earn their way all the way 'cause every Home they visited was supposed to give them a collection or an offering, at least enough to pay their transportation to the next town. They were also supposed to carry enough lit with them that if they got stranded or hard up they could even get out & litness & they could even provision meals & hotels & things.
2. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A TOTALLY SELF-SUPPORTING ENDEAVOUR. They were supposed to try to support themselves, first of all through the Homes. If they were appreciated at all I suggested they at least give them a little offering that would be enough to carry them to the next town, & if they got stuck they could earn their way just like a faith trip, even provision food & lodging if necessary. So it was not originally intended to be a fully World-Service-supported job. If they really got on the job & hit the road & really traveled & visited the Homes, most of their room & board would be supplied by the Homes, & if they had any base at all they were supposed to have somebody staying at Home Headquarters answering the phone & the mail & taking care of things at home.
3. WE SUGGESTED TWO COUPLES EVEN IN THE ORIGINAL PLAN, one couple to stay at home half the time & answer the mail & the phone & take care of any emergencies & whatnot, & the other on the road & to alternate. I suggested either once a month or once every two weeks to switch so it would give the other couple a chance to get out, etc.
4. THE HOME BASE HOME WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FAIRLY SELF-SUPPORTING, in fact, I think our original idea was it was supposed to be the local LIM as well & helping to support itself through lit, in other words, publication of lit & their gifts from the various Homes for their lit, etc. So they were supposed to be pretty much self-supporting & it was supposed to double as a VS Base & a Local LIM.
5. THAT ALSO IS MY IDEA OF COMBO OR RECEPTION CENTERS, THAT IT SHOULD ALSO BE THE VS's BASE. I don't know whether we need to even retain the name VS, it might have the wrong connotations, we need a Field Supervisor in each of these fields. They should have some time to do some visiting, at least any problem Homes or anything like that.
6. BUT MY VISION FOR THE COMBO, some of them are just maybe dreams of the future, but definitely it should be the Home Base for the NASs & VSs who need a Home Base & always have needed a Home Base. If they share the same base then it cuts down a lot on these extra expenses & accumulating people & too many children & a whole lot of other things, because you can usually only squeeze about so many people in a house. I think if we kind of limit these people to something like that we're going to get along a little bit better, more economically, efficiently & financially.
7. DUE TO OUR TIGHT FINANCIAL SITUATION I THINK I CAN GET TOUGH ABOUT IT NOW & say, "That's it!" I don't care if the NASs & the VSs are the same couple or not. The NAS/VS two-couple combination would be perfect. This would be a fulfillment of my original idea of the National Base with one couple taking care of things at Home Base & the other couple troubleshooting out in the field.
8. THIS HOME ALSO, IF IT WERE LARGE ENOUGH, COULD EVEN BE USED AS A RECEPTION CENTER, & that way the top officers can get a good look at the people. You can't tell me they can live separately & really look'm over, or without living with them for two or three days really know what they're like. That was my dream, that they bring those people in & live with them for two or three days while they're trying to place them & find out just what the people are like!--Whether they're loafers, lazy, dirty, whatever or whether they're really on the ball, really trying to learn the language, really sincere & really trying to do something!
9. NOW I REALISE, AS I THINK MARIA POINTED OUT, IT'S A SECURITY HAZARD FOR THE VSs, THE NASs. Well, the minute you start talking about a separate Home, the Reception Center, you start doubling expenses! You talk about having another couple there to supervise it & you talk about a whole new set of utilities, a whole other rent & it's going to double the cost!
10. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT ONE OF THE MAIN JOBS OF THE NAS IS AS HIS NAME IMPLIES, HE IS THE NAS OF THE NAF, the National Area Fellowship, right? The NAS is related to the NAF & all Area Fellowships. He is supposed to be primarily the Shepherd & Supervisor of Fellowships & really the organisational head of the local Homes. He is the national head & he is supposed to keep up with the local Homes primarily. If possible he should be a national who speaks the language fluently & it's all in the Letter. He represents the people, he represents the country to us & the Homes to each other & the areas, etc. He has charge of the Fellowships, therefore he also runs the Video Library because that's one of the main things of the Fellowships is the videos.
11. THE VS IS OUR PERSONAL APPOINTED REPRESENTATIVE WHO IS APPOINTED FROM THE TOP, paid from the top, really, & that's one reason we probably need to help them a little more to remind them that they represent us. They are not elected, they're appointed. They are our eyes on the World to give us their slant without necessarily being too responsible to the people. They are responsible to us! The NAS is responsible to the people, & they are also responsible to us, of course.
12. THE IDEAL SITUATION IS THAT THEY SHARE THE SAME OFFICES & IF POSSIBLE THE SAME HOME & that way they can even keep an eye on each other to see if the VS is not doing their job or behaving themselves or whatever. We're supposed to get special reports from the NASs as to the state of their flocks as well as the behaviour of our VS. You savvy? [DELETED] Let's face it, supervisor means snoopervisor! It literally means overseer, & if they're looking things over, what are they doing? [DELETED] [EDITED: "W"]e do have to know what's going on & we do have to get reports!
13. THAT WAS THE TROUBLE WITH THE CHAIN, it was such a one-way thing that all the information went from the top down & it seemed that no information went from the bottom up. So we never found out what was going on down there because they had a stranglehold on the information at the top & if there was anything they didn't want us to know, they just didn't tell us!
14. AS ONE OF OUR TOP ADMINISTRATORS & SPIRITUAL OVERSEERS THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR JOB, READING THE REPORTS FROM THE VSs & THE NASs. I do not think that it's necessary for the poor CROs with all they have to do to have to summarise those reports. I think you should get them directly & we should limit them to not more than one page each. I don't think we have more than 15 or 20 VSs in the whole World, do we? When we get done we might have 15 or 20 VS reports & 10 or 15 NAS reports, & if you don't like to read 30 or 40 pages you can always tell them to keep their report down to half-a-page. Summarise it themselves & not depend on our poor CRO to do it.
15. THEY SHOULD SEND IN THEIR REPORT SEPARATE FROM THEIR TRF, not on the back of it or any place else. In fact, I think in half-a-page they could probably write a lot. I used to write a whole prayer letter once a month with all the news of everything & everywhere on one page, so they ought to be able to. But I want you personally to get those reports & maybe Maria once in awhile. She could spot check & you can bring to her attention anything you think needs attention. I want those people to earn their salt & their gift & do their job.
16. I SUGGESTED THAT SINCE THE NASs WILL BE IN CONSTANT FELLOWSHIP & COMMUNICATION & CONTACT WITH THE HOMES & the Fellowships that they're sort of like an evangelist. At every Fellowship a special offering should be taken up for the AS & his support at whatever Fellowship it may be. You may think they haven't got much left over after their Tithe, & they also make gifts to various missionaries, etc., but if you've been preaching the Gospel as long as I have ... you know the old story about the Gospel preacher & the orange don't you?
17. THE STRONGMAN AT THE LOCAL FAIR WOULD TAKE THIS ORANGE IN ONE HAND & GRIP IT & SQUEEZE IT till it seemed every drop was gone, & then he'd offer $10 to anybody in the audience who could get even one more drop out of that orange! And this one time he made the offer one time too many & this little, skinny, scrawny, half-starved looking fella came up & said, "I'll take the offer!"--& he stood there & strained & squeezed until finally actually one more drop came out of that orange. The big strongman was skeptical & said, "Huh! I don't see how you ever did it! Nobody's ever been able to do it before. What are you, anyway?" "Well," he said, "I'm a Full Gospel Evangelist!" I guess you get the point!
