MASS MEDIA MINISTRIES vs. PERSONAL WITNESSING!   8/83     DFO 1590

         1. WHEN YOU START PROMISCUOUS HELTER-SKELTER OPEN PUBLIC ADVERTISING like in the newspaper & radio or television, you're laying yourself wide open to the critics, you're revealing yourself, exposing yourself. About the only people paying any attention to that sort of ads in the newspaper or on broadcasts are religious people who write in to see what it is & mostly just to find out who you are!
         2. THE FAMILY IS GOING TO HAVE TO START LEARNING [WISDOM] , & IN SOME PLACES IT MAY ALREADY BE TOO LATE! As far as I'm concerned, that kind of advertising in the long run does us more harm than good. How many real disciples have we gotten from it? We'd do far better to cancel this wide-open public exposure on TV & newspapers with DMs, etc. They are not genuinely deeply fruitful ministries & there is more risk involved than there is fruitfulness.
         3. ONCE ACTUAL PERSECUTION DOES ARISE & THEY BEGIN TO CLAMP DOWN ON YOU [and] make it impossible for you to litness or witness or openly minister any more, it drives you [to] less exposed forms of witnessing such as door-to-door. So that's your next-to-last-ditch stand! When they drive you off the air & out of the newspapers & off the streets, one of the last things a general Family Home can do is go door-to-door & office-to-office.
         4. THE FASTEST-GROWING RELIGIOUS ORGANISATIONS ON EARTH, SUCH AS JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS & THE MORMONS have made door-to-door pay-off in witnessing, litnessing, fruit & members, genuine disciples, because door-to-door, house-to-house witnessing is a much more secretive type of witnessing where you spend most of your time out of sight & really effectively, fruitfully ministering to individuals in person, with an opportunity to return to those who are responsive & a very good source of solid support, & to go back & hold Bible Studies in their homes & get them to invite their friends!
         5. BUT OVER-EXPOSURE PUBLICLY IN THE MEDIA IN REACHING THE WRONG KIND OF PEOPLE, the religious & the Church people, our enemies, numbers the days of your ministry! That's sort of like trying to beat the church people at their own game with the public ministry & publicity.
         6. I THINK IF THE PROMOTERS OF THESE MEDIA MINISTRIES WOULD HONESTLY & EXHAUSTIVELY ANALYSE their concrete results of how many actual disciples & new members we have gotten out of these ministries, I think they'll soon see it has not been as profitable & effective as they thought. And I would say it's been actually more dangerous & in some ways more harmful & a greater exposure & a greater aggravation to our enemies, inviting trouble. I believe these TV, radio & newspaper spots have probably exposed us more & made more enemies than friends or disciples! But now that they've started they can hardly back out! About all they can do is back off a little bit & let it peter out & just die a natural death & try to get out of them the best way they can & concentrate their efforts on pushing MWM instead & try to divorce it as much as possible from their former ministries.
         7. OF COURSE, NO FORM OF WITNESSING CAN EVER BE TOTALLY SECURE! It is always risky because we have bitter enemies & the Devil hates us, so he is bound to fight it somehow sooner or later. But you have to try to exhaust all possible means & measures & ministries to make sure you have finished your job & reaped the harvest & exhausted the field & saved everybody you can & won all the disciples you possibly can before you quit.
         8. BUT I WOULD SAY THAT ANY MINISTRY THAT BRINGS MORE TROUBLE & AROUSES MORE ANTAGONISM & STIRS UP MORE ENEMIES THAN IT DOES GOOD IS NOT A GOOD MINISTRY! It merely aggravates the situation & makes it much more difficult for others who could have continued a long time in the ministries they're in, bearing good fruit. They're apt to make the others have to close down because of their lack of wisdom in promoting this high media exposure to the public & to the church people & our enemies.
         9. I DON'T THINK IT'S WORTH IT! I think the price of the big-publicity, high-exposure media ministries is too dangerous & jeopardises all of the other ministries! We might have continued much longer with less exposure & less publicity in milder, quieter forms of ministry. But when you get on television & in the newspaper & radio & shove it down their throats & they just can't get away from it or away from you anywhere, then this is more than our enemies can bear, & they rise up & oppose & expose & drive you either out or you're finished as far as open freedom & the easy ministries go.
         10. THE LORD HIMSELF SAID THAT WE WERE TO BEAR FRUIT, & fruit means more souls won, more disciples won & Family Members joined. "This is the Will of My Father," He said, "that you should bear much fruit & that your fruit should remain!" (Jn.15:16) Where is the lasting fruit of these other ministries, besides just huge witnessing stats & numbers of newspapers published & spots aired? Let me see the disciples! Let me hear about how many have joined the Family & are now really witnessing themselves & winning souls. That's the acid test as to whether the ministry is actually fruitful or not.
         11. IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MUCH SEED A FARMER SOWS, if he doesn't get a crop, he's going to go broke & starve & he won't survive & his field won't survive nor his work! It's got to bear fruit! It's got to reap results! It's got to be profitable & fruitful or he'll go out of business! Your witness is tremendous, but what kind of a witness is it & what good does it do if it doesn't bear fruit & get lasting results?--Souls, disciples, members & supporters!
         12. SO GOD HELP US & KEEP US IN SUCH FIELDS AS LONG AS HE CAN, but He could do it a lot easier if we'd give Him a little better cooperation & not be so foolish & unwise & insecure in the kind of ministries we push & publicise & the kind of people we witness to. "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under feet & turn again & rend you." (Mt.7:6)--The swine & the dogs who are our enemies, usually the self-righteous, hypocritical Scribes & Pharisees, the same kind Jesus had to fight with!
         13. BUT IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE ON FOR A LITTLE WHILE & still bear a little fruit that remains with lasting results, disciples, members & support through quiet, wise, unpublicised personal witnessing, then you'd better keep your mouth shut except where it really pays & bears fruit & remains & doesn't get you thrown out too soon & stopped prematurely through unwise, insecure, excessive public exposure & dangerous publicity to your enemies.
         14. GOD HELP YOU TO KNOW WHAT'S WISE, PROFITABLE, FRUITFUL & SAFE & WHAT IS NOT, & to know the difference & to act accordingly & not bring a too-soon end to your ministry anywhere!--In Jesus' name, amen.--Amen?


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