July 21, 2003
FSM 198
(FN297) DO
—Notes From The Latin American Summit Leadership Meeting
—An Urgent Jett & Teen Shepherding Series—Part 6
—Required Reading for All Adults, EAs & Senior Teens!
(Parts or all of this FSM can also be read by Junior Teens.)
Copyright: June 1991 by Family Services, Zurich, Switzerland.
In the Summit Leadership Meetings held in Latin America in November 1990, the leaders who attended were commissioned by Dad & Mama to discuss & pray about two major topics: The persecution our Family has undergone in several countries over the last year, & how to implement the JETT/Teen Discipleship Revolution (which has since become the Discipleship Training Revolution). During the first 10 days of meetings, our in-depth discussions covered how we could have more effective witnessing methods & tighter security measures to not only be more prepared in the event of persecution, but better yet, to avoid persecution as much as possible. The topics we discussed included the need for more Inside-Out-of-Sight witnessing, more personal witnessing & follow-up of kings & supporters, & new, tighter Home requirements. (Please see GN 465, "New `Back-to-the-Basics' Home Requirements!") The second 10 days of meetings covered the important topic of how to implement Mama's new Letters & the DTR!
The following pages are notes from the Summit Meetings that were centered around the specific topics of how to help our Teens & JETTs become sold-out disciples, & how to get our Homes back on fire for Jesus! When asking ourselves these questions, the Lord laid a burden on our hearts to bring the fire of personal witnessing back into our Homes, & especially to include our Teens & JETTs in on more personal, on fire soul-winning for Jesus as part of their new Discipleship Training!—Teaching them to really love the lost & have conviction to reach them! PTL!
(Editor's note: You will notice that the first few pages of the following article are presented in point form. The reason for this is because the leaders' discussions at the Summit Meetings were often conducted as open forum Pow-wows where they all contributed their ideas, comments & feelings on the subject. The most important points have been gleaned & condensed from the notes of the rather long discussions they had on the subject of personal witnessing.)
Reflecting on our own experiences as babes, it was personal witnessing & the burden for lost souls & seeing others' problems that made us more dedicated. Perhaps we need to bring the fire of personal witnessing back into our Homes by using more inside-out-of-sight witnessing tactics.
When looking at how Dad raised his Teens & JETTs, you see that his burden & fire & vision for souls & his witnessing with his Teens & JETTs sure turned their key! Dad would set the sample & go out witnessing with them one-on-one. (See BTH, pgs.47-63!) As babes we were often more on fire, because we regularly witnessed, won souls & faced the needy! In the Early Days we kept our vision not only because we got a lot of Word, but also because we went personal witnessing a lot.
I didn't get a lot of formal teaching or classes when I was a babe, but the main way I was trained & fed was by my buddy pouring into me & witnessing along with me. Seeing God working in other people's lives inspired us with the vision, we were facing that need daily & we had the answers, the Truth! When I got home from witnessing, I was hungry for the Word, & the whole reason to memorise & study the Bible was so that I could feed the sheep & answer their questions.—It was not just for ourselves, but for the lost! Witnessing also made us so appreciative of what we had, our joy & our Family! If there is one thing that's missing in our present Youth Training Program, it's the opportunity for our Teens & JETTs to pour out in thrilling, one-on-one, personal witnessing! And since they don't go personal witnessing very often, many of them don't have much of a burden or vision for it. It's true that some of our Teens are quite weak, & oftentimes they can't take such exposure to the System on their own. But it could be highly recommended that the parents & Shepherds go two-by-two with the Teens & JETTs & take them personal witnessing. (Editor's note: Or if you have lots of Teens & JETTs in your Home you may need to organise your witnessing teams so that one adult takes out two Teens/JETTs, depending on the situation & where you are going witnessing etc.) We could prevent the mistakes & problems that have been made in the past by making adult-with-Teen-or-JETT personal witnessing part of their Discipleship Training! If our Teens & JETTs did spend more time face-to-face with the needs of others, it would really help them get stirred up & give them more conviction & more gratitude for what they've got!
One major difference between babes in the Early Days & Teens born in the Family is that those early babes knew where the System was at & they had already had enough of it! They were rescued from something. Some of our Teens are weak & they get attracted to the things of the System when they are witnessing to teens of the World. But if they can start seeing the problems those kids & adults have, they will see how rotten the System is & not be so drawn to it!—Especially if the adults they're with faithfully share with them what it's like for those System teens & compare their lives to ours.
Our Teens who have had a little exposure to the System with supervision & guidance know they are better off in the Family than the teens out there! Unfortunately, a lot of our witnessing with Teens has not been well supervised. It has been unwise & the Teens have been left too much on their own. When we were babes, we never got out of our partner's sight, so we had close supervision & training when out! Granted, we have some Teens who have a problem with worldliness, but it doesn't seem to be the solution to just not take them out into the System. If we just try to avoid their even going into the System, it's like knowing there is a problem, but not fixing it, not finding out why they have the symptoms to a sickness. Dad always exposed the System & explained to his kids why they had it better than those in the World! That's why I like to read about Dad, he was such a New Bottle, so on fire! And he still is! PTL! That's a good point about one-on-one witnessing! Teaching our Teens & JETTs how to personal witness is vital! Now they only think we are going to go out "distributing" or "selling". In Marianne's Home, they take the Teens to a part of town where Japanese youth hang out & they do Holy Ghost Samples & teach their Teens how to witness. It's personal witnessing, so it's really good for them. And then when the Teens see the Lord use them or the adults, it's exciting! But it takes oversight & shepherding. You can't just expect the kids to have everything all figured out & be able to do it all on their own.
Someone pointed out the good fruit borne when Teens & JETTs go out witnessing or provisioning & they can see the Lord supply in answer to their prayers. This makes the Word come to life for them. When the Teens in India would go provisioning they would lead the way, because they knew the Lord was going to supply. Having a challenging outreach like that makes all the Grandpa stories come to life & adds that spark of inspiration & joy & fulfillment! Sometimes we are too concerned about stats & support to really work at training the Teens in personal witnessing. Teens & JETTs can still get out the Videos & tools, but we also need to take time specifically for personal witnessing. Maybe they could go personal witnessing after the regular hours of selling Videos or on a day that is set aside specifically for personal witnessing. The adults need to lead the way!—And our young people should see a sample of personal witnessing & concern for the people they are offering the tools to as well.
As much as possible, it's good to relieve the Teens from only "business & sales", where they're not witnessing for souls any more. At one of our Schools we sent our Teens out personal witnessing. We told them they could get out the tools later, but for now they were to just enjoy personal witnessing. They came back really changed!
