Prayer: Lord, we are still natural and in the old creation; we are even in the self and in the flesh. We need Your cleansing. We take You as our sin offering and as our trespass offering. We thank You for Your redeeming blood, which cleanses us and keeps us in constant fellowship with You. We have received Your mercy and Your grace not for our own work nor for our own future nor for our own living. Your mercy and Your grace are for You, for Your interest on the earth, and for Your move on the earth.
Lord, we worship You from the depths of our being for choosing us before the foundation of the world and for setting us apart. You called us in time, and You gathered us together. We look to You and beseech You to save us from our natural man, from our natural zeal, from our concepts, from our religious thoughts, and even from our natural, pious ideas. Lord, save us from our hidden self and from our self in disguise.
We are not here learning ways and methods. We are here because we want to know You and Your ways. Lord, open the heavens to us and bring us into Your heart’s desire so that our feelings come from You. Lord, have mercy on us and deliver us from our natural concepts. We need Your Spirit in us to daily give us the light from heaven, the light in the Holy Place, and even the revelation in the Holy of Holies. Bring us into Your light so that we would know ourselves and understand our history. We need to know our past and to understand our failures. Even more, we need to confess our mistakes.
Lord, we beseech You, be with us in every meeting, and cause our speaking to touch Your heart’s desire. Give us a clear sense. Anoint our spirit with Your feeling, with Your thoughts, and with Your words, and grant us Your utterance. We need Your anointing and Your transfusing. We need to practically be one spirit with You. You have become one spirit with us, and we have become one spirit with You. We know that this is an accomplished fact, but we still want to experience the reality of being one spirit with You and of having You speak in our speaking. You are mingled with us; divinity is mingled with humanity, and the human spirit is joined to the divine Spirit. Lord, care for us, care for Your recovery, and care for Your move on the earth.
Grant us a model in Taiwan. Cause us to be faithful to You. We bend our knees to You and ask You to strengthen our entire being into the inner man so that we would give You the ground and the opportunity to make Your home in our deepest parts. Lord, gain our inward parts, and also gain our deepest parts. Speak to us. We are waiting on You and expecting You to cover us and to resist the enemy on our behalf. We proclaim again Your victory by Your prevailing blood. This blood does not merely speak better things for us before God. Your blood also speaks before the enemy. Your precious blood resists the enemy and covers us. We ask You to draw the line so that the enemy has no opportunity or ground to do anything here.
Lord, do not allow the enemy to have any ground in our environment or in our hearts. Bind him. We bind Your enemy in Your victorious name. By faith we trample beneath our feet the evil one — Your enemy, the devil — who accuses us. We proclaim Your victory and the victory of Your recovery and of Your move. Subdue the devil and bring the world under Your headship.
The Lord’s recovery has more than sixty years of history among us. Through many experiences and failures during this time, we have learned that a characteristic of the Lord’s recovery is not remaining in oldness but constantly being renewed.
Those who serve the Lord must learn the lesson of not remaining in oldness. Oldness includes many items. In fact, whatever is not of the Lord is old. Not remaining in oldness means that we do not remain in anything apart from the Lord, regardless of whether it is good or bad. We want nothing apart from the Lord. As long as we hold on to something other than the Lord, we are in oldness. We should not consider this to be an insignificant matter. In our natural man there are many hidden elements of oldness. We all remain in oldness. The elderly saints are not the only ones who can be in oldness; even two-year-old children can be in oldness. Everything apart from the Lord is old. Everything apart from the Lord is rubbish and must be thrown away. Even our former understanding of the Bible is old. If we insist on keeping our former understanding of the Bible, we will remain in oldness, and God’s light cannot enter into our being.
Many of us have received mercy to serve the Lord full time. Some of us do not have the circumstances that allow us to serve full time and can serve only part time. But we are all for the Lord. When we are not for the Lord, we are not aware of the old things in our being. However, as soon as we are for the Lord, we must be careful, because our entire being is full of oldness. Fifty years ago I was like many of the young people. As soon as I began to love the Lord, I became zealous. However, even though the Lord has been doing a cleansing work for the past fifty years, I have to confess that there are still many old things within me.
