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Scripture Reading: John 15:2, 4, 16a; Matt. 21:34, 43
Since October of 1984 the Lord has been speaking to us concerning His new way for His new move. We have gained much understanding in these last one and a half years in Taipei and have found out the sure way to gain the increase. Within the past three months 700 full-time trainees in Taipei baptized over 7,000 new believers and set up over 2,000 new home meetings. In over 520 of these homes, the whole household got saved. Despite this success, I cannot say I am fully satisfied, because my budget was that 700 would baptize 700 each week. This means that every week one full-time trainee should get one baptized. That would have yielded 2,800 a month and 11,200 baptized in four months.
The main reason we did not reach this goal was that we did not have our training facility quite prepared when the training began. Our work on a lodging place took away some of our time. Also, in the training we did not have enough experience to know how to motivate the trainees in the way that a coach trains athletes. One full-time trainee from Malaysia baptized 120, and another brother from the United States baptized 126. On the one hand, the trainers in Taipei were very happy to get over 7,000 baptized. But on the other hand, I am not fully satisfied, because I wanted to get over 11,000. In this next phase of the training with the proper coaching, I believe that we will go over our budget for the increase. It is still wonderful, however, that within a short time over 7,000 were baptized, and over 2,000 new home meetings were set up in one city. On the day of Pentecost three thousand were added, and later “the number of men came to about five thousand” (Acts 4:4). This proves that the new way the Lord has given us for His new move really works.
Recently, I have been receiving letters, not only from different states but also from different countries, encouraging me to encourage the saints to take this new way. To talk about going this new way is easy. To practice the new way is also easy if you have the heart. With the practice of the new way, “if there is a will, there is a way.”
I recently received an encouraging letter from a certain local church in the United States of about sixty saints. A leading brother there wanted to let me know how the Lord has been blessing their door-knocking since they began to take the trained way of one out of four saints knocking on doors for two to three hours a week. After last summer’s training, they began going out door-knocking. On the Lord’s Day morning after the truth lesson, the saints would haphazardly break into groups and go out to knock on doors in whatever part of the city they desired. He said that this proved to be unsuccessful because their method was loose, and they were not strict in applying the new way. In light of the five messages given in August of 1986 (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1986, vol. 3, The New Way to Carry Out the Increase and Spread of the Church) and after receiving much fellowship from the full-time training in Taipei, they turned to take a much stricter way with the door-knocking.
In October they had the saints sign up to be on a team and to make a definite consecration to give two hours each week for the door-knocking. Over half of the church signed up. The ratio was exactly two sisters to each brother for groups of three saints. They assigned the saints to specific teams and assigned the teams to specific areas in the city. Each team, composed of two door-knocking groups, was charged to go out on a weekly basis to follow strict procedures of the new way and to keep detailed records of their activities for statistical purposes. This brother pointed out in his letter that although the outward practices have to be preceded by the inward filling of the Spirit, it seems that the Lord will bless the outward practices of the new way if they are strictly applied. He said that in their experience, the stricter the practice was, the greater the anointing was. The difference they experienced when they turned from the loose way to the strict way was marvelous. The saints were once again stirred and motivated about the door-knocking. The anointing was with them. Homes were being opened, and people were being baptized.
Even though the saints in this locality were all involved in the winter training this year in Irving, some of the teams were still going out, and ten were baptized during the training. One team went out one day during the training, and six were baptized in less than an hour and a half. During the training, more saints were stirred up to go out for the door-knocking, and now about seventy percent of the saints in this small church of about sixty saints have signed up for door-knocking. One of the full-timers there returned from Taipei in December, and now with him they will have an intensive weekend for training in door-knocking.
The leading brother in this local church wanted me to know that they were very burdened to stand with me in prayer for the success of steps two, three, and four in Taipei: knowing the truth and teaching the truth to the new converts in their homes; growing in life to minister life; and having the practice of the church life in the homes. This church registered six for the full-time training in Taipei this spring, leaving two full-timers there. That makes eight full-timers out of a church of sixty. In May, four more of their saints will be graduating, and they also plan to go full time. They and many others of the students there are consumed with the desire to go full time.