My daughter is on outreach a lot. She has her share of problems, but every time I see her, she is always on fire about, "Oh boy, let me tell you about this soul that got saved!" She is always alive like that. I can see that part of her life is really beautiful & sweet. In the Teen Home in Puerto Rico, they are really on fire. They go to this one section of town that is full of Teens, & they do Holy Ghost Samples there. They sing & get the kids to join them, dancing etc. When our Teens started personal witnessing to those kids it really started changing them. Maybe we can't be that open everywhere & the personal witnessing may need to be geared to more follow-up in some fields, but the Teens in this particular situation sure benefitted from getting out! I think it would have the same effect on our Teens & JETTs worldwide.
We have heard of some adults & parents having the kids Poster while they sat & read the newspaper. Or some parents deal with witnessing on a business level! Our whole emphasis needs to change as far as our approach to our children's witness! Since we're talking about a revolution, we need to set the record straight with our kids. Sometimes when I was out with my kids they'd say, "Daddy, why didn't we witness to that guy?" Maybe sometimes there was a good reason, but if we don't explain, our kids really wonder & it's not a good sample.—They need to see a sample in us adults & parents of being on-fire witnesses & being concerned for lost souls!
I remember Ezekiel 3:17-19 were very real to me when I was witnessing as a babe, & I would feel very convicted if I didn't witness to all the people I'd meet. For example, I remember whenever I rode on a bus or a train, I would be very convicted to witness to all those sitting around me, & if I didn't, I would hear the voice of the Lord speaking those verses to me & feel like I had failed the Lord & those people. Maybe that conviction to witness & the responsibility to "deliver your soul" needs to be passed on to our young people.
A lot of the younger Teens & JETTs in the Family basically end up just cleaning toilets, & they have no sense of fulfillment in their lives. The Family is boring to them, because they end up just doing menial tasks! But there isn't anything more thrilling than to see someone receive the Lord! People are really thankful for what we've got, & we are depriving our kids of the privilege of feeding lost souls if we don't teach them how to share the Truth with those in need!
Perhaps if we could summarise where we have gone wrong with our witnessing, it would help us not to fall into the same pitfalls again. Some pitfalls in the past have been: a) Not having enough close adult shepherding; b) Distributing "for the money or stats"; c) Not enough vision, training, inspiration or motivation as disciple & soul winners. We could make a push to teach our Teens & JETTs how to personal witness through many avenues. We can teach our young people how to reach System teens & JETT-aged preteens through one-on-one personal witnessing, bearing in mind that this requires lots of adult supervision & could be a spiritual drain or pull on our Teens & JETTs. They can also help to minister to kings & supporters, & learn how to personally witness to & meet the spiritual needs of those to whom we offer Videos. They can also excel in an important & fruitful soul-winning ministry when doing public performances, selling large numbers of Videos to companies or institutions or reaching & following-up on important contacts! PTL!
When System parents who have problem teens see our Teens & their love for the Lord, they readily give us their support, because our kids are the best "proof of the pudding"!
In India, we'd send Teens out with adults, one-on-one or in small groups, to visit kings & provisioning contacts, & it bore great fruit! Not only was it a sample to the kings & contacts that our kids are doing missionary work too, but also because our kids had enough conviction to come with us.—Whereas the System's teens are rebelling against everything their parents stand for. One contact we had, when he was kind of in a bad mood, asked my son, "Do you really want to do this?" My son stood up for his convictions & said, "Yes, I've chosen to do this! This is my commitment!" I've heard other kids say the same thing—"I'm in this because I want to do this!"—It's a tremendous sample & it sure strengthens the Teens & JETTs to have to stand up for their convictions!
By Sara D., Andrew & Tim (Written on Behalf of the Leadership of the L.A. Summit Meetings)
Personal witnessing can play a major role in bringing the fire of the Revolution back into the lives & hearts of us adults & our Teens, JETTs & children! Although our young people have done quite a bit of witnessing throughout our Family history, in recent years some Areas have concentrated more on their training & schooling, & had the adults do most of the distribution & follow-up. This is not necessarily the case in every Home, as in some Areas the Teens & JETTs do have quite fruitful singing, busking & DTD ministries. However, we want to address the subject of witnessing in light of the new DTR, which gives us a whole new perspective on nearly every aspect of our precious Teens' & JETTs' training, including their witnessing!
Dad has said that it's important in babes' training to not only have a healthy diet of the Word & enough rest, but also it's important to have sufficient "exercise" or pouring out—witnessing! As many of us can testify, what turned us on when we first joined the Family was seeing the Lord work in others' lives while we were out personal witnessing! We didn't always have the opportunity to have hours & hours of Word classes during our early training in the Family. However, we got a great deal of our training as we watched our older brothers & sisters answer questions & explain things to hungry sheep. We saw lives changed while witnessing "on the front-lines" during those Early Days of pioneering!
Witnessing helped develop in us a sincere hunger for the Word, because we knew we desperately needed the Truth in order to fill the hungry hearts of the lost sheep! We were so thankful that someone had won us to the Lord & the Family, that we were sold on the Word, sold on Dad, sold on the Family & our faith life!—And we would do anything to give the same to others, sacrificing our time & personal desires to go personal witnessing daily!
Sixty-five percent of our Family Members today are younger than 16 years old! We early revolutionaries are not only older now, but many of us also have large families to care for & train. Times have changed quite radically since the early pioneer days of the Family, so we can't live & witness exactly as we did then. Not only is it more dangerous to be out witnessing on city streets today, but also our enemies are now using new weapons against us through their CA campaign. But, in spite of the great responsibilities of our ever-growing families, Homes & Schools & the difficulties we now face with tighter System restrictions, we must still provide the necessary "spiritual exercise" & training in personal witnessing for our precious babe disciples—our Teens & JETTs! Our outreach methods must be wisely tailored to the needs of today, & we can do this through following Dad's counsel to go "inside, out of sight"!
With these thoughts in mind, we'd like to address a few aspects of witnessing with our Teens, JETTs & children that we pray will help us reassess our witnessing habits & see what ways we may need to change so we can continue to fulfill Mark 16:15, & train the new generation the Lord has entrusted to our care! PTL!
Quality Time in Personal Witnessing!
Through the Techi GNs & the DTR Series of FSMs, we're seeing the importance of spending quality time with our young people. The Lord is making a way for closer shepherding through Family Time, Personal Time, etc. Along the same lines, we also need the time we spend out witnessing with our Teens, JETTs & children to be quality time, to instill the conviction in their hearts that they too are disciples of Jesus. Our young people need to see the Lord use them & they need to feel Him work in their lives in a personal way as they lead souls to the Lord, feed potential disciples, & minister to contacts & supporters. Our young people need to do more personal witnessing!
