July 15, 2003
FSM 359 CM/FM
09/00
Copyright © 2000 by The Family
(Editor’s note: Like Follow-Up Rocks!—Part 1, much of this magazine was compiled from testimonies on follow-up written over the last few years, before the Family embarked on the Activated ministry, which is why they don’t refer to the Activated follow-up program. However, the lessons of follow-up apply whether you’re using the Activated course or not. We hope they’re a blessing to you in your follow-up.)
From Andrew, Hannah and Jemina, Zimbabwe: We decided to start an e-mail ministry, whereby we send our friends and contacts a regular, short feeding via e-mail. The objective is to feed them, and also to establish more regular contact. It has been working well and we have already had some good responses.
One tip is to make sure that the potential recipient knows you well, and welcomes such an approach. We had one man send us an unsubscribe message, as he had forgotten who we were and figured we were sending him unsolicited junk mail and religious adverts.
(Editor’s note: If you send e-mail in bulk, please be sure to include a note at the bottom of your e-mail that says something along the lines of, If you wish to discontinue receiving this regular e-mail, please reply with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Otherwise, if someone who doesn’t want your e-mail gets it by mistake, they can get upset at you for spamming and report you to an anti-spam watchdog group. Including a way for the receipient to unsubscribe make it no longer spam.*)
*spam, verb: To distribute unwanted, unrequested mail widely on the Internet by posting a message to too many recipients or too many newsgroups. The act of distributing such mail, known as spamming, angers most Internet users and has been known to invite retaliation, often in the form of return spamming that can flood and possibly disable the electronic mailbox of the original spammer (From Microsoft Bookshelf 99.)
From John Delight, Indonesia: Faxes seem to have a magic about them, and convey a certain feeling of importance. We have a few very important friends who, though very close to us, cannot be reached directly by phone.—We must go through a secretary. Yet right next to their desk they have a fax line and we can send things straight to them that way.
Our road teams have been having terrific success by sending faxes in advance for hotels and even for restaurants in the cities where our road teams will be landing. One hotel that received our fax even faxed back a reply saying they would be happy to put our team up for a week, and asked us to let them know when we would be arriving so they could pick us up at the airport! We have also tried as often as possible to fax a thank you back.
For our appeal faxes, we try to get the name of the general manager in order to make the fax as personal as possible. (A short call to the hotel in question usually does the trick.) We include a short intro and a paragraph of description about our overall work. One very helpful thing on our faxes is the fact that we have a prestigious address for our company—the business center which we have been renting as a mail, phone and fax receiving service—which is located in one of the best buildings in this city.
From Philip and Meekness, Namibia: When we started sending inspirational faxes to different contacts around town, we saw that it brought great fruit and was an encouragement to many. People who were receiving them started passing them on to others, and soon our fax ministry grew to about 40 people. We are sending compiled stories from the Good Thots, or Treasures articles every week and the number is still growing!
(Editor’s note: Don’t forget to also advertise Activated subscriptions whenever possible—including by fax! You can even fax a story or article from an Activated mag, and then mention that those who are interested in more of the same can subscribe to the Activated magazine.)
From Lynn, USA: I had been praying for mail ministry addresses, people to follow up on and add to my mailing list as possible supporters, and little by little this is happening. It’s cute and interesting to see the way the Lord supplies these addresses.
He gave me one address when I was sorting through some of our old papers to shred. Mixed in with some old stuff that needed shredding were a few pieces of ten-year-old mail! One was a letter from 1987, with the address of some people who had been supporters years ago.
One day, I was walking the dog at a local warehouse. Some old supporters I’d lost contact with are sometimes at the same warehouse, although I hadn’t seen them in more than a year. I had lost their address. Right there on the pavement I found a paper which just happened to have this very couple’s mailing address written on it!
From Ho, Marianne, David, India: For just over a year now we have been sending a simple monthly mailing to all our friends, provisioning contacts, and people who take videos. We call it Lifelines. It has one page of quotations and on the other side of the page is a short article or a poem on a similar topic.
People are so touched by these short, easy-to-read articles on topics that are relevant to them that they circulate them in their office, put them on the bulletin board, and so on. It has helped bring people closer to the Family, and they respect us for the valuable information we are sending them. People who took videos have become monthly pledgers through the mailing, and people have a growing appetite for more spiritually feeding material.
We have now started sending some people an additional page called Treasures, with quotations on different spiritual subjects like faith, prayer, praise, and so on. It is short and easy to read, and includes suggested articles from the Treasures book on the same subject as the quotations. Our goal is to get people reading more on their own. We are very thankful we still have quite a few hundred Treasures books to distribute to all our new friends who are getting a vacuum for the Word.
We have seen the amazing fruit of feeding our friends and supporters more deeply. Our monthly pledgers’ income is growing each month, and people see we are sincere and that we are doing more than just CTP (which many groups do,) but we care for them and the problems they face and how they feel about life. It also makes our witnessing and fundraising so much more rewarding and fulfilling as we see people growing.
(Editor’s note: Thank the Lord you can now sign up your friends and contacts to the Activated magazine so that they can receive a regular feeding mailing each month. Of course, your personal touch and communications with them are still vital, but at least it saves you from having to create your own monthly Word mailing, mail it out, etc.)
From Dawn, Thailand: Several of our long-time supporters come from other countries but live and work in Thailand. We usually would give them follow-up materials to read in English, as they read it well. However, I have tried accessing the GP Family Web site in the language of their country and then downloading something to either print, fax or e-mail to them in their native language. This has touched their hearts. Normally, it would be rather difficult to be able to get such a small amount of material in other languages, so it’s a blessing to be able to utilize these sites—especially for those who are not used to using the Internet themselves, and might never do it on their own.
From Daniel, Elixir and Jotham, Japan: I organized an e-mail mass-mailing sheep-feeding ministry this month. After months of hitchhiking and collecting business cards from the folks who picked me up, I went through all of them and added those people who have an e-mail address to a special address book entitled, Japanese Contacts. Then I downloaded one of the Christmas stories from the Japanese Web site, copied and pasted it into the message box of my e-mail software, added all the addresses into the BCC field* and sent it out. (*BCC field: BCC stands for ‘blind carbon copy’. If you want others to read the e-mail without revealing their addresses to the other To: and CC: recipients, place their addresses in the BCC: field. A Reply All from To: or CC: recipients will not go to those originally in the BCC: field, since BCC’d addresses are hidden from the To: and CC: recipients.)
I wrote in the beginning of the message that I hoped to do this on a regular basis and asked that any folks who did not wish to receive a regular mailing from me, please write back and tell me so. So far not a negative response has returned! Hallelujah! (Of course, in order to do this in Japan, a Japanese version of Windows is a definite must!)