We should never think that only the elderly saints have old and stale things within them; even the younger saints have old things. The younger saints have many ideas, opinions, views, and methods, just as the older saints do. It is difficult to find two sisters among us who are truly in one accord. Even though the sisters may be one in their spirit when they pray, they do not have the same heart. They have the same spirit but not the same heart. There are many sisters in every locality, but who can say with confidence that she is in one accord with another sister? This is our condition: we are one in spirit but not one in our heart. A saint who does not serve the Lord full time has fewer opportunities to be exposed for being in disaccord, but as soon as he begins to serve full time, his discord is easily exposed. If there are six hundred full-time serving ones, there will be six hundred different hearts.
Some saints have served the Lord full time for many years, but it is still difficult for them to be in one accord. This matter is grievous, and it is not easily resolved, because the factor behind our lack of one accord is our oldness. Our views, feelings, knowledge, and even the lessons we have learned can become old. Since the beginning of the Lord’s recovery, we have been tearing down the old things. We must put aside all the old things. We need to empty ourselves before the Lord and allow Him to speak to us and reveal our oldness so that nothing would hinder us from receiving His leading. Oldness can be compared to layer after layer of heavy veils that cover us. We must remove them.
I hope that those who serve the Lord full time will thoroughly study 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus with the outlines, footnotes, cross references, and Life-study messages. In these thirteen chapters of the Bible, we must find and study the crucial points concerning those who serve the Lord. These three books speak about the different conditions of the Lord’s serving ones and give us the pattern of a serving one. Hence, we must not read them in a shallow way, nor should we simply pick up the points that appeal to us. Rather, we must study these books thoroughly, as if we had never read them before.
All the full-time serving ones must be approved by the responsible brothers in their respective localities (1 Cor. 16:3; 2 Tim. 2:15). For example, the full-time serving ones from Taipei must be approved by the church in Taipei, and the ones from Kaohsiung by the church in Kaohsiung.
The full-time serving ones must be qualified in age. Many older brothers and sisters have been serving full time for many years, because after they retired, they consecrated their remaining days to the Lord’s use. This is a good thing. There are also older sisters whose children are grown and married. These sisters can consecrate themselves and serve full time with the approval of the church. The only consideration for approving such saints is their age.
We must also carefully consider the age of the younger brothers and sisters. We do not want any brothers and sisters who have not reached the age of twenty-one to serve full time. Human history proves that the years before the age of twenty are for receiving an education. In other words, we do not want the young full-time brothers and sisters to lack education. At a minimum, they need to graduate from a university or a college, and they must be over the age of twenty. We must consider the age and level of education of the young saints before we approve them.
This does not mean that we are running a worldly business, in which we must check the educational level of the saints. This is the age of education. Many people have at least graduated from junior college. How can we who serve the Lord have an education that is less than junior college? If our level of human knowledge is low, it will be difficult for us to contact people. It will also be difficult for us to expound the truth or preach the gospel. Therefore, a basic requirement for the full-time serving ones should be that they at least have a college education and that they are over the age of twenty.
When a local church considers the consecration slip of a young brother or sister who does not meet this standard, the church should encourage the brother or sister to get a minimum of a junior college education. If at all possible, they should obtain a degree from a four-year university. Furthermore, even if their age and level of education qualify them, there may be other factors. It may be that they have not fulfilled their military service, they have to complete a teaching contract, or they have a contract with their employer. We must consider these matters. We should never give people the impression that we are dishonorable or that we do not keep our word or that we do not regard contracts. We should be positive, but we should not rush into the matter of serving full time.
With the working brothers and sisters, we must consider their careers. Suppose a brother is thirty-five years old and has only a high-school education, but he is an electrician, and his business is very successful. It would not be appropriate for us to insist that he give up his job and serve full time. We should exhort such a brother to continue his business and to use his time after work to serve the Lord. This is good both for the brother and for the church. If he were to give up his profession, he would eventually become a burden to the church related to his support. This is not appropriate. It would be more profitable for this brother to remain in his profession and use his job as an opportunity to preach the gospel to people.
