James & Tess Arendt
I'LL NEVER FORGET THAT MEETING WE HAD WHEN I WAS LEADING THE MEETING and MOTHER WAS PREACHING FOR L. P. LEHMAN in a little small coal town in Western Pennsylvania. It was a small church on a cold rainy night with a very small poor crowd of about a dozen people. I kept saying, "I'm sorry there aren't more folks here, I don't know where the rest of the people are."
I WAS DWELLING ON THE NEGATIVE and THE EMPTY SEATS INSTEAD OF COMPLIMENTING THEM FOR BEING SO BRAVE TO COME OUT on a night like that and telling them, "You're wonderful people that you have been the ones to come and you have braved the weather!"--Speaking on the positive and encouraging them and inspiring them and complimenting them instead of dragging everybody down by pointing out all the empty seats and talking about all the folks that didn't come and how come and blah blah! It's really bad! It has a negative effect on people in general.
IT'S ALWAYS BETTER TO ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE and TRY TO COMPLETELY IGNORE THE NEGATIVE! I got a real dressing down from L. P. Lehman, who was a good business manager and smart promoter, even a good preacher.--But mostly good on business and good promotion, a good advertiser, good publiciser. He had the biggest radio work in all of Pennsylvania!
HE TOOK ME ASIDE RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY MOTHER and TOLD ME THESE THINGS! He said, "David, you shouldn't have talked about all the people that weren't there and why they didn't come and kept complaining about the empty seats. You should have been congratulating the people who did come, thanking God for them, inspiring them, encouraging them, thanking them for coming in such bad weather and how wonderful it was that so many people came out in such bad weather instead of talking about so many people who didn't come! Dwell on the positive, accentuate the positive, the encouraging and the inspiring, trying to lift up, and don't keep talking about the negative and the bad side. Look on the bright side!"
T'S THE OLD STORY ABOUT HOW THE OPTIMIST SEES THE DOUGHNUT, THE PESSIMIST SEES THE HOLE! The optimist raves about the quality of the doughnut and how delicious it is and how wonderful to have a doughnut, and the pessimist complains about, "How come they cheated us by putting a hole in it? Where's the rest of my doughnut?"--It's the same thing people do with God. Instead of thanking God for all of His blessings, they complain about a few little trials and tribulations and suffering, murmuring. So I just don't believe in accentuating the negative.
LEHMAN SAID IF YOU DON'T CALL ATTENTION TO SOME MISTAKES IN YOUR PROGRAM, MOST PEOPLE WON'T EVEN NOTICE THEM! A poor meeting is better than no meeting at all! A poor picture is better than no picture at all! A poor witness is better than no witness! So let's not try to even call attention to the negative, let's ignore it! Try to bring out the positive and accentuate the positive!--Amen!--GBY! ILY!--D.
My name is James Arendt. I was raised in the Hegewisch neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, served in the USAF from 1970 to 1974, and became a full-time missionary for Christ living 40 years in Japan, 3.5 years in Russia, and a few months in other countries such as Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China where I also served the King of Kings, Jesus, as an Ambassador for His Kingdom. My full bio.
If you like this website, you can show your appreciation by sending me a gift toward my support. My wife Tess and I moved from the island of Guam USA in June 2023 to the city of Allen in the province of Northern Samar, one of the poorer provinces in the Philippines. My only work is maintaining my websites, Deep Truths, and James Japan which costs me $300 per year now. And Tess is ministering to the local people giving them regular Bible Studies in three groups, children, teenagers and adults.
You may like my James Japan site as well because it covers subjects that are not covered in Deep Truths such as things like the Climate Change Hoax and the COVID-19 death-jabs.
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