18. WELL, THE NASs MUST HAVE BEEN ELECTED BY POPULARITY & SOME ABILITY & TALENT, we hope, & to me they fulfill the office of an evangelist because they're going around attending these Fellowships, helping to organise them, helping the programme committees plan the programme & they participate probably as an MC, or at least they select a local MC to do it. Anyhow, they're the supervisor of the whole works to make sure it works & it goes & it pays for itself & all the rest. And if he's been elected, he probably is popular enough to have said something in public some time or other or done something to cause people to think he had the ability to be their spiritual supervisor. I never heard of evangelists being elected before but there's always a first time! They can elect pastors, & in a sense he's both evangelist & pastor, & the same with the VSs.
19. NOW, THE VSs ARE REALLY, YOU MIGHT SAY, ALMOST PURE EVANGELISTS. They're not supposed to be great organisers or anything but have a burden for the people, visit the Homes, etc. And as I told you before, it's possible that we're talking about one & the same thing & maybe we don't need VSs & NASs. In fact, I noticed in some cases already by the list they either elected co-ones or they elected their VSs to be their NASs. That's fine if it works, we'll see. It certainly would be more efficient & less expensive.
20. IF THEY'RE REALLY ON THE BALL & REALLY TOP-NOTCH BUZZSAWS, MAYBE THEY CAN HANDLE BOTH JOBS! I've known a few people in my lifetime that could do it & I think we probably have a few who're really on the job & can buzz around, & while they're out supervising Fellowships & in the local area, what more visitation do those people need than that? They don't have to go around to every single house as long as they get to see the people there & they get to talk to them & hear some complaints & watch them in action, watch how their children behave, etc., & get some kind of records on them.
21. I DON'T KNOW THAT WE NEED TWO COUPLES, EXCEPT IT'S HANDY TO HAVE SOMEBODY MANNING THE HOME BASE while the NAS is gonna be real busy out organising Fellowships & doing a lot of traveling, & he could easily be the VS at the same time. What it boils back down to is in a sense we're replacing the VSs with NASs, & this is what I hope to do. The Reception Center operators who actually stay home can man the Home Base, take care of the people coming & going, & the NAS himself can become not only their representative but we pay him also to represent us, both ways, & in that happy medium between the two.
22. HE'S JUST LIKE A POLITICIAN WHO HAS TO BE ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE, BUT THEN HE'S SELECTED BY THE PRESIDENT TO BE A MEMBER OF HIS CABINET. Then he also not only represents the people but he represents the President. Although in the case of the U.S. Cabinet they're all appointees, they're not elected for anything, but they're usually politicians who know what the job is & I think it can be done in this case.
23. I MEAN, WE'RE TOO SHORT OF GOOD LEADERSHIP & PERSONNEL TO BE SO EXTRAVAGANT WITH IT that we can afford two couples of outstanding leadership in each country. We just don't very often have that many, not yet at least. So what I'm trying to do is aim for better talent & more efficiency & more concentration, in a way, or condensation, to condense all this a little a bit at least on the national level. A little bit more centricity & centralisation.
24. I MUST ADMIT THAT THERE'S NOTHING NEW ABOUT IT, it's happened to several other denominations. The Alliance Missionary Society called them Field Supervisors & they were not only heads of the local national office but they also went on visitation, they went around & spoke at meetings & fellowships & all the rest. They had to be inspirationalists that could at least lead a meeting. They didn't have to be singers or guitarists but they had to be able to speak & to influence the people & inspire them & talk to them.
25. THEY HAD TO BE A LEADER BUT THEY ALSO HAD TO BE AN ORGANISER. They had to be a good businessman at the same time, & nearly every single Alliance District Superintendent that I ever knew, in fact, in most denominations, they're first of all a businessman & they're next of all an inspirationalist. They could speak, but they were not usually the flaming evangelist type or the Faithy type or whatever.
26. BUT IT'S MY IDEA TO ROLL THOSE TWO INTO ONE RIGHT NOW! Some people said it couldn't be done & they had to be separate & blah, blah, blah, blah! Well, I'm not going to give up. We're already supporting VSs who could double as NASs, or maybe we're supporting VSs who've already been elected NASs. I don't even know if the Homes would've elected separate NASs if they had known they could've elected their VSs as their NASs. I think we put it in an LNF, that they could elect their VSs as NASs.
27. WELL, I SAID IN THIS LATEST LETTER THAT SOME OF THE LEADERSHIP COULD BE TWO SEPARATE COUPLES, that's ideal, that's fine. But we're not that lush in leadership talent. In fact, good leaders are few & far between who really love the people & whom the people love, & they also have not only inspirational ability but they have organisational ability as well & good business ability & know how to make things work financially & make ends meet & are good leaders of the people & know how to make people get along with each other & do their jobs, etc. Big job!
28. SO OF COURSE, IF WE DON'T HAVE TOP-NOTCH LEADERSHIP THAT CAN DO BOTH JOBS, maybe we can have mediocre leadership, two mediocre couples who could do each job. I don't know, we'll see. But since we're so short of leadership--more short of leadership than almost anything else, even more than money--we may have to roll some of these jobs into one couple, several jobs in one where that couple can be the VS for us, the NAS for the country & run the NVL & the Reception Center, the four primary needs, & the other three, one of which was a school idea when they get to the high school level, if there are enough teenagers to make up a school in that country or Area.
29. MAYBE OUR BOOKS WILL SOLVE THE PROBLEM, but the Alliance & most other denominations & missionary organisations solved it by simply having a Union High School in the central city of the country for all the teenage high school students of the missionaries & this did the trick! By that time they're supposed to be old enough that they can be trusted to be away from home under good supervision, like kids that are sent to Catholic boarding schools, etc., that have tough discipline & maybe had some people who know how to handle teenagers better than their parents. I know I did.
30. I DON'T THINK THERE WAS A PARENT OF ANY TEENAGER I HAD THAT I COULDN'T RUN CIRCLES AROUND THEM in handling those teenagers & get'm to love me & obey me & respect me & teach'm about the Lord & all the rest of their subjects at the same time. Because I found most of the parents were very lazy both spiritually & discipline-wise & all the rest.
31. OF COURSE, THIS IS WHY MOST PARENTS IN THE SYSTEM SEND THEIR KIDS OFF TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOL, because they're supposed to know more about how to teach & train kids than the parents! They're supposed to be qualified personnel who are educated for it, trained for it & are supposed to be experts in education. Well, I can't say they always are, but anyhow, that's what they're supposed to be. That was the poor guy's idea who originally cooked up the idea.
32. FRANKLY, I THINK IT WAS RUN BETTER IN THE DAYS WHEN THE SCHOOL WAS A PART OF THE CHURCH & the pastor was its teacher & the facilities doubled for both school & church. He was both their educational & spiritual leader & it worked real well in the good ol' pioneer days of the USA. I don't know about the rest of the World. But most of the World seems to have wound up that way where the parents at home just can't seem to handle the job between their jobs & their work & their housekeeping & the little ones & the babies & everything else.