I also received another letter from a couple who returned to another locality from the full-time training in Taipei. They began to go out each evening to knock on doors with the saints there and were encouraged with the saints’ eagerness to come with them to learn how the training taught them to knock on doors and to enter into the new way. A leading brother in this locality, who went with this couple to knock on doors one evening, baptized a friend of his son in the new way in his home the following day. This brother testified that if he had not gone out to knock on doors, this would not have happened. Now this brother is “catching on fire” and wants to grasp every opportunity to go out with this couple.
They began to visit the apartments surrounding the meeting hall, and of the one hundred and one doors knocked on in four evenings, sixty doors opened, and seventeen of these were entered. Of the twenty-five people they contacted, nine were genuine sisters. Eleven prayed and received the Lord, and they had one glorious baptism. This newly baptized sister was so happy that she did not have to “go to church” to be baptized. Her words were, “That’s great!” Afterward, she expressed how grateful she was that the saints came, and she wanted to know whose idea it was to visit people in their homes. They told her that it was the Lord’s idea. They now have a total of eleven homes that are open to them to revisit for a home meeting. This couple testified that they love the new way and that the new way is satisfying, reviving, encouraging, and refreshing. It has brought them the experience of joy unspeakable.
Up to the last week of the training in Taipei, the full-timers there had baptized only a little over six thousand. They felt that this number was not up to the standard, so within the last week of the training they got close to one thousand. They baptized such a large number within one week because they became desperate. Two heretical groups, the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, also knock on doors, but we do not follow them. If you have enjoyed and still enjoy going to visit people by knocking on their doors, you know there is a big difference.
Beginning in October of 1984, I began to express my concern about the low rate of increase in the churches. In Taipei we had come to a standstill. When I left Taipei in 1961, the total number of saints in the church in Taipei was over twenty-two thousand. By 1984 the church in Taipei had only eleven thousand members left. Within twenty-three years the number came down to eleven thousand. In the last ten years in the United States, due to the defamation of some books, the rate of our increase has been just about three percent. This is too low. After studying our situation, I began to reconsider the Bible in this matter, and I also began to reconsider the history of the denominations. I became clear that all of Christianity, including us, got off from the Lord’s way. Thus, I was quite bold in Taipei to tell them that they must change by getting off the old way and getting on the new way.
The old way is to always have big meetings, a congregation with a speaker. This produces clergy, a hierarchical class with most of the others not functioning. Taking the way of a big congregation with a speaker produces hierarchy and also produces organization. The organizational way is to have clergy and a congregation and to raise up money to hire trained preachers. People are first brought into this way, and then their function is killed. This is the way of Christianity. Brother Nee told us repeatedly and insisted strongly that we give up the Lord’s Day morning meeting in the churches. He proposed that we use that time to go out to preach the gospel. In Brother Nee’s book The Normal Christian Church Life, there is a section on the home meetings (ch. 9). He told us that we needed to have meetings of mutuality, not meetings where one speaks and the other saints sit there to listen. We tried this, but we never carried it out because of the heavy background and influence from Christianity.
The situation in Taipei in 1984 was nearly the same as what was practiced by Christianity. Therefore, I had the boldness to tell the church there that the old way should be put aside and that they should take the new way according to what is in the Bible. At the very beginning of the church life, according to the first record of Christian meetings, the apostles spoke in the temple to a big congregation for the preaching of the truth, yet the believers met “from house to house” (Acts 2:46). In Greek this means that they met according to the houses. Each and every house was a meeting place; the meeting number was according to the houses. After the day of Pentecost when they were baptized, they met according to the homes. They did not have hired speakers, but they had the church life in their homes. They also met in the temple, but this was according to their tradition and habit and not according to God’s economy. That was not the church life.
The more we studied the situation according to the truth of the New Testament and according to our experience, the more we were assured that the right way is to have the church life built up in the homes. First Corinthians 14 speaks of the whole church coming together in one place (v. 23). But this is not a meeting of only a few speakers but a meeting in which “each one has” (v. 26), a meeting full of mutuality. The old Christianity way of one speaking and the others sitting to listen kills the church life.
