David Berg
—MOMAY, 1975NO.334B—DFO
—The First Results of "The New Revolution"!
P.O. Box 31 London WC2E 7LX England or GPO Box 3141 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936
Dear Family 'Round the World:
Greetings in Jesus' Precious name! Well, Praise the Lord!
1. THE IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF "THE NEW REVOLUTION" are beginning to trickle in!—And at the rate this stream is growing in only the first month of measurable effects, it already bids fair to roll to a mighty torrent within the next few months to come! Hallelujah!
2. IT ALL STARTED FIRST WITH THE LITERATURE EXPLOSION last year‚ 1974, when our distribution took a phenomenal jump from only 19 million to nearly 55 million in only one year! This is about a 200-percent increase, or about 3 times as much as the previous year of 1973, with the weekly average jumping from 369 thousand in '73 to over a million a week in '74—The Literature Explosion!
3. THIS RESULTED IN A TOTAL WITNESS IN 1974 TO OVER 2 1/2 BILLION SOULS compared to only a little over 1 billion in 1973, or 2 1/2 times as many as in '73! Our media witness also tripled and the number of news items written about us more than doubled so the whole world is talking about us more now than ever! The Jesus Revolution is not over—it's just beginning!
4. THE AVERAGE WEEKLY PERSONAL WITNESS OF EACH OF OUR DISCIPLES also increased from 2,049 to 3,660 souls reached with the message each week by each disciple‚ an increase of over 150% per person, God bless you! Your total literature income for all Colonies was over 5 million dollars, with a total literature expense of over 1 1/2 million dollars, with an average world income of nearly 10 cents per piece of lit.
5. THESE LIT AND LIT INCOME FIGURES ARE EVEN THE MORE PHENOMENAL when you remember that our lit distribution and lit income was virtually non-existent by comparison only three years before! Hallelujah! It's a lit and income explosion, too!
6. HOWEVER, THE NUMBER OF SOULS WON DID NOT KEEP PACE with the growth of our literature witness, growing only from 67,886 in '73 to 71‚401 in '74. Nevertheless, this is a remarkable score of new converts compared to the poor results of most other major Christian groups, including some of the largest in the world who are actually losing members and decreasing in numbers!
7. OUR YEARLY AVERAGE OF 30 NEW CONVERTS PER EACH YEAR OF OUR MEMBERS FOR EACH YEAR IS NOT EQUALLED BY ANY other Christian group in the world!—In fact, none of them even come close to such a record of individual soul winning which has chalked up the amazing total of over a quarter-of–a-million new converts won by our tiny group in just the past three years, a record unequalled by any in proportion to our size!—It's a soul winning explosion, too!
8. OUR NUMBER OF MARRIAGES ALSO LEAPED from only 44 in '73 to 131 in '74 or three times as many, and the number of births nearly doubled, so that we already have over 600 children and are expecting our birth rate to soar to nearly 800 this year!—It's a sex and baby explosion, too!
9. THE NET GAIN IN NEW DISCIPLES OR FULL TIME WORKERS ROSE from 171 in '73 to 478 in '74‚ or 2 1/2 times or more, but we did not feel that this was sufficient compared to the spectacular growth in our literature output and total witness outreach.
10. SO AS EARLY AS THE MIDDLE OF '74 WE BEGAN HAMMERING AWAY ON THOSE HUGE BLOB COLONIES which were absorbing manpower, wasting funds, clogging the streams of progress and robbing new fields of workers. Those anti-blob Letters have already had a tremendous effect even before the beginning of "The New Revolution":
11. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF OUR WORLDWIDE COLONIES SPRANG from a low of 188 to 262, a jump of 74 new Colonies in only 5 months! Hallelujah! It pays to hammer away on those Blobs! This was also accompanied by a resultant growth in our total population of full time workers of 750 new members!—Which shows it pays to break up those Blobs! It pays in new Colonies in new fields reaping new workers! Hallelujah!—It's a Colony and population explosion!