In the past we have relied heavily on our Teens, JETTs & children as terrific helpers on outreach teams & very adept at getting out the tools. Of course, many of our young people have very much enjoyed going on outreach regularly & they have been tremendous assets to their Homes in this respect. God bless them! However, there also have been many instances where our young people have done a lot of Postering, Tapenessing & Videoing with too much emphasis on raising support, & this has caused some problems. It has caused many of our Teens, JETTs & children to get "burned out" & to become resentful. It's also caused many to become overly conscious of stats, money & the financial needs of our Homes. If our young people are too aware of the financial needs of our Homes, & especially if they feel personally responsible to raise those funds, it's not mentally or spiritually healthy for them.
The tendency of our Shepherds & adults to emphasise the need to raise funds is understandable, as our Homes usually need to stay constantly on the attack in outreach & follow-up in order to meet the needs of their monthly budgets. And, there's nothing wrong with raising funds through outreach! That's one of the ways God shows His blessing on our witnessing. And most of us would probably admit that our need to raise support is also one of the things the Lord uses to keep us pressing in & on the attack with our outreach schedules. "For they that preach the Gospel shall live of the Gospel!" (1Cor.9:14) PTL!
However, when praying about the needs of our young people & the overall condition of our Homes, we came to the conclusion that we need to find a better balance in our witnessing! Each of us adults & Shepherds need to realise that it's time we made a concerted effort to change some of our tactics when witnessing with our young people! They are our upcoming disciples & we need to consider their training through witnessing, rather than only using their witnessing appeal predominantly for raising support. Our young people can continue to Tapeness & Video & busk etc., but we must also teach them the art of finding lost sheep, pouring out, leading souls to Jesus & witnessing deeply to win new disciples!
To again recall the personal experiences we adults had when we were young disciples, it was the personal witnessing, being face-to-face with the need & seeing lives change right before our eyes that fed the fires of conviction in our hearts! When we were babes, the spiritual vision & a love for souls dominated our activities, & we constantly claimed that the Lord would fulfill our needs if we would "seek first the Kingdom of God & His righteousness" through our witnessing.
We are not saying that all our witnessing in recent years has been wrong. That's not the point at all! The point is that we need to fine-tune our methods & double-check what impressions & training we are giving our young people in the area of outreach. Are we giving them the same foundation in personal witnessing, soul winning & disciple winning that we had? Or are we becoming too businesslike? Are stats & finances taking preeminence over souls & feeding the lost? Do our young people see us live what they read about in the Letters? Are we good samples of the kind of love for souls that brought about the birth of the Revolution for Jesus? It seems most of us would have to admit that there are ways we could improve our attitudes & methods concerning outreach in order to be better samples to our new generation & give them the training they need!
Breaking Bad Outreach Habits!
We have acquired some bad habits in our witnessing methods that we must strive to overcome. It seems that many of us have slipped into a "distribution-only" rut, without realising the bad effect that it's been having on our young people. The temptation to be too businesslike & money-conscious in our outreach isn't a brand new problem. You have probably been aware of this problem & tried to be on guard against it for years. Thank the Lord, we have had many excellent reminders pubbed over the years that have helped pull us back on the straight & narrow, so we haven't strayed too far off track. Dad & Mama have published many excellent Letters in recent years to remind us of the need for personal witnessing & wise witnessing such as: "Inside, Out of Sight!", "The Personal Evangelism Revival!", "Get Going—Or Get Out!", "What's Wrong with Japan?", "New Ways to Reach Japan!" & "Don't Force Public Decisions!" (You can find all these Letters in DB9.) Other related articles have also been published such as Josiah's article, "Are You a Joyful Witness?—Or a Tired Salesman?" (See FSM 106.)
So the need to bring personal witnessing back into our lives & reduce any over-emphasis on stats, fund-raising & shallow witnessing isn't a completely new idea! This seems to be an ongoing problem that we often have to get fired up about & go on the attack against. Most adults can probably relate to sometimes feeling the need to renew your love for souls & get out of ruts in outreach. Probably most adults would admit that there are times when you know you're not really as on fire about winning souls as you should be, because you have let yourself get a little burdened about the rent or your stats. Daily business concerns can sort of steal your fire or joy & outreach can become a little routine or burdensome or even a real battle!
Most adults can probably relate to feeling that way every once in a while, but because many of us have a strong foundation in the Word & a broad base of past experiences to draw on, if our outreach gets a little "dry" for a while, it doesn't necessarily affect us so much. We adults can easily bounce back, because we know in our hearts what the Revolution is all about. But it seems we adults haven't been that aware of the effect it has on our young people when we have the wrong attitudes or fall into bad habits in our witnessing. Our young people don't have such a reservoir of Word & past experiences to draw on—so if all they see day after day is businesslike witnessing, they can become quite disillusioned, discontent or unchallenged. Maybe if we adults can see more clearly how our bad habits in witnessing are adversely affecting our young people, it will help us make some permanent changes in our attitudes & our outreach schedules & methods.
Judging from the testimonies & reactions of many of our Teens & JETTs, it's plain to see that they view our witnessing more as a "business"—primarily for stats & money—rather than to save lost souls! Because of this misconception, many of our kids have been tempted with money & have grown quite materialistic—often due to the adults' bad samples. Lord help us!
Similarly, stats pressure has caused resentment in many of our Teens & JETTs to where they don't want to go witnessing any more, or at best, they view witnessing as some kind of dutiful job, rather than being compelled by the Holy Spirit to go out & reach the lost. This isn't to say that our kids never see the Lord's Spirit working when they go out witnessing. Of course, there are times when they come home from outreach & they're really inspired by some miracle the Lord did, but it seems that in many cases our Teens & JETTs have become so familiar with making money on the streets that they do not realise the real reason for distributing our beautiful Videos, Tapes & Posters!—To witness God's Love to the lost! So this constant emphasis on raising funds has made distributing a bit of a chore & a bore for them. How sad!
Also, because we now distribute our tools for pretty specific "prices", it's difficult for our young people to see that when we receive needed funds through Tapenessing or selling Videos, it's still just as much a miracle of God as was Grandpa's vivid story, "Dime from the Sky!" It's still the Lord miraculously providing for us, He just uses this means of outreach to do it. So we need to continue to teach our Teens & JETTs that the Lord uses our tools to supply our financial need. (1Cor.9:11)
Another bad habit we have fallen into is that our adult shepherding has been quite weak when witnessing with Teens & JETTs. We've heard of some instances where adults have left their young partners alone & unsupervised while out on witnessing excursions. Sometimes the adult has gone to buy something or attend to some other business, leaving the Teens, JETTs or even children unsupervised. Not only are these unshepherded times dangerous, but they have had some serious consequences as some of our young people have been tempted with worldliness, shoplifting etc. while on their own.
