HomeARC ML 1572
IHC PROGRESS! DFO 1572 18/7/83
1. I WOULD LIKE A REPORT ON HOW MANY IHCS ARE ESTABLISHED & IN OPERATION, how much fan mail each one's handling, & to be exact, how many Clubbers each one now has on their regular mailing list, & approximately how many new members they are receiving from the International Office each month. Therefore, I want to know how much, frankly, the MCV Office has left to do once the IHCs are in full swing. How much mail are they getting each month in the way of new members, enquiries through MCV's GP address, & just how is it being handled now, how soon do they turn them over to the IHCs? I think we discussed this one day & decided MCV would have to handle the first month or two correspondence, at least until we made sure that they were going to be regulars. They should discuss it & decide on just how long MCV should carry them & what point they should turn them over to the local IHCs.
2. THEN YOU NEED TO DO A LITTLE FORECASTING, by what information you get along that line, as to what is the possible result of what MCV is going to have left. What do they have left right now, how many Clubbers are they having to correspond with directly right now & approximately how many are they going to have left? Actually MCV shouldn't be having to handle any Clubbers right now except those who are new Clubbers & for whatever length of time they have to carry them before the IHCs take'm over. So we need to know at any given point in time how many Clubbers, therefore, MCV Office is carrying, right now & later with all IHC desks in full operation within the next few months--what's the forecast? And the forecast should be, simply, whatever new ones are coming in & as long as MCV has to carry them.--Which should be able to trim that Office down quite a bit. MCV's main job then should return to handling the stations & the duping & distribution of tapes, quality control & station correspondence.
3. STATIONS LIKE TO KNOW IF THEY CAN GET AHOLD OF YOU IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, & how fast their correspondence reaches you & have you got a phone number & that sort of thing--those who are really serious MCV broadcasters. Of course if they don't give a damn if your tapes don't get there & they couldn't care less, then they just switch the Show around & forget it, & possibly forget you permanently!--Which doesn't make for good station relations & doesn't make for good PR nor good customer service nor good reliability of perpetuity of our show on so many stations. And that's possibly why we have lost so many MWM stations, because of too many delays, too difficult correspondence, great distances & they don't get the tapes & they can't rely on it & they don't get answers to their questions & enquiries by mail soon enough to do'm any good, so they just forget the whole deal.
4. WHEN YOU START LOSING STATIONS LIKE THAT, the same thing happens to you that happened to Fred. When he quit giving them the service that they needed & could use, they quit broadcasting his show, quit telecasting it, & he dropped down from over 300 TV stations & 1100 radio stations to his one lone TV station on which he broadcasts commercially in Los Angeles. He just quit the whole other program. It was too much of a mess, & after I left he had no public service man out there anymore to troubleshoot & contact stations. In fact, he lost the burden & the heart & the sacrifice & the outreach.
5. BOTH MONEY-MINDED WILLY & PANSY PERSUADED HIM IT WASN'T WORTH IT, & that I wasn't worth it & the stations weren't worth it--measuring strictly in dollars & cents & income, not in evangelistic outreach. And on a public service program, you couldn't very well measure the results in dollars & cents income. It was a missionary outreach, an evangelistic outreach, & what he should have been measuring things by was how many millions of people was he giving the Gospel? So when he began to measure by money & income from the shows, of course there wasn't that much in it, & they decided they'd just do without it & use the money someplace else.
6. BUT THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS, HE DID GAIN A LOT OF GOOD RESPONSE & permanent supporters throughout the country. And despite the fact that Willy & Pansy tried to persuade him that it wasn't worth it, when he called me back for a conference on the matter--I, in fact, was going over his mailing list, culling out of all these people 50,000 permanent steady givers with IBM--so all I had to do was give him the stats. I said, "You've got so many givers in Connecticut, Fred, where'd you get those givers? You have so many givers in Maine, where'd you get'm?" He said, "We sent them our letter, we sent them our paper." I said, "Yeah? How'd you happen to send them your letters & your paper? How'd they get on your mailing list in the first place?" And they kind of fell silent. Because they knew that he had harvested thousands of new givers he would never have reached otherwise who became permanent supporters of his work through the TV & Radio Ministry.