From Renee (FM), Panama: I want to put in a plug for the ECCC (the Executive Counselling Correspondence Course) letters. Maybe some of you remember them from way back, but I still use them and have done so for many years and always get good responses from them.
Since e-mail has made communication so easy, I often write my thank you’s that way. So this month, to several persons who had contributed to our work, I sent an ECCC thank you letter #81, The Magic Mask. (If you don’t know what ECCC letters are, they are a series of already-written, milky form letters with some feeding in them. You just have to personalize them in the best way for the person it’s going to, and then print and mail or e-mail or fax).
So here is my plug for those good old ECCC letters that still work. You may find that someone will help again when you follow up with ECCC letters. ILY!
From Anna, Matthew, Mary Dear, and Renee, India: Over the years we’ve been able to establish many good friends and contacts, who now faithfully support us and enable us to stay on this needy mission field of India. One of the keys we’ve found helpful in feeding and establishing our friends is a regular feeding program through the mail. The one we’ve found successful here in India is the ECCC (Executive Counseling Correspondence Course, also called EC3) letters. They were originated in Japan, and the Bangkok DF Home added to these. We’ve also added new ones ourselves, according to the need. We now have a wealth of subjects contained in these letters to feed the sheep, and all of the material found in these letters is taken from the pubs. They mainly contain short feeding quotes, stories and anecdotes, and seem to be very palatable for the busy executive or company director. We’ve received so many positive reactions to these letters.
When we visit them personally, we feel that we’ve already made headway with our friends, as they’ve been getting a couple of letters a month from us, even if we haven’t been able to see them personally.
You may wonder how to do these letters and where to find the time? If you have even a simple computer, it’s easy to personalize each letter and then print it out as nicely as possible. Our two main outreachers take two days a month each to work on these letters, and they are able to send out from 50 to 100 letters each a month.
(Editor’s note: If you’re interested in seeing the EC3 letters this Home uses and has added to, you can download them from the MO site. Please note that some of these letters have been modified for the Indian people and culture. They haven’t been proofread or updated by WS. A PDF version of the original EC3 letters is also available on the CVC Books CD and will also be posted on the MO site for easy downloading.)
From John, Rose, and Sami, Turkey: We have quite an extensive mailing list of friends and provisioning contacts, but as we don’t have national disciples, it’s not easy to get new materials translated into the local language. So we try to send out a newsletter every few months, rather than EC3s, which would take a lot of work to translate. That way, we just paste on a few pictures, put a few feeding quotes or Reflections stories that we already have translated, and people are so happy to receive it. Just knowing that we are continuing on seems to give our friends hope and faith. One of my friends keeps telling me that my letters and calls arrive just when she needs some encouragement!
From Tim and Claire H., Hungary
We used to live in a fully supported unit, and when the Charter came out we pioneered our own Home. We felt we knew nothing about anything. Things which were totally normal for other Family members, like living by appropriating faith, provisioning and doing outreach, were all very new to us. We were desperate and had to follow the Lord step by step. And He has never failed us; He always pulled us through.
Since neither Claire nor I felt we were good at feeding and taking care of people, we were desperate for a way to minister to people. The Lord showed Claire that we do not have to have the words, since He has already given so much. So Claire started translating the ECCC letters. If people gave us anything—big or small, provisionments or donations—she would put them on our mailing list, and send them personal letters bi-weekly, or at least once a month. The Lord really blessed these efforts.
We found that when we approached those same contacts later, some of them who we had not talked to personally for a year, their spirits were completely changed. Claire would ask on the phone, Do you remember me? And they’d reply, Of course! You are the one who writes me those beautiful letters!
One lady used to help us with eggs. Her company went bankrupt, and after a while we lost contact with her. After about a year, by a miracle Claire was able to get ahold of her new phone number. When the lady heard that it was Claire, she started crying. She said that she kept all the letters Claire had sent during the time we were writing her (the ECCC letters) in a folder, in plastic pages, and every time she got discouraged she took them out to read. She said, If it had not been for those letters I would have probably ended it all, as life seemed so hopeless.
Another time we got a phone call from a man we’d met almost two years before, while singing in a restaurant. He had given us a generous donation, but since then we had not been able to personally get in touch with him. Then out of the blue he called and asked us to come see him at his office. We didn’t know what to expect, but just as we shook hands and greeted each other he pulled out $150, handed it to us, and said, This is just a little token. Do sit down and tell me what can I really help you with. He then promised to help us financially on a regular basis.
We met the daughter of a multi-millionaire who we’ll call M. She was running her father’s business here in Hungary, a Canadian-Hungarian joint venture. When we met M., she was very nice, but bitter against God, saying that she could not believe in a God Who would allow so much pain, suffering and injustice. We were not able to contact her for the next two years as she was either out of the country or the secretaries would refuse to put us through to her. We were considering taking her off our list, as we never heard from her and she was impossible to reach.
Then just a few days ago we got a letter from her. She shared how she had gotten very sick, and the hospital bill consumed all of what she had worked for over the last three years, day and night. Before getting sick, she had not had one free day for three years. Her father would not even let her to go home for Christmas. She used to sleep only three to four hours a night.
She got weaker and weaker. She wanted to see a doctor for over a year, but it never worked out, because of the demands of her father’s business. One day her boyfriend, defying her father’s will, literally dragged her into a hospital. Seeing the state she was in, they kept her there right away. One of her kidneys had stopped functioning completely, and the other one was pretty much gone too. The doctors started filtering her blood right away. In a few weeks she regained strength. She decided to make a complete break with her father’s business, and drop out, so to speak. So she moved to the countryside, left the big bucks behind and married her boyfriend who had been faithfully with her all this time.
M. told us all this, and said that without our letters she would not have had the strength to pull through physically or spiritually. She said that now, after going through all this and seeing her boyfriend’s love (he is a believer), she knows for sure that there is Someone up There Who cares.
So we’ve learned that even when you do not see any results—sometimes even for years—a faithful mail ministry always pays off. Through these letters, the Lord supplied us with our furniture for our Home, our office setup, a TV and a video machine, a 50% discount for a brand-new trailer, and on the list goes. So keep on writing!—The Lord will bless you without fail if you pour out to His sheep.
From Tim, Cheerful, Phoenix, Thailand: We purged our mailing list and categorized everyone into those that we would write (a) monthly and (b) every three months. This cuts down our work and we make sure that we feed most those who want it. We are planning to send a mailing twice a month to the most hungry and receptive.