In the full-time training in Taipei, I told the trainers not to bring the new ones to the church meetings. Occasionally, some new ones asked the trainees to bring them to a church meeting. After one or two church meetings these new ones said they did not want to go to the church meeting again. They liked to enjoy the meeting in the homes. They did not have a taste for the big meetings. But with many of us it is exactly the opposite. We have a taste for the big meetings. When you bring your contacts to a meeting, you may like to have a big hall, a large congregation, and a big, eloquent speaker. All of this is a good façade. We have been meeting in this way in our localities for many years, and what has been the result? We have had hardly any increase, but instead we have been maintaining a traditional Christian worship service. People today are quarreling, debating about doctrine and about different practices in Christianity, but I am not burdened merely for the doctrines or for practices. I care only for the New Testament faith, the Christian faith, the New Testament economy. As long as we have this, let us take the new way to have the increase.
According to the statistics of religious bodies in the United States, eight large denominations have decreased in their membership — the United Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopalians, the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, the American Lutherans, the United Church of Christ, and the Churches of Christ. The Assemblies of God have increased, yet by only six percent a year. This increase of the Assemblies of God is the highest. The second is the United Pentecostals with a 4.8 percent increase per year. The yearly percentage of increase for the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is only .68 percent. This confirms that the way of Christianity does not work well.
Nevertheless, we have been and are still under the influence of Christianity. To some extent we follow them. Sixty years ago at the beginning of the Lord’s recovery in China, we mostly followed the Brethren way, but the number of Plymouth Brethren in the United States is only ninety-eight thousand. This is much too low a number. The entire way of Christianity does not work well. Could we be satisfied to have a six percent yearly increase? We must take the new way! And the new way has been practiced and fully proved: it works. Over seven thousand were baptized in Taipei within less than four months. The brother from that local church of sixty told us that six were baptized by one team within an hour and a half. This is according to our training. We present them the truth in a quick way with no vain talk, and we believe in the Lord’s word concerning baptism.
Our practice has proved that the proper baptism by water really works out something. One brother knocked on a certain door and the man who answered said he was not interested. Then the brother went to the back door, the kitchen door, and knocked. The man told the brother again that he was not interested. The brother then said to the man, “Since you will not allow me to come in, please come out.” That man took the order and came out. This brother read to him a short paragraph from The Mystery of Human Life, and that man got baptized. Many were like this. After being baptized, they became happy. They were changed.
There is power in the proper baptism. Baptism is not a ritual, but we have made it a ritual by our practice. Many times we would wait weeks or months before we baptized someone. That kind of baptism became a ritual. But the present new way is that we baptize people immediately after they believe (Acts 8:35-38; 16:14-15, 33-34; 22:16; Mark 16:16). After they pray, we direct them to be baptized in their bathtub. Many of those baptized in the new way experienced a real change and came up out of the water to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4).
Many of us have become drugged with the old way of having big meetings. When we made the change from having the big meetings in the hall to having the small meetings in the homes, many saints were disappointed. But the newly baptized ones like the home meetings. Some brothers in Taipei got addicted to the home meetings, and many trainees got addicted to the baptism in the new way. If they could not get one baptized every evening, they felt that they were short. They got addicted to this practice and found that to baptize people in faith is a real joy. These new ones are growing. They have begun to seek after the Lord and to know the truth.
Many of us have become drugged. We are too satisfied with the old way to have a congregation. But I have seen a view that perhaps after five years in Taipei, the church will just be meeting in many homes. Now in Taipei they have four hundred old home meetings plus the over two thousand new home meetings. We are going to have another term of training, and I believe this term will bring in more than three thousand home meetings. Then by the summer of 1987, the church in Taipei will have about six thousand home meetings. Every home will be meeting, every home will be working, every home will be teaching, and every home will be preaching. What spiritual giant can replace six thousand home meetings with the entire household functioning?
