WHY WE FORSOOK THE CHURCH SYSTEM!
--By Maria       Maria #157 DO 2772 1/92

         (Some months ago, the Folks' staff received a number of Christian movies and documentaries to preview and approve for the Family video circuit, but they discovered that the majority of them--especially the contemporary Christian movies--were so churchy and frivolous, they would be a waste of time for the Family to view them. But thank the Lord, the few that were deemed "watchable" have now been put on the Family video circuit.
         (During the time that these videos were being previewed, Amy and Gabe felt that some of them might be good for David and Techi, so they viewed and pow-wowed several of these videos with them. Afterwards, Mama still felt concerned about any lingering questions that the kids might have about some of the things they'd seen, so she gave the following talk.)

         1. (To Amy:) I would be interested in having you ask the kids some specific questions and get them to react to these Christian videos that they've been watching. At least seeing that kind of churchy video may have the good effect of showing them that everything that Dad has said about the church system as a whole is absolutely true, and make them sickened of people who say they're serving God, but they're just sitting there in church saying that that's their "service," when the world's going to Hell!
         2. Even though that video showed that one little youth group which seemed to be pretty on fire and at least trying to do something for the Lord, it still showed that the vast majority of the congregation, of the church members, were as dead as a doornail! So that should help make the kids disgusted and fed up with churchianity, and should serve as a good confirmation to them that what Dad has always said about the churches is absolutely true!

Once-a-Week Feeding Is Not Enough!
(David and Techi come in:)
         3. It's sad when you realize that a lot of those very precious System teens who are so on fire for the Lord and heading up some of those church youth groups will eventually just be totally discouraged and sort of fizzle out and give up! Because what are they going to do with the kids that they reach, who get saved? They lead them to the Lord and maybe they have a youth club for them to come to once a week, and they try to give them a little inspiration and encouragement to go on for the rest of the week, but what real progress are they going to make with them?
         4. How are those kids they win going to grow? How are they able to be fed? They just end up becoming like the church again, just another church. Their club becomes their once-a-week feeding ground, just like the churches. They come once a week for their food and nourishment, and that's not enough!
         5. What can a youth group like that do with the kids they've won to the Lord? They can't bring them to the church, because the kids are going to look around and say, "Sorry, this is dead! I'm not getting anything here!" They can keep bringing them to their club, but again, it's only once a week. Those on-fire young people either have to be full-time students or have jobs. They have to have something to support themselves, so they're definitely not able to spend much time with their new converts.
         6. Sure, they're getting some of these poor doped-up street kids saved, but I'm wondering what's happening to them after that. If the truth were known about all those wonderful testimonies you heard on the video of street kids being delivered from drugs and alcohol, most of those poor kids are probably going right back into it again!
         7. Where do they get the strength to pull out of it all and really make the break with their old lives?--Certainly not from one night a week at a club where they have some singing and maybe some Bible reading and a pep talk, but then they have to go out again to live in that old environment all week long! They go back to their old haunts, their old friends, to be with the same crowd, the same temptations. So how are they going to keep those people? It must be terribly discouraging!
         8. How would you do on a once-a-week feeding? How would you guys do if you only had a little Word once a week and the rest of the time you were out there in that environment of drug addicts, having to go to school with all those kids, most of whom couldn't care less about the Lord! All they want to do is get into all kinds of shenanigans and drugs and Satanism and alcohol and dirty language and all the stuff that unsaved kids want to do! The pull is so strong! Without daily feeding, without Christian friends and brothers and sisters, what can they really do?
         9. The only solution is to do what the Lord had Grandpa do when the Family first began back in Huntington Beach! We can say to all our new converts, "Okay, come on and join us! Let's all live together!--Then we can study the Word together every day, we can go out witnessing every day, we can have the fellowship of each other! We can bear each other's burdens!" But it just doesn't work when they're off on their own in the middle of the world. When the Word says to "forsake not the assembling of yourselves together" (Heb.10:25), it doesn't mean just once a week, because that's not enough!
         10. The churches can't really care for their new babes unless they would do like we do and say, "Come on, join us and let's all live together and let's all work for the Lord together! Drop out of the System and then we can spend all of our days in feeding and witnessing!" That's the only way to do it! How are they going to get what they need by just going to church once a week?
         11. Of course, you may say, "But aren't our catacombers in a similar situation? Many of them cannot drop out, and even if they could, we often insist that they wait until they have been tried and proven. So aren't our new converts in pretty much the same situation?"
         12. Well, I'm not sure exactly how all of our Homes handle their new converts and catacombers, but I think (and I hope) that we give them more than just a weekly feeding.--And I think we offer them an opportunity of service as well, teaching them how to witness, or taking them out witnessing and postering with us, etc. Because ministering to others should be one of our main jobs in our Homes, we probably have a lot more time to spend at it than those poor church kids do. And we probably see and realize the need for it much more than they do as well.
         13. So I suppose that we not only try to see them as often as we can, or have them come over to the Home, often every night, but we also call them throughout the week and we pray for them. And even more importantly, we give them the Word that they can take back with them, and we strongly encourage them to be faithful to take their reading and prayer time, making it clear to them that those are the only things that are going to keep them. We also encourage them to go on the attack against the Devil and his crowd by winning souls themselves and starting their own catacomber group, so they can have a support group right there on their own turf!
         14. Another very important thing that we do with our new catacombers is that we instill in them a vision!--The goal of dropping out, joining us and living for Jesus full-time, as soon as they are able to. Thus we give them something that they're always able to look forward to and always have in their mind, and something that keeps them going, doing what they can where they are until such time as they can join our wonderful Family and live with us all the time!
         15. Of course, you could argue that some of the church people may also give support to their new converts by praying for them and feeding them the Word. They probably don't do it very much, but some of them might. But "without a vision the people perish" (Pro.29:18), and without being able to look forward to "a way of escape" eventually, the churches' idea of being a Christian probably seems just too difficult for many of those kids who they manage to get saved. The churches don't offer those poor kids any hope of really getting away from their situation and being strengthened sufficiently to stand up to their peers.
         16. Street kids who get saved have to buck the tide constantly! I bet if the truth were known, most of the people that have been won to the Lord by churchy youth groups backslide and are back doing the same old things. It's really sad! They don't really want to, but just having a one-time feeding of a couple of hours once a week doesn't give them the strength to buck the tide and to stand up for their convictions. It's hard to stand up for your convictions, even with the support of other Christians!--In fact, it's almost impossible without the support and encouragement of others.