33. THEY WEREN'T REALLY TRAINED FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION. A lot of them never even had it themselves, how could they teach it? So above the smaller school age, the basic three Rs, when they get up into the three Gs, I would say that's more of the high school level & we may have to develop our national or regional schools where we can take the older students & teenagers. Well, that's another part of the idea & I didn't get to enlarge too much on that in that one little Letter.
34. I WAS TRYING TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE NASs & THE VSs because we have both right now, & if we've got enough leadership I'd be happy to leave it that way. But right now I noticed according to the list some areas have VSs & no NASs & quite a few areas have NASs & no VSs. So obviously our leadership is not that plentiful & my suggestion would be that in these areas where they have chosen NASs & there's no VS, that we should immediately consider them VSs & NASs both.
35. THEY CAN REPRESENT US & WE'LL SEND THEM SOME SUPPORT WHICH WILL HELP THEM, & this was another idea to making this system economically viable. If you have enough different people doing enough different jobs with enough combined support they can afford to support one center, one big Home, big enough for VSs, NASs, Reception Center, Video Library & eventually perhaps school--as you can see the building is already growing--& also the National Fellowship Center, that was number four or five, etc.
36. AND ALMOST THE BEST KIND OF THING YOU COULD HAVE FOR THAT & WHICH WORKED REAL WELL IN THE ALLIANCE PARTICULARLY ON THE FIELD, WAS CAMPGROUNDS. They're cheaper, they hold more people, they don't have to be fancy & people can even camp there. You can have a large shelter or tent for your meetings when you need them, you don't even have to have it up all the time. You can pitch a tent when you're having your National Fellowship. But it has to have some kind of a kitchen facility for preparing meals for a lot of people when they have a get-together.
37. AND IF POSSIBLE, YOU CAN HAVE A NICE LITTLE ONE-ROOM HIGH SCHOOL!--If they're all close enough to the age that you could have a dozen to two dozen students of high school age. We're getting teenagers now & they're not going to be necessarily satisfied with just sticking round at home with the same old stuff. They need adventure, new challenge, new places, new faces, & one of the wonderful prospects of that sort of thing is that they get to leave home!
38. THEY'RE ALREADY SICK & TIRED OF THEIR PARENTS, they already know more & know better than their parents & they want to get away from home.--And God made'm that way! ...
[EDITED: "..."]
40. WE HAVE SCADS WHO ARE ALREADY TEENAGERS! We have scads more who right now are almost teenagers. We have a lot of kids around the range of 8, 9 & 10 & it'll only be another two or three years if they survive the War--which I expect at least some of them to. ...
41. THE REASON SO MANY TEENAGERS GET IN TROUBLE IS THEY WON'T LET'M MARRY, & since they're not married & have no family responsibilities, they don't have to take care of a mate, they don't have to take care of children, they don't have to keep house, they don't have to do anything. All they have to do is get out & raise hell, & that's what they're doing throughout the World!
42. IT'S THE FAULT OF THE PARENTS BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT FOLLOWING GOD'S PLAN of letting the kids get married early & even live in the same home with them for the time being! I've gone over this before, why should I have to say it again? Where they can help them have the babies & teach them how to take care of them & teach them how to keep house & how to feed a husband & how to take care of a wife! ... Teach them the whole works right there in the home with them! Which is really what we're doing now with our kids.
43. AND THEN BY THE TIME GRANDMA & GRANDPA HAVE RAISED THEM RIGHT THERE IN THE HOME, these young couples & their grandchildren & helped them, then they can maybe be ready to get out on their own & start a home of their own. The stupid idea of the System is not to even let them think about getting married until they're in their late 20s, early 20s maybe, but mostly late 20s, & then not until they have a good job & a big salary & can afford a big luxurious home & children & car & all these other things! In fact, in some of the cultures they won't even let the guy marry the girl until he can provide a home, & that's really pretty much U.S. practice. "Unless he's got a good job & can provide you a home, you're not going to marry that lazy lout!" Well, it's not a bad idea if possible early. ...
44. BUT IN THE MEANTIME HE OUGHT TO BE IN TRAINING WORKING WITH EITHER DAD OR FATHER-IN-LAW IN HIS JOB as an apprentice & learning the business or whatever it is, & in our business it's the Lord's business!--Till he knows how to support himself & a wife & kids just the way he sees his father do it or his father-in-law do it, living in either home, whichever it is, whichever one is able to take them. She's learning housekeeping & babycare & he's learning how to litness & provision & win souls & whatever.
[EDITED: "..."]
46. BUT I THINK IT'S A GREAT NEED WHERE IN ONE COUNTRY WE HAVE ENOUGH HOMES & enough Families already with enough teenagers that we could have a national high school. One national high school of that language in a country, if not in a country at least in a culture. We might have to start off with just one in South America & maybe one in Asia or something. You say, "Well, Dad, you sound like you're planning years ahead!"
47. WELL, FOR GOD'S SAKE, WE'VE GOT AT LEAST TEN YEARS, LET'S PLAN AHEAD! We hope to have ten years, don't you? PTL? Even in my theorising & estimates & guesstimates of how much time we've got left, even if it is only ten years. I don't know, I won't swear to it, but that's the way it looks & that's the way it sounded from these things I got.
48. BUT I'VE TOLD YOU TIME & AGAIN I'M NOT GOING TO STAKE MY LIFE OR EVEN BET MY BOTTOM DOLLAR THAT THAT IS EXACTLY THE TIME SCHEDULE! I wasn't the one who drew that first time schedule & wrote out all those dates. I didn't do it, somebody else did! I think it was dear Sam Warner. I have been entirely too leery of that sort of thing. I've seen those things fail too many times. Too many Hitlers & Mussolinis were the Antichrist & the Pope, too, & too many Millers predicted the exact date of the Coming of Christ & it didn't happen. So I have just told you that's my theory, that's the way it sounds, that's my interpretation but I could be wrong! Don't bank on it! You know what bank on it means, don't you?
49. AS MY MOTHER USED TO SAY, "WORK & PLAN AS THOUGH THIS WAS YOUR LAST DAY OF LIFE & work & plan as though you were going to live here forever, both!" How can you do that? Well, that means do all you possibly can today, it might be the last one! But also keep doing all you possibly can every day & planning for it & doing it & organising it & preparing for the possible future.
50. MY GOD, WE DON'T HAVE TO PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE, THESE TEENAGERS, WE'VE ALREADY GOT THEM! And we need a new challenge for them & we need schools for them & just think what we could teach in those schools! I mean, home economics, babycare, cooking & all kinds of things that really are important! They can work on teacher training, on-the-job training & all the rest right there. They can help take care of the staff members' kids & cooking for the Reception Center & working right in, earning their education, their room & board. Put'm on the job for maintenance, housekeeping, washing, cooking, childcare, everything! In fact, taking care of even maybe younger students.
51. SO ANYWAY, I DIDN'T INTEND TO GET SO HEPPED UP ABOUT THE SCHOOL, BUT THAT'S ONE OF MY DREAMS! Even if we've only got ten years, we have teenagers now & we've got more teenagers becoming teenagers every single one of those ten years! I would like to get some kind of stat on that on exactly how many teenagers we have got! Another thing is we don't know how many of them are 12 & 13 years old. ... Well, we know we've got so many singles & a lot of them may be already high school graduates & college students & whatnot.
52. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW MANY YOUNG TEENAGERS WE HAVE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 12 & 18. ...
53. THIS BUSINESS OF "OH! THIS GIRL'S CAUSING TROUBLE! SHE GOT PREGNANT!"--The whole problem was she needed the trouble! God intended for her to have that trouble of having babies. She also needed to have the trouble of having a husband & learning how to cook & keep house & take care of the babies! And that's what's wrong with that God-damned hellish System of the United States! They try to keep'm from getting married as long as they can because the parents are so God-damned selfish in the first place!
54. THEY WANT TO KEEP THEIR CHILDREN TO THEMSELVES AS LONG AS THEY CAN: "Oh, don't get married. Don't do this! Don't get in trouble! I would be glad to pay for an operation or drugs, anything! Just don't do that! I don't care if you live with them, but just don't have any kids!" Especially because they're afraid they're going to have to take care of the couple, because where would they naturally land but in Mama & Daddy's home & have this baby! And Mama & Daddy then are going to have to help'm take care of the baby of all things! "Horror of horrors! We'll have a baby in our house! Isn't that awful? And us parents will have to help our children to take care of it!"--And they don't want the work!
55. PEOPLE ARE SELFISH, THEY DON'T WANT TO WORK. They don't want to teach their kids, they don't want to have children & they've just abandoned God's system entirely & made it illegal, impossible, economically impossible, everything they can to try to try to keep them from doing it. It's the Devil himself fighting God's Plan!
56. BUT I THINK WE NEED SOME STATS ON HOW MANY ELIGIBLE TEENAGERS WE HAVE, eligible for both mating & for high school education, higher education. I doubt if we'll ever make it to college much less to post grads & I hope we never do. I've already stated my opinion on that & I think a junior high school education is all you need & you can call it that or whatever. Either the junior high system which is six years, with junior & senior high, or I thought the good old-fashioned country-style of just four years high school after eight years of grade school was sufficient.
57. PERSONALLY, I DON'T THINK YOU NEED THAT MUCH EDUCATION & I'VE ALREADY SAID SO! I think by the time they have learned their three Rs & three Gs our kids are going to be ready for anything! They just need a place to meet & get to know each other, live together, work together, go to school together & learn to know each other & who they want to hitch up with for the rest of their lives, even if it's only two or three more years. That's a hell of a long time to live together as some newlyweds have found out! Not too many marriages are as successful as ours & last as long as ours has, 13 years. My first one was 25 years so that's not too bad & we got results.
58. BUT THAT IS ONE OF THE NEEDS OF THE NATIONAL CENTER, THE COMBO CENTER, & WE DON'T NEED IT TOMORROW, WE NEEDED IT YESTERDAY, NOW! This isn't going to happen overnight, places have to be found big enough to accommodate it all. It may be that they can find an old hotel or a huge rambling old mansion, or who knows what they'll find! Maybe it's a big old mansion out in the country or a farm or something that can be turned into a campground overnight for two or three days or a week of National Fellowship, preferably I'd say it ought to be a week.
59. THE GENERAL AREA FELLOWSHIPS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ONCE A QUARTER & BE A WEEKEND. The District Area Fellowships are supposed to be as often as they can, at least monthly, remember? Whereas the Local Area Fellowships are supposed to meet together every Sunday. That's when the various Homes take turns in the Homes. Local Areas, weekly; Districts, monthly; Generals--Regionals in other words--quarterly; & Nationals, at least yearly.
60. SO IT CAN SERVE THIS GENERAL PURPOSE FOR ALL OF THESE THINGS: Headquarters for the country & its officers & its NVL & its Reception Center & everything, as well as Fellowship facilities for National Fellowships, if possible, even maybe some Regional Fellowships, & also even further down the line for those that are nearby. It could be used by the LAF that's right there, & the District one, & could be used by the General one right on up to the National one! It could be in constant use all the time, every weekend!--Cooking facilities & housing facilities & everything they need for it.
61. THE LOCAL HOMES WOULDN'T HAVE TO HAVE IT FOR ROOM & BOARD IN THE SAME CITY, but they could at least have it for their Sunday meetings, a place where they could all meet, a meeting room of some kind. And of course the monthly District could have it for their weekend meeting or whatever it is, & the quarterly meeting of the General area too.
62. WELL, ALL THESE THINGS, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, ARE NOTHING NEW. They have already been tried & proven by others & former religious groups & denominations. They work & they work great! It is a natural plan of God to have His people fellowship when they can, & let's not have Fellowships that are so crowded & that the air is so stifling that somebody falls out of the window & dies! They're so crowded that the guys have to sit in the windows, as they did in the New Testament!--And some of those places were so crowded it was a mess! (Ac.20:9.) You know, we idealise the New Testament church but they made lots of mistakes & they had lots of messes & they were just like us! But they made it just like we will, PG!
63. I MEAN, THERE ARE SO MANY NEEDS & USES FOR THE NATIONAL CENTERS THAT WE NEEDED THEM YESTERDAY! We need to plan right now for our children & we need places right now for them to get together for their high school & to meet each other & to mate & to learn how to live with each other & all the rest. Our big blob Colonies used to be that very thing & they were in those days largely teenagers. They were at least, I'd say, half teenagers--16, 17 & the rest of the teens.
64. IN THE VERY EARLIEST DAYS IF YOU WERE UP IN YOUR 20s YOU WERE CONSIDERED ONE OF THE OLDER ONES out at the Huntington Beach Light Club or TSC or whatever, you were a pretty old bottle! Ha! (To our bookkeeper:) So, you've been around a long time, Honey! I can remember you there at TSC & that funny little girl you were married to, GBH!
65. ALL RIGHT, NOW DID YOU CATCH THE VISION? Without a vision the people perish--of what I have in mind & what I think the Lord has & what God wants us to do. You can say it's a security hazard, you've got too many eggs in one basket. Well, if they get affluent enough & if these persnickety security freaks, the NAS, & VSs want to live separately, fine. But I think the Fellowship Center, Reception Center, High School & all the rest will be fairly safe.
66. WHO ARE THEY GOING TO ATTACK? THE HIGH SCHOOL KIDS? The poor little nobody staff that are cooking & all the rest? And even the NVL might rate 'ya one of them, I don't know. But the Fellowships are only going to be there on weekends, so they raid it on weekends, they know where it is. But it's a funny thing, when you start having buildings & a thing like I'm talking about, all of a sudden you're no longer some kind of a crazy freaky cult! You're becoming kind of settled down. You're having things they can see & they can understand. You're having a church, you're having a school, you're having a business center, offices.
67. ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS WE DID WAS PUT UP A BIG SIGN AT TSC: "OUR MONTESSORI SCHOOL." The local yokels came by, "Hm!" You've got something they're not ashamed of!--Dear Fred's old shack there, old wooden house. But it was sure a nice sign & they had classes going on & kids & teachers, & a lot of the locals families or mothers stopped by to look at it, curious to see what it was all about, right?