Our way to baptize people and gain homes is wonderful. Sometimes the husband got baptized, and the next week his wife believed. Our trainees then directed the husband to baptize his wife, and the husband baptized his wife. The bathtubs in Taiwan are not so big, so the ones who were baptized had to be immersed and have the water sprinkled and poured upon them at the same time. The water in the bathtub was not that much, but the Spirit was so much! Often when our trainees were talking to the husband, the wife was willing to go to the restroom to prepare the water for baptism, even though she was not saved yet. When they baptized the husband, they all prayed, “We baptize you into the Triune God!” Some fathers baptized their sons in the week following their own baptism. This is all new. After these household baptisms, these houses began to meet. What a wonderful taste in the home meetings! This is a different taste from the practice of today’s Christianity. We have been drugged with the way of Christianity, so a taste of the way of Christianity has been built up within us. We need to take the new way to get another taste.
Furthermore, we have not had much feeling about our years of barrenness in which we did not bring forth much fruit. One leading brother told me that he did not bring anyone to the Lord for twenty years. However, after he began to practice door-knocking in the new way, he baptized seventeen within four months.
My burden is to wake you up because you have been drugged. The Lord says that as a branch, you have to bear fruit. This is serious. If you do not bear fruit, there is the danger that you will be cut off (John 15:2, 6). The words of the Lord in John 15 indicate that as branches of the vine, we must bear fruit. If you abide in Him, you will surely bear fruit (v. 4). God even took away His kingdom from Israel because Israel was barren, fruitless, and gave His kingdom to another people, the church (Matt. 21:43; Luke 13:6-9). But how about today’s church? Who is bearing fruit?
Thirty-eight years ago, when I left mainland China, there were a little over three million Christians. Then the Communists took over the country, and they tore down Christianity. The organizations were closed. Since 1970 the Lord began to use the young men born under communism. Many of them were in their twenties. They picked up the gospel that we and other Christians had sown there, and they became prevailing.
I checked with some experts who researched the Christians’ situation in mainland China, and I asked how many Christians there are today in mainland China. I was told that although Hong Kong newspapers report thirty million, their research says there are fifty million. Today there are only about seventy-four million Protestant Christians in the United States, the biggest Christian country on this earth. The founders, the forefathers, of this country were all Christians. The Protestants have increased only by about nine million over twenty years since 1964, but within about fifteen years, the increase in mainland China has been about forty-seven million. A good number of these are taking the way of the Lord’s recovery. Who did this? There were no chapels, cathedrals, ministers, or pastors. The gospel was preached mostly by pure Christian young people with no clergy, no hierarchy, and no organization. Therefore, all the clergy, hierarchy, and organization need to be torn down.
Do you not think we have clergy? Do you not think we have hierarchy? We do not call anyone a pastor, but actually we have “pastors.” We have followed Christianity’s way unconsciously. We brought people in and we killed their function by our way. We say that we do not control, but in many respects we do control. The leading ones need to ask themselves if they are part of the clergy and the hierarchy among us. Let us all drop the old way, “the old coat”! I am not only telling the elders to drop “the old coat.” All the older generation must give up the taste of the old way and take the new taste of the new way. For the Lord’s sake, we need to take the new taste.
In another two years I believe that the Lord will raise up a strong model in Taipei. Among the new ones recently baptized in Taipei, close to one hundred will be full-timers. Some of them told the trainees right after their baptism, “You are a full-timer saving me. I’d like to be a full-timer saving others.” Do you believe that saving a person is that hard? Do we need to call a big gospel meeting and beg people to come? Do we need to have so-called feasts to invite people? Where are the people? Why would we not go to their homes and bring them “food to go”? If they come to our meeting, we owe them something, but when we go to them, they owe us something (Luke 10:7).
