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Propagating the gospel in schools can be compared to fighting on the frontline of a war. We need to consider in detail how to fight this war. Many schools are the object of our work, the target of our warfare, so we need to consider how much manpower we can afford to invest. Our manpower includes the full-time co-workers, the new full-timers, and the part-time saints. These three groups of saints are our manpower; they are also the army to be deployed for the battle. In addition to an army, we have the church. The church can be compared to the headquarters, supplying all the needs in the propagation of the gospel work in the schools.
The first step in propagating the gospel in the schools is to identify the brothers and sisters who are either staff or students. We do not need to call a big meeting; neither should we draw attention to our work. We should contact the saints who are staff members or students one by one.
We should never attempt to take shortcuts in our labor for the Lord. We do not gain any results by taking shortcuts in an attempt to have an easy time. Our labor is not to have an easy time but to gain results. The more effective a work is, the more difficulty it will bring. For example, a farmer spends a lot of time sowing seeds. The more he labors, the more produce there will be, but the more difficulty he will have. A work that has no difficulties is a work that has no results. This can also be compared to running a business. A person who is good at running a business is always busy. A person who does not know how to run a business always avoids trouble. Eventually, he has no customers, and nothing works.
In order to propagate the gospel in the schools, we must first contact the saints who are on the teaching staff in the schools and talk with them concerning the situation of the students in their school in order to know whom we can contact. We should not take the way of calling a meeting or gathering a crowd. We should not arouse the attention of the school, because this might hinder our future work. The principle of our work is for our personnel to contact the students. We are not seeking to increase quickly.
We can help the saints who are either staff or students by showing them how to approach others. If we contact one or two saints a week, in a few weeks we will have fellowshipped with all the saints in a school. Soon they will all be contacting the students, and over a long period of time our labor will produce results.
Mankind is reproduced one child at a time. There is no need to call a big meeting and teach people how to reproduce. Revival meetings and meetings for cultivating spirituality are the way of Christianity. We do not depend on that way. Rather, we contact people one by one and save people one by one. After we gain one person, we teach him to contact his close friends. Every one of us has several good friends who become our contacts for the gospel. Instead of seeking to gain many people in a short time, we should work on one person at a time. This way of laboring seems to be slow, but it is actually rather fast and effective.
The way of gaining one person at a time is solid, and the persons gained will be steadfast, remaining fruit (John 15:16). Trying to gain many people at once can be compared to sewing a garment with eight needles. We may desire to be fast, but in the end we accomplish nothing. It is better to sew slowly with one needle and finish the garment. To contact people one by one is a good way to begin the gospel work in the schools. We are more likely to succeed by beginning the work in this way.
If a school does not have any saints who are students or staff members, we should leave it and begin with another school that has saints. It is preferable to begin with the schools that have the most saints, either as staff or as students. After we work on the schools that have saints, we can work on the schools that do not have saints. It is not difficult to labor on a school that does not have saints. We can wait at the gate of a school at the end of the day and approach the students who are walking out. We can greet them, converse with them, give them a gospel tract, and walk with them for a short distance to get to know them. We might not gain anyone today, but we can go again tomorrow. After three or four days, we will gain someone. Gradually, by contacting people one by one in this way, the Lord’s work will take shape.
We must believe that the economical Spirit is with us. One brother testified that he was saved because an unbeliever said, “It is a good thing to believe in Jesus.” Because of this word, the Holy Spirit was able to operate in him, and he was saved. The Lord’s Spirit is operating on the earth. Our saying that the economical Spirit is with us is absolutely different from what the Pentecostal movement promotes. In the 1960s the Pentecostal movement was prevalent in Southeast Asia, and a small number of our saints were affected by Pentecostalism. However, the Lord in His sovereignty cleared up that situation. History testifies that the Pentecostal movement does not bring in much effect. For this reason, when we begin the gospel work in the schools, we should treasure contacting people one at a time.