68. IN FACT, WE WERE GETTING SO MANY VISITORS AT THAT PLACE, we finally had as high as 100 in a day to where we had to have a full-time staff on duty at least 18 hours a day greeting visitors at the greeting room, & the cars were parked from the gate clear to the greeting room. I have seen as many as 25 or 30 cars there at once, just people visiting!
69. SEE, IF YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING THEY CAN SEE, THEY CAN UNDERSTAND BETTER. This business of just a bunch of little people scattered out in Homes, this, that & the other, you're preaching an entirely different direction now. Well, we went [EDITED: "low-key"] when it was necessary, & we're still trying to survive & some will still have to stay [EDITED: "low-key"] & some will still have to be [EDITED: "non-public"].
70. BUT EVEN THE COMMUNIST PARTY FOUND THIS OUT, THAT WHENEVER THEY POSSIBLY COULD THEY NEEDED TO BE LEGAL & they needed to have a strong public profile for public relations & to be legit & look like something solid & political that had something & had some influence, if nothing else, & were somebody & had some leaders! I don't know whether this is gonna ever happen but I just know we need it.
71. IF THE LORD DOESN'T COME SOONER THAN I EXPECT--& I don't expect Him for at least the next ten years, D.V.--we're going to need some kind of respectable [DELETED] appearance, low profile maybe. But respectable means "able to have respect"! Something people can see.
72. THE MORMONS MADE A PROCLAMATION TO THE WHOLE WORLD THAT THEY HAD ABANDONED POLYGAMY. [DELETED] They just came out & made it officially not the policy of the Mormon Church. I mean, after all, when the System makes it so tough on you that they surround your city with an army & train their cannons on your temple & tell you if you don't renounce your bigamy & polygamy they're going to start shelling your church & your city & kill your people, what else can you do? That's what the Federal Government of the United States did to the Mormons!
73. SO GOD BLESS THE DEAR ELDERS & THE APOSTLES & THE PRESIDENT, they rushed into the temple with the Lord & the Angel Moroni who told them that they should abandon polygamy, & that was very convenient because it saved their necks just in time! I mean, they'd fought battles with the Federal troops time & again & been slaughtered, massacred, & they just got tired of it, & it was all over this polygamy thing.
74. FOR ONE THING, THEY WEREN'T ALWAYS TOO PARTICULAR ABOUT WHOSE WIFE IT WAS THEY ADDED TO THEIR HAREM, & this for some reason made the husbands a little bit aggravated! So they went out chasing them with shotguns because little Liza Jane got tired of staying on the farm & doing all that work with no help & having all the cooking & the babies to do all by herself as well as some of the plowing & everything else, & this idea of living communally together & having several wives share the work just sounded great! Hm? Sounds a little bit like us, doesn't it?
75. I MEAN, MY GOODNESS, IN ONE HOME FIVE WIVES COULD DO FIVE TIMES AS MUCH WORK instead of having just one do it all! So a lot of them got the idea, "Well, hm! Why should I have to do it all? I'm going to join one of these Mormon homes & then I've got a lot of help! We could take turns cooking & taking care of the kids & doing the washing & housecleaning & all the rest!"--And it worked great! Don't tell me polygamy doesn't work & that it didn't work, it still works! But they keep it under cover.
76. I DON'T KNOW THAT I'D EVER BE ABLE TO RENOUNCE IT LIKE THE BISHOP OF ROME TOLD EMANUELLE: "If Dave would just renounce this FFing, his sexual views, then we'll forget it & we can still be friends. But if he won't renounce his attitude toward sex, then we're not going to get along." And it was shortly after that that they began the persecution in Italy when I refused to renounce it. Maybe when I'm dead you can always feel compromising & if you don't have the guts to fight it, then join it! And if you can't lick'm, love'm & compromise! But I don't see how I can pull my punches while I'm still alive! I'm too much of a radical & fanatical & that's my convictions & I don't see how I could back down on them.
77. ANYWAY, THAT'S THEIR MAIN BAG NOW IS THAT SORT OF THING. They couldn't prove drugs or murder & all the other ridiculous exaggerated charges they have against us, & now we're older families, couples with real families & children & we're beginning to look a little bit normal & human & slightly respectable. We're not a fly-by-night outfit that they said, "Oh, they're going to be here today & gone tomorrow. It's just a fad!" Well, here we are 13 years later & we're still going strong & stronger than ever & maybe we've learned a few things on the way. Maybe we've learned a little more moderation, temperance & wisdom, if nothing else!
78. AND SOME OF THESE [EDITED: "IMPORTANT MEN"] WHO ARE FUCKING OUR GIRLS are going to be a little loathe & reluctant to clamp down on us even though their wives may be screaming & tearing their hair to do it because they're jealous. That's the picture I got in Tenerife, it was a woman who was causing all the trouble, & if I'd even gotten to see a picture of the governor's wife I could've bet you anything it was the governor's wife! The women of the island were raising a furor that their husbands were running after our girls, which they were, & there's no wrath like a jealous woman!
79. WELL ANYWAY, HOW WE'LL SOLVE THAT PROBLEM, I DON'T KNOW, but in the meantime we can try to look a little bit respectable maybe, & at least if our National Center is a meeting center & all these things that I've said, we might get away with it in some countries, at least, & after all have some kind of a place. We'd better always have some alternative where we can duck out if we have to, but anyhow, it sounds good & I believe it would work if we didn't get too much persecution & if we're wise.
80. I THINK WE NEED TO START A FEW FEELERS IN SOME COUNTRIES WHERE WE THINK WE COULD GET AWAY WITH IT & where we could try & have a fairly respectable-looking camp or old hotel or whatever where we'd have our meetings & school & offices & all this sort of thing. At least try it. I don't know, maybe it won't work. But I had a few ideas before & some of them worked, even the Chain would've worked if they had operated the way I told them to do it.
81. BUT THE TROUBLE IS IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE RIGHT LEADERS THEN THEY DON'T RUN IT THE WAY YOU PLAN TO HAVE IT & it became a dictatorship instead of a balance between the two. I mean, way back then the Local Shepherds & all were supposed to be elected, right? Right on up to Bishops, something like that, & we tried to make a balance for their representation. I'm still trying to, let's hope this plan works.
82. I THINK NOW THAT I'M IN MORE DIRECT CONTROL & WE HAVE PURGED THE RANKS & we have [EDITED: "trained"] them with the Letters, I think maybe it's going to work this time, D.V. Because we're more of one mind, we're in greater unity, we don't have these two separate dynasties pulling against each other, the House of Saul & the House of David as we had before. We got rid of the House of Saul & now David's running the kingdom the way he thinks it ought to be run, & God pity & help the one who tries to stand in my way!
83. I THINK I'M DOING IT THE RIGHT WAY & WE GOT RID OF ALL THAT REBELLIOUS & CANTANKEROUS LEADERSHIP who weren't really with us heart & soul from the beginning, such as Jethro & Deborah & even Rachel who got her training under them mostly. Well, she served her purpose for her day & they served their purpose for their day, at least till we had somebody to help in the business areas, which is one of the main needs, because that wasn't my strong point. I was no businessman, at least I didn't know I was, I had to be. But anyhow, let's try.
