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OUR PRE-ATTACK PLAN! <br> <br> <br>GN 1177 FD/MM/FM <br> <br>By Peter 3600 6/06 <br> <br>Cover quote: I am training you to become a lean, mean spiritual fighting machine.—One body bearing down on the spiritual strongholds of your Adversary! <br> <br> <br>Dear Family, <br> <br>1. Mama and I are so proud of you! We're proud of you for how you love the Lord, for how dedicated to His service you are. We're proud of you for growing, changing, fighting and progressing. We're proud of you for striving to become winning teams, for getting stronger in spirit both personally and as a Home. We're proud of you because you are what makes the Family great. It's an honor to serve the Lord with you! <br> <br>2. These last two and a half years have been difficult years for all of us. In late 2003 we faced a crisis: The Family was in a desperate state. Our future as the Lord's Endtime army was in jeopardy. We had allowed the Enemy to overrun our ranks. Compromise had taken hold. We were operating in defeat mode and were on the defensive spiritually. Our Husband told us that if the Family didn't drastically change, He would have to raise up others to take our place. We were facing defeat at the hands of our Enemy. <br> <br>3. At a Summit meeting held at that time, the Lord led us to enact a number of major changes throughout the Family, giving us a timeline of when and how to bring about these changes. As a result, the Missionary member category was initiated‚ the minimum Home size was increased, and Home accountability was introduced. The board criteria and Home reviews were created and instituted. At the beginning of 2005 the VS program, which had become ineffective, ended; the coach program was established and a new Home governance program—the Steering Council—was implemented, which provided an avenue for greater emphasis on spiritual shepherding. <br> <br>4. To bring about these monumental changes required the combined effort of every Family member, as well as leadership at every level. Not only were monumental changes enacted, but the Lord asked us to take on new mindsets that would strengthen and prepare us for the future. A colossal amount of effort, work‚ desperation, time, resources and prayer has gone into the Family's restructuring! <br> <br>5. Fighting for our survival has required a great deal from each of us—our time, our prayers‚ our resources‚ our spiritual, physical and mental energy, day in and day out‚ for the past two and a half years. It has taken the joint effort of every one of us to save the Family. Each of us has played an important role in the Family's survival and each of us shares in its success.—And successful it has been. Thanks to our wonderful Husband, the Family of today is much different than the weakened Family of 2003. <br> <br>6. We may not have won the war yet, but we have won major battles that have turned the tide of the war, taking us from an almost defeated and routed army to the position of stopping the Enemy's attacks, strengthening our Family Homes, and setting up a structure whereby individual members can, and are‚ gaining new ground in the spirit. We haven't set the Enemy completely back on his heels, but we are no longer capitulating to him and his tactics. Significant progress has been made, and over the last years, the Family has been changed, renewed and strengthened. <br> <br>7. For an army that was in the extremely weakened state we were in, to have not been totally defeated and overrun, but on the contrary, to have won a number of major battles‚ is an outstanding victory! All glory and credit to our wonderful Commander in Chief, Jesus! We can only praise and thank Him for giving us the instructions, the vision, the courage and the faith to fight through to victory. And we thank you for the role each of you has played in helping to change and strengthen the Family! <br> <br>8. While there have been numerous battles, tests, difficulties and obstacles to overcome—including sustaining and repelling a major assault of the Enemy against us in early 2005 with the deaths of Ricky and Angela and the media war that followed—we can now look back on these last two and a half years with joy and praise, even satisfaction, at having accomplished the mission the Lord gave us and that we set out to do. Our collective efforts have brought about a tremendous victory! <br> <br>9. Mama and I are very happy with the progress that has been made. Although we must continue to progress, to consolidate our gains, and while there are more battles to fight, and advancement needed on a number of fronts, we feel that, overall, the restructuring effort has been a success. The Lord has confirmed to us that it has accomplished its purpose in making the Family spiritually stronger.