Are You Writing a Letter?
1 What kind of letter? Paul answers in his inspired message to the Corinthian congregation: “You yourselves are our letter. . . . For you are shown to be a letter of Christ written by us as ministers, inscribed not with ink but with spirit of a living God, not on stone tablets, but on fleshly tablets, on hearts.” Yes, the disciples we make, with Jehovah’s help, are living letters recommending us as fruitful Christian ministers.—2 Cor. 3:2, 3.
2 Success in writing a ‘living letter’ depends first of all on our faithfulness in our ministry; in other words, on our having a regular, full share in the ministry. April is a month when we give special attention to helping all share in the ministry, whether they be those who have been publishing for some time or new ones now ready to begin. What a fine goal it would be for all publishers to take part in the ministry the first week of April, and then to report that service. Family heads can take the lead in this by lovingly helping all in the family to share in the ministry and report that share early in April. Those who are vacation pioneers can make themselves available to assist newer publishers. This will certainly be a loving thing to do.
3 April brings our 32nd annual Watchtower subscription campaign to a climax, so we will do all we can this last month of the campaign to make it a grand climax! Have we personally explored every avenue that leads to new subscriptions? There are at least seven such avenues we can utilize in addition to the regular offer of the Watchtower subscription from door to door. They are: (1) Offering both subscriptions. (2) Following up all promises. (3) Calling back on all whose subscriptions have expired. (4) Sending gift subscriptions to friends, relatives and acquaintances. (5) Writing up subscriptions when receiving extra contributions in magazine service. (6) Offering subscriptions on all back-calls, including magazine-route calls. (7) Making subscription offer to all with whom we conduct Bible studies. Our appreciation for The Watchtower will move us to explore each one of these possibilities to the full to obtain more subscriptions. A subscription for this journal is really a semimonthly course in Bible study and we can present it as such. It is a real teacher of Bible truth that demands attention both by its well written articles and by the fact that it appears twice each month in the home and so cannot be set aside as easily as a single piece of literature.
4 We come now to the point of actually writing our “letter.” This we do in large measure through a Bible study with the interested one we have found. How can we offer a Bible study to a subscriber for the Watchtower magazine? A proved approach is suggested under “Your Service Meetings” on page 2, for the week of April 5. A number of brothers have tried this approach and found it simple, successful, and one that did not leave the householder with the feeling of receiving too much literature. You may want to try it with the goal in mind of establishing a Bible study.
5 In April, then, by our early and full share in the ministry, our diligent efforts to bring The Watchtower into the homes of many more, and our faithfully working to establish Bible studies with sheeplike persons, we will be taking real steps toward successfully writing our own letter, “not with ink but with spirit . . . on fleshly tablets, on hearts.”
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Succeeding by faithfulness in the ministry.