Another bad habit has been our tendency to organise outreach teams so that just one adult goes out with quite a few Teens, JETTs or children. This ratio of few adults to many kids increases the possibility of trouble, danger or injury, because of insufficient supervision. If we remember our own early witnessing experiences, we were always taught to go two-by-two, & we benefitted from the close attention & shepherding of an older brother or sister who led, guided & taught us throughout the day. We were constantly being fed & trained as we were out witnessing, which made each day new, challenging & fulfilling! We really felt like we were learning every day—& it made us look forward to going out witnessing. Maybe this is the idea we should also shoot for in our Teen & JETT witnessing training!
Many parents & Shepherds have thought that if our Teens & JETTs could be on their own more, if they could be more independent, it would help them & they would be happier. But this attitude is not right. In fact, the opposite is true. Instead of benefitting our young people, being on their own too much has actually been detrimental to their spiritual growth. Whereas giving our young people a controlled atmosphere & very close shepherding & supervision has been very beneficial & has helped them feel happy, challenged & secure. PTL! (See "Independence Through Dependency", ML#2534, GN 386.)
Properly supervised groups of Teens & JETTs can still go out witnessing & distributing Videos, Tapes & Posters, but what we'd like to see happen now is that adult Shepherds & parents also personally train our youth to win souls & feed needy contacts & potential disciples. This means making time especially for Discipleship Training in personal witnessing. The opportunities for personal witnessing are limitless! You could have special outings to the area of town where young people "hang out" & do Holy Ghost Samples or busking (where permissible), you could open a downtown coffee house for Meaningful Meetings or you could plan exciting summer or holiday road trips. Also, if you're not able to plan some kind of special personal witnessing excursion, the Lord can even lead you to hungry sheep while you're out distributing Videos or Tapenessing. Where there's a will there's a way! It will probably surprise us to see the many opportunities we come across for deep personal witnessing, if we look for them & slow down enough to take advantage of them! PTL!
Training through Personal Witnessing!
Of course, if our Teens start reaching System teens then it's very important that we parents & adult Shepherds are available to answer any questions they may have as a result. It seems our Teens are not always capable of answering on their own all the questions that System teens ask. And if not handled well, such contact with System teens can do more to erode our kids' faith & convictions than draw the System teens to the Lord. Of course, this depends on the age & the spiritual strength & maturity of your Teens.
So if you choose to have your Teens witness to teens, you'd probably want to try to monitor their conversations. Of course, this isn't that easy to do, because a parent or adult mediating such witnessing is often resented by System teens. But if your Teens show that they don't mind the adults' participation in the conversation & if the adults are loving & enthusiastic, you can usually work around the System teens' resentment & it can work out just fine. And these Teen-adult witnessing adventures can be great learning experiences for our Teens, if the Lord happens to use the adult to answer the poor System teen's questions. (This does not mean, however, that the adult should dominate every conversation! They should only monitor the conversations & lend a helping hand to the witness when needed.)
For these reasons, the adults who go out personal witnessing with our Teens shouldn't be the kind of adults who get easily intimidated by System teens, because if they do, they'll probably feel uncomfortable in some situations & may feel compelled to leave our kids alone with the System teens. In the past, such unsupervised time with System teens has borne bad fruit in many of our Teens' lives.
(Editor's note: Let's cite a hypothetical example to make this point a little clearer: Say you're sitting in a pizza parlor having a snack with your two Teen witnessing partners. You notice some System teens who look like they might be sheepy, & your Teen witnessing partners have a burden to go talk to them. So they go over & introduce themselves & sit down with the System teens & start talking. They're only two tables away so you can easily overhear their conversation.
(After a while you realise that the System teens are asking some pretty tough questions & getting a little smart-alecky, which is rattling your young witnessers a little bit, because they don't know the answers to the questions & they're having a hard time keeping a handle on the conversation.
(You realise that the ideal thing would be for you to help them, but you feel intimidated by the System teens. You overhear that your Teen witnessing partners are floundering a little & you realise they might need some help—but then you think, "But I don't know...those `cool kids' probably wouldn't dig it much if I joined them. I mean I'm at least three times their age—or maybe four times!...They look pretty `hip', real punk rockers!...I'm such an old fogey, a real old bottle!...But it sure looks like my team needs a little help...but what if I go over there & the other teens get offended & walk off! What if I embarrass my team by joining them...I know I really should but...well, maybe I'll just wait it out!"
(In the meantime, your Teen witnessing partners aren't able to answer the questions so they don't deliver the full message that the System teens need. The System teens get a little bored & take off. As a result, the Teen witnessers feel discouraged. Also, they missed the opportunity to learn by listening to a trained adult disciple witness. As the day goes on, they continue to mull over in their minds the contradictory things the System teens told them & they wonder about some of the doubts the System teens posed. What a sad story!
(Now let's "replay" the same scenario as described above, except this time the adult joins the Teens at the table where they're witnessing & helps them answer the questions. He simply approaches their table sweetly, & asks if he can join them. He strikes up some kind of conversation by asking the System teens a few interesting questions & before long he pulls out his Bible & helps his Teen partners witness. He might look a little "old fashioned" & maybe his hair is thinning on top—but he really knows the Word & has a heart for the lost youth of today.
(As the conversation progresses, his Teen partners are able to listen & learn & pray. Soon the System teens become very interested in the heavy Bible verses that he shows them & they get real turned on. Then the Teen witnessers take the conversation back & end up praying with the System teens who receive the Lord. In the end, the Teen partners are very inspired, & it's a big victory! So you see, the attitude of the adult partners can make a big difference!)
Another avenue for personal witnessing with our Teens & JETTs is through follow-up & provisioning. Teens & JETTs can be wonderful partners for our provisioning teams, especially on follow-up visits when ministering to contacts. Our young people provide a wonderful living sample that backs up the words & testimonies of our dear provisioners. PTL! Many of our friends, kings & supporters have been so impressed with our children & Teens that they have often invited us to their homes to further witness to their families & friends. This more controlled witnessing atmosphere has proven to be extremely effective. Such follow-up often leads to more potential open doors, which not only inspires & encourages our Teens in their witnessing, but these set-ups also give us the opportunity to teach & train them under our direct supervision.—And we benefit from ministering to our friends, kings & supporters at the same time!
We want to underline how important it is that the adults who go out personal witnessing or on follow-up with Teens & JETTs be sure to include the Teens & JETTs a lot! Get feedback from them, let them talk & actively participate in the witness, encourage them to answer some of the sheep's or contact's questions! Most adults probably aren't so used to working with young people, & therefore it would probably be easy to make the mistake of just taking the reins while out witnessing & basically just dragging the Teens & JETTS along. If the young partners feel like they get shoved out of the conversation & they're "just the buddy" for the adult, then they'll get bored! (And your contacts or the people you witness to will sense it, & it won't be a good sample.)