—And though there is more to do and our spiritual strengthening is not yet complete, what Mama and I are most thankful for is the Lord's assurance that we‚ as a Family, have held onto our place as His Endtime Bride and army. This is something worth celebrating! This is a major victory! <br> <br>Are we still in wartime? <br> <br>10. Some of you have asked, "Are we still in 'wartime?'" The answer is an unequivocal "yes." As disciples, as "good soldiers of Jesus Christ" (2Tim.2:3), we have signed up for the duration, which is for the rest of our lives. Our Enemy will never give up and neither will we. It is our belief, however, that the tide of the war has changed, that from here on we will no longer be on the defensive. When we were at the edge of defeat we had to use every means possible to survive, which meant dealing with emergency after emergency; basically everything was timely and urgent, for if it wasn't done immediately, we might lose the fight. However, there's a huge difference between being the defeated army of yesterday that was losing ground day by day, and the army of today that has halted the attacks of the Enemy, has regained ground, and is preparing to launch a winning counterattack. <br> <br>11. This fight isn't completely over‚ but we're no longer a retreating army under the onslaught of the Enemy's attacking force. From Mama's and my perspective, we have stopped the Enemy cold in his tracks when it comes to the problems we were facing before. We've rallied our forces, and the Family is now in the position to move from fighting for survival to the point where we can prepare for and eventually launch the offensive attack on the Enemy's strongholds. <br> <br>12. The face of the fight should radically change, because we'll be the ones on the attack. We'll be fighting from a position of strength, on our timetable, attacking when we're ready. We'll be the ones bearing down on Satan, routing him from his strongholds. We'll have the attacking advantage. The type of battles we'll be engaged in won't be ones where we're fighting for our spiritual survival, or to preserve the standard of Family discipleship. We'll be fighting proactive battles that will hurt the Enemy and overrun his territory, as we win the lost, as we raise up strong disciples, both from within our ranks and from the new members who are won. Our warfare will be proactive and offensive instead of reactive and defensive, and this change will make the tone of the war entirely different, because there's nothing like fighting and winning. <br> <br>13. However, we're not quite ready for this offensive attack today. We've stopped the Enemy in his tracks, we've gotten stronger, we have won major victories, we have made tremendous headway, but the Family is still transitioning to the future. While we've made changes and have started to get stronger, the changes aren't yet firmly rooted. There hasn't yet been enough strengthening, training, and preparation for the type of attacks and battles that we'll need to launch and to win in the future. <br> <br>14. Mama and I feel that we are in need of continued training and strengthening in order to ensure that when we launch our offensive, we will be ready to win it. Tremendous progress has been made in the strengthening of the Homes; you are becoming winning teams, but more time is needed to become the proficient, well-trained warriors needed to fight and win the offensive war which the Lord wants us to launch. He showed us that continued training and strengthening is needed until somewhere in the latter part of 2007‚ about 18 months from now. <br> <br>15. It's vital that we focus on consolidating the gains we've fought so hard to win. The Family is still adjusting to the changes which have been enacted. Homes are still working on making their Steering Councils work, on having more consistent spiritual shepherding, on properly managing their Homes. Homes are becoming winning teams, working to find needed personnel, and striving to pass Home reviews by improving in the criteria of all the boards, but we're not there yet. We're working toward it‚ and we've made wonderful progress, but we're not there yet, so trying to launch an offensive attack now‚ trying to rally everyone to another vision right now or in the very near future‚ would be premature. <br> <br>16. You need time to become the finely tuned winning teams you want to be. You need time to work out the kinks in the governance of your Home. The Family needs time for further strengthening in the board criteria. The Family needs time to adjust to the revolution we have just been through. Asking you to immediately focus your main attention on a new push would be counterproductive. <br> <br>17. We all want to get out there and win, we want to get the Enemy on the run, and most of us want to do it right now! But when we launch the attack, we have to be fully prepared to go the distance and win. We have to be ready for it in every way. We're not at that stage quite yet. All of us are going to continue to need patience and faith—patience to take the needed time to get stronger, to become winning teams, and faith to trust the Lord that as we take this time, He will fully prepare each of us, as well as the Family as a whole, for all He has ahead for us. <br> <br>18. The time is going to come when the overall focus of the Family is going to change. These past few years, the major overall Family focus has had to be internal.