7. NOW WE'RE NOT LOOKING FOR SUPPORT IN OUR RADIO MINISTRY, certainly not with teenagers & young people! We are looking on our radio ministry as strictly an evangelistic missionary outreach to try to preach the Gospel in all the World to every creature! And we are expecting a harvest of souls, & I believe we're getting it. I would like some stats on that too. How many of these Clubbers are getting saved? We should know, we're supposed to get a little coupon or something, they're supposed to sign something. Can we possibly get some stats? I presume they're included in the World Stats, but we can't tell how many Clubbers are getting saved. Let's get a low-down on how many Clubbers thus far of all the Clubbers that we have had to date have signed the Salvation slip or given some indication that they are saved.
8. THAT'S WHAT WE'RE AFTER--WE'RE AFTER SOULS! We're after getting these kids to know & love the Lord & be saved & follow the Lord. So that comes next, that's the next thing we're after, that's what the Lord is after, disciples, followers of the Lord.--Those who have not only gotten saved & want to continue getting our literature & feed on the Word, but want to serve the Lord. And I think we should be offering them some suggestions as to a means of service, & one of the first things they can do is perhaps get the lit that they like printed locally & distribute it locally. Is that included in the follow-up program?--Suggestions of service & how to serve & what to do & specifics?
9. LET'S JUST BE SURE WE'RE DOING THE WHOLE JOB. We're not done just when they're saved. We're not done until they're disciples & they are witnessing & winning souls themselves & establishing local Fellowships, local Clubs, local Fellowship Clubs, local MWM & MCV Fellowship Clubs where they can have local fellowship with each other, & help to sustain & support each other & protect & provide for each other. And of course, that, in a sense, is eventually a Family Home, if they actually come all-out, drop out & join in. And not until then would we ever expect, as far as we're concerned, to reap any support, for that is not what we're looking for.
10. IF THEY MANAGE TO SERVE THE LORD & SUPPORT THEIR OWN HOME, WITNESS, DISTRIBUTE LITERATURE & GET ALONG ON THEIR OWN, THAT'S PAY-OFF ENOUGH FOR US! If in the process they want our literature badly enough to continue & become full-fledged TRFing members, fine! PTL! We'll be happy to serve them & service them & provide the food & Word & guidance if they will help to pay for it. But that is the long-run long-term vision, & there's no quick pay-off as far as that's concerned, & we don't even expect it--maybe never!
11. OUR RADIO SHOWS RIGHT NOW ARE ALL MONUMENTAL GIVE-AWAYS as far as the stations are concerned, the tapes, the lit that goes out to Clubbers, everything! It's one of the World's biggest give-aways, amounting to thousands of dollars every month, hoping only to get the Gospel to those who need it & get them saved & to love & follow the Lord. And I don't know if we even have enough time left that there's going to be any results to the point that they're going to establish local Fellowship Clubs that are virtually going to be eventual TRFing Homes. I don't know if we have any such record of any such Clubbers that have gotten that far yet, do you know? (Maria: A few isolated cases.)
12. PROBABLY THE FIRST THING THAT WILL HAPPEN IS THEY WILL JOIN SOME EXISTING LOCAL HOME. If they drop out, they'll join local Homes. That's the most likely. PTL! And when that happens they're in the fold & finito!--Or I should say that's the beginning of their service for the Lord. By then we have really accomplished our purpose. But we have accomplished our purpose enough if we even are just getting the Gospel out on radio to people who maybe never even respond or write in but are getting the witness. And that's what we're responsible for. So since we're doing the job that God has asked us to do & called us to do & we're obeying, I expect Him to foot the bill--& He has! TTL!--And to supply the workers! And He has, & they have done a good job. But that's all we're interested in doing.