From Emman and Peace, Madagascar: I was wondering what to do with my hundreds of follow-up addresses collected over the years. (I never throw away an address!) It isn’t worth sending many of them regular newsletters, as they may have moved or their attitude may have changed. I decided to send them a one-time newsletter and pledge form, asking for a response if they are interested. I thought I could do this once a year (before Christmas would be ideal). I just started and have already received a very inspiring response from a doctor we met briefly four years ago, who we had an instant rapport with. He thanked us for the nice Christmas surprise and assured us of his support for our work.
(Editor’s note: This would be a wonderful opportunity to sign someone up for the Activated program!)
From Rose, John, Brandt, and Samara, Turkey: We took time this month to finally organize our follow-up while mailing out our local newsletter. We have a lot of people on the line, because we have a lot of provisioning contacts and friends from road trips who need to be fed via mail, so we try to do a regular newsletter with feeding Word and photos of our recent CTPs.
We divided our contacts into three categories. The first list is saved sheep that need more regular and deeper feeding. The second is for potential sheep, and the third for others who are sheep but not as far along.
We needed to do more to feed our closer friends and saved sheep. So we are taking Treasures classes, DMs, and so on, off the HomeARC and either e-mailing them or delivering the material personally on disk. This has been good, because we don’t have a lot of Christian lit here that we can give out, and doing it via computer seems safer, as it is more personal.
From Patrick, Joab and Christina, USA: We feel that in some ways we are just learning what it takes to reach the American kids. We have been having a pretty open house—meaning we go out witnessing and just invite sheep to visit our home, much like we did in the beginning of the Revolution. It is a risk sometimes, in that we have to be on guard, and it isn’t something that we would think of doing in some other countries, but in this situation (in our work with the street kids) it makes the kids feel at home and loved and cared for. They come over at different times of the day and we feed them and read to them, sit them down to watch Countdown to Armageddon or something like that.
We have a meeting every week where we do a presentation like a Poorboy Club meeting, with songs and skits. We follow pretty much the same pattern we did 25 years ago, and you know what?—It works!
The street kids love it, and are turned on. They participate in our Randy skits. They clap and dance and sing with us. They all pray to receive Jesus, and come back bringing their friends! It is so amazing—we can hardly believe it ourselves! And because we have a more or less open-door policy, they feel they can come over and see us when they have time, or need to talk, or have a question. Thus, we have visitors nearly every day and we are constantly pouring out, and we are bubbly and inspired most of the time too.
In fact, it has grown so much that now we not only have our Bible study, but also a weekly meeting, and now we have added a weekly morning Endtime Bible class. We also have someone available to take care of reading with and feeding the visitors on a daily basis.
From Claire, Steven and Carmen, Russia: While ministering to our friends and provisioning contacts, we realized that just because they are helping us does not mean that they are always well-off themselves. Economically, things are quite tough in Russia for many people, and many of our provisioning contacts are having a very hard time. So lately, we have been sharing our provisioning with some of our contacts, especially those who have children. It is often not much—a bag of cereal, cookies, or flour here and there—but it touches their hearts and helps them to accept us as friends. We are very glad to help them this way, as they appreciate it.
From Anthony, Talitha, Daniel and Cristy, South Africa: One thing we’ve seen since we had Timothy (our little Down syndrome boy, who needed lots of care and hospitalization) is that since we have often asked our friends for prayer and shown ourselves in need—not only with Timmy, but for other things as well—they feel more free to come to us when they need help in prayer.
From Francisco, Margarita, and Esdras, Mexico: We challenged a couple we are ministering to, to win their relatives to the Lord, and they have started to receive a bit of criticism. This has even brought them closer to us as they have more questions and want to be more ready for the battle ahead.
It may be a good idea to challenge all of your friends to win their relatives and friends to Jesus. Tell them that by their next visit you hope to hear some testimonies of their adventures.
From David and Victory, Brazil: Teach others to teach others to teach others.—Old, but great tip! How? Witness to them (individually,) follow-up on them (individually). Teach them, have retreats, videos, and barbecues. Go to the beach with them, to their birthday parties, relatives’ funerals and private family celebrations.
Be with them as much as you can. Teach them to participate in your life by giving and helping around. Give ‘em tracts. Give ‘em tools to witness. Give ‘em tips on how to do it. Be a sample of an instant witness every time you’re with them and they will copy you.
Pray for them constantly. Pray with them constantly. Ask them to pray for you. Become a part of their lives. Be open enough to bring them into yours, and soon they will realize that they have found their place and calling and you have found a brother who was lost out there and have brought him home. And your work will have success. They will do a greater job than you’d ever be able to do yourself, as Dad always said.
(Editor’s note: Read details of the success of David’s follow-up ministry in a soon-coming FSM!)
From Paul, Brazil: I got here to Rio several months ago from a field where we did things the normal way, getting out as many tools as we could, taking care of a few sheep here and there and doing the best we could. After experiencing the revolution that’s going on here in the Homes that have a good follow-up ministry, it seems like we have found a key to success by getting folks to come to classes, participate in the Home’s activities, tithe and feel like they’re part of the Family. We keep them up to date with the New Wine that is appropriate for them, we explain who we are and why we have been persecuted, and it helps strengthen the relationship between them and the Family and it bears fruit that remains!
From Dan, Chris, Joy, Lily, Ukraine: I have a little comment about how to help your sheep feel part of you. We met a couple while distributing videos almost a year ago, and we slowly started following up on them. In time they met all of us and though a couple of people tried to be more constant with them, we all tried to be friendly with them and do the normal hugs and greetings. But even more than that, we all became interested in them, prayed for them, counseled about them and were getting closer to them as friends.
I could see the change and how they have grown in spirit right in front of my eyes. It is now more like a Home project than like a two- to three-people involvement, and it makes them feel a part of us.
From Sara, Romania: When I hear that an acquaintance of one of our friends has died, I write our friend a special letter right away, and send him or her the Glimpses of Heaven booklet. I’ve done this for three friends already, and I’ve seen how much it helps them to focus on the spiritual. It also brings me much closer to the person.
From Rose, John, Brandt, and Samara, Turkey: It’s important to keep in touch with sheep by phone when we can’t see them so often. Recently, I called one friend of mine, and she had the phone number of a girl who is interested in joining us, but was unable to contact us due to some problem with our phone. She’d had this girl’s number for two months. (TTL I was able to call her.)
I had put off calling another friend because I was sick, busy, and so on. When I called, I found out that her boss had been killed in a car accident one month before, and she left the company right after. So I’ve lost touch with her.
Another friend tells people that every time I call, visit, or send her some mail, it’s always just when she needs some encouragement or something special. So Lord help us not to miss His signals and His timing.