We need to gain a person so that he takes this way, before we contact a second person. This is the way we gain one person, a second person, and so on. This may seem slow, but it is steady. There is no need to draw attention to our work. We simply gain people one by one.
After we gain a person, we must have meetings with him. Perhaps a saint who is a teacher lives near the school, or a saint who can receive the students lives near the school. We can fellowship with the students in that home. We can ask the saint whose home is near the school whether we can bring some students to his home after school hours. This gathering should not be long. If it is long, the students will get home late, and their parents will be worried. A gathering for thirty minutes would be good.
If a school looks promising for the gospel work, those who labor in that school should consider moving close to it. We can start either a brothers’ house or a sisters’ house with three or four students. Such an apartment does not need to be large, but it needs to have a living room where we can receive students. This kind of arrangement will hit the target every time. It is effective. Two to three brothers or sisters, who are students, and a couple can live in such an apartment. Every day after school is over, we can bring students to the apartment and meet with them for thirty minutes. The meeting should be without an obvious form. There can be gospel tracts, snacks, and something to drink in the living room so that the students can talk freely.
When we first contact the students, their parents may not understand and may interfere. However, they will gradually understand. After some children are saved, their behavior will change, and their parents will notice the change. Eventually, the parents will find out that their children have believed in the Lord Jesus, or their children will tell them. However, by that time it will be too late, even if the parents want to interfere. Nonetheless, it is a great comfort and blessing to the parents when their children change for the better. When they first find out, most parents do not agree with their children believing into the Lord. But some children have even brought their parents into the church life.
The church in San Francisco rented a house across from a large high school. The house was for the brothers and sisters. On the first floor there was a large living room, and every afternoon the door to the house was wide open. All that a student had to do after leaving school was to cross the street, and he would be in the house. The students could have a drink, sit down, and talk. The gathering was only for half an hour. More than a hundred people were saved in this way. One of the high-school students who was saved through such contact even became an elder.
The full-timers who are involved with the gospel work in the schools must find suitable, nearby locations to receive the students. The closer such a location is to the school, the better. For example, to labor at National Taiwan University it is best to move near the university and open our home as a receiving station. Initially, it may be that we only receive students, but eventually we will be giving them hospitality. Sometimes students have special circumstances. A student may become sick and come to our home to be cared for. This is the most effective way to labor. When our homes are receiving stations, we can contact students on a daily basis, and the care that we render will not be routine or formal.
This is the most effective way to labor among the students in high school and in junior high school. We should also be practical. We can receive a student in our home on the Lord’s Day. We should not bring a student to the Lord’s Day meeting immediately after he is saved; rather, we should labor on him gradually until he becomes solid. Then we can bring him to the Lord’s Day meeting. Before a student is solid, we can meet with him on the Lord’s Day, not in the meeting hall but in our home. After we build up the habit of meeting with our new ones on the Lord’s Day, we can then bring them to a young people’s meeting on the Lord’s Day. We should not be too quick to bring them to a general meeting of the church.
If the work in the high schools and the junior high schools is progressing well, we will go further. We can have a conference or a big gathering for all the saints in high school and junior high school at least every six months. We can use a large meeting hall or rent a hall for such a gathering. Such a conference is very helpful. We can use it to bring the students step by step into the atmosphere and the realm of the gospel, into life, into truth, and into the church. This is a good way for the work in both high school and junior high school to develop.
Based on our experience in the United States, we can take the junior-high-school and the high-school students to the mountains every six months for a conference. Such an activity would need the support of the church. The saints’ children, who are saved, can also coordinate with us. We must entrust the newly saved ones to our children who are students. Some of the newly saved ones are their classmates, and it will be easy for our students to converse with them. In America we conduct mountain trips every six months. We can hold a mountain trip every three months to have a greater impact. A mountain trip should not be long; it can last for a holiday or a weekend.