A saint who is considering giving up his business to be completely for the Lord must understand that he is giving up an opportunity to use his business to preach the gospel. Many people have the opportunity to hear the gospel through the businesses of the saints. The saints should also consider their usefulness and function before the Lord. It may be that they do not need to spend that much time in their work. It would be better to advise the saints to remain in their businesses but not be usurped by them. We must encourage them to use their businesses as an opportunity to contact people, to preach the gospel, and to lead people to salvation. In this way they will not only be able to care for the needs of their own households, but they will also be able to make monetary contributions for the Lord’s use. The churches must consider all these situations when approving saints to serve full time.
Another situation involves sisters who are zealous for the Lord but do not care for family matters. They do not adequately care for their husbands or for their children. A sister in Beijing, whose husband was a university professor, went everywhere serving the Lord zealously. Every day she went to visit the saints early in the morning, neglecting her housework and her children. She did not return home until evening. As a result, her husband came to the meeting hall and complained about her, saying, “What are you doing in this church? I do not have a wife anymore.” This sister felt that her husband and children could take care of their needs without her. How could such a sister be approved to serve the Lord full time? Instead of approving her, we recommended that she return home to be a full-time wife. When she could be a proper wife at home, she could serve the Lord.
In 1938 there was a sister in Chefoo who was so zealous in serving full time that she did not even stop to eat. She said that when she ate, she wasted the time she could spend praying. She wanted to pray all the time, even at the expense of eating and sleeping. She justified herself by saying that the Bible tells us to pray unceasingly. She would not listen to any exhortations, and this hindered her service. This type of abnormal service is at best short-lived. The churches must consider such situations when they approve the saints.
Paul says, “We exercise foresight for what is honorable not only in the sight of the Lord but also in the sight of men” (2 Cor. 8:21). When a person wants to serve full time, we must pay attention to his reputation in the church and before men. If a brother who serves the Lord does not have a good reputation outside the church, we must exhort him to correct the matter that caused him to have a poor reputation. He must learn how to be a proper person before he can serve the Lord full time.
Some brothers and sisters are not improper in their behavior, but they love to talk. When such a person arrives at a meeting, he does not stop talking. He speaks in every meeting, and every time he speaks, he speaks for a long time. Even if the elders ask him to stop speaking, he does not stop. Such saints might turn in consecration slips and desire to serve full time. If we want to approve them, we must find an opportunity to fellowship with them. The localities must consider these situations when approving the saints.
We hope that the saints who give their time to serve, both those who will serve full time and those who will serve part time, will be useful and not be a burden. For this reason the churches must approve them according to these principles. By so doing, we will be able to confirm whether a saint should serve full time or part time in the church.
We must not consider the full-time or part-time serving ones to be a special class. If we do, we will fall into a religious organization. After 1952 we had more than one hundred full-time serving ones in Taiwan. In mainland China we did not use the expression full-time serving one very often. We used the term co-worker. In Taiwan the term full-time serving one became so prevalent that the full-time serving ones were considered a special class of saints. Strictly speaking, we are all full-time serving ones because we are for the Lord whether we die or we live.
Brother Nee once said that serving the Lord is our primary profession and that our job is our secondary profession. Every one of us is a full-time serving one. It does not matter whether we are students, teachers, doctors, nurses, or even housewives who take care of their children; we are all for the Lord. Our goal is to serve the Lord. From this viewpoint, we are all full-time serving ones.
Assigning work to the full-time serving ones will depend on the practical situation in a locality. Whether the full-time serving ones preach the gospel on the campuses, in the homes, or in the community, or whether they coordinate with the children’s work, it will depend on the situation in a local church.
Christianity is an organized religion, and the assignments in Christianity are often made by a centralized committee. We cannot take that way. Concerning the support to the full-time serving ones, we do not want to set up a centralized financial unit in the work that would collect offerings and distribute them to the serving ones. The local churches must take care of the matter of supplying the needs of their full-time serving ones. Neither do we want to touch the matter of assigning duties to the full-time serving ones in a centralized way. Rather, we should let every local church make its own assignments.