From Vicky, Italy: At a meeting with some of our catacombers and live-outs, we discussed how wonderful it would be if we could all spend some time together at a local resort, to help them experience our communal life of faith and reach the area with the Gospel. We prayed and left it in the Lord’s hands. Later, during a road trip, some of our young people provisioned the use of a campground to pitch their tent. The precious young owner got turned on by their sample, giving a large donation and inviting them back anytime they wanted. When we later presented our desire to hold a Youth Camp with our friends, he gladly agreed!
We organized things and invited the live-outs to come for the first week of September. The camp was attended by our whole Home of 10 (and one baby), SGAs Aaron and Marisa, who were visiting from Bosnia, and 14 of our live-outs. We were all very nicely accommodated in four beautiful bungalows, situated five minutes from the beach!
We set up one of the bungalows as a kitchen, and we put three long tables in the garden for meals. The Lord supplied free food for all of us during the camp, including fresh fish that we were able to cook on the camp BBQ. The mornings usually started with inspiration and a feeding Bible class, while the afternoons were for rest and united get-out, and the evening for special activities or witnessing.
For morning classes we covered hot subjects such as What Makes Us Different from Other Christians, David, Our Endtime Prophet, The Law of Love, Loving Jesus, Tithing, and finally we had a heartfelt communion, where many of them wept for joy. They took everything very well and were able to fully understand the Biblical foundation of our most controversial doctrines, so they are well equipped to defend the faith, if necessary.
For evening activities we had a Loving Jesus night at the beach (with songs around the campfire), midnight swimming, and Bible games. Also a Question and Answer night between the live-outs and our Family-born kids. Some of our live-outs had questions about the spiritual depth and conviction of our young people, since they are born in the Family and have always known the Lord. They thought the SGAs couldn’t understand what people out in the world go through. The Lord anointed our kids to speak with boldness about all their own difficulties, crises of faith, and new commitments to serve the Lord. This brought us much closer to each other, and a bridge was built between our live-outs and the second generation young people, and from then on they had much better interaction.
Another beautiful night we all went out witnessing with guitars and tracts, praying right and left with everyone who passed by. We were all so inspired and full of the joy of the Lord, and 61 souls were saved through personal witnessing that night.
As a result, many of our live-outs are now making plans to drop out of the System, come to live closer to our Home, and eventually serve the Lord full time with us. They are now more on fire than ever, and are bringing over all the friends they are witnessing to.—And our Family is enlarging day by day. PTL!
(Editor’s note: Having a Word camp is an excellent activity for bringing your friends and live-outs closer to the Lord, His Word, His ways, and His Family!)
From Miguel, Joan and Clara, Peru: Starting the Basic Course (Love Charter, Appendix F.) for our regular Bible class sheep and live-outs has been terrific! Our live-outs are very inspired by the fact that now they have a much more active role, as they help with the organization, finances, stats and many other aspects of our local church. The other Homes are also getting inspired and starting to bring their sheep as well, which is a blessing because it ensures that they will be well fed, as the course is ready made, so to speak.
From David and Victory, Brazil: We’ve set up a terrific follow-up office with every follow-up tool we can possibly think of, all organized in a way that we have it at hand whenever we need it—including a computer and programs for this ministry. The greatest thing about it is that our live-out disciples will be directly involved in the work in this office, coming on a regular basis to help us with the mail ministry, computer work, printing, stuffing, mailing, and so on.
Also, when these people grow and pass the basics, we start them teaching a course overseen by one of us, but with the physical and organizational work all done by them, like the apostles and the deacons in the Early Church. This next month we’ll start three new Bible classes, where our live-outs will be teaching the new sheep they have met.
From Juan, Eden and Christina, Brazil: We’d been reading the Letters on unity, and we prayed and the Lord showed us to hold a dinner dance with our friends and live-outs. We charged a small fee to cover food expenses, and Ricardo (live-out) came and cooked delicious Italian food. We set everything up like a little restaurant, decorated Italian style, and so on. Then after dinner we all danced to Loving Jesus songs. It was inspiring and fun and we hope to do it more often. It was actually the live-outs’ idea when they came for devotions, and we read the Letter Do the Humble Thing, in which there was the suggestion of having a dance night and dancing with everyone of the opposite sex. It was very sweet and nice.
From Faith, Daniel and Paul, Brazil: We had a Deliverance Retreat with our live-outs which was beautiful. Not only did they get delivered from problems and negative influences in their lives, but they also had a beautiful manifestation of the Holy Spirit. They were receiving prophecy and having visions, some of them for the first time. A Pentecost! Since then, they’ve been more inspired than ever to witness and are bringing in new people. Our next retreat will be all on witnessing and they’re all flipping out about it.
From Fabio, Virginia and Ana, Brazil: When we first opened our Home, our Bible classes didn’t involve very many people. But when we started getting our newfound sheep to participate with skits, and giving them the responsibility of not only being faithful to attend the classes, but to help in putting them together too, we saw it have a big effect. Now, in our interactive classes, our sheep learn and teach at the same time, giving everyone who attends the vision to participate.
From David, Danielle and Maria, Brazil: Our discipleship group is organized in such a way that they carry the responsibility of most of the work our Home accomplishes.
This month they organized between them a new set of Bible teachers, and this group has gotten together and organized a Bible Curriculum to help them to prepare the classes and teach in a uniform way throughout the year.
From Juan, Eden, Chris, KK and Esperanza, Brazil: Our Home has gone through some changes recently, but the Lord has been faithful to guide us step by step and show us what His plans are. Our first big step of faith was when the Lord told us to keep our house. We were about to move because of the high rent—our team had split up, some to open a new Home, and as a result our income was also split. It seemed like we lacked the personnel to care for this big place as well. But the Lord told us He wanted us to use what we had, and promised that He had great things in store for us.
The first thing the Lord showed us was that He wanted to use us! Three out of us five are SGAs. So the Lord showed us to begin a ministry of feeding young people—the children of our live-outs. Some of them had begun going to different churches for feeding because we lacked a program for them. This was a big step for us, because we still had the responsibility of keeping up with the shepherding and care of about 90 live-outs and friends, as well as newcomers.
We started holding meetings for the young people on Saturdays. Sometimes we had the help of teens from other Homes, but that wasn’t always possible, so the Lord showed us to keep it simple and feed the sheep. So these meetings are mostly simple, power-packed, Word-filled Bible study times.
