DECENTRALISATION!                 DO 122                   10/71

         1. I WANT TO TELL YOU RIGHT NOW, THAT I AM ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED THAT LIKE JESUS & HIS TWELVE DISCIPLES & the small mobile teams of Disciples & the small mobile teams of the Early Church & their small scattered Colonies, that THE SMALL MOBILE TEAM IS THE MOST EFFICIENT, THE MOST EFFECTIVE, & THE SAFEST IN MOST CASES OF OPERATION. There may be a few exceptions, but our exceptions have proven the most vulnerable to attack!
         2. WE ARE PRONE TO EQUATE BIGNESS WITH GREATNESS, numbers with power, & property with accomplishment, like the False Church, whereas none of these things are necessarily true! As we have taught over & over again, & as the example of the New Testament vividly demonstrates, SMALL MOBILE TEAMS ARE BEST, & a PERMANENT headquarters can be more of a HAZARD than a HELP! Both Jesus & Paul & others demonstrated this with their very small, but very efficient & effective tiny bands of roving disciples that kept moving so they'd seldom get caught!
         3. GOD USUALLY TAKES THE WEAK THINGS TO CONFOUND THE MIGHTY & the FOOLISH things to bring to naught the wisdom of the WISE; for when we're WEAK, then we're STRONG, as HIS strength is made perfect in OUR weakness, since then we HAVE to depend on HIM! God doesn't go very much for BIGNESS after the manner of this World! He doesn't go very much for the SHOWY, but rather for the OBSCURE! He's seldom for the STRONG, but almost always for the WEAK!
         4. THE MINUTE YOU START PATTING YOURSELF ON THE BACK, YOU'RE FINISHED, & God will see to it that you're humbled to bring you out of it! He's a jealous God, & He wants & deserves the glory, & will have no other gods before Him! So you'd better not start admiring your own arm of flesh, or you're apt to lose it! Watch out! GIVE GOD ALL THE GLORY!
         5. WE'RE IN A RUNNING BATTLE, & WE CAN'T OFTEN AFFORD STATIONARY CONFRONTATION WITH THE ENEMY! Most of our teams need to STAY SMALL, MOBILE, & keep moving, or you're going to be sorry! You cannot fight the Enemy on his own terms & his own ground with his own tactics! You're too far outnumbered! You can't fight City Hall! You've gotta TRY TO STAY SO SMALL CITY HALL DOESN'T EVEN NOTICE YOU!
         6. WHENEVER YOU GET BIG & POWERFUL, YOU BEGIN TO THREATEN THE SECURITY OF THE STATUS QUO! You endanger the Establishment, & they will do their best to wipe you out before you do THEM in! This is the record of all history from the days of Egypt to the present! The smartest thing to do is to seem insignificant, weak, unimportant & of no consequence, as far as THEY are concerned! Otherwise, if YOU SEEM TO POSE A THREAT, THEY'LL ELIMINATE YOU!
         7. BIG CROWDS ARE DANGEROUS since few can handle them & they arouse jealous enemies & show where you are! We have never gone in for big meetings or rallies in this work! WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN MASS EVANGELISM! We CONSIDER IT INEFFICIENT, INEFFECTIVE, UNWIELDY, & DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS! It's the method of the System, & God has delivered us from it! DON'T FALL BACK INTO ITS TRAP!
         8. THE METHOD OF JESUS & HIS APOSTLES WAS ALMOST ALWAYS INDIVIDUAL PERSONAL EVANGELISM on a SMALL scale, depending on the effectiveness of a thorough PERSONAL witness & intensive INDIVIDUAL training to multiply the number of converts by making EVERYONE a soul winner, & NOT all in the same place! The BIG CROWDS ONLY COME FOR THE MIRACLES, LOAVES & FISHES, & you can't teach them anything! They leave as soon as the going gets rough & the doctrine heavy!
         9. TRUE, SACRIFICIAL DISCIPLES ARE FEW & FAR BETWEEN & HARD TO FIND! You have to search them out individually, personally, with tender loving care & personal attention! THEY DON'T COME BY THE THOUSANDS TO THE FRONT in huge stadiums! Most of those are only people who want a fire escape & couldn't care less if all the rest of the World went to Hell, as long as they themselves are saved! As slowly as they drifted to the front, they drift back into the mass again, & disappear from God's Service!
         10. TRUE DISCIPLES ARE THE LITTLE SHEEP WHO HEAR HIS VOICE & FOLLOW HIM ALL THE WAY, learning to bear lambs themselves! THEY LIVE WITH THE SHEPHERD ALL THE TIME, day & night, & are constantly under His loving care & training! THE REBELLIOUS & INDEPENDENT WANDER OFF to themselves, doing their own thing, & are soon devoured by the churchy wolves--& they love it so, as THEY NEVER INTENDED TO GIVE THEMSELVES TO GOD--THEY JUST WANTED GOD FOR THEMSELVES!
         11. ONE OF THE REASONS WE'RE BEING PRESSURED INTO BIG HOMES has been our own FAILURE to take more time to more thoroughly TRAIN LEADERS to lead SMALLER ones! (1971) We've been so busy getting NEW disciples, we haven't trained enough OLDER ones to take CARE of them! We've been SO BUSY INCREASING THE SIZE OF THE FLOCK, WE HAVE FAILED TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF SHEPHERDS to care for them! This is one of the things I warned you about before going abroad, & the last thing that I desperately tried to do myself in LT meetings, because I saw what was happening!
