A STRING OF PEARLS!      DFO 1205         1/82
--Good Advice for ALL Fellowships!

         1. They say familiarity breeds contempt & "a Prophet's not without honour save in his own country amongst his own people" (Matthew 13:57), & if you get away for awhile they'll appreciate you more when you come back.
         2. My Mother's greatest ministry was as an evangelist, & most evangelists really don't make very good pastors. They need variety, they need change, they need to see new faces & new places, they need the inspiration of a new congregation every few weeks or days & that really turns them on! It's just like show business & actors & actresses & performers & singers, if they keep just singin' to the same old bunch all the time they get a little bit soured & worn out on it, & even the Alliance used to change pastors.--Not only have evangelists every year but change pastors every two years.
         3. They used to say that a man has given his best to the people within two years & told'm everything he knows & he's gotten sick & fed up with them & they're sick & fed up with him & then it's time for a change!
         4. We all need a change & sometimes we don't learn the fear of God any other way, as the Scripture says, "They fear not God because they have no changes."--Ps.55:19. You need change, everybody needs change. It gives you a chance to exercise faith & initiative & that ol' pioneering spirit & have new inspiration, new faces & new places! Variety is the spice of life & you need to get away from that grindstone & that treadmill there--which it can become when you're working that hard & really turning out the grist & the grit & the grain! It can get a little old sometimes & a bit wearing & tiring & you need a relief & a change & a rest & some variety. So I just suggest that it's about time you need to take another trip & get away from it all.
         5. It's gonna take some time, of course, to organise this tour & give each Family in each country time to arrange facilities & dates & the places to meet & house & feed them, etc., because I would suggest that they be like NAFs, National Fellowships, which they're supposed to have about once a year & cover that particular area, that country, & go perhaps to the capital city of each country for this gathering.
         6. I would suggest maybe just a weekend in each place so you'll have mid-week to rest & relax & recuperate & recover & regain your strength for the next weekend. In fact, that would even be pretty tight in some cases & you might have to just make the arrangements for every two weeks because it'll probably involve more than just a weekend in the country. You may want to go there in time to have conferences with leaders & talk & pray over their plans & problems etc. & discuss the arrangements for the meetings & the programme & all of that with them before you actually appear publicly before the Family in the actual general meetings.
         7. So you could easily probably spend a week in each capital helping them to make the last-minute arrangements for their meetings & programmes, etc. & conferring with the leaders & then having the actual general meetings with the Family for perhaps a couple of days. Maybe on Saturdays & Sundays you could have a daytime general meeting with the Family, maybe a Committee leadership meeting too somewhere in-between, & then general night meetings for watching the new videos which I'm sure they'll be thrilled to see & so you can take a little bit of a rest & not have to be the whole show all the time!
         8. You can carry the ball & inspire'm & thrill'm with your wonderful inspirational talks & really sort of whip up a storm & some enthusiasm for our new plans & really encourage them & inspire them & thrill them with what they can do! You'll be going around like Saint Paul the Apostle, going back to the various churches as he did. He said, "Let's take a trip to go back & see how the brethren do."--Acts 15:36.
         9. So I don't want you to arrange your itinerary too tight & appointments too close together, a week apart would be pretty tight. I recommend that it would be better if you had them about two weeks apart, then you would be sure to have plenty of time for rest & relaxation & recuperation between them, also plenty of time to meet with leaders, have in-between leadership meetings, planning & arranging the next programme etc., the last-minute details & praying with them about their problems & helping them with their needs & maybe sometimes even dealing with their problem cases.
         10. There are a lot of things an evangelist can do that local pastors find difficult because they have to live with the people. It's a strange thing, but this is one purpose of evangelists. They will take it from an evangelist when they won't even take it from their own pastor. An evangelist usually has more authority & can even tell the pastor off if he needs it!
         11. I strongly recommend the two-hour meeting at the longest! I've found lately with the local Family here that our one-hour inspirational meetings are even better.