—Not completely, of course, but for the most part. We had to work hard to keep the Family from failing. We've had to focus on defeating compromise, on getting stronger spiritually‚ on helping our FD Homes to reach the discipleship standard. It was absolutely necessary to do this‚ for if we hadn't, we would have lost our place in the Lord's plan. We've all worked hard at this and great progress has been made. <br> <br>19. But in the not-too-distant future, the overall Family focus is going to shift. We will be putting much greater emphasis on the main job the Family has: reaching the lost, winning and training converts, and making disciples of them. We will continue to give attention to all the vital aspects of Family life—our children's care and education, the needs of our JETTs and teens, shepherding our Homes, etc.—but we'll be putting much more emphasis on reaching the world and making disciples of all nations than we have in recent years. And we'll be able to do this because we will be spending the next 18 months focusing on strengthening our Homes in all of the pillars. <br> <br>20. To be successful in this outward, offensive thrust, our Homes have to be stable. When your Home has 50 or 100 or even 200 General, Active and attached Missionary members to minister to, to train to be witnesses, to counsel and to teach, that's not the time to be figuring out how to properly shepherd your JETTs and teens, or how to have a stable Home. You need to work on those things now. The time to make your Home a discipleship Home is now, because once we move to the offensive in this war, every member of your winning team is going to need to know their job and be able to do it well. <br> <br>21. Things are going to change and the Lord is giving us time right now to prepare ourselves for that change. The way to prepare is to get stronger spiritually as an individual disciple, and by strengthening your Home and by getting further trained. I'll talk more about the training aspect a bit later. <br> <br>22. In these next months, it's imperative that the Family grow stronger in every way—every individual, every Home, every board, every leader—everyone needs to do all they can to become stronger and more prepared, so that when the time comes to launch our witnessing and winning offensive‚ we won't have to be constantly focusing on repair work within the Homes or the boards or the regions. We must all learn to stand strong now, so that when the focus shifts we will be able to stand strong then. <br> <br>23. In order for this to happen‚ you need to continue to have the vision, the conviction and initiative to invest in your spiritual life, in the life of your Home, and in the Family overall. You've been doing this, and Mama and I are proud of you for it. We know, however, that it can become rather wearying. You can start to wonder why we're always leaning on you to get stronger. You may wonder if we're trying to bring about perfection, if we're getting too focused on rules and criteria to the neglect of the primary reason we're here on Earth—our commission to win the world for Jesus. <br> <br>24. Mama and I have desperately prayed about this, as we have been burdened about the great need to reach the world and to get the Family into position to become the reapers of not only the many lost and desperate souls in the world‚ but also to become the reapers of disciples, Active members and General members that the Lord has said is a key part of our future. Reaching the world IS the goal. Spreading the message IS our aim. Winning lost souls, bringing in more FD disciples, and establishing strong churches of Active, General, and attached Missionary members is part of the bright future we have to look forward to. And Mama and I are very much looking forward to it. We're excited about it! We know that all the wonderful promises the Lord has given about our future won't just be dropped in our laps; we're going to have to work for it as a Family, and fight for it. And this strengthening process is part of that work and fight. The Lord has shown us that one of the keys to launching a successful offensive into Satan's territory is to complete this strengthening process, which He has indicated will run till the end of 2007. <br> <br>25. It's important that you understand why Mama and I‚ along with your RSs and the international boards, are continuing to focus on strengthening the Family, and we hope this explanation will give you the vision for putting your all into the remainder of this strengthening period. As a Family, we're in the "strengthening process." And you should be encouraged, because you are getting stronger! We see it, the RSs see it, and I believe that for the most part you all see it. <br> <br>26. The Family is getting stronger, and that's because we are all working at it. And as you know‚ the goal of the strengthening is so that we can win the world. It's not strength for the sake of strength; it's strength so we can get out there and win. It's strength so that when we go full blast into winning, teaching, training and reaching the world, we can do it without caving in, without our Homes crumbling because they are weak. <br> <br>27. This is training and strengthening with a purpose. We're soon going to launch a major new offensive, and we need to be prepared for that. Thankfully‚ our wonderful Husband has given us this time to train and prepare. Our prayer is that we will all put this time to the best use, and that by the end of this period we will be ready, willing, and able to win.