Shortly after we began the program for young people, the Lord said that He wanted to use the space in our house—namely our big living room—for holding weekly fellowships, so all the Bible class members could see each other. (We have five Bible study groups, all held in different places with an average of eight sheep per group.) In these weekly fellowships, we could also invite our friends’ husbands or wives (who don’t participate in the actual classes), new friends, provisioning contacts, and so on.
The Lord showed us He wanted us to make them feel that this is their Home and that we are here to serve them. He also wanted to use this opportunity for the more spiritually mature ones to use their talents—giving classes, leading inspirations, helping in organization or simply pushing the organization through and getting people to come!
Eventually the young people’s program was moved to Sunday, the same day as the weekly fellowship. This also made it easier on the parents who found it difficult to bring their teens one day and then also come the next day for their feeding.
This is how it works: For now there are four meetings on Sunday afternoon (from 5 to 7 pm)—one for adults, one for young people, one for older children, and one for younger children and toddlers. (Sometimes, for lack of personnel to lead the meetings, we combine the older and younger children.) The idea is to have a complete service in each group so everyone can get fed.
Usually the first part of the inspiration is united. The children then leave before the slow songs begin, and the teens leave before the adult service begins. There is about one hour total of songs, which starts punctually, even if there are only two people present, and one hour of study/communion, and so on.
Our live-outs take turns being in charge of the snack, communion, and so on. Some of the live-outs are regular inspirationlists, along with a few of us, and usually one or two of them help with the kids’ groups.
Among our Home members, Juan leads the adult meeting, Chris and KK (SGAs) are with young people, Eden is with older kids (or sometimes the combined older/younger kids,) and Esperanza (17) is with younger kids and toddlers.
The subject of each meeting is decided during the live-outs’ weekly time of study and hearing from the Lord. It’s so inspiring to see the live-outs witnessing to people, praying with them, and so on. They feel so inspired and fulfilled!
The Lord has been helping our live-outs to recognize the Lord’s Spirit in our team. When our Home first divided, some of the live-outs had fears that since we were mostly young people here now (except for Juan, their shepherd) that we were going to take off with the youth program to their neglect. And some of us, like Eden (Juan’s wife) had fears that the older people weren’t going to feel comfortable sharing their hearts with them because of the age difference. But it’s amazing how the Lord is bridging the gap, not only within the Family but also when it has to do with witnessing.
The Lord has given us so much spiritual wealth (specifically talking about young people here) that if we’ll just yield to Him and not worry about what others think of us, even if we’re younger, the Lord will be able to shine through. Since the sheep are the Lord’s, age will not matter at all because we are just tools that the Lord wants to use to show His love through.
Another thing the Lord showed us recently is that He wants us to open our lives more to the sheep (specifically the more mature ones, the live-outs). Also He wanted us to set aside more time to shepherd them and give them personal attention that would take care of their individual needs. So one thing the Lord led us to do was to set aside the mornings only for them. To be more specific, Juan is free from 10 am to 1 pm just to give personal prayer and Word time to whoever wants it. As a result there are visitors over almost every day (except for when they can’t come here, and he has to go to see them), which is good, as it helps us to keep our standard up.
One thing that has been a help for having a presentable, clean Home was to hire a maid. It freed more people to do our main job of witnessing. PTL! Sometimes these personal time visits happen on weekends, when people just want fellowship, so they stay for video night. Or sometimes there are single moms who rarely get Word time, so we offer them an opportunity to come over and we try to help with their kids for a couple of hours so they can read or pray. (We try to give them a partner but it’s not always possible.)
One thing the Lord showed us to do was to have a guest room (simple, with two single beds and a bathroom) so that if things ran too late they could sleep over. In one case, a live-in maid for someone nearby comes over to rest on weekends and sleeps here with her child and helps in the Home. Or in another case, one of our live-outs travels a lot, so in order for his wife and her two small kids to attend the COL (she lives far away) she stays over after COL, so she doesn’t have to drive that long distance at night by herself with the two kids.
This ministry is a lot of fun, but it also is a lot of work. As you can see by a few examples above, we’ve all had to learn to sacrifice sometimes of things that are dear to us (like free nights) to go visit someone and pray with them, or W&Rs are sometimes interrupted when someone didn’t make it to their regular class, so they want to come over later for some Word, and so on. But it’s very rewarding because you get that feeling that you’re being useful in the Lord’s service, and the sheep are so grateful.
Now, by sharing these testimonies, in no way do we want to receive glory for these things or to boast about ourselves because we are just regular people (you know, with lots of NWOs), and there are always areas that we’re working on as a Home. One recent thing we’re learning is that we can’t excuse little disobediences or think we can get away with things, thinking the Lord will excuse us because of our good works.—They’re two separate things. The Lord gets all the credit for anything good and we get all the blame for anything bad. We’ll never be the shepherds He wants us to be if we preach something like minimizing ungodly influence (and we do give classes about this) and the next minute we’re laughing at some stupid, unedifying TV program. If we want our sheep to do something, first we must do it ourselves.
You’re probably wondering, How do they survive financially? Well, we have people who tithe to us, others that help with a monthly gift (either financial or some other need, like meat); we try to provision as much as possible, and we do CDing, videoing (with appointments) and postering as much as possible. Still we come up a bit short, so one of our SGAs gives part-time English classes (which hopefully will end soon when the COL gets rolling and we receive more tithes and gifts).
We would love to make faith trips, but we can’t. If we did, everything would stop. We have to stick to our area. Oh, we also do night singing and busking on weekends.
We hope these testimonies have been a blessing and have been encouraging and helpful. Please keep us in your prayers! We love you!
(Editor’s note: Don’t get scared off by the thought of holding Bible classes and various meetings for your sheep of all ages. Start small! Invite one person over at a time, or meet your sheep at their house while you get more comfortable with giving classes. If you’re stuck for classes, the Activated mags provide a solid foundation for several classes. You can supplement them with stories from the Good Thots, Treasures, and other GP/DFO pubs. Some sheep have enjoyed subscribing to the Activated magazines, and then reading through the magazines with Family members, as a class. The material is already prepared for you. Try it! They’ll love it!)
From Suzana and Mariana, Brazil: A Babes Ranch was held recently in São Paulo, organized by Tommy and crew and assisted by some others, including Juan, David and Mathias. Two of our new disciples, Daniel (21), and Gigi (23), got to go along with Maria (16) and David. After an inspiring, full of fire and re-envisioning Babes Ranch, all they wanted to do was go out there loving, witnessing and doing the best they could to win this world to the Lord, no matter what came their way!
As they were on their way back, the car suddenly broke down. It was dead! They were stuck in the middle of São José dos Campos, hungry, tired and with no money or place to go! In that dark hour of the night (it was quite late then), they went to provision dinner and look for a place to fix the car, and also a place to sleep. They found a small fast food place to eat at and then went hotel to hotel trying to find a place to lay their weary heads.