         12. Cut your meetings short, learn to keep & do things on time! Learn to start on time, learn to keep the schedule moving, the programme moving according to a certain definite schedule if you possibly can. Try to organise a schedule & a programme & try to stick to it. Now, I can't say that you're always going to be able to do it. Sometimes if you get really inspired & the Lord takes over & something happens that you didn't even plan but GOD did, you can always do that, you know.
         13. You don't want to go to the opposite extreme where you're just absolutely hide-bound to dismiss punctually on the point no matter what's going on if things have cut loose & the Spirit really is free & people are really having a good time. You've got to judge that according to the situation & play it by ear & go along with whatever way the Spirit is moving.
         14. You may think you can take it & you may be able to carry on that long & you get under the inspiration of the Spirit or your own spirit & the thrill of being there & the fellowship & you get carried away & you carry on too long, but then afterwards you nearly collapse. Do not push the poor people too hard & too long so that they are going to groan the next time they hear you're coming & think of those long torturous ordeals called meetings!
         15. When we were in evangelistic work we usually counted on a meeting being not more than about an-hour-&-a-half. That was the standard average, which was about all WE could stand & all the PEOPLE could stand. We started at 7:30 & we tried to wind it up as close as we could to 9:00 dismissal & then we always had, of course, an after-service with the people at the altar & praying for the sick or praying for souls to be saved or dealing with problem cases, & we were usually there another half-an-hour to an hour.
         16. So if you don't keep your public meeting short you're going to find out that your dealing with people afterward & praying with people afterwards & dealing with cases of sickness or salvation or problems or leaders or whatever is going to stretch out your own participation so long that you're going to run into two or three hours anyway.
         17. They wouldn't mind coming back again the next time if you let'm out early. But if you started stretching out the meetings too late, then they got weary very fast & then they'd stop coming & your crowd dwindled & your congregation of hearers dwindled.
         18. So try to cut it short & stick to a programme schedule that will not wear you out either, you or your congregation, nor you & the people in the after-service which you'll almost always have. If you didn't have it with people at the altar praying for the sick or souls, usually you had it with the leadership or the pastor, & we'd go out then after the service for a snack or to his house & have another conference with him & his wife or the elders & that'd be another hour.
         19. I'd almost recommend one meeting each two weeks to really give you plenty of time to make plans & arrangements & give yourself travel time & rest-up time after your trip before you meet with the leaders to plan your programme, & then plenty of time for your public meetings & committee meetings, leadership meetings during the weekend & then maybe some after-meetings with needy cases or leadership when the public meetings are over.
         20. You're going to have to have maybe a day for goodbye & a day for travel & a day for rest--there's three days gone right there in-between your weekend meetings. A meeting every weekend would keep your schedule very tight. You may find that you may have to stretch some of them out a little longer & maybe due to the programmes & dates & arrangements for facilities you may happily find out that you're glad some of the meetings are two weeks apart, although you may have to push it with some & may have to have some of them a week apart. I'd say at least a week apart & not more than two weeks apart if possible. (Unless it's a ONE-WEEK NAF.)
         21. That gives you plenty of time to rest & recuperate in-between, get refreshed, take care of your mail, phone calls, communication, reports & tours of the city to show us the sights of the city via video & what it's like there etc.
         22. There are so many things you, as an evangelist, can discuss with the people! We were always having to have private discussions. Somebody would say, "I've just GOT to see you!" A sister might want to have a talk with you & prayer with you about a certain problem--maybe she had a problem with the pastor or the preacher's wife or her husband, or maybe she was just tired of the place & wanted to go someplace else & wanted to know where she could go or something.
         23. There are always people who'll want to have private sessions with you, private conversation, a private prayer & discuss something they don't even want to discuss before the leaders or the local people, & they need to talk to somebody. You're the visiting evangelist & you're the ear they're looking for & waiting for to hear their pleas!
         24. They can't appeal to the local judges because they've already judged them & maybe don't like them & maybe there's good reason for it, so they're waiting for an outside judge to come in & judge their case. That way you can also give much better unprejudiced judgement because you don't know the case or hardly anything about it, or maybe the leader has told you something but then you can judge for yourself.