If our adults are going to train the Teens & JETTs in personal witnessing, they should establish an older brother/younger brother relationship with their Teen or JETT witnessing partners, rather than an adult/child relationship. It's good for the adults to do all they can to help the Teens & JETTs feel like an important & needed part of the team.—For example, let the kids have a say in the decision of where you go witnessing & what tools you offer to the different people. And if a sheep asks questions, the adult can open the door for the Teens or JETTs to take part in the witnessing by saying, "Would you like to answer that question?" It will be much more challenging & a lot more fun for trainee Teens & JETTs if they get a chance to talk too!—And that's really the best training, the clinical method of learning by doing!
Really be a team together!—You'll do a lot better job of training the Teens & JETTs, & they'll be a lot happier! PTL! This goes hand-in-hand with our emphasis on deeper & more personal communication with our Teens & JETTs in other aspects of our life, & as we learn to communicate more meaningfully with them & provide better spiritual care for them, their effectiveness in witnessing will increase too! (Editor's note: Also, at the end of a day of witnessing together it's good to find out if the Teens or JETTs have any questions about anything they saw or heard or that happened. They might also need some counsel about how to answer or what Scripture to quote for a specific question they were asked.)
"Inside, Out of Sight" Witnessing
Dad has already instructed us to take our witnessing "inside, out of sight" where needed. In many parts of the World, the System frowns upon children raising funds or distributing literature—especially if they're on the streets or in public places during local public school hours. Street Postering with children was one of the main things that drew the attention of the local authorities in Spain & caused them to crack down on the Family. That investigation has resulted in a very long & trying experience for the brethren in Spain whose children were taken into custody many months ago! It behooves us to take every measure possible to avoid making the same mistake, especially since the Lord has provided so many other fruitful methods of witnessing that do not endanger our security or expose us & our children unnecessarily. (Editor's note: This doesn't mean that our Teens, JETTs & children can no longer perform publicly or go Postering or busking etc. if it is permitted & accepted in your Area. However, you should probably not do so during public school hours. Likewise, you should not do so too openly in the streets if the general public where you live doesn't like that sort of thing.)
Areas that have gone more "inside & out of sight" in their witnessing have found that getting off the streets & doing more personal witnessing DTD & OTO has given rise to an immediate emphasis on follow-up. This has proven to be much more fruitful in the long run than the more open witnessing tactics they used previously. Considering the much greater benefits of safety & security for the Family, as well as the much more solid & long-lasting fruit of cultivating kings & supporters & potential disciples, it seems that now is the time to go "inside, out of sight" & take our Teens, JETTs & children with us for more training in personal witnessing & follow-up!
There are other advantages of "inside, out-of-sight" methods of witnessing as well. Personal witnessing with our kids helps us to see the Lord more in each other as we learn to fight the battles of the Lord together, against the Enemy, to rescue lost souls. It also helps break the familiarity that may have grown in our relationship over the years as it helps us gain a renewed sense of respect for one another as disciples & co-warriors in the Lord's Army!
Also, the time you spend together while out personal witnessing can be an ideal opportunity to explain important issues, like how the System operates, & answer questions that arise etc. If you apply the Bible & the Letters to the situations that you encounter while out in the System, & you use the Word to answer questions that come up while witnessing, you will help strengthen our younger generation's foundation in the Lord by the clinical method of training. Surely this will cultivate more interest & hunger for the Word in their lives, as it did for us when we were babes. Also, going out into the System under these circumstances, with the purpose of soul-winning, can even help to insulate Teens & JETTs against the temptations of the System. As a result, they will be properly prepared & trained to be much more on guard & armed against the fiery darts of the Wicked One.
If we begin now to change our witnessing tactics, we'll not only be accomplishing much more through more follow-up, but we will be teaching & training an entire Army of Endtime witnessers, preparing them for the great days to come when they will be standing up for Jesus in those final hours of World history, PTL!
Knowing the Power of Our Tools!
It is important to clarify that while we are de-emphasising using our Teens, JETTs & children in street distribution, & we want to get away from the over-emphasis on them being fund-raisers, we do still need to continue to teach our young people how to use our beautiful tools to preach the Gospel. Most of us adults are "seasoned" witnessers & we understand that the Videos, Tapes & Posters are our witness, so when we get them out, we're being faithful to the Great Commission of Mark 16:15. But sometimes we don't realise that our young people may not yet fully grasp this concept. Instead, they may be left with the impression that we are simply giving something to the public in exchange for money, which we then use to support ourselves. In which case, they could wrongly conclude that we could just as well sell anything to support ourselves.
We need to help our young people understand how the Lord supplies financially through this means of witnessing as a reward for our reaching the lost with His Message of Love. "They that preach the Gospel shall live of the Gospel!" (1Cor.9:14) It's important that we educate our Teens, JETTs & children about the power of our Videos, Tapes & Posters so they can appreciate the tremendous witness they are & better understand that appreciative souls receive a blessing from the Lord for donating to our Work. If we can teach our Teens & JETTs the right attitudes about our witnessing tools, especially the beautiful life-changing Videos, they will better understand the motivation behind our witness, & they'll see the Lord more in each sale.
If our young people go on personal follow-up appointments to visit the hungry sheep who have already bought our Videos, they'll be able to hear the testimonies of lives changed through these fabulous tools. It is important that our precious young disciples see the Word in action in the lives of those they have given our tools to & followed up on. Our young people need to see the "proof of the pudding" of our tools & how the Lord changes lives through the Truth & witness they carry. (The power of our tools would be a fun & worthwhile subject to Pow-wow with our young people, using key quotes from the Letters.)
As Dad has taught us in Letters such as "Shiners or Shamers!", "Push Papa's Posters" & "What Is Jesus?", our witnessing tools carry the Message much better than we could ourselves. But our personal samples, our smiling faces & sweet spirits & conviction are also needed. If our younger generation uses the power of personal witnessing combined with our wonderful tools, the Videos, Tapes & Posters, they should be even more effective witnessers than we were when we were young!
The Lord has brought us all to the Kingdom for such a time as this, especially our precious Teens, JETTs & children! And our move now into more "inside, out of sight" ministries will certainly work together for good in every way, opening to us a way to more closely shepherd our children as we raise them up to be the elite witnessing troops of the Endtime that the Lord has destined them to be! PTL!
From Mary MOM, Heavenly City School
Ricky & Elaine recently went on the attack to pioneer personal witnessing with the JETT Victors. Due to all the experience Ricky & Elaine have had with the JETT & Teen shepherding, they are quite accustomed to keeping as a priority the spiritual training of the JETTs. So now that they are going out witnessing with them, they are faithfully striving to keep this same standard.