84. NOW, WE'VE GOTTA HAVE A BUSINESS MEETING, THE PROBLEM IS EVERY TIME I GET INSPIRED & WIND UP ON SOMETHING ELSE to give you the vision for something else! But I think it's important because we're here discussing VSs & NASs & all this & it's beginning to come to pass. It's building up to that & they're starting to get it together & the Fellowships are going over great & everybody's raving about what a blessing it is to have Fellowship, & at the same time that means leadership.
85. IT'S GOING TO DEVELOP MORE LEADERSHIP & WE'RE GOING TO FIND OUT WHO THE LEADERS ARE. The people know, they're there, they watch them, they live with them, they watch them operate & they're not going to elect NASs that don't know nothing. They're going to elect those they have confidence in, who are really servants of the people. I would expect them to elect people who are spiritual & good spiritual leaders, let's hope. They may make a few mistakes, people usually do.
86. BUT WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF NOT ONLY DEVELOPING FELLOWSHIP, BUT WHILE WE ARE DEVELOPING WE'RE DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP because those Fellowships need leaders. And so through these ranks are going to come up these shepherds from the lowest level to the top, developing leadership & experience in leadership. They need a chance to lead. With no fellowship & no meetings & no contact & no communication, how could they ever learn how to lead anything but their own Home, right? Now they're going to have meetings, Fellowships & business to attend to & organisation & people to take care of & they are going to have to learn leadership. So we are developing leaders at the same time we are developing the Fellowships & we will find out through these Fellowships, D.V., who the leaders are.
87. SO WE NEED TO WORK ON TRYING TO FIGURE OUT NOW WHO THESE NASs ARE! I want a report just as quickly as you possibly can from local people or local VSs or whoever as to what they think about these various NASs & are they good people, good leaders, would they make good NASs & can we trust them with responsibility to put them in charge of the first & greatest need, & that's the Reception Center.--Which will also be their Home Base & the NVL & their office, etc., & from which will grow these other things, D.V.
88. I HAVE RECOMMENDED EITHER AN OLD HOTEL THAT HAS THE FACILITIES FOR THE HOUSING, FEEDING & SCHOOL & everything, or even better yet a campground maybe way out in the country somewhere where people won't feel threatened by [EDITED: "us"]! Maybe even make it look nice & neat & clean & respectable & something that the local community would be proud of!
89. WE HAD A FEW BLOBS IN THOSE EARLY DAYS THAT THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES WERE PROUD OF, & when we made the headlines & television & reporters came out, the local people had nothing but good to say, believe it or not, even the cowboys! Even the local villagers in Tenerife & the rest. When it came to the showdown they stuck up for us & so did the waiters & the taxi drivers & the local police chief & everybody but the God-damned Bishop & the Governor that he influenced & his wife & his judges, all of them hangovers from Franco's day.
90. BUT I THINK WE HAVE USUALLY GAINED A FAIRLY GOOD REPUTATION AMONGST THE LOCAL PEOPLE, local yokels. We gained their respect & they stuck up for us & defended us & gave a good report. Very few that I ever heard of didn't. About the worst that got out from any local neighbour was the little rascally maid next door who said we went in swimming nude, tsk, tsk! Well, we put up rattan screens so she couldn't see, but she must've seen or suspected or something or known that's why the screen was there.
91. WELL, THE LAW SAID YOU HAD TO HAVE AT LEAST A TWO METERS HIGH WALL BEFORE YOU COULD GO BATHING NUDE IN YOUR OWN YARD. Two meters high, of course, that's pretty easy to grab ahold of the top & look over if you want to. In fact, the wall on at least two sides of us was about three or four meters high & it was clear around where nobody could see in or see the pool anyhow.--Except this damn maid who lived in this house on a higher level than ours behind us. Well, the funny part about it was we were not accused legally of violating the law about nude bathing. They call it public scandal. They didn't really give a damn if we went swimming naked, but what they wanted to do was nail us for our club work. We were reaching their husbands!
92. SO I WANT TO TRY TO SEE IF WE CAN WORK ON THAT VISION. If we don't know what we want, how are we going to know what to do? I want to try to aim toward making these NASs & VSs--whether we've got both or one--at least to have somebody in each country responsible for that country & supervising that particular field, & I want to know their name & their address & their phone number & be able to get ahold of them!
93. AND RIGHT NOW WE DESPERATELY NEED THEM TO REPORT ON THOSE FIELDS & THE PERSONNEL & to supervise particularly right now personnel! Whoever heard any kind of business advertising for personnel & just letting them flood into the store or the business & sit down anywhere or pick up any counter or grab any desk or do as they please? We're going to have all Hell break loose in some of these fields if we don't get them organised pretty soon & people placed in the right places that suit their talents, their needs, their ministries, their economic abilities, etc.
94. AND TO DO THAT WE'VE GOT TO HAVE PEOPLE IN THE FIELD WHO ARE GOOD LEADERS & who can assess people's personalities & their abilities & report to us & also help to place those people.--Receive them, place them or kick them out, whatever needs to be done so that all of these people can be properly supervised. You just cannot have everybody running loose or you're going to have some very bad conduct on the part of some people that's going to reflect on, you might say, the Church & cause trouble with the government & the local community & a lot of other things.
95. WE'VE GOT TO START CRACKING DOWN ON ORGANISATION, LEADERSHIP & DISCIPLINE where we've got strict rules on behaviour & all the rest so that we will be able to operate safely & securely & respectably in these communities as much as possible! We're no longer a bunch of harem-scare'm, wild & woolly-headed hippies! We should've grown out of that stage by this time. I'm a little amazed when I see some pictures still coming in of these superannuated hippies!
96. THEY'RE GETTING UP IN THEIR 30s & THEY STILL LOOK LIKE HIPPIES! They haven't gotten the point! They must not be reading the Letters because I've talked about cuttin' hair a long time ago. I don't think they necessarily have to go to the extreme & poll it or side-shave it or flattop it. You guys look real nice just the way you are. That's a conservative, happy medium & it's kind of the style today with men to have fairly long hair, but please no longer than neck-length at most!
97. BUT WE'VE GOT TO CLAMP DOWN ON SOME OF THESE PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO BE FAMILY MEMBERS & ARE VERY POOR EXAMPLES, both their appearance & their Homes & their litnessing manners & a lot of other things!--Some even openly confessing they're Sodomites or drugsters or a few others. We're going to have to start ex-communicating people who don't set a good example & are not good samples of our Family lest the community think that that's us! We want to let the community know that that is not us & that is not the way we believe & the way we like it.
98. WE'RE NOT HIPPIES & WE ARE NOT ANY LONGER SCREAMING MIMI REVOLUTIONARIES! That was great for the hippie revolutionary generation & we got our start that way. But there's a time for everything & a place for everything & it's time we grew up! Paul talks about that in the Bible. God's Word talks about it, that we are no longer children, we put away childish things. (1Co.13:11) We've become a man, mature, with much greater wisdom!
99. MY WILD FANATICAL HIPPIE REVOLUTIONARY TACTICS worked great with the wild fanatically hippie revolutionary generation! But now we're nice little families, parents with children, homes of our own & it's time we all grew up & not let some of these stupid idiots get away with some of their shenanigans!--Running homosexual Homes, smoking grass & all the rest of it! We need to excommunicate them! I don't give a damn how much they contribute or how faithfully they tithe or love to read the Family News Magazine while they're sitting there looking like hippies on the floor smoking grass! I mean, it's just not our Family!