         25. Sometimes we found out it wasn't problem PEOPLE, it was problem PREACHERS, problem pastors! A pastor would tell us about some problem case he had in the congregation & it turned out that HE was the problem when we heard the PERSON'S story! So as an evangelist you are also like a district superintendent & you have to hear some of these people's problems & some of their stories & get their side of the story & their case as well as the leadership side.
         26. So I suggest you give them some time & try to talk to as many people as you can who want to speak to you privately about something, & reserve some time for them. And be sure you get both sides of the story! There are always two or three or more sides to the story. Usually there's THEIR side of the story, then there's the PREACHER'S side of the story, & maybe even one of the congregation MEMBERS has a different tale to tell from the problem case & the preacher & he sees it in a different light! Maybe he sees that BOTH of them have problems & they BOTH need dealing with.
         27. That's part of your job as a traveling evangelist, to counsel & pray with people about their personal problems. So you should try to arrange your schedule so it will give you enough time for all of these things & ministries that you will have as you go from place to place as an evangelist. You can pastor, & many an evangelist has pastored, but most evangelists do not make as good pastors as the ones who are really called to be pastors themselves.
         28. Pastors have to be plodders with lots of patience & easier on people, more lenient. They live with them, they usually understand their problems better & they're more merciful, can put up with more. Evangelists are kind of hit-&-run people who come in & lay it on the line & sock it to'm & slice away, sometimes without mercy--& sometimes they need it--& sock it to'm & then hit-&-run, & the people can only stand so much of them too! That's why they usually only have evangelistic meetings about once a year in most churches. They can't stand having it socked to them that hard too often.
         29. But it's the evangelist's job to sock it to'm & say things to them that the preacher wouldn't dare say to them or they'd kick him out! But they expect it & they need it & sometimes they even want it. They want to be told the truth but they don't want their own preacher or pastor telling them because they've got to LIVE with HIM. But they don't mind YOUR telling them off & socking it to them because you're a stranger & they're willing to take it from you since they don't have to take it all year.
         30. So there's a general idea on what I would consider fairly good meeting plans. I'm just speaking generally, of course. The specifics, the actual times & all that will be up to the local folks & their situation & when they can book the meeting hall or the hotel diningroom or campground or whatnot. And don't forget, a lot depends, as I say, on how much the NEIGHBOURS can stand. It can't go running on late at night with a noisy meeting with neighbours that you're going to annoy as well. So the length of your meetings & how much noise they can take depends a great deal on the place & the neighbours & the management & the help etc., so you'd better watch your step.
         31. Finally on this tour I'd suggest you go just the shortest distance between two points, a straight line to the next capital & you just hop around from the capital central city of each country only. Make it a NAF, a weekend Nationwide Fellowship Meeting, & come prepared to stay for the weekend.--Maybe coming in on Friday night to rest up for Saturday's meetings & maybe staying through Sunday night & take off & go home on Monday. (Or make it A WHOLE WEEK NAF if possible.)
         32. So have a little heart for your poor people & their physical needs & their physical limitations. "The Spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak!"--Mt.26:41. Don't forget it, & have a little consideration for their poor tired weary flesh, amen? Lots of those dear people would've loved to have had us go on & on through the night but they just couldn't stand it physically.
         33. You're going to need time to arrange the itinerary & the schedules & correspond & communicate with all those leaders in order for them to try to set up their schedule of meetings or NAFs so that you can go right from one to the other without having to go too far between & waste too much time & space & money on too long hops.
         34. This is the thing that really cost us the money in evangelistic work if we couldn't arrange our meetings so that they would be on a sort of a circle tour.--If we had to make too long hops criss-cross back & forth instead of going right to the next nearest place. So try to do them in the chain-reaction style & not the scatter-shot style.
         35. String your beautiful pearls of meetings on short strings & they'll fit better!--And don't make the pearls so big & heavy that they're so hard to bear they wear'm out! OK? No matter how BEAUTIFUL they are, enough is enough! Make'm a STRING OF PEARLS & not a HARD & HEAVY YOKE for poor folks already over-burdened. Have a heart! Have a string of pearls!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family