All the hotels were full except for one, which said they would only be able to give a discount. They agreed to stay for the night. To make a LONG story short, the next day they started witnessing to the owner of this hotel. At first he said he was an atheist, but that after seeing the sample of love, conviction and happiness of Daniel, Gigi and Maria, he finally not only accepted the Lord into his heart and life but was totally flipped out at the coincidence that the Lord had their car break down that night, and that they ended up at his place, just to save his soul!
Just that night he had gone to his room and desperately asked himself what was the meaning of life, what are we here for and what is the use. He prayed that if there was a God, to show him. He is a highly educated man, who has studied the great philosophers and their theories. He was very closed at first, thinking he knew it all and that surely these simple people, who begged him to stay at his hotel, couldn’t know more than him! But it was their simplicity that won him over.—He couldn’t believe it himself! He was crying—both for happiness to have found his Savior and sadness that he hadn’t given in sooner.
So the Lord gave our team the theory and the anointing, and then gave them a practical life experience of how to be a missionary! Daniel, Gigi, Maria and David are all totally convinced that it was the Lord who let their car break down in the middle of the night in a city where all the hotels were full so that they could find one man, change his life and give him a reason to live.
These new disciples are exploding with the fire that the Lord and Dad gave us with the Letters and that Mama and Peter left with us in the new vision for Latin America. Thank God for His explosions that keep us alive!
From Robin VS, while on a trip to Honduras: Besides the weekly classes that we have been having every Saturday afternoon, we have started taking the catacombers personal witnessing with us every Friday night. Last week we did the Dr. Chainbuster skit and sang some songs in one of the plazas where young people hang out. A crowd of young people sat down in front of us as we began to sing the first song, and before long many more gathered around. After praying with everyone to receive Jesus, we explained a bit about who we are and what we do. We then opened the floor for questions and one 17-year-old girl asked, Where do you meet? About 10 of them are interested in receiving Bible classes, so it’s possible that our catacomb ministry will grow!
Enrico (16), who has been faithfully attending our catacomb classes every week now for two months, said he couldn’t put into words what he felt after witnessing with us for the first time. He said, I know I didn’t do much, but just watching and seeing the people’s responses was amazing! We encouraged him that just having him there with us was a super inspiration. I then shared with him a personal testimony of when I was 16 and I went on a road trip to Buenos Aires with a singing group. The purpose of this trip was to visit the high schools and give talks against drugs.
First of all, I was no singer and could barely speak any Spanish, and I looked like a complete clown next to the two other girls while doing the dance motions to the songs. I told him that I felt like I was of no use to the team, but when we started singing songs like Ain’t It Good to Know and looking into these young people’s eyes, I saw that many of the students were in tears, and I realized the power of the Lord’s love. Many of them later came to us saying, We’ve received so many talks against drugs, but you’re the first ones who we felt actually cared about us. Once we had finished, I found myself surrounded by students asking me questions in Spanish. At that time I only knew the salvation prayer in Spanish and John 3:16, so I shared those with them.
I told Enrico that I was encouraged to see that it doesn’t matter what gifts and talents we have; the Lord just needs willing hearts who will let Him use them. He then prayed with tears in his eyes, Thank You Jesus that I can be of use to You!
The Lord also inspired us with the idea of inviting the catacombers to come on Sundays for united get-out, and our family fellowship meeting. This has been a lot of fun and has helped us to get closer to them.
Something else that the catacombers helped with was a free Valentine’s Day meal we organized for the poor downtown. There were over 15 catacombers and friends—as many as there were of us! It was touching to see how eager they were to help, and we wouldn’t have been able to pull off this meal without their help.
From John and team, New Delhi: I’d like to share how the Lord brought about a fruitful youth ministry in our city. When we first arrived, most of the Homes’ ministries centered around fundraising, provisioning, and winning kings and friends from the older, more influential strata of society. These ministries usually require a long, tested understanding of field conditions, as well as a fair amount of experience. Teens are therefore not usually called upon for these ministries, or if they are, it’s more as a partner-in-training.
In our city, however, there were a fair number of young people who felt unchallenged in these existing ministries, as they lacked opportunity to pour out, especially to others of their own age.
We started filling our Jeep with young people from a few of the Homes nearby and simply going out in the evening to places where young people hang out. The witnessing was very good, and there were no difficulties finding people who were interested in us and our message. From each outing, about twice a week, we garnered a fair number of addresses of people who wanted to see us again and learn more from us.
To answer the immediate need, one of the girls, Armi, began doing a little mail follow-up. She would send a note to everyone with whom we had shared a deeper witness, explaining that we’d like to meet him or her again and enclosing some more lit to read. We got some beautiful responses, and we soon realized that in order to go further with these we needed to start some kind of follow-up meeting.
Recently we had our first meeting. We didn’t know if anyone would turn up or what would happen, and we were super inspired to see the good crowd of very hungry sheep. Although it was our first meeting, it went very well and we definitely have the potential for new laborers amongst our first little flock. Since the meeting we’ve had more personal and mail follow-up, and the sheep are getting closer and growing. The ball is now rolling and we just need to keep it going. DV, we would now like to have our club meetings every week, but we need a more permanent place to hold them, for free or very cheaply. Please pray for this.
All involved feel inspired by the results and the potential, and no longer feel unneeded.
From Peter, Suzana, Mariana, André and Maria, Brazil: Participation in follow-up meetings and Bible classes has done a world of good for our children and young people, as they see miracles in front of their very eyes and transformations in people that they know only Jesus could change, and it is turning them on to the Family and God’s work! Our Home is quite a humble little thing, and we have lots of problems, but it is inspiring what the Lord does in spite of all that!
From Philip and Meekness, Namibia: When the Lord provided a computer with a CD-ROM drive, we discovered we could use the HomeARC for outreach! We got the idea of starting a CBSC (Correspondent Bible Study Course), as we call it, here on our mission field! We made a tract for mass distribution to advertise the course, and found a sponsor who paid for the printing of 10,000 of them, and off we went!
We started work on our first class, Salvation, using the Word Basics as a basis, but adding Treasures articles, Good Thots stories, and other appropriate GP lit to make it more interesting and feeding. We are thinking of making 10 to 15 classes on different subjects, depending on the response. The course itself would take around one year; then we were thinking about some sort of diploma for those who finish the course. In the meantime we will follow-up on the participants and do seminars for the most sheepy, or keep writing and regularly following-up on them.