I am burdened to have a meeting with the elders in the church in Taipei. Perhaps the church can purchase a plot of land in the nearby scenic area and build a recreation center for the students. If we have such a center, the churches can take turns using it. Perhaps this week the students from hall two can use it, and next week the church in Yung-Ho or the church in Ban-Chiao can use it. It would be best to purchase about six thousand square feet so that all the meeting halls of the church in Taipei and the nearby churches can use it regularly.
Having such a place available for the young people will make everyone happy, and its effect will be beneficial. We can take the teenage saints, those in junior high school and high school, to the mountains. Even their gospel friends can be saved on such a trip. We can arrange activities for them, and we should set aside three periods of time to teach them something. In two days we can have six periods. Even a naughty child can be saved on such a trip. The mountain trip can be regarded as a kind of incubator. After staying in the incubator for three days, everyone will be changed. In the United States a teenager was saved during a mountain trip and stopped smoking. Such a change is applauded by every parent. We should do this work earnestly, and we should be even more aggressive with the college students. Presently, in the United States the work with the high-school and college young people depends on these conferences.
Such conferences uphold our young people. We must work in the junior high schools, the high schools, and the colleges. Every college campus on the island of Taiwan must have a gospel work so that the students who are saved in high school can be worked on for another four years. By the time a person who is saved in junior high school finishes college, he would have received at least seven years of cultivation in the truth, and it will be difficult for him to fall away. If we can weave such a gospel net in the junior high schools, the high schools, and the colleges all over this island, it will uphold all our saved young people.
The principle for the college work is similar. There is one advantage to the college work, which is that college students have more freedom. They live in the dormitory away from home, and the colleges do not watch over them strictly but allow them more freedom. We should utilize this. We need to carefully study how to labor on the college campuses to know how to best utilize the students’ time and how to contact them one by one.
According to our experience with institutions such as Ching Hwa University and Yenching University, most professors live on campus. We can therefore use the homes of the saints who are professors at the universities to contact students and even have meetings. The principle is similar to what we fellowshipped earlier.
We should consider what we will say when we contact the college students. We need to know how to speak and what to say. What we say needs to supply them with food so that they may be fed. We must also supply them with medicine to heal their sickness. Sometimes we even have to operate on them as a surgeon. The content of our conversation with the junior-high-school students and the high-school students should be simple, but it should also stir up their interest. We should avoid debates with the college students. When a person grows to be eighteen years old, he begins to consider the meaning of life. Therefore, when we supply the truth to them, we should avoid debates. It is easier to select material for junior-high-school students and high-school students than it is to select material for the college students. This is what makes college work easy and yet difficult at the same time. The difficulty lies in the fact that the college students have begun to consider certain deep issues, making it easier for them to debate.
We need to take the college students to the mountains many times, at least twice a year. The mountain trip can last longer than the trip for the younger students. The conference for the junior-high-school students can be two to three days, but for the college students it is best to have at least one more day. There should be a college conference during the winter holidays and during the summer vacation. The college conference should be by region. The churches in northern Taiwan can have a joint college conference, the churches in central Taiwan can have a conference, and the churches in southern Taiwan can also have a conference. Every region should have a college conference instead of one large conference for the whole island. A large conference will use too many resources and will not be as fruitful.
The location for the college conference needs to be carefully considered. We must seek the Lord’s leading. The church in Taipei does not have an adequate facility. Hall one is not large enough for the whole church. The church in Taipei does not have a meeting place where the whole church can gather. It has to rent a place when the whole church comes together. This is inconvenient. If the conference site is not adequate and does not provide sufficient accommodation, some students may have to stay in either the meeting halls or in the saints’ homes. Even if the messages are uplifting, the time that it takes to travel between the meeting place and their hospitality would be a distraction to the students and will reduce the effectiveness of the conference.