On-fire Young People in the Church System Eventually Get Discouraged and Give Up!

         17. That's why Grandpa has preached against the church system all these years, because instead of obeying the Lord's commands to preach the Gospel and to feed and really take care of the sheep, they've created their once-a-week churchianity system which has so little to do with what Jesus said to do! Instead of really serving the Lord, most church people consider their little trip to church once a week their service for God. In fact, that's even what they call their church attendance--a "service"! They say, "We went to the service this morning." They actually think that going to a church building to hear the preacher's sermon is their "service" for God!
         18. The very few people in the church system who do really want to do something and are on fire--like some of those young people you've seen on video--after a while, after trying and trying and trying to get the rest of the church people stirred up and get them to join and get on fire and inspired about witnessing, they finally just get discouraged and give up! You can hardly blame them.
         19. Before I joined the Family I had a girlfriend who really wanted to serve the Lord. She was a newly saved Christian; she hadn't been a church person all her life. She got saved at college and was a real precious girl, my best friend for a while. She really got turned on to the Lord and sincerely wanted to serve Him. It was just about the time I was deciding to join the Family, and she decided that she would go off to Bible college, because that's what the church system says you've got to do in order to go into full-time service for the Lord afterwards.
         20. So she went to Bible college, and the last I heard was that she'd gotten so disillusioned with the frivolousness and shallowness of the students and their lack of dedication to the Lord--many of them are there just to find a husband or to get away from their parents or whatever--that she actually backslid! She started off being so dedicated, she was so on fire for the Lord, but when she found out the hypocrisy of those typical Christian young people in Bible college, she just gave up! I heard she even had a nervous breakdown, it affected her so badly!
         21. Of course, there are some young people who go to Bible college with a sincere desire to get into full-time Christian work. They're not all there just to waste time, have fun or to try to find a mate. I think their main problem is their standard of dedication. If you were to ask them, they usually consider themselves to be very dedicated and very sold-out. "After all, I'm going to Bible college to become a preacher, aren't I?"
         22. But the problem is that most of the preachers and other Christian workers--maybe with the exception of some missionaries--are not so different from the rest of the worldly population. They look on their preaching or pastoring as a job, as their particular career, and they prepare for it and enter it just about the same way that most other Systemites go into their occupations, and they don't really feel the need to be that much more dedicated or sacrificial than anyone else in any other job.
         23. So even though most of them feel that they are pretty sold-out and dedicated to serving the Lord full-time, for those who are genuinely sold-out to the Lord and really have a burning desire to serve Him, that System level of dedication is not enough; it's not enough commitment and it seems very superficial and hypocritical.
         24. But they're so much a part of the System, the materialistic, shallow and superficial System of this world, and so little of their time is actually going into studying the Word for the sake of really feeding on the Word and getting close to Jesus, or praying or witnessing and winning souls. So little of their time is devoted to these things that it certainly appears to a new convert whose main motivation in life is to be like Jesus and to tell others the wonderful news, that these people are extremely shallow and extremely hypocritical! They say they love Jesus, but they're not doing anything to really show it!
         25. Of course, we know that you don't have to go to Bible college in order to serve the Lord, but the System young people are told that that's what they have to do in order to become missionaries or preachers of the Gospel. My girlfriend had been told that's what she was supposed to do, so she went, and then she wound up just backsliding completely. She was so disillusioned that she lost her fervor and her enthusiasm and didn't want to serve the Lord at all any more.