When pioneering personal witnessing with the JETTs, Ricky & Elaine realised that the JETTs need to meet English-speakers in order to be able to really pour out to the sheep. Our JETTs, although they are good at busking & distributing the tools, don't have enough command of the Japanese language to be able to really pour out their hearts. They do pour out to the Japanese to some extent, but they can't get as deep with the sheep as they would like. So they went to an area of the city (around the U.S. military bases) where there are a lot of people from the States, & the JETTs proved to be real on-fire witnesses when they could pour out in English.
In the past we've wondered about what kind of classes to give the JETTs in order to inspire them to witness. We've tried different skits & other things to try to teach them how to get a conversation going or how to pour out their hearts when witnessing. But we've now found out that, because of the large input of Word that the JETTs have been getting, their battles in relating to kids their age are very minimal. In fact, because the JETTs are so full of the Word, it doesn't seem to matter to them whether they talk to other JETT-aged kids or teens or 20-year-olds.
Our JETTs are just so full of their subject, they go out with conviction, saying: "I've got weaknesses & problems just like you do... I'm learning this, I'm learning that... I'm learning to forsake this, so it just doesn't have so much importance in my life." Because they've been getting so much Word & they're getting so on fire, that is what they're full of & that's what they pour out when witnessing. And this is the key which causes people to open up to them.
Now the JETTs have really got witnessing fever! Their spirit & fire seems to be the key to winning souls! They want to talk to people & pour out their hearts, sharing about their own personal lessons, which is just astounding for most of the young people that they witness to (& even the adults), who are overtaken by the Spirit & just sit there & listen & take it all in. Because of the JETTs' maturity & willingness to simply share about their own battles & victories, it paves a way for the young people they witness to to open up their hearts.
This has revolutionised the JETTs' way of relating to witnessing & they're really getting the vision for lost souls. And they have done better at personal witnessing than just about anything else! We are thrilled with the revolution our JETTs have had through this personal witnessing explosion & the inspiration they have for going out witnessing as a result. Their busking has become more on fire, everything they do has become more on fire! Even more routine types of witnessing such as Postering & Tapenessing have become more on fire! PTL! This has been an answer to our prayers!
By Marianne, Japan
I'm thrilled to read that a new emphasis is going to be put on taking our young people out personal witnessing. Indeed, what won us to the Family was not "NWO Talks" or the fact that the Family could help us "perfect ourselves", but we had found the answer to our problems & we finally had something real & lasting to give to others. As the preceding articles from the Latin American Summit Leadership Meetings state, what gave us fire & conviction & inspiration was to see the Word not only change our lives, but also change the lives of others right before our eyes!
As Dad has said before, sometimes the best cure for problems is the front lines. And maybe now that we'll be emphasising more personal witnessing with our Teens, JETTs & children, with the proper emphasis on soul winning & follow-up, & the right type of shepherding & buddy system, they will get more of the inspiration they need, the spark & pizazz & the thrill that will sell them more on our Message & Family life. If they get on fire to what started this Revolution, it'll be a lot easier for them to understand & agree with our Family rules & the why's & the wherefore's that they're expected to follow. For me personally, even to this day, if I am going through a heavy trial or battling some of my besetting sins, there is nothing like joining a follow-up team to get me out of myself & to help me start seeing things in a better perspective. When you go witnessing you see the Lord in action, you see the Word affecting people's lives, you feel the move of the Spirit, & there is nothing like that to re-kindle your love for the Lord & the Word.
It was very encouraging to read about this personal witnessing push, because after hearing about bringing the Discipleship Training standard to all the Homes & helping our children to feel more the fire of the Spirit, one of the things the Lord had laid on our hearts was to take our children out witnessing on Family Day. We've tried to make Family Days as edifying as possible, but they mostly have consisted of either park trips or excursions or going to fun places together. Since we've been trying to raise the discipleship standard in our Homes, we felt that we were missing the mark a little by not having witnessing experiences with our own children be the highlight of our Family Day. So we started to take out Posters & be more faithful to pass them out during Family Day excursions. It's not only been a lot of fun, but it's also giving us all a real incentive to learn the language.
(Editor's note: As Marianne says, it can be fun & inspiring to go witnessing on your Family Days. This is a very good point about having witnessing experiences be the "high point" in your day together. Whenever you're out on an excursion, there's always the possibility that the Lord might lead you to hungry sheep—so it's good to be prepared with some Posters, Tapes or Videos & be ready to be a witness! PTL! On the other hand, if you or your Teens, JETTs & children do a lot of witnessing during the week, please don't feel obligated to also go witnessing on your Family Day as well.)
Teens Getting Trained & on the Attack!
This past year our Teens & children have been involved with ministering to our precious kings, the Mr. & Mrs., with whom we live. It has been real good training for our Teens & children to learn (along with us adults) all the lessons that you learn when living with kings—such as diligence, faithfulness & raising our general standard. Also, whenever any of our friends, contacts or supporters come to our Home for a visit, we usually try to include some of our Teens & JETTs in those visits as a form of training.
We've also started to have our Teens come to the seminars that we host. So far we've had the Teens help mostly with serving food or working spotlights & videos etc. However, since many of our top friends & contacts who attend the seminars speak English, we would like to involve the Teens more in the witnessing side of the seminars too, as their sweetness, brightness & conviction is always a real testimony to our contacts. The Teens are a real "proof of the pudding," because so many of our contacts are unable to cope with their own problem teens!
Another area our Teens have helped in is teaching our children to perform. We have a little show group of children ages 5 to 10 years old who started to rehearse last year. Because all the adults were busy with their ministries, two of our Teens worked with the children's group & taught them the steps & songs & routines. Due to the Teens' vision & stick-to-itiveness, the children had a powerful half-hour show all in Japanese with choreography for our Christmas push last year. They performed in many institutions & even at the Mr. & Mrs.' high-class club. PTL! God bless the Teens!
This little show has been instrumental in our Institution Ministry which is where our wealthy friends donate funds for us to be able to visit institutions & give them Videos & Tapes. This ministry has been very fruitful. It's an "inside, out of sight" ministry, which has been a great appeal project for our friends, helping us to raise support & get out the message to hungry youth. The children's singing team was also able to lead 230 souls to the Lord this last Christmas season through this Institution Ministry. PTL!
The Tokyo EOH (Experimental Outreach Home) also pioneered a very fruitful caroling ministry with their Teens, JETTs & OCs during the Christmas holiday season. They usually sent daily teams of two adults with three or four children to the most upper-class areas of Tokyo. Normally it's very difficult to get invited into people's houses here in Japan, but Christmas is an exception & many people were open to having them come in & sing Christmas carols in their homes. Our teams were able to get out quite a few Tapes, lead many souls to the Lord & reach some real precious top people who they followed up on afterwards.