(Editor’s note: See GN 895—The Action Series!—Part 1, ML# 3298:136—a series of basic and discipleship follow-up courses with classes and teacher’s aids is in in the works. Please pray for its soon completion!)
From Paul, of Maria, Nigeria: Being on an English-speaking field, we’re able to use the HomeARC to print any Word we need, tailor-made to each individual’s needs. We create little booklets and freely pass on the Word to all the hungry sheep.
For example, one of our friends—the manager of a company—goes to a course on management every night after work. We were able to give him some things we have on the subject, which he was very thankful for. Another friend is very interested in the Mark of the Beast, so we printed the articles, Racing Towards the Mark and Grey Men Tape, in booklet form for him.
We are writing a monthly newsletter which we pass around to all our friends and contacts, and they are thankful for it. We also have a lot of sheep on the line who we are feeding through the mail. They especially like controversial subjects of Bible doctrine, so last month we sent them Heaven, Hell and In-Between, as well as The Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The last one directly deals with Salvation, and our friends have quite a few wrong doctrines on it, which we are trying to set straight.
From Chris, Tabitha, Noah, Taiwan: I’ve been realizing how important it is to always have photos with me when going on follow-up. Our friends and contacts are always asking about our recent activities, and it makes a big difference to show them the proof of the pudding!
From Andrew, Miracle, Lance and Crystal, Bosnia: We’ve started marking key verses in our Bosnian New Testaments, and giving them to our sheep. They treasure them!
From Gideon, Heidi and Mary, Pakistan: A friend recently gave us his mobile phone, as he was buying a new one. At first we were a bit hesitant to use it, as these phones can be a bit costly. But it has been a tremendous tool to help us in our outreach, and has been worth much more—in terms of making our outreach and follow-up more effective—than it costs. Having the phone with us when we are out allows us to instantly be in touch with home base, where someone is phoning and setting up appointments for us. We can also verify appointments before we arrive at them, saving precious time and expense, if the person is not there.
In other instances, having the phone has been the key in contacting people who have pledged to help with either goods or finances, but have been very hard to reach. Like a computer, this new tool helps us bring our ranching up to date, and we find if we are careful we can keep its cost to a minimum. Thus far, our average monthly bill is approximately $75.
From Chris, Tabitha and Noah, Taiwan: Remembering to ask the people you’re following up on what they thought of the literature you previously gave them is very important. It shows them that you’re concerned about the feeding they get, and that these papers can help them. It’s a chance to see if they’re reading them, and if they have any questions you can answer them. Of course, this also means you have to keep a good record of what you gave them, and refer to it before your visit!
From Gideon and Lamb, Norway: This month I began doing interviews with some of our more prominent contacts—mostly those who have built up a successful company or business from scratch, or are leaders in their fields. The initial purpose of these interviews was to gain any insight into business that I could pass on to future students of English classes. (In the past, I have taught English to foreign businessmen for visas or support, and I am praying about doing this once in Russia.)
I found this to be a very good way to get closer to many of these men, who all seemed flattered to be interviewed. Many of them are very successful, but are starved for honest appreciation. I have known some of them for over four years, and although they have been faithful to help the work, they have seldom had time to spare, which made it difficult for us to feed them. These interviews have turned out to be a key to getting close and personal.
I mentioned the idea of an interview some weeks—or in some cases months—in advance. About a week before the actual date, I sent them a copy of the list of questions I wanted to ask them. It usually took from a half-hour to 45 minutes for each interview. I would arrive at least 10 minutes early after calling in the morning or during the previous day to confirm our appointment. I came with a small tape recorder, a clipboard and two additional copies of the questionnaire (one for myself and another for them in case they had lost theirs), and a camera.
During the interview I never mentioned anything other than the interview. In other words, I was interested in them and what they could share from their personal experience. I was careful not to make it seem as if this was just a ploy to ask them for help, however, after the interview they often asked if there was something they could do to help the work. So it was good to be prepared to have something in mind that they could do, without making it seem like a set-up.
It was touching to see these men in another light. Most of them had to overcome great difficulty to get to the top, and getting to know the man behind the uniform makes you have a lot more compassion for each one as a truly needy person. At the same time I have gotten gems of insight from these men’s personal experiences.
It might not be for everyone, but for those working in provisioning or PR it could be a good way to get to know your contacts and develop a better relationship with them. I have included a copy of the questionnaire, as well as a cover letter.
Sample questionnaire
7) What do you feel are the most important qualities needed to succeed in your line of work?
8) At what level of importance would you consider the ability to work with people? Why?
9) Do you encounter any difficult types of personalities in your work, either in customer relations or with employees?
10) How do you handle job-related stress?
11) At what point do you decide that the work stops and your personal life begins?
12) Do you discuss your goals together with your family or partners? How do you resolve differences?
13) Do you feel obligated to do extra, or more than others, in order to get ahead? How does this affect your family/personal life?
14) If you were to start your business all over from the very beginning, what would you do differently?
15) If you knew earlier in your career what you know now, what would you do differently?
16) Have you ever benefited in the long-term from what seemed like a disaster at the time? Please explain.
17) Have you ever experienced a dramatic turning point in your career? Please explain.
18) At what point would you advise someone to change careers?
19) Do you consider your field of work to be one of opportunity today? What advice would you give to those considering entering the job market now?
20) What are the pitfalls to be aware of?
21) How do you handle the competition?
22) Do you find any market strategies particularly helpful, such as advertising, trade fairs, salesmen, and so on?
23) Do you have any particular personal business policy such as, The customer is always right, service, quality, and so on?
24) How important is:
25) How do you delegate responsibility in your business?
26) How are employees’ suggestions, new ideas, and innovations discussed and acted upon?
27) Do you have any special way of meeting with employees on an ongoing basis to discuss work-related matters?
28) Are there any questions you feel should be asked which are not in this questionnaire?
29) Anything further you would like to comment on?
Sample request letter
Thank you for taking the time to consider the interview. Enclosed is a list of questions I would ask you to look over. You don’t have to answer all of the questions. Some may not apply to your field of experience; others may not be relevant. On the other hand, you may have comments or suggestions you wish to include.
These interviews are being conducted with a broad cross-section of businessmen and women from various backgrounds and levels of experience. The purpose is to gather from them the wealth of knowledge that cannot be had from textbooks, but rather from personal, firsthand experience. This material will then be used in classes or informal talks.
The people these classes and talks are aimed at are between 22 and 35 years of age. They are mainly employed as mid-level or junior executives for Western businesses in Russia and the CIS. They are generally well educated but inexperienced in the ways of a free market system.
The two areas I am most interested in are interpersonal relationships in business, such as how to resolve difficulties that arise, and how to best learn from setbacks.