         26. That's the problem with the church system. That's why Grandpa's preached against it and railed against it for years now! --Not that there aren't some very wonderful people in it, people who really try, but by and by, they all sort of do the same thing. They don't have any help or any support and they just sort of get tired of bucking the tide and fighting to try to get people stirred up, so they just sort of shrivel up and die!
         27. What are the poor kids that they win to the Lord going to do? They don't get the feeding and the strength and the support that they need, so they go back into the System. Well, they're already in the System, but I mean back into the world. That's why the only way for Christians to successfully not only reach and win others, but train and teach them to be disciples is to live together and to support each other and to be together day in and day out, counseling together and learning the Word together and witnessing together and working together!
         28. That's the principle of the Book of Acts. That's what the Lord laid down for the Church in the New Testament. That's what they did in the Early Church, and that's what the Lord intended to keep happening, but it doesn't happen in today's church system.--Which is why they've gone so far astray. There are a lot of nice people in the churches, but they're certainly not serving the Lord much and they're not doing what the Lord has told them to do. They're pretty dead!
         29. Think of all the church people there are, thousands sometimes in one church, and think how many churches there are! And look how the world is going to pot! People are going to Hell, and all those church people just sit there on their pews doing nothing! That's the saddest thing, isn't it? Lord help us to do what we should and do what we can!

Thank God for the Family!

         30. (Mama prays:) Thank You Lord for the Family! TYJ! Thank You for Grandpa and his conviction to pull us out of that horrible System and keep us pure and keep us on fire! Even with all our mistakes, Lord, and our cooling down sometimes, the deadness and the lack of conviction of the church system is so much worse! Forgive us when we've cooled off and we've become weary and not done as much as we should, but Lord, we're thankful You've stirred us up! Time after time we've had revolutions to really get us back on track and keep us going!
         31. But even our slowing down sometimes is really moving in the fast lane compared with what the church is like! Like some of our people who have backslidden and then returned to the Family have said, even the worst of the Family is so much better than the best of the System! We've had backsliders say that time and time again, who have realized that after they've been out there a while and experienced it.
         32. So thank You Lord! Help us to appreciate what we have, and to be so thankful for all of our blessings, and never to be tempted by any of the allurements or enticements of the churchy system! Thank You that the kids were able to see these videos and for the few precious System kids who are at least trying to do something for You and are really on fire!--To see that You, Lord, are the same, and if people will listen to You and hear Your voice, then You will speak to them wherever they are! It doesn't matter where they are, in the Family or in the System or wherever. The thing is, Lord, it's pretty hard to do what You say within the System, because they're all against the plan You've given us in Thy Word, and the whole System is built to resist and oppose and fight against Your will. Your Word even says that "friendship with the world is enmity with God!" (James 4:4).
         33. So thank You for making it easier for us to do Your work by helping us to live together and work together for You, Lord, and do what You want! Thank You for Grandpa and his willingness to take the persecution of the System and the attacks of the Devil and his people who don't want us to live this way and don't want us to show that there is another way! Thank You Lord for Grandpa's sacrifices and his obedience to You. You said, "Through the obedience of one, many were made righteous" (Rom.5:19). Thank You Jesus for the wonderful privilege we have! Help us to do our best, Lord, to do what we can in our small way, whatever You show us, to win the world for You, in Jesus' name. Amen! (--AMEN!--GBY! TYJ!--Love, D.)


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family