12. WE WERE SO ENCOURAGED WITH THESE RESULTS that we were determined to push the breaking up of these big Blob Colonies even further in order to scatter their manpower into more and smaller new Colonies in more new fields with a greater emphasis on the winning of more new disciples instead of an overemphasis of mere literature distribution and income by some.
13. SO DAWNED THE IDEA OF "THE NEW REVOLUTION" on my birthday in February of this New Year 1975!—A revolutionary new restructuring of leadership and organisation into smaller divisions and smaller Colonies with more leadership and manpower scattered into more new fields by putting more pressure on you to divide those Colonies into new fields and gain more disciples.
14. ALREADY THE RESULTS ARE ROLLING IN!—New Colonies are breaking out all over the place, new fields are being pioneered by the dozens and we are beginning to have a new disciple explosion the repercussions of which will be heard around the world! Our new little Colonies are getting so many new disciples that the big squeeze right now is to find new housing for them all and the additional new Colonies they're creating!
15. THE NEW STATISTICS OF "THE NEW REVOLUTION" ARE NEARLY DRIVING OUR COMPUTER CRAZY so that it can hardly keep up with them all! Everybody's dividing their Colonies like crazy and invading new fields like mad and winning new disciples even faster than in the "good old days"! Because then we were only working in a few cities in one little country.—
16. NOW WE'RE LABOURING AND PIONEERING IN HUNDREDS OF NEW CITIES IN SCORES OF NEW COUNTRIES around the whole on every continent and in nearly 30 languages!—It's a new Colony, new field, new disciple, new revolutionary explosion throughout the whole Earth, Praise God! Thank You Jesus!
17. OF COURSE, AS IN EVERY MAJOR REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE, THE "NEW REVOLUTION" HAS CREATED A FEW NEW PROBLEMS, TOO: Half of us are running around wondering who our new leaders are while the other half are running around trying to find their new followers! All of us are searching like mad for new folds for all the new sheep‚ and new Shepherds are popping up all over!
18. SOME HAVE ALREADY JUMPED SEVERAL GRADES before we even had time to notify them of their first promotion or two, and many a Colony Shepherd of yesterday has already wound up the District and Regional Shepherds of today, including a whole batch of new Bishops, and bid fair to be the Archbishops and Ministers of tomorrow, including a few brand new Prime Ministers which are gonna necessitate the creation of even newer officers above them!—It's a leadership explosion!
19. IN CASE YOU'RE WANDERING AROUND LOST IN THE CONFUSION and wondering where you belong now and who your new Shepherds are, your new folds and your new sheep with all their new names and titles and places‚ we're going to try to stop the music a minute while you try to find a chair in this combination of upsetting the fruit basket and musical chairs!
20. BUT IF BY THE TIME WE'RE FINISHED YOU FIND THAT EVERYBODY ELSE HAS FOUND HIS PLACE BUT YOU, IT MUST BE YOUR TURN TO GO START A NEW COLONY and win some new disciples and start the process all over again!—It's a pioneering explosion!
21. NEVERTHELESS, WE'RE GOING TO TRY TO BRING A LITTLE ORDER OUT OF THE RESULTANT TEMPORARY CHAOS. Some of your leaders couldn't even figure it out and are still saying, "Who am I and what am I and where am I and what am I supposed to be doing and who's supposed to be with me and where are we supposed to be going and when?"
22. SO WE HAVE WRITTEN A NEW SEQUEL SERIES OF LETTERS CALLED THE "NEW DO-IT-YOURSELF REVOLUTION!" called "How To", "More on How To‚" "What To", "When To", "Who To, " etc., describing in detail suggestions on how to handle some of the new problems of the "New Revolution". You should already have received most of them by now. If not, be sure you do before you go crazy trying to figure it all out on your own. Don't get discouraged—the "New R" has even had some of your leaders running around in circles wondering which end is up!—It's an organisation explosion!