The leading that we see in the Bible does not come from a centralized authority but from the Body. We must avoid division in the move of the Body. For example, if an arm becomes separated from the body, it is a division. Such division is a damage to the body and makes the arm completely useless. This applies to us.
In order to avoid centralization and division, we must have much fellowship. Suppose there are many full-time serving ones in the church in Taichung. After they are approved and assigned to the work, the leading brothers might discover that they do not need so many serving ones. Then the leading brothers should fellowship with the other churches. If, for example, there are not enough full-time serving ones in the church in Taipei, the church in Taichung and the church in Taipei can balance the needs through fellowship.
We should not forget that in our natural man, we are all like politicians who set their heart to grasp power and rule over others. If twenty sisters come to clean the meeting hall, there will be problems. First, everyone wants to take the lead. Second, whoever is the leader expects the other nineteen sisters to submit to her. If the elders say that four sisters should take the lead in cleaning four areas of the meeting hall, each of the four sisters will want the rest of the sisters to serve in her group. This is an example of politics. We should not think that only people in government play politics. There can be politics even in the matters of sweeping the floor and washing the windows in the meeting hall.
After the elders assign some young full-time serving ones to the children’s work, some to work with the junior-high-school students, and some to work on the universities, these serving ones may recruit others to serve with them. Such recruiting will result in disputes. This kind of political disposition is in every one of us, and we must do our best to avoid it. We should not think that the full-time serving ones produced by a church should necessarily stay in that church. Neither should we think that a church that produces only a few full-time serving ones is deserving of its lack. Someone who cannot cook should not be forced to go hungry if others have food. However, it is easy to want extra glory for our locality, even if other localities are suffering. This kind of attitude is wrong. All those who love the Lord and His recovery must learn this lesson. We must see that God does not want politics. We must eliminate politics. The churches must get rid of politics, and every one of us must get rid of politics.
When a young brother begins to serve full time, he consecrates himself to the Lord and to His Body. The locality that nurtured him should not hold on to him. His placement in the work should be decided in the fellowship of the Body and according to the Lord’s leading within him. There is no organization among us, nor is there a pope among us to give commands as to who must go to a certain place or who must stay in a certain place. Such a practice is the way of Catholicism.
The local churches must not have disputes concerning full-time serving ones. Whether there is an excess or a lack is in the Lord’s hands. We have been serving for many years and have seen many situations. We can testify that those who tried to keep some extra glory in their locality found that it did not last long. The serving ones whom they vie for are like the night-blooming cereus flowers that bloom only at midnight and wilt before dawn. We should not fight to have any flowers for ourselves. Even if we have many flowers, they are like the night-blooming cereus flowers that fade and wilt in a very short time.
There may be a certain local church that does not seem to be doing well. However, even though this locality may struggle for eight or ten years, heavenly grace will eventually fall upon it, and it will rise up to become a very living local church. We must believe that our future is bright and that all the local churches are promising and living.
All the serving ones must have a broad view to see that we are serving the Head of the Body, the church. The church refers to the universal church. We should not care only for the church in our locality. We serve the Lord. It is good if the effect of our service helps our locality. It is also good if our service helps another locality. Everything is for the Lord and in the Body. Taiwan is a small island. We must not get stuck in our small well. The localities should fellowship with one another, and the full-time serving ones and the part-time serving ones should fellowship with one another. Everyone should seek the Lord’s leading. With such a practice it will be easy to assign work to the full-time serving ones.
The groups are crucial, and we must take care of them. All the local churches should go over their name lists to see how many saints in their localities meet regularly and how many are no longer meeting. Then the saints who meet regularly should be formed into groups. Every group should have only twelve saints at the most. Thus, when the groups are formed, they should have less than twelve saints so that they can bring in new ones. There should be no group leaders or coordinators, because all the saints are coordinators. After the groups are formed, the full-time and part-time serving ones should be assigned to care for the groups. It is critical for the serving ones not to replace the saints.