The practice of the saints in Brazil is quite good. For their gatherings, they purchased a piece of property that is about one hundred acres. In order to do a long-term work, we need property. If it is not easy to find such a place in the city of Taipei, it is better to look in the suburbs. Every six months there should be a weeklong college conference. Not more than two thousand college students can gather together for a week and be trained in life, truth, and the gospel. We do not need to have only one speaker for the college conference. Several co-workers can coordinate together for the speaking. We have much material that can be used. If we have a proper place, we can be certain that we will have results. All those in the college conference will be fed spiritual meals for seven days and will be satisfied.
The gospel work should begin with the children. The children in elementary school should be nurtured by the children’s work. When they enter junior high school, there will already be a gospel work with the junior-high-school students. Then as they proceed to high school, they will be cultivated by the gospel work in the high schools. During the time they are at college, they will be perfected. If a person is gained in the first year of college, instead of through children’s work, the serving ones should take him to the mountains once every semester for a week of training. In four years he would have attended eight mountain trips. By the Lord’s mercy, after eight mountain trips, when he graduates from college, he will continue with two years in the full-time training. Imagine how many thousands of serving ones there will be after a period of time!
If the young people can be perfected from elementary school, through junior high school, high school, college, and two years in the full-time training, they will know whether or not they will serve full time after the training. I believe that at least one out of ten students will give themselves to serve full time for the rest of their life, and the rest will probably get a job. The ones who are trained will be different even if they get a job, because they have a solid foundation in the truth and have been gained by the Lord. Therefore, when they enter into society to work, they will still be working for the Lord. For this reason, the full-timers who are laboring in the gospel work in the schools must be clear and have this goal. This is the goal of the work in the Lord’s recovery. We begin our labor with the children and continue with those in junior high school, high school, and college so that they continue with two years of full-time service in the church. This plan is much superior to any plan set up by a seminary.
We should also grasp the opportunity with the incoming new students during their orientation. Two brothers once testified that they contacted five hundred new medical students during orientation. This is a good way to contact the students. The best time for a college student to receive the gospel is during his first semester as a freshman. It is easy for a person to receive the gospel when he is undergoing change. If we miss this window of opportunity, that is, the new student’s transition from high school to college, we will miss the best time for the gospel. It will be much more difficult to gain the students later. For this reason, we should try our best to preach the gospel to freshmen at the beginning of a semester. The brothers have done a good job in this aspect. Eighty percent of their labor during orientation has been good, but our follow-up is still lacking. If we can take care of the follow-up more thoroughly, more people will be saved. We need to grasp the opportunity during the freshmen orientation.
Our labor can be compared to harvesting wheat in northern China. In May, when the wheat is ripe, none of the farmers are concerned about eating or sleeping. The old people have a saying: “The wheat is falling; are you still sleeping?” Once the wheat is ripe, it must be harvested immediately; otherwise, it will fall to the ground. When the wheat is ripe, no one can sleep peacefully. All the wheat must be harvested in half a day. The new students coming into the schools can be likened to the wheat falling off the stalk. We must not be bothered with anything else, not the Lord’s Day meeting or any other matters, other than the new students. If we cannot gain eighty percent of the new students, we should at least gain fifty percent. We must grasp this opportunity.
We must also be thick-skinned when we preach the gospel, and we must be sure of what we preach, just as a salesman must be thick-skinned, not shy but confident of his product and confident that the customer will buy it from him. A salesman who can guide a customer in a simple way to buy his product has made a sale.
We still need further study concerning how to put everything into practice. Please do not pay lip service to our fellowship, but outline a way and hit the target. This requires much effort. Our goal is to gain people. Whatever way by which we can gain people is the way we will take. We must take the time and make the effort to study this. In principle, whether we serve full time or part time and are under thirty years old, our labor in the gospel should be in the schools. The saints who are over thirty years old can participate in all areas with the gospel.
Question: What should we say if people ask us why we do not participate in a campus-wide fellowship involving other Christian groups?