13. WE'RE NOT INTERESTED IN HITTING THE CHARTS OR THE TOP TEN or getting so popular that we're one of the most popular shows. Well that's fine, but I've found that popularity is dangerous! Popularity precedes publicity, & publicity is followed by persecution!--The invariable cycle! So the more we can keep a low profile the better, as far as I'm concerned. The more underground & clandestine our ministry is, the better. We have to go public on radio in order to reach the General Public & the Youth & people we don't know & don't know exist. We have to first scatter the seed by radio every which direction. We don't know where it's going to land when it comes to the radio program. When we get a response, we get back some sprouts that have taken some root, then we can start feeding & watering & fertilizing'm & try to help'm grow. But that should be strictly private by mail & personal contact & Fellowships.
14. OUR POLICY IS NEVER TO ASK THEM FOR MONEY!--Unless they ask for extra things which cost money which they would expect to have to pay for--extra tapes or extra lit, extra decals, pins or whatever it might be. "I want such-&-such pins for my friend."--"Well, get your friend to write in & he can get it free just like you do! Either that or you're going to have to pay for it." But our main policy & our promise to those stations--& that should be on the brochure--is that:
15. THERE WILL BE NO APPEALS OR REQUESTS FOR FUNDS WHATSOEVER ON ANY PROGRAMS, NOR THROUGH THE MAIL! I think many stations, if they were reassured of that, would probably be more interested.--I would say particularly this is true of the finicky American & European stations. If we had good bookers & salesmen there to try to sell the show to those stations & they were assured that they not only carry them as a public service but we never ask for money, we never even hint we need money & we never ask for money in the follow-up mail, ever, I think first of all they'd be shocked & pleasantly surprised! Their first reaction would probably be disbelief, because every public service show that they carry free whose address they give, they know that broadcaster contacts those people & they get a mailing list & eventually ask them for money.
16. ALL THE OTHER GOSPEL SHOWS I KNOW OF ASK FOR MONEY! Even if they're carried as a free public service by the stations, they give their address & they'll eventually write the listeners & get them on the mailing list & start bugging them for funds. For that reason the station officials in America & Europe are much more cagey & much more investigative, & frequently they write in themselves privately in their own name as a listener just to find out what our follow-up program is. We got quite a few complaints from stations who objected to Fred's hard-sell in the mail, & he was a hard seller & a hard puller once he got'm on the address list, & some of them dumped us for that reason. I ran into them later & they said, "Yeah, when you said there would never be any appeals for money on the program, you were right, but boy, did he hit his listeners for money in the mail! And we didn't like that!" Some of the listeners complained & they just dropped us. I don't want that ever to happen to us.
17. THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A PROMISE OF OUR MUSICAL UNITS & THEIR OFFICES THAT THEY NEVER ASK FOR MONEY! We stopped that a long time ago. We don't sell'm anything any more. We used to sell'm stuff at cost--we don't even do that any more. So we can honestly say we never ask for money, either on the show or in the mail, never, ever! Period! I think most stations would be astonished at that. I think if some station officials write in just to see what the follow-up program is, they're going to be pleasantly surprised that we do nothing but what we say. It's all free & we keep giving it & never ask for money.
18. BUT I DON'T THINK ANY OF THEM COULD POSSIBLY COMPLAIN, IF THEY GO THAT FAR, ABOUT US ASKING THEM TO RECEIVE THE LORD AS THEIR SAVIOUR! They certainly must know that's what we're after--salvations! But we're also not asking them to join any denomination or any church or anything else, except that they just join our fans, & eventually they have their own Fellowship in their own Club & virtually all on their own. It's their own affair & their own business, we merely encourage them, that's all. And if any of them should get to the ultimate point that they finally join our Family & one of our Homes, that will be the livin' end, that's for sure, & I'd say it's probably quite a ways off for most of them. We may have had a few who've already done that.
19. I KNOW IN INDIA WHERE WE'VE BEEN ON FOR YEARS & YEARS WE'VE GOT QUITE A FEW REAL LASTING FRUIT WHO ARE NOW FULL-FLEDGED MEMBERS IN HOMES & LEADERS & PIONEERS & GENUINE DISCIPLES!--NATIVE INDIANS! Praise God! Well, we sure prayed for that country & I have certainly prayed for Mrs. Gandhi. I believe it was our prayers that got her back in office! That was an absolute miracle that anybody could have gotten kicked out to the point where they actually put her in jail & yet return to power! We prayed desperately for her then, & she came back with a tremendous comeback & is back in & all-powerful again! Most people said she was finished, it couldn't be done, but she did it, & I believe the Lord did it, & I believe our prayers helped!