For the care of the groups, we should do our best to form them according to the districts. For example, the church in Taipei will have more than four hundred small groups, which are formed by the ten districts. If each district has forty groups, there will be about four hundred saints in the groups. Every group needs full-time or part-time serving ones to help them. The groups should be formed according to where the saints live, and there should not be group leaders or coordinators. The saints in a group should live near one another, and one full-time or part-time serving one should be responsible for helping them. For example, the full-time and part-time serving ones can give the small groups material for their weekly meetings. They should teach the saints how to meet. These are some of the responsibilities of the full-time and part-time serving ones in the local churches. The saints in every local church can be formed into groups. The elders should take care of the administration of the entire church, and a few co-workers should take the lead in the districts. These are the principles for making arrangements in the church.
Concerning the campus work, we must consider how many campuses in a locality are ready for the serving ones and how many campuses are not. We also must know how many full-timers and other saints can serve. Then we can make appropriate arrangements.
We must realize that the children’s work is a crucial burden. Every locality must be aggressive in the children’s work because there is a greater future in the children’s work than in the campus work. Generally speaking, it is easier to bring in children, and once they come in, they usually remain. Our history confirms this fact. The church in Manila is an example. Most of the saints in the church in Manila were gained by the children’s work. Ninety percent of the churches in the Philippines are maintained by saints in their thirties, and most of these saints grew up in the church and attended the children’s meeting.
When we preach the gospel, we frequently have to go out to gain people; we even go to the campuses to gain people. These people are along the roads and hedges (Luke 14:23). There is only one group of people who are not along the roads: the children in our own homes. Why do we not work on our own children? The people along the roads might come today or tomorrow, but the people in our own homes will always be there. Furthermore, our children can bring other children. Therefore, they should be a crucial focus of our work. This work is long-lasting and remaining. A child who is six years old today will be thirteen in seven years. That is a good age to enter the church life. When they enter the church life, they are our young brothers and sisters. When they enter junior-high school, they will be gospel seeds. Through them, it will be easier for us to work in the junior high schools.
If this is our vision, we will be aggressive in the children’s work. The more children we have, the better it will be. If by the end of 1985 or the beginning of 1986 the church in Taipei has twenty thousand children, the church in Taipei will have a tremendous future. We must expand our view. This is something worth doing. Another benefit of the children’s work is that we can bring the high-school and college students into the coordination, and it will be easy for them to advance the work. Every local church must do its best to form small groups, begin the campus work, and develop the children’s work.
The gospel in the homes cannot be separated from the small groups. It has to be carried out by brothers and sisters who are capable and who have much time.
The full-time serving ones also need to advance the community gospel. This is the most difficult item to carry out, and it requires everyone, including the elderly, the middle-aged, and the young saints. As many saints as are available should be used. The community gospel work is limitless. The local churches must make good arrangements concerning this aspect of the work by assigning full-time and part-time serving ones according to the need and by utilizing every saint, especially those with a profession. For example, if a certain brother teaches junior high school, he can help with the gospel work on that campus. If a saint is the owner of a factory, an engineer at a factory, or even a worker in a factory, he can contact people in the factory and preach the gospel. Some saints work in government offices and others in hospitals. They can spread the gospel where they work. The churches must assign full-time and part-time serving ones to coordinate with the saints.
Question: Concerning full-time service, there is a brother who is about thirty-five years old. He is very energetic, and his spiritual condition is good, but he does not have sufficient education. What should we do in this situation?
Answer: Education is related to function. If this brother’s spiritual function clearly manifests that he should serve the Lord full time, then he should become a full-time serving one. This is an important point when we are approving the saints to serve full time. We must look at their function to see whether it is necessary for them to serve full time.
We encourage the young people who have completed a technical college education to continue their studies. Some university graduates also need to continue their studies for their service to the Lord. The young people must learn to speak and write in both Chinese and English, because English is an international language. If we do not know English, our function will be reduced. Hence, the young people surely must study these two languages. The young people should also study Greek. This does not mean that they should obtain a degree in it, but they should study enough Greek to be able to understand the basics of the New Testament. Then they will be able to use reference books and the Bible in Greek. This is related to our ability to understand the truth.