         12. I TOLD YOU THEN (1970), THAT IN THESE EARLY STAGES IT WAS MORE IMPORTANT TO TRAIN LEADERS THAN WIN MULTITUDES of new babes! The winning of souls would come inevitably, as we had the leaders to care for them.--But a mother with too MANY children & without enough HELP is apt to collapse, & that's almost the stage we're getting to now! We're getting too many babes, & not enough leaders, just as I warned you before I left!
         13. A LOT OF PEOPLE SEEM TO LIKE TO SCATTER SEED, but not many people seem to want to TAKE CARE OF THE RESULTS--to patiently, PAINSTAKINGLY TRAIN THESE BABES INTO GOOD LEADERS! Anybody can go out & scatter seed: It takes the patient farmer to feed & water & fertilise & prune the little plant into fruitful maturity! Anybody can go out & witness & invite folks to join Jesus & the Home, but very few want to painfully nurse them through the growing stages to leaders!
         14. WE NEED TO GET BUSY DEVELOPING THE ONES WE HAVE INTO BETTER LEADERS to take care of the ones that are coming, & I think ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO DO THIS IS IN SMALL HOMES as Jesus & Paul did, where there are so few that EVERYONE HAS TO HAVE SOME responsibility & quickly learns to lead, & where there are so few that everyone gets personal attention!
         15. IN A LARGE HOME, LIKE A LARGE CHURCH, THERE ARE SO MANY THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW EACH OTHER, & the leadership could not possibly know them all, & therefore, even much potential leadership is going to waste, lost in the shuffle, because nobody knows anybody or what's going on. Therefore, too few are burdened with too many, & the result is chaos & confusion, & can only lead to an eventual breakdown of individuals, if not the whole Home!
         16. ONE OF THE MAJOR REASONS FOR THIS IS FORGETTING THAT GOD IS OUR LEADER, & if we don't keep in touch with HIM & genuine FELLOWSHIP with each other, we're sunk! They have become as sheep having no shepherd, because they have failed to follow! They were made keepers of the vineyards, & THEIR OWN VINEYARD THEY HAVE NOT KEPT! They were still working, eating, having classes & going through the motions & beating the air, but THEIR LEADERS WERE NOT EVEN MEETING TOGETHER FOR PRAYER, much less Leadership Training classes, & not even reading Mo Letters! "He that withholdeth, it tendeth to poverty", & spiritual poverty brings on spiritual bankruptcy & eventual total disintegration! WITHOUT SUCH DIRECTION, THEY'VE BEEN GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES not knowing where they're going & about to collapse!
         17. YOU CAN NO MORE DO THE MASTER'S WORK WITHOUT THE MASTER'S POWER THAN YOU CAN DO THE LORD'S WORK WITHOUT HIS LEADER'S DIRECTION! How do you know where the New Nation is going unless you listen to its Leader? How do you know where the Lord is leading unless you listen to His Prophet? How do you expect to have a successful Revolution without following its Leader? As Jesus said, "HOW SAY YE UNTO ME, LORD, LORD, & DO NOT THE THINGS THAT I ASK?" Some are even proclaiming His King, while ignoring the Words of His Prophet! Like Israel of old, they want a King but not a Prophet--they want glory, but not God! They want self-exaltation, but are not interested in the Words of the Lord!
         18. DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE THE LORD'S PEOPLE WHEN YOU'RE NOT EVEN FOLLOWING HIM! Don't tell me you like His Words when you're not listening to His Prophets! Don't tell me you love His King when you refuse to obey him! Don't tell me you're David's Mighty Men when you're not even reading his Letters! Don't tell me you're MO's followers when you're not even listening! He that loveth me keepeth my commandments--but how are you going to KEEP them if you don't even READ them! No wonder you're suffering so much persecution: The Lord is withdrawing His protection! No wonder your provisioning is going to pot: God's withdrawing His provision!
         19. I WAS NEVER TOO KEEN ON CENTRALISATION, ANYHOW, IN ALMOST ANY SPHERE OF OUR OPERATION. It's apt to become too top heavy, dangerous & vulnerable! I was never in favour of handling any operation which we could get the System to do for us, unless we do it on a very small local scale in individual Homes with simple equipment which it doesn't require a genius to operate or a massive waste of manpower!
         20. DECENTRALISATION IS A METHOD THAT GOD HAS ALWAYS USED in protecting, propagating & providing for His Church--His TRUE Church! He has always scattered them in small groups, usually underground, for their own protection & the spreading of the Gospel! The Devil has imitated the method also, which has been largely responsible for the survival & spreading of Communism, of which we are the SPIRITUAL counterpart.
         21. GOD ALWAYS KNOWS BEST, & due to the present wave of attacks upon us by the Enemy, we may very well be DISPERSED FURTHER IN SMALLER HOMES than ever before & more underground than ever before, to avoid open confrontation & clashes with the System as much as possible! You don't have to have 200 people or a brass band or a six-story hotel or a 400-acre ranch to tell kids about Jesus! You just need to go where the sheep are & love them individually into His Fold!
         22. DON'T THINK YOU'RE GETTING AWAY WITH IT JUST BECAUSE NOBODY'S SAID ANYTHING TO YOU! They may be saying PLENTY to the POLICE! Don't think you can house 70 noisy people in an old house built for SEVEN, and the neighbours not notice it!
         23. IF WE'RE GOING TO SURVIVE, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO DECENTRALISE, disperse, go underground & keep quiet! I've warned you of this before, & I warn you again--but there will probably still be some of you who'll pay no attention, go your merry way, & wind up in jail or out of a place to live! Just remember I told you so, while you're reading your Bible in the klink or hitch-hiking to another shelter from the cold! God help us!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family