23. IT MAY BE QUITE A LITTLE WHILE UNTIL ALL THE CONFUSION DIES DOWN and all the smoke clears away so you can find where all the pieces have landed. But just be patient: It will and they will, and you'll soon know where you're at and where everybody else is too and which direction we're all headed. It's like a battle, and we won't know all the exact results until the battle's over and the dust has settled back down a bit‚ be it diamonds or otherwise!
24. EVEN SOME OF THE PRIME MINISTERS DON'T YET KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING AND HAVEN'T YET SENT ME THEIR REPORTS with the statistics of all their new Colonies, Districts, Regions, Bishoprics‚ etc.‚ much less the names of all their new officers! Some of them are still running around trying to find enough new Shepherds to take care of all the new folds and new sheep in new fields!
25. PRAISE GOD! I'D RATHER DIE FOR SOMETHING LIKE THE "NEW REVOLUTION" THAN TO LIVE FOR NOTHING like the old Blobs!—Wouldn't you?—Amen! At least we're moving and going someplace even if we don't know who or what or where or how! It's a Revolution! It's a New Revolution! It's an Explosion! Amen?
26. SO IN THIS LETTER WE'RE INCLUDING SOME CHARTS of our New Revolutionary organisational structure to try to help you find your way out of the woods! They are based on an original layout made by Deb's own thoughtful co-worker, Isaiah, when they were trying to figure out just exactly what the structure would look like if pictured on paper in‚ a sort of Family-tree form with the actual names of the various divisions, offices and their present leading offices and their present leading officers according to the latest information available.
27. JUSTUS ASHTREE, OUR OWN DEAR EDITOR, HAS MADE US A MAP OF THE WORLD showing the geographical divisions of the various areas involved which we hope to include in this Letter. You've already received our own dear Eman Artist's "Crystal Pyramid" artistic conception of this new building of the Kingdom of God that the Lord is now constructing. So we hope all these may help you find where you're at and which of the walls your living-stone belongs in!
28. RIGHT NOW IT'S A STONE-QUARRY EXPLOSION as we're blowing you out of Blob Mountain to reconstruct you into God's beautiful brand new Crystal Pyramid of His Kingdom on Earth! So just hang on and someone will soon be there to pick you up to put you on a new pioneer wagon to cart you off to some new section to be placed neatly in decency and in order in the nice new row of new living stones to which you belong in His pyramid of love!—Amen?—Hallelujah!
29. BUT HERE ARE A FEW ANSWERS TO A FEW QUESTIONS which have already been recurring frequently in the "New Confusion"‚ which some of you are already beginning to confuse with the "Great Confusion" developing out of our own new "Great Society"—Ha!
30. BUT NEVER FEAR, I COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE EITHER THE ANTICHRIST OR THE FALSE PROPHET even if I do "wear out the saints"!—I have neither a fierce countenance nor two horns nor the voice of a dragon, neither do I disregard the desire of women or care to be worshipped! Actually I'm a very happy fellow, gentle as a lamb, only roar like a lion and only have one horn which makes the women very happy!
31. SO ALTHOUGH OUR GREAT SOCIETY MAY BE IN GREAT CONFUSION FOR THE MOMENT, IT STILL BELONGS TO JESUS and you are building the Kingdom of God and preparing it for His return and rule and reign of Heaven on Earth! Praise God!—It's just that the Great Explosion of this New Revolution is a real mind-blower, too!
32. NEW REPORT FORMS: —Coming soon!—Shorter, easier and simpler and a lot less trouble and less work for the simple–minded like you and me, thanks to all the little leaders who worked it out!
33. NEW COLONY CLASSIFICATIONS: —About a dozen kinds of Colonies will now be listed on the New Report Form, nearly all of whom will receive all the Letters except for Associate and Friendly Colonies who do not conform to the new size and/or disciple requirements: The 12- & 1-a-mo. Rule!