Question: In the localities where there are many full-time brothers and sisters, should the full-timers have corporate times to study, pray, fellowship, and discuss matters related to their service? There are many saints who are not full time but who bear an important burden in the service. In what way should they coordinate with the full-timers?
Answer: These matters require us to go before the Lord and then make decisions according to the situation in our locality. I can give you only general principles. For example, I can tell you to eat three meals a day, but you have to determine the time of your meals and whether you should eat with a fork and knife, chopsticks, or your fingers.
Question: What does it mean to be a part-time serving one?
Answer: To be a part-time serving one means that a person is unable to give all his time, but he is able to give more time than a saint with normal working hours. In other words, some saints give all their time to serve the Lord, and other saints cannot give all their time, but they are able to give some of the time that they would normally use at a job. Instead of serving in their spare time, these saints are part time.
Question: What should we do about a saint who is individualistic and has a peculiar disposition, yet he wants to serve the Lord full time?
Answer: Today’s education emphasizes four aspects: moral education, intellectual education, physical education, and education in social interaction. Concerning social interaction, a person who serves the Lord must be able to get along with others. If he is unable to get along with others, he cannot be useful no matter how capable he is. Christians should be like honeybees, not butterflies. When honeybees come together, it is difficult to tell which one is the first and which is the last. When we lose our peculiar characteristics, we are like honeybees. If we keep our peculiar characteristics, we are like butterflies. Saints who are like butterflies are not good for church service. In other words, such saints should not serve full time. Full-time serving ones must be like honeybees. They must be able to get along with others, that is, to work as a team.
Let me illustrate. When a brother goes to Los Angeles, he should be a brother in Los Angeles. He should not be perceived as a brother from Taiwan; otherwise, he will be like a butterfly instead of a honeybee. A brother from Taipei who goes to Kaohsiung should immediately become a brother from Kaohsiung. He should not give others the sense that he is a “butterfly” from Taipei. In the Lord’s recovery, especially in our training, we are all honeybees, despite the fact that we are of different nationalities. Our training is like a beehive in which all the honeybees live. The entrance to a beehive is too small to allow a butterfly to enter. For this reason the responsible brothers in every locality must spend time and effort to labor on brothers who are individualistic. We must let them know that their past actions in the meetings and in the church life were individualistic. Even though they love the Lord and want to serve Him full time, they must first learn some lessons. Therefore, they should wait and not serve full time yet.
Question: I have two children, and I want to serve full time. My family approves. What should I do?
Answer: We should not have the concept that full-time serving ones should never get married. All the full-time sisters should get married. Serving full time should not interrupt a marriage, nor should it affect a sister’s place as a wife and a mother. In other words, it is possible to have a husband and children and serve full time.
A sister is blessed when her family, parents, and in-laws approve of her serving full time. With their approval comes their help. This is proper for her to serve full time. It is not a matter of whether she should serve full time but of how she should use her time. She must first make some arrangements. She should ask her mother to do the things that her mother can do, and she should ask her mother-in-law to do the things that her mother-in-law can do. If her mother and mother-in-law cannot help her children with their homework, then this sister must help her children. She must not say that she has to help her children with their homework and therefore has no time to pursue the Lord. She still must pursue the Lord, but she must do it according to her measure.
No saint is truly full time. We all have personal matters that require our time. If serving full time was according to our concept, we would not have time to breathe. Serving full time is a matter of our condition before the Lord. We must care for our husbands, wives, and children. When I get up in the morning, I spend the time to comb my hair and wash up. It is wrong to be so zealous that we care for nothing else. For the sake of coordinating with the brothers and sisters, we should take care of their feelings and do things properly. No matter how much we love the Lord or how spiritual we are, we are still people in the flesh, and our living is in the physical realm. Since we must live in our physical bodies, we must be normal humans so that we can coordinate with others. On the one hand, we need to do our best to give our strength, time, and everything for the service; on the other hand, we still must have a normal living. This is what it means to serve full time.