Fruitful Youth Outreach Program
For most of the year, the Teens have also been actively involved with our Youth Outreach Program, which involves singing & doing skits in the park or witnessing at our Meaningful Meetings, which we call our "S.O.S. Meetings." This program has not only been an inspiration to them, but it has also resulted in a lot of souls won & about 10 solid catacombers who come regularly for classes at the Youth Outreach Home. The Teens recently held an "S.O.S. Meeting" at a location one of our dear kings lets us use on Sunday afternoons. Thirty visitors attended the meeting. All the visitors had met the Teens during their witnessing outings. Twenty of them got saved that day & most of them were led to the Lord by the Teens. PTL!
Our Teens have now started to go out witnessing four times a week, two by two, an adult with a Teen, going to places where they can find English-speaking young people. The Teens are very excited about the potential. In this country the language is definitely an obstacle for our Teens to be able to get into deep personal witnessing. Often the Teens are able to lead souls to the Lord, but when it comes to really following up & being able to teach their sheep, the Teens' language ability is limited. So we would like to help them progress in that area. Our Teens haven't had as much opportunity to study the language as our OCs & JETTs, because they are all involved in ministries. So we feel we really need to make a big push on learning more of the language in our Home.
The Need for On-fire Youth Evangelists & Witnessers!
This push on powerful personal witnessing is very exciting & I feel that there is a lot more that we adults can do to actively involve our Teens more in our witnessing. I would say that our Teens & children have been quite involved in a lot of aspects of ministering to kings & in creating a sample Home & being a sample to our kings & supporters, but I am very inspired with the vision to teach & train them to personally witness more. It seems we could go about this by first finding situations where they can communicate in English so they can experience a deeper communication with the sheep, combined with a more methodical study of the language. While they are learning the language they can still go on follow-up appointments, attend seminars, continue the Youth Outreach Program & find places where they can reach the English-speaking youth. As they do more witnessing, they will undoubtedly get more on fire & have more inspiration to learn the language, as well as get a deeper hunger to study the Word on subjects that they are not well versed in.
I think having at least bi-weekly personal witnessing for all Teens, as is suggested in the New Home Requirements, is going to be a real key to help them overcome their self-consciousness, sharpen their sword & inspire them to study for the Lord & have more conviction, because they will be able to see face-to-face the problems of the young people in the World. Another reason why I feel this personal witnessing for our Teens & JETTs is exciting is because most of the Teens in our country are now based out of three locations & most of them are involved in ministry training. They really excel in their ministries whether it be childcare, handy-man, video, staff etc., & just as Dad said, they are proving to be an improvement on the stock in many ways. But hardly any of them have been getting much training in soul-winning, disciple-winning, reaching the Top etc. It seems that this new emphasis will help provide a better balance to their training & hopefully we should be able to raise up some real on-fire youth evangelists & witnessers from the ranks of our young people.
Our Teens have so much energy & are so creative, once we help them get started in these outreach ministries—just like what has happened in other aspects of their training when they receive the proper training & oversight—they should really take off in personal witnessing & become the powerful Endtime witnesses that Dad has had the vision for them to be! n
From the Teen & JETT Shepherds at the SEA High School
In training our Teens & JETTs, we wanted to kindle within them the love for the lost that has caused our Family to explode into all the World to preach the Gospel to every creature. So we decided to do something new! "Hey, Teens! Instead of going witnessing with our beautiful Posters, Tapes or Videos, how would you like to try a whole `new' approach. Let's go witnessing & use mainly our Bibles! Let's just go out & do some soul-winning!" It was quite challenging for them to pioneer something "new"! Since many of our Teens & JETTs originally learned witnessing by getting out the tools, this "new" approach took a little time for them to get used to. However, it was very exciting for them when they realised that since the very beginning of the Family we have always done personal witnessing. Now we're having a soul-winning explosion in the High School! TYJ!
Not only have the personal witnessing teams won lots & lots of souls, but every time they go out, they come back happier & more inspired & fulfilled in their service for Jesus & the Family. As Dad said, "I'm still sold on personal evangelism, I still say it's the best! It's not the ministry of the future, it's the ministry of now!" ("The Personal Evangelism Revival", ML #2410:7,8; DB9)
Teaching Our Young People How to Personal Witness!
When we went out personal witnessing we wanted to give the Teens an opportunity to burn free without too much interference from us adults. We encouraged them to do the talking as much as possible, because whenever we adults got involved, we ended up dominating the conversation. We also tried to teach them how to step out & approach people on their own & lead them to the Lord themselves. However, we found it necessary to have a balance, because in some situations they do need our help to show them how to do it. So we would usually approach the sheep together, & sometimes the adult would take the lead, while the Teen watched how we answered questions & approached different situations & people. In other situations, we would let them take the lead without any interference from us. After we finished talking to each person, as we walked around looking for the next person to approach, we would briefly discuss how we could improve our witness next time & what subjects we should maybe avoid—judging from the reactions of the people we had just talked to.
This method of witnessing is not as fast as some other witnessing methods, but it is fruitful. We didn't win hundreds of souls because we put the emphasis on quality & not quantity. We were also putting the emphasis on teaching our Teens & JETTs how to personal witness—how to relate to people & recognise that different people need to be approached & ministered to in different ways. At first, like all of us, the Teens were a little nervous & worried that they wouldn't know how to answer the sheeps' questions. But soul-winning is addicting!—And once they won their first few souls, they really got on-fire & had the desire to win more. By the end of the day, they didn't even want to go home!
We have a Victor Program in our School, & recently some of the Victors went on a weekend road trip. We took two JETTs, two Teens & two adults, making it possible to divide into two even teams, with one adult on each team. The Word says that witnessing is the cure for a lot of our personal problems. We could certainly see that this was true for these Teen & JETT Victors who were learning major lessons in their lives at the time when they went on the road. When they were on the battlefront & faced with a needy soul, they were willing to forsake their problems, forget their NWOs, & reach out to others with God's Love. Hallelujah! The fruit in their own lives was real happiness, joy & a deep sense of personal fulfilment. Seeing this transformation in their lives was a beautiful experience for us Shepherds also.
We saw that the Teens didn't have enough verses at their fingertips for some of the deeper questions they were asked. They also needed to polish up on some verses about Eternal Salvation & the principle of "once saved, forever saved," so we found some good verses on that subject, such as John 6:37. Even some of the verses that seem very simple to us, such as Hebrews 13:5 & the surrounding verses, are difficult for Asians to understand. It would probably be helpful to have some Bible studies to review these key verses before going out so the Teens & JETTs are well prepared to explain these verses & answer any questions they're asked. (Editor's note: It might also be good for the Teens & JETTs to be familiar with the appropriate sections in the Word Basics which is a very valuable aid for witnessing.)