100. "WHERE HAVE ALL THE CHILDREN GONE?" dear Roy Wallis wrote. Well, they've grown up! I wrote him back an answer: "They're no longer children! They're parents with families of their own, that's where they've gone!" And it's time. Everybody has to grow up sooner or later. Well anyhow, we need to grow up, we need to get a little bit more respectable, in other words, worthy of people's respect in the local culture, local customs of what they can fathom, what they can swallow, what they can stand, what they can take.
101. THEY MAY LOOK AT US A BIT ASKANCE & BE A LITTLE BIT LEERY, but at least we're there & at least we're not breaking any laws & at least we're not causing any trouble & at least we're not doing some of the things we used to do & we're not a threat to their society. That's the trouble with them, they feel threatened when they get scared of you. Like a dog, that's when he bites you. An animal who feels threatened is frightened. It feels threatened that you're a danger to it & then it attacks, & that's the way the System does.
102. THESE WATCHDOGS OF THEIR SYSTEM FAITH FEEL THREATENED, you're a danger to the community, & so they decide before you attack them [EDITED: "or do something unpredictable, etc."], they're going to attack you first! Of course the dogs or the animal's fears may be totally unfounded & totally false, but you've got to convince them of that, & the way you do it is to speak softly to them & show you're not afraid of them & you face them & you talk to them. Every lion trainer, tiger trainer, dog trainer, animal trainer, horse trainer, whatever it is, doesn't dare have fear!
103. YOU CANNOT HAVE FEAR IN THE FACE OF THEIR FEROCITY, YOU HAVE TO HAVE FAITH & confidence & openness & face them & talk to them & convince them that you're not threatening them & you're not a danger to them & they don't have to be afraid of you or feel threatened & that you can live in peace together.
104. I HAVE STUDIED THE HISTORY OF MANY MOVEMENTS & DENOMINATIONS & SECTS & CULTS & ISMS & whatnot, & there were some which did not survive. They were too radical, they refused to conform, they refused to even compromise. They refused to abandon some of their fanatical ways & behaviour & they continued to prove to be a threat to the community because they could not get the leadership to obey the local laws & abandon some of their threatening practices, so they just wiped them out completely!
105. THEY WERE TRYING TO DO THAT TO THE MORMONS UNTIL THEY COMPROMISED & THEY MADE PEACE, NEGOTIATED A DEAL: "OK, we abandon polygamy, you leave us alone!" And now they're one of the strongest churches in the World scattered in many many countries. Seventh-day Adventists & Jehovah's Witnesses, they all had problems & were all persecuted at one time or other. They all had to finally makes some kind of a deal with the System at least to survive & to leave them alone, to do something in a way to prevent the System from just absolutely wiping them out.--Jews & Gypsies too!
106. THE JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES & SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS & THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS' MAJOR FIGHT WAS ON THE MATTER OF LITNESSING, & they fought case after case after case through the courts & clear to the Supreme Court. They won decision after decision in the Supreme Court supporting their right & freedom to litness & sell their literature on the public streets, door-to-door & all the rest. Until finally people sort of got used to the idea & sort of accepted them. They maybe not always accepted their lit or their doctrine but, "Oh, there's a couple of those crazy Witnesses coming down the street, give'm a quarter to get rid of them!" It's funny, they sort of get used to them after awhile.
107. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HENYARD POLITICS, HENYARD SOCIAL SYSTEM. You throw a new chicken or hen into the henyard that has not been there before & was not reared with them, etc., & before you know it they'll all start picking on that poor chicken! Talk about being henpecked! And if that poor chicken doesn't fight for its rights & fight for itself & earn the respect of the other chickens, they will literally peck it to death!
108. BUT IF THEY WILL PROVE THEMSELVES STRONG ENOUGH they can at least get a few chickens around who will fight with it & stick up for it & win a few friends. It's finished if it doesn't do a little fighting & defend its rights, but pretty soon that one can prove it can lick this one & that one & the other one & they kind of stick together! This little cult, this little ism in the middle of the System or this henyard, & by & by the whole henyard just sort of gets used to them & they quit picking on'm & just leave'm alone & they're accepted.
109. WELL, IT'S A LOT LIKE THAT & WE'RE IN THE GROWING PIONEER STAGES NOW, D.V., if we last long enough or the World lasts long enough, & I don't expect it to last much longer. But I think you'll find that we are today at least a little more respected & considered a little bit more authentic as a religious movement, a little more respectable. We're a little more mature, a little wiser & we have nice families & nice children & I think in some cases & in some places we could come out, stick our heads out of our holes & have a little exposure, a low profile, & eventually they even may discover who we are.
110. IT'S ALREADY HAPPENED IN SOME PLACES & THEY'RE STILL PUTTING UP WITH US. I wouldn't be surprised if we stand a better chance of that in the Oriental countries & in some of these strange non-Christian cultures than in the Christian cultures, because they're too close to us & they're too jealous. We always found out that the churches in town who hated each other most bitterly were the ones who were the closest to being alike because they were the closest competition.
111. THE PENTECOSTALS DIDN'T FEAR THE CATHOLICS & THE CATHOLICS DIDN'T FEAR THE PENTECOSTALS! The Pentecostals couldn't offer big cathedrals & the cathedrals couldn't even begin to tolerate the antics that went on in the Pentecostal church! I mean, they were as different as night from day & they were no competition whatsoever. But boy, you get two Pentecostal denominations in the same town & see what happens! The fur flies! Recrimination, accusation!
112. THE MORE THE OTHER CHURCH WAS LIKE YOUR CHURCH, THE HOTTER THE COMPETITION for the crowd & the people & members, & half the time it was proselytising back & forth from one church to the other rather than winning the lost! Seeing who could put on the best show, the best programme, had the best preacher & built the fanciest building & it was competition all the way for the crowd! Sad to say, all aiming at the same crowd, the same damn bunch of Christian church members, to see who could get'm!
113. THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS IN LOS ANGELES where they had this pool of 8,000 people who would go anywhere to any programme you put on providing it sounded attractive enough. But they never stuck anywhere either, you couldn't depend on them. Well, thank God, our folks stick. I think they're pretty well indoctrinated, brainwashed & convinced. We had to spend a few years now just even convincing our own kids.
114. NOW THAT OUR OWN PEOPLE ARE GOOD & SOLID IN THE FAITH & GROUNDED & know what they are & who they are & what they're supposed to be & what they're supposed to believe & are persuaded & convinced of it, maybe we can start persuading some of the System that we mean business! And I think we've done that even through our FFers, believe it or not.
115. SO I THINK GOD'S GOING TO HELP US TO WIN, IN AT LEAST SOME PLACES, IN SOME CASES, THE RESPECT OF THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES & even have them sticking up for us! "We don't have any trouble with them, they don't cause us any trouble, in fact, we think they're a credit to the community. Their children are an example in our schools & the parents' homes are examples of good homes & all the rest!"
116. THE CULTURE & THE SOCIETY DOESN'T FEEL THREATENED. You're certainly different but you're not that different. You're human & you're parents & you have children & you have homes just like they have & some of you even have jobs. You even have churches & meeting places! Wow! It may be only a little shack or a tent on a campground, but it kind of resembles something religious & you maybe have regular Sunday meetings to which you invite the public if they want to come. You can call it a "Church of Love" or "Open the Door for the Children" or "Sunday School" or whatever you want to call it!