The Lord Jesus was not sitting in the heavens sending out invitations, inviting people to come to Him. He came down out of heaven (John 6:41) to visit Zaccheus’s home (Luke 19:5). Then He said, “Salvation has come to this house” (v. 9). He went to Jacob’s well and waited for a Samaritan woman (John 4:6-7). Why would we not follow Him? Why would we just follow Christianity, set up a church building, and be one of the hierarchies, inviting people and learning to speak eloquent things to attract people? Then once they are attracted by you and come to your meetings, they become dead Christians without any function. They may only pull out their checkbook and write some checks to support you in your hierarchy. I am not only talking about Christianity but about us. I believe that after two or three years of our taking the new way, the elders who remain in the old way will be jobless. A brother who wants to be a good speaker with a congregation will not have one since the church life will be in the homes. All the elders and co-workers must learn to knock on doors. The elders must take the lead in this matter.
Due to the urgent need, we are changing the subject of our summer training of 1987 from the life-study on Leviticus to have a training on the new way of the Lord’s new move. I cannot go out to visit many places in many countries, but many saints all over the world have been stirred up to take the Lord’s new way. Thus, we will have a training in the United States for ten days, and this will be recorded on video tape, which will go out to all the local churches.
Eventually, in the recovery the way of Christianity with a big congregation and one gifted speaker will be completely annulled. For one to minister the Word depends upon whether he has the real burden of some of the truths from the Lord. Such a person is like Paul, who went to Troas and on the Lord’s Day, after the breaking of the bread, spoke the word to build up the saints there (Acts 20:6-7). This is not like today’s pastors giving sermons week by week. Some of us have been giving people messages week by week for years, but what has been the result? I would not say there is no result, but the rate of the result is too low.
We have tasted the old way, we have experienced the old way, and we have suffered from the old way. Now many of us have tasted the Lord’s new way, which is so sweet and so workable. What would you choose? We have been drugged without bearing fruit in the old way for years, yet we did not have any feeling about it. We came to the big meetings year after year with hardly any new ones brought to the Lord. How could we be satisfied? Let us forget about the old way. When a house gets too old, it should be condemned. You need to get a new house to replace it. I was unhappy with our low rate of increase for the last ten years, but I could not do anything. At that time I was so busy in the life-study of the New Testament until October of 1984, when I was finally able to return to Taiwan for the sake of the Lord’s new way.
The Lord’s ministry today is not to build up big congregations. It is to build up the saints in the new way, which involves: (1) Learning how to knock on doors, how to touch people with the high gospel within a short time, how to baptize them not only in water but also into the Triune God, and how to set up meetings in their homes. (2) Learning how to feed them with the truths concerning the Triune God, concerning life, concerning Christ, and concerning the church, which means that we have to learn how to teach the truths in homes. (3) Learning how to help all the new ones to grow in life. (4) Learning how to bring them into the full knowledge and practice of the church, the Body of Christ. This will be done not only by me or by some of you; this will be done by everyone. Every door-knocker will learn this.
After two or three years the saints will have another taste. They will tell you that they do not like to have the big meetings. They like to have the home meetings where they could preach the gospel by themselves and where they could teach the truths by themselves. They will not need any kind of organization. What elders have been in mainland China for the past fifteen years? You may say that is a mess, but I am glad for that “mess.” I like to see this kind of “mess.” If there could be such a “mess,” after fifteen years another fifty million will be converted. This would be wonderful.
The big denominations, the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians, have all decreased and are still decreasing according to a recent article. Are we still happy to remain in this degraded situation? Will we not wake up? We should not talk about others but should consider ourselves and drop our old way. I have no interest to take care of the work in the old way. I realize that the old way is the killing way. Would we be happy to remain in this kind of work? I like to see homes. I like this word home — home sweet home. My dream is home meetings. The homes are the basic foundation for the building up of the local churches, not the halls with big congregations. When the saints rise up to go out knocking on doors, they will get addicted to knocking on doors, addicted to baptizing people in bathtubs, and addicted to home meetings and to teaching people in home meetings. They will not care for having big meetings in the meeting hall. They have been meeting in the old way for years, and many are bored of the old way of meeting. All the elders need to be door-knocking elders. They need to take the lead to go door-knocking. May the Lord grant us all the mercy to completely drop the old way and to fully pick up the Lord’s new way.