20. ANYHOW, THAT'S WHAT WE'RE AFTER: WE'RE AFTER CHANNELS TO PREACH THE GOSPEL! And we're doing it & we're expecting God to pay for it & He is! And anything beyond that is up to the Lord. So we're not measuring our show results in dollars & cents, right? But we are measuring it in outreach--how many people are we reaching with our radio witness & how many people are we reaping in souls won? That's what we want to know. What is our radio coverage & how many souls do we reach in our radio witness? The only thing you can do is estimate what the stations estimate their local coverage is. And of course then through the mail we are reaping Club Members & we know how many that is, & we should know how many salvations we're getting. I'd like to know those figures--the totals for the whole World from all our stations in ten languages!
21. I STILL WOULD LIKE TO SEE THOSE CHARTS that I myself designed for my information. And I wonder if we have on any of those charts the approximate actual witnessing coverage, total Mass Media Witness coverage of our radio stations alone--MCV & MWM & all the other Local Language Programs. I'd like to see what it is. I think that would be a good stat to have--what is the total coverage of these radio stations, how many millions of people do they actually reach with our witness?--And how many souls have they already won?--And have already joined the Family? Where do we find those stats? Who gets those stats? Who knows those stats? Let's find out! I want to know how many people we're really reaching, approximately what we estimate we're reaching through radio, as well as the stats we know, which are how many respond, how many get saved etc. I want to know specific radio stats.
22. ONCE THE IHCS ARE ESTABLISHED & OPERATIVE, THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO HANDLE THE CLUBBERS LOCALLY, both by mail, telephone, personal contact, feeding, fellowshipping, encouraging, whatever. That's a very very important job. In order to get the final harvest of not only just souls but disciples & integrate them into fellowship, they have to be handled like babies by mothers & fathers that are going to take good care of them, real shepherds, genuine pastors! They're babes & they need to be very delicately carefully prayerfully handled, & not by people who don't know what they're doing. They have to be handled by people who really have the burden for it sacrificially, & want to take care of those babies & want to teach them, reach them, get them into the Word & fellowship & make real disciples out of them.--Not just people who are just going to go out there & put on some silly kind of a Club show party & be able to brag about how many Club Members came to the meeting, blah blah! That's all well & good & part of it, but the real lasting permanent results are what counts.
23. YOU'VE GOT TO HAVE PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE BURDEN & THE ANOINTING & THE TALENT & THE KNACK FOR PERSONAL FOLLOW-UP, the wisdom for it, the ability for it, even the training for it, who will go out there & literally pastor those sheep. That's what it amounts to. Are we developing that through our IHCs? I'd like to know how it's coming, how they choose their Minstrels & their Pioneers & people who are going out & contacting them locally. The local IHC Office has control over them, because those people wouldn't get those names & addresses except through the local office. So if they don't choose the right kind of people, I blame the IHCs!
24. THE RESPONSIBILITY OF EACH IHC OFFICE IS EXTREME & EXTREMELY IMPORTANT & extremely serious, & they had better know how to pick the people they send out to contact our names & addresses, or they can louse up the whole job, as I've already heard some of them have. So I want to make sure that we're not just beating the air & not pouring all this work & money down a rathole that is not going to accomplish what it's supposed to! And I want to make sure that nobody's handling more than they're supposed to, more than they're capable of, & devoting any more time & attention to things they don't have to do instead of what they have to do--including the International Music Offices. They should only handle what they absolutely have to handle. The local IHC Offices should handle the Clubbers as soon as possible & as much as possible with the local contact approach & feeding & pastoring & all the rest.
25. I HOPE THAT IHC PROGRAM IS WORKING, I HOPE IT'S DEVELOPING. It's a miracle how we operate with so many novices & so many people who never did before what they're doing now, but that's how our Family has started & how it's grown!--With people who didn't know what they were doing & never did it before! And now they're doing it & doing a good job of it, evangelising the whole World, thousands of missionaries in over a hundred countries & hundreds of cities & literally what amounts to thousands of mission stations, every Home! And they've learned, they're doing it! So there's no reason why these radio ministries can't do it too!