Answer: This matter is related to the truth of the church (Matt. 16:18; 18:17). The Lord Jesus has only one Body in the universe, and this Body is His universal church. There is only one expression of this church in each locality. For example, in Jerusalem there were many believers but only one church, which was called the church in Jerusalem. If there are two expressions of the church in one locality, there is division. This is the reason that at the end of the Bible, in Revelation, each of the seven cities has only one church, such as the church in Ephesus, the church in Smyrna, the church in Pergamos, and the church in Thyatira. There was only one church in a city (1:11).
Shortly after the time of the apostles, however, the church encountered problems. There was a great controversy mainly related to the truth concerning the Triune God and the person of Christ. By the end of the sixth century, after several councils, Catholicism was officially formed, and the pope controlled everything. This condition continued for more than nine centuries, that is, close to one thousand years. This period is called the Dark Ages in church history. Later, reformers, such as Martin Luther, were raised up. They did not accept church traditions; they returned to the truth in the Bible and compared traditions with the truth. The first item they recovered was justification by faith. This was the recovery of the foundation of salvation. Thereafter, item after item of the truth has been recovered.
Martin Luther did not intend to leave Catholicism; he felt that he should rise up simply to recover the truth. However, the Catholic Church desired to kill him, which caused a German nobleman to rise up to protect Luther. Under such circumstances, Luther had little choice in the formation of state churches. As a result, the state church, which appeared first in Germany, believed in justification by faith and was called the Lutheran Church. It was the first denomination.
Soon many European countries, such as Denmark and England, also rose up to form state churches. There is the state church of Denmark, the state church of Sweden, and the state church of Norway. The rulers of these countries are also the head of the state church. The queen of England is the head of the Anglican Church, which is the state church of England.
Later, a group of believers pursued the truth and saw that the practice of state churches was not according to the Bible. They formed the so-called private churches, such as the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the Methodists. Still later the Pentecostals rose up, as well as many other groups. Now the various denominations and sects can be compared to the numerous trees in a forest. Even in the city of Taipei there are many denominations. This situation has divided the Lord’s Body.
About one hundred fifty years ago, the British Brethren were raised up, and they saw the light that the practice of sects is not according to the Bible. Consequently, some left the Catholic Church and others left the Anglican Church. Their leaving the sects was thorough and powerful. The truth unveiled by the British Brethren affected believers in many places.
Around the year 1920 this truth reached us in China, and we began to meet outside of any denominational structure. We accepted all the saints regardless of their denominational background, as long as they were genuinely saved. Our accepting of others was not based on different faiths but on the fact that when a person repents and believes into the Lord, he is washed, regenerated, justified by God, and becomes a child of God. As long as a person was a member of Christ, we accepted him and met with him. This was our attitude.
Any so-called campus-wide fellowship is a gospel organization formed by several groups that work together on the campuses. They send the students they gain to the denominations. We will not interfere with a believer who joins such a campus-wide fellowship, because this will only give rise to criticism. However, we are led by the Lord to enter into the church life, and we believe that gradually all believers will know the truth concerning the church. When we contact students, we need to preach the gospel to them. Then we need to supply them with life. When the students begin to love and pursue the Lord, we can release the truth to them. We do not need to engage others in debates; we should only present the truth to them.
We do not criticize those who desire to meet in the Catholic Church or in the denominations. We leave this decision to them. It would be wonderful for others to be enlightened by our testimony and by the supply of the truth so that they would be unwilling to stay in any division but would rather take the way of the church and become a part of the testimony of oneness. Nevertheless, this choice is theirs, and we should not argue with them.
We have the gospel, life, and the truth. There is also a testimony for others to see. We should also lead other believers to testify for the Lord. We are not creating our own sect. Hence, when someone asks what denomination we are in, we should reply that we do not belong to any denomination. At the most, we can say that we are the local church. We are not a sect, a denomination, or a special group of people. We are those who are saved and who love the Lord. We meet together in each locality to testify for the Lord. Concerning other believers, our hope is simply to state the truth clearly to them. The way they receive our speaking is according to the Lord’s leading.