You will note that many of the questions are of a personal nature. This is because we are looking for real-life experiences that helped to shape you and the way you subsequently approach different situations. I suppose it can best be summed up by the adage, A wise man learns from his experience, but a wiser man learns from another man’s experience. It has also been said that Experience is what we get when we didn’t get what we wanted.
Please take a few minutes to look at the questions over the next few days, and think about those things you wish you had had someone tell you. Please don’t be afraid to be personal. Unless you state otherwise, your name and position will be kept confidential, although personal stories are always more effective when your listener can relate to you.
I will call to confirm a set time when we can sit down together. The usual time to conduct an interview is 20-30 minutes. I will record the conversation, so you can feel free to simply let it roll and speak freely.
From Ben and Priscilla Hope, Brazil: Our weekly English conversation club has proven to be good bait for winning new friends. Some friends find it easier initially to come to an English class than to a Bible class, but once they come, they see that it’s nothing like a church so they get turned on.
In the first part of the class, our OCs perform skits from the MO Letters. They lead everyone in fun games, show the English flash cards, and teach our Family ABC song. Everybody likes it! The second half of our class is taught by Clay, who makes learning so much fun. Often we use Superworkbook pages, working in groups, and then we assign people with one page to do for homework.
From Hosanna, MaryAnn, Andrew, Timothy and Beth, India: We are desperate to faithfully feed people more deeply! We don’t want people to just think of us as those nice Christian people who help others. We want to change people’s lives with the truth of Jesus!
The Lord showed us to get back to the Bible, so we started giving more good ol’ Bible classes to our friends. At present, Bob—a 19-year-old who the teens met on the soccer field—is coming over for classes twice a week, and is growing and getting excited about what he is learning. We also give classes to Poornima (a live-out disciple), and her mother and brother.
It is inspiring to see how much people change as they come to have faith in the Bible. We prayed with a lonely young Muslim lady last Christmas, and she came to know Jesus more through some Christian friends. When we got back in touch with her, she was so hungry to know more about Jesus, and no one else was feeding her. She was pregnant at the time, so MaryAnn taught her breathing techniques and helped coach her through her pregnancy. Now we are giving her weekly Bible classes, and she has started telling her other friends about the Lord, and wants them to come to the classes also.
From Peter Livingstone, Indonesia: Two new people we met this month asked if they could regularly support our work. When people ask how they can be a part of our work, we give them the opportunity to be support members. We explain that we are full-time workers, and then there are part-time workers who help us with our CTPs, and then there are support members. So far we have received good responses to this.
From Dave, Ana and Samuel, Colombia: We had a candlelight service with our closest friends, who were so touched that they asked us to repeat it for their relatives who they had witnessed to. So we ended up having a second meeting! Everyone poured out their hearts to the Lord in such an honest way and manifested a great desire to draw closer to Him, His Word and come closer to His work. They also manifested their great thankfulness to the Lord for having met the Family, saying it had been a big blessing in their lives.
From Fabio, Virginia and Ana, Brazil: We’ve suggested that the sheep who desire more shepherding commit themselves to do more for the Lord’s work and learn more about the Word and the spiritual principles that Dad has laid out so nicely in the Letters. The course for this lasts three months, and includes salvation, Holy Spirit, prayer, the Word, prophecy, praise and intimacy with Jesus.
Every 15 days, there is an evaluation, and combining scores and other issues, we evaluate whether they can become an outside witnesser. Once they have become one, they begin their discipleship course, which requires dedication to a much greater degree. What we’ve seen is that by the end of the pre-discipleship course, most of them want to get more involved, and it serves as a gauge to help us define where we should concentrate our efforts.
From Peter, Suzana, Mariana, Andre and Maria, Brazil: Our outside members sometimes organize barbecues to help raise support for our Home. They take care of everything.—They make the food; take care of the music and finances; they witness and make sure everyone has a wonderful time. God bless them!
From Elisabeth, Middle East: At one of the Heart to Heart concerts in the Middle East this year, a press photographer approached me, as he recognized me from the year before. I promised to visit him in the future, but failed to ask him which reporter he was with and so failed to make direct contact with the reporter that evening. A day or two later, his newspaper published a good article, with a photo of the Heart to Heart show, but the last paragraph contained a slight criticism of our style and choice of songs.
Up till then, all other press reports had been extremely positive, as we had been faithful to offer most reporters an information package of our volunteer programs in the Middle East. So it was a good lesson for me on being on the attack when it comes to sharing the good news with all—particularly with members of the press who may be about to write about us!
A few days later, I saw the photographer at his office and offered him copies of our information package for the different reporters he works with. Within a few days, another article appeared in the same paper, mainly covering our face-painting activities for children. This time it included facts from our information package and was one-hundred-percent positive! PTL!
In the past, we have received encouraging comments and thanks from the press, as they say that no other group at a festival we attended had done this for them, and it helps make their job of reporting easier. So even though it involves a bit of preparation and planning, it has proven worthwhile to have media packages on hand to offer an answer to him who may ask, or who may need it for publication.
Get Activated in SEVEN easy steps!
1. Always carry plenty of Activated address/subscription cards with you wherever you go! That way, while you’re out and about your business of being an instant witness, you can be an instant faithful follow-upper too! (Order free subscription cards from your Activated desk.)
2. Order free copies of Activated issue #1 from your Activated desk, and take those out with you when witnessing! (These free copies of issue #1 are to be given to those whose addresses you collect, or who you sell subscriptions to. You can also order Activated magazines to sell, which you would pay seedcorn for.)
3. Whenever you witness to someone or sell them a tool, offer them the chance to get your terrific monthly magazine—Activated! By signing up for a year’s subscription, they’ll get three free magazines—or 15 for the price of 12.
If the person doesn’t want to subscribe right then, but has gotten saved with you, you can offer them three free magazines with no cost or obligation, letting them know they can subscribe later if they wish.
4. Whether they’re subscribing or just applying for the three free mags (if they got saved), have them fill out the address/subscription card you’re carrying with you.
5. If they decide to subscribe, they can choose whether to pay the fee on the spot or get billed by the Activated desk later. (The bill me later option is not offered by some Activated desks. )
6. Give the person whose address or subscription you collected a copy of Activated issue #1 on the spot for their first feeding, if you wish! (Be sure to tick the box on the address/subscription card indicating that you have given them issue #1, so that the desk doesn’t send them that same issue again.)
7. Send the address/subscription card to your Activated desk along with the fee you’ve collected, and you can rest in peace, knowing that you’ve done your part, and your little sheep is going to be well fed!
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