26. THE IHCS NEED TO REALLY GET ON THE BALL & REALISE THE HEAVY RESPONSIBILITY THEY HAVE, THE SUPER SERIOUS RESPONSIBILITY THEY HAVE OF TAKING CARE OF THOSE LITTLE LAMBS! They're not even sheep yet, they're just barely-born little lambs. I'll tell you right now, if you ever want to know any kind of animals that have to have the care of man, it is both the lambs of the sheep & the kids of the goats! They have to have man's care & man's help or they die! Their mothers don't really know how to take care of them. About all they're born with is the mother's instinct to try to feed'm, but if there's any problem at all, if the baby strays off or has any trouble, the mother has no sense whatsoever about how to protect or house'm, it's virtually impossible for her to protect'm from wild dogs & predators, & about all she knows how to do is feed'm, providing they come around for it.
27. SO THAT'S WHY THEY HAVE TO HAVE SHEPHERDS AS PASTORS TO TAKE CARE OF THE LITTLE LAMBS THAT ARE BORN INTO OUR FOLDS!--Especially if you do general grazing like we did at the TSC Ranch, where you don't keep all your sheep right within a pen or a fold all the time, which of course is best in some ways. But when you let them feed on general grazing, you don't just buy feed & put it in a manger, but you expect them to live off the land. Then you've got to follow'm & take care of'm, & when they lamb & kid you've got to be there & see that they take care of them & see that they're sheltered & fed & protected.
28. BOTH HO & AARON LEARNED A LOT ALONG THAT LINE, & we lost some lambs & kids in the early days when we didn't realise how much care they needed. But it later got to be where it was sometimes an all-night thing. They'd go out there & stay with the ewes or they'd bring the ewes into the barn & the fold to make sure they had them safely protected there. But when they're there in the fold they can't feed or graze, you have to feed'm. So it's a hand-to-mouth daily care proposition, just like with any babies.
29. SOMEBODY'S GOT TO REALLY TAKE CARE OF THEM & FEED THEM & PROTECT THEM & HOUSE'M, & in some cases we did have to house'm! We couldn't bring in all the ewes, since all the ewes were usually lambing or kidding about the same time in the Spring, so we couldn't bring them all in because we had too many, we had hundreds! So we just had to search out the ones that looked like they were the furthest along & about ready & we'd bring them back to the barn & the fold. There their mother took care of them, fed them, & she was fed, & they weren't turned out to graze until they were big enough & strong enough to pretty much take care of themselves, & able to run fast enough to try to get away from the foxes & the wild dogs, coyotes etc. But when they're first born they're not able to do that, so you have to give them a lot of tender loving care & real pastoring & feeding & protection, sometimes even housing. So I want to see the IHCs & Homes do that, it's important! PTL!
30. WELL, I DIDN'T INTEND TO GET INTO A BIG THING ON HOW TO TAKE CARE OF OUR LAMBS & KIDS, BUT MAYBE GOD KNOWS THAT MUST BE IMPORTANT & I guess that's why He put it on my heart to say it. Therefore, I want you IHCs to do a good job! Choose the right kind of people & make sure they do their job. If you will, I'll be willing to support you even better!--If you'll go out there & do your best! We've gotten some very good reports from some of those Pioneer Minstrels who have gone out with nothing but names & addresses in hand & have gone visiting & gotten'm together for meetings & fed'm & had tremendous success!--Until some local Clubs are already leading themselves.
31. YOU WHO WRITE GOOD REPORTS LIKE THAT OF WHAT YOU'RE REALLY DOING, I FEEL LIKE SUPPORTING YOU! I think you people need & deserve support, so I'm willing to up the IHC budgets of those who write in & actually can show us how many fulltime personnel you've got in the field, actual harvesters who need help & need support & who are not covered by any other funds. Amen? (Maria: Chile & India are now the best! They've had tremendous fruit!) So we're gradually making progress. TTL!--Are you?
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