117. THEY COME & THEY FIND OUT, "WELL, FOR GOODNESS SAKE, YOU KNOW, THEY'RE NOT AS CRAZY AS I HEARD! They don't really chop off Systemites' heads when they come & put'm in the pot & boil'm for Fellowship dinner! I was perfectly safe! And I found out they didn't try to strip me on the spot & everybody there fuck me or whatever. It's not an orgy after all, their meetings." And we'd better watch out about some of them I've heard about! Ahem! But I just believe & I'm hoping, D.V., in order for our survival, if nothing else, that we'll be able to economise on these centers & utilise these centers & capitalise on these centers for PR, believe it or not. That's just the way the System is.
118. UNTIL AMY BUILT HER BEAUTIFUL TEMPLE IN LOS ANGELES THEY WERE OUT TO PUT HER IN JAIL, & some of them even tried after that! [DELETED] [EDITED: "B"]ecause she was getting so many [DELETED] saved. Boy, I'll tell you, they fight!--And the [DELETED] prosecuting attorney was out to get her! But she had a lot of friends by that time & she'd built a beautiful building that was a sightseeing monument to the community & was giving tourists tours throughout the building & all this sort of thing & showing off what she had.
119. WE DID THE SAME THING AT THE RANCH AT TSC WITH OUR MONTESSORI SCHOOL & OUR DINING HALL & OUR NURSERY, even if the kids were stacked three tiers high & horrified some people! At least it showed we had some semblance of organisation & civilisation & the people were not starving to death & we were not murdering the children & we even had a school. We weren't totally running around completely ignorant, ignoramuses or wild people, but we had something they could see & understand!
120. SO THAT IS JUST ONE OF THE ADVANTAGES, I HOPE, & I THINK SOME PLACES IT WILL BE. I think in some places some of our Homes have already been such a respectable influence in their particular neighbourhood, & I think these centers will be also. But that was one of the major things that I had some questions about, & with that idea in mind & that goal, that vision, maybe you can help me decide on some of these people & who deserves help & who doesn't, where we can make changes & combinations & separations & whatnot in order to better organise the field & supervise it & do a better job than we're right now doing.
121. WE'RE STILL YOUNG & WE'RE STILL GROWING, but we are growing & we are maturing & we are getting better organised all the time. Someday maybe ten years from now during the Tribulation you'll look back, "Well, I was there when we first did this, you know? Thank God we did because now we're able to get along here & help each other during these trying days & feed each other & defend each other & print our own lit & keep going even though we're cut off from the rest of the World!" etc., etc. That's what I'm aiming at!
122. I MEAN, I HAVEN'T LOST SIGHT OF OUR GOAL TO EVANGELISE THE WORLD, to "go into all the World & preach the Gospel to every creature!" I'm not about to build churches, don't get the wrong idea! If we've got a tent or a shack to meet in on that campground, I'll be thankful if we have meetings at all. If we've got someplace to feed people to have Fellowship meetings, fine, PTL! If we even have a little high school it might be great.
123. BUT IT'S TOO LATE TO THINK ABOUT CHURCHES & CATHEDRALS & I NEVER WOULD WANT THEM ANYHOW, THEY'VE BEEN THE CURSE OF THE CHURCH! From the time they went to church buildings they stopped evangelising the World & they started arguing over doctrines & they stopped being everything they were supposed to be. Whenever we stop sending out missionaries & helping missionaries & evangelising the World, litnessing, witnessing, winning souls, then you can start telling me I'm getting churchy. OK? But not until then.
124. JUST BECAUSE WE'RE HAVING SOME FELLOWSHIP MEETINGS or a little better organisation or a little more efficient financial policy & a little better supervision, some of the wild, woolly-haired fanatics are going to start screaming, "Oh! Dad is becoming just like the churches!"--Just because we're trying to organise the army a little better so we can be safer & fight better & win a few battles! PTL? OK! Do you get the point? That's why now in some ways we're getting together better, but particularly on the local level, & in some ways we're going to have to start separating on the upper levels.
125. WELL, THIS IS NO NEW DOCTRINE, I'VE BEEN PREACHING THIS ALL THE TIME--INDIGENUITY! How many times did I talk & write on that subject? We've got to separate the upper levels of command in order to cause the lower to be more independent, more decentralised, even if they have Reception Centers & National Centers. The main idea of that is so that they can decentralise World leadership. You don't just completely abandon all leadership in order to decentralise your overall World leadership!
126. YOU'VE GOT TO ALWAYS HAVE SOME LEADERSHIP SOMEWHERE & in view of the World situation, the safest is local leadership. If there are enough local leaders & local centers & indigenous national groups & centers, they can't just kick'm out of the country, because they're citizens, they're nationals. It's a local organisation & it's a local situation, etc., & they're taking care of their business, minding their own business, doing their own business & supplying their own leadership, finances, lit, everything.
127. THAT'S THE ONLY KIND OF THING THAT'S GOING TO SURVIVE WHAT'S COMING--THE COMING HOLOCAUST. [DELETED]
128. SO WE HAVE TO GET BETTER ORGANISED ON THE LOCAL LEVEL with the Fellowships & the ASs & the VSs or whatever & the local situation, so even if cut off from each other or from us they can continue to operate on a local basis. They can continue to fellowship, have leadership, survive economically, witness, litness, FF, whatever they can do. At least they will have each other locally & have some leadership & some economic reliability & some idea of how to be organised & have fellowship & what to do in case there's an emergency & who to ask & what to do about it & all the rest so that we can survive.
129. WE'RE A WORLDWIDE ORGANISATION NOW IN ABOUT 80 COUNTRIES & God knows we have few enough people in some of those countries, but in others we have enough people that we should be able to get together & solve some of the problems. The idea of the Fellowship is working & helping & they're cooperating & it's unity. In unity there's power & strength & fellowship & wisdom & cooperative effort & all the rest. It's working & we need to do everything we can to encourage it, PTL? That's what we're aiming at in these fellowships & these organisations & these officers.
130. OH, I DON'T DOUBT THERE'S BEEN SOME PEOPLE--we've gotten a few hints of it--who say, "Uh-oh! Dear old Dad, he was a churchman to begin with, he's headed back to church again! You just watch & see, we're going to have church services & church buildings & church preachers & churches & we'll be back in the same old rut before you know it!" My God, if this outfit ever gets in a rut, I don't know, it might even be good for them! Ha! Some of them are a little too wild & woolly!
131. WE DO HAVE TO TRY TO STAY ON THE SAME TRACK, MAYBE NOT THE SAME RUT, BUT THE SAME TRACK, work together & build the track right & know where we're going & not get off the track on some kind of a crazy stupid tangent like some people have. At least as long as I'm alive I'm going to try to keep you on the right track, D.V.--Are you with me?--OK! Let's roll! All aboard with the Lord & Word to win the World! Amen? GBY! WLY! KGFG!--We're with you all the way, & He'll never leave nor forsake us, He's with us to the End!--& Beyond!--Forever! ROLL!--In Jesus' name, amen!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