34. ROAD TEAMS, PIONEER COLONIES, CATACOMBS COLONIES, WIDOWS' COLONIES, BABES' COLONIES, CHILDCARE AND SCHOOL COLONIES‚ OFFICE AND PUBLICATIONS COLONIES, all will receive all Letters along with the regular Member Colonies who meet the monthly New Disciple requirements, even though some of them may be a little oversized because of their special cooperative ministry and located all in the same location. But they should still be divided even in the same location or building into separate Colonies of the acceptable 12-or-under size like our old Tribe divisions.—Savvy?—PTL!
35. ALSO REMEMBER THAT CATACOMBS COLONIES COUNT AS REAL COLONIES if they meet together at least once a week for fellowship and are distributing our literature.
36. REMEMBER ALSO THAT BABIES, NEW BORN INFANTS OF THE FLESH, COUNT AS NEW DISCIPLES in which ever Colony they are born‚ for they are most certainly New Disciples and the Lord's own Children of Godly parents "else were they unclean".—1Cor.7:14. Also every child is included as a full fledged Member of your Colony, and therefore your total number of Members includes both adults and children and is subject to the size rule.
37. PIONEER TEAMS SUCH AS ROAD TEAMS AND PIONEERING COLONIES consisting of locally new personnel, pioneering a new Colony on their a own in a new area do not necessarily have to be subject to prior clearance from the officers of the area involved as long as they cooperate with them as regular Member Colonies of the area and are subject to its administration, report faithfully and contribute to its support if possible and work together for the welfare of the whole in accordance with our general rules‚ including the distribution of our literature and the winning of new disciples.
38. WE KNEW THAT THE NEW EMPHASIS ON NEW PIONEER COLONIES in new areas with a greater effort toward winning new disciples with more personal witnessing rather than over-emphasised litnessing would probably temporarily cause some reduction in our overall income of many Colonies. But we were willing to make this sacrifice to obey the Lord in order to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature—Amen?
39. HOWEVER‚ SOME COLONIES HAVE GONE TO THE OPPOSITE EXTREME AND HAVE SO CUT DOWN THEIR QUOTAS THAT THEY ARE FAILING TO SUPPORT THEIR OWN SHEPHERDS as they should! God's Word makes it very clear that "they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel" and you're "not to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn" but you're even to give to your "elders who rule well double honour" or the support of which they're worthy.
40. IN SOME OF OUR MOST RECENT LETTERS WE HAVE TRIED TO EXPLAIN that under the new plan both the Local, District and Regional Shepherds would probably live in their local Colonies, and possibly even some Bishops depending on the size of the area they must supervise, and thereby receive their room and board and other needs in those Colonies where they live.
41. HOWEVER, ON THE ARCHBISHOPRIC OR MINISTRY LEVEL there will probably be a mail-answering Office and Sprintshop from which these officers and staff should receive sufficient income, being further removed and usually separate from the other local Colonies and unable to litness.
42. THE PRIME MINISTERS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SUPPORTED FROM ANY SURPLUS not needed by World Services from your 10% sent in for World Services and our own personal support‚ which would have been possible from the former amount of income.
43. HOWEVER, YOUR GIVING HAS DROPPED OFF NEARLY 50% TO WORLD SERVICES since the beginning of the "New Revolution", and some of you have discontinued entirely the support you used to send to your higher officers. "Beloved, this ought not so to be!" You should have greater appreciation of the sacrificial efforts of those who supervise your work and "must give an account of your souls!"—Please!
44. SOME OF OUR MOST NOTE-WORTHY OFFICERS AND THEIR OFFICES HAVE VIRTUALLY GONE BROKE because of your recent neglect and/or misunderstanding of the New Revolutionary rules of support. Of course, some of the slave-driving type may deserve it and may now have to hit the streets themselves to make a living! But please don't neglect those who are worthy of your support and need it including us!—Thanks!—God bless you! We're expecting better things of you!—We know you won't let us down: Everything must go up in an Explosion!—Amen?—Love, Dad.