Through these witnessing experiences, we realised that we can't take for granted that our children—even our Teens—know how to personal witness. They may be able to pray with someone to receive Jesus, which in many cases is all that's needed. But many of our Teens do not know how to handle a discussion which involves more in-depth questions. It is so good for our Teens & JETTs to learn how to use their Bibles to answer any questions they may encounter. Unless they have been reared in an outreach Home where they go out witnessing frequently, it seems that they know the theory, but they lack practice. For the most part, our young people who are in Schools do seem to need some training to learn how to relate to people & how to answer their questions from the Bible, as well as lead them to the Lord.
It was very moving to see some of our twelve-year-olds personally witnessing & answering the questions of people who are much older than they are. It was like a fulfillment of Daniel 12:3! The Lord is empowering our children with such wisdom & grace that they are able to witness & win people who are much older! This is a tremendous sign of the power of the Holy Ghost with which He is now anointing them & will do even more so as Endtime events unfold. TYJ!
One of the Teens who hadn't been out witnessing in quite a while had lost the vision for souls. He said that he didn't feel witnessing was his "calling." His wrong attitude showed us that if our Teens & JETTs are in situations where they don't have many witnessing opportunities, it is possible for them to lose the vision. Thank the Lord, when this Teen went out he soon got inspired & found out that every one of us is called to be a witness! We now see the importance of constantly impressing upon our young people that whether we're in a ministry where we can go out witnessing daily or not—whatever we're doing—it's all working towards winning souls. If we can't go out ourselves, we're working towards making it possible for others to go out & win souls. Getting out the Message & winning souls is still our main ministry & calling! As Dad so beautifully brought out in "What Did You Do Today to Save a Soul?" (ML#2089, Vol.16)—everything we do must be done with the motivation of leading others to the Lord. TYJ!
Witnessing Tips!
— In order to implement the soul-winning vision, we took teams of Teens & JETTs out on weekend road trips or afternoon witnessing outings to beaches or parks using mainly their Bibles! They had to learn how to approach people, how to start a conversation, & how to witness by giving God's answers from the Bible. It took a real step of faith for the Teens, because when witnessing in this way they couldn't just go up to people & offer them a Poster. They did use the Posters, but only after they had made contact with the person & already begun their witness. It did seem, however, that people were friendlier & more open when using this approach. They weren't so on the defensive or thinking they were expected to buy something. Whenever the Teens showed that they wanted to make friends with the people they approached, they were immediately welcomed. TYJ!
— To help the people we were approaching feel more at ease, sometimes the Teens or JETTS would say, "We're learning the local language. Can we practise with you?" They would then be warmly invited to sit down. Our witnessers would start off with simple, basic questions, which the sheep were happy to answer. Then they would gradually lead into a conversation about Heaven & Salvation. Whenever we approached a group, we always found receptive people every time. The Teens & JETTs did use the Posters, after they'd begun their witness, & sometimes they showed the people the prayer on the Poster so they could follow along as they prayed to receive Jesus.
— We have also been teaching the Teens how to challenge those to whom they witness, to ask them to do something with their lives once they've received Jesus into their hearts. When the Teens shared with people that they needed to read God's Word daily for strength & spiritual life, many of the reactions were: "How can I learn more about this? Where can I get more things to read?" We encouraged the Teens & JETTs to take down addresses in order to be able to do follow-up.
— We found that not only were the Teens unfamiliar with personal witnessing, but we adults were also rusty in using our Bibles! And we soon saw that it was important to have our New Testaments in the local language well-marked. We had a few key verses labelled & highlighted & those verses were an indispensable tool when it came to personal witnessing.—But it would have been helpful if we had had more verses marked. Being that the local language even has a different alphabet, not many of us read it well enough to find the verses we use in witnessing.
— We are realising that Asians are very interested in what the Bible has to say. They have a great respect for it as God's Word. It seems people like to read things that are highlighted. One man, upon reading a verse, noticed that there were other verses highlighted, so he spent the next five minutes flipping through the Bible looking for the next highlighted verse. We didn't even have to say much, as he was excitedly going through the Bible reading all the marked verses himself. TYJ!
— Some of our Teens & JETTs speak a fair amount of the local language, while others are just learning their first phrases. It was really inspiring for the ones who are just learning to use our local language phrase book to witness. This was a real key in their witnessing. We found that using the local language phrase book made it possible to even send out teams who are not fluent in the local language, & they can still do well. One such team won 40 souls! TYJ!
— We found it very important to have good, united prayer before splitting up into witnessing teams. We also learned it's very important to arrange a definite place & time to meet afterwards.
Witnessing Testimonies!
— We encountered many types of people from different backgrounds who asked different questions. Witnessing to some "tough" characters made us get desperate & dig into our Bibles for the answers. Also we met some very receptive people who got saved right away. One team of four Teens & JETTs won 60 souls, ranging from city fathers to young university students to bikers. It was a very exciting & inspiring day. TYJ!
— Witnessing to foreigners is very different from witnessing to Asians who tend to be meeker & more receptive. After praying & carefully choosing, one team did approach a few foreigners. Although most were not so eager to strike up a conversation with us, we did meet some receptive foreigners, such as one young man from New Zealand. He was quite analytical at first, but then turned out to be sincerely searching. We asked him what he felt was missing in his life, to which he responded, "Just about everything!" However, he couldn't quite grasp the concept of simply opening his heart to Jesus as he was a lawyer & quite wise in the ways of this World. Although he wouldn't pray with us right then, we asked if we could pray for him. It really touched his heart when we prayed that the Lord would reveal Himself to him, & help him to know Jesus.
— Learning to communicate with the local people was really exciting for our Teens. One of the Teens, who was still struggling with her first phrases in the local language, prayed that she'd be able to meet someone who spoke English. Towards the end of the day, she met a young Asian man who had been studying abroad & who spoke English well. Due to his father getting paralysed, he had come back to help run the family business. As the only son, he was really feeling the burden of this responsibility. He was quite desperate for guidance, & having studied in a Catholic school he was quite open to hearing about the Lord. He gratefully received Jesus, realising that He was the only One able to give him the strength for such a responsibility. GBH! It was quite thrilling for our young Teen witnesser to see the Lord specifically answer prayer & guide her to this very receptive soul. PTL!
Our witnessing adventures with the Teens & JETTS have been very beautiful times of training—truly proving what Dad has so often said, "This Revolution was born in the fires of a soul-winning explosion!" We're sold on personal witnessing & soul-winning! TYJ!
Copyright 1996 The Family