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Scripture Reading: Rom. 7:6; 2 Cor. 3:6
Since October of 1984 the Lord has started a new way among us for the carrying out of His recovery. The recovery has been on the earth for over sixty years. In the first twenty years or more we have gone through at least two or three stages, so our practice has changed at least two or three times. In Brother Nee’s writings, especially The Normal Christian Church Life, there are indications that the practice in the Lord’s recovery did change. By 1937 Brother Nee had seen the principle, or line, of Antioch. Based upon this he gave the messages contained in The Normal Christian Church Life. He said that up to that time the practice among us was only according to one way. He admitted that before that time he had not seen the line of Antioch. Until then most of the co-workers stayed in one place, not going out to spread the gospel to establish the churches. In those messages he charged us all to not stay permanently in one place but to go out from one city to another. He called this the line of Antioch. Since 1937 there was a change in the practice of the Lord’s recovery. From 1937 to 1942 we practiced the line of Antioch.
In 1942 there was a turmoil in Shanghai. This was a real hardship to Brother Nee, and he spontaneously stopped his ministry until 1948. In those six years he did not minister as usual; he did only a small amount in the interior of China during the war time. While Brother Nee was there in the interior caring for his pharmaceutical factory, he gave the messages contained in The Orthodoxy of the Church. That was all that he ministered. Besides this he occasionally gave time to some of the seekers to fellowship with him.
After the war he came back to Shanghai, and I also was invited to stay there. We began to come together, even though he would not come to the meetings. We had much time together to talk about the Lord’s recovery. He began to let me know privately that he saw something further, which he called the line of Jerusalem. Due to the revival in Shanghai and other cities, Brother Nee was brought back to his ministry. At that time he gave us at least one message on the line of Jerusalem.
Since 1948 we practiced very much according to the second line, the line of Jerusalem — to have the co-workers mainly stay in the major cities to help the building up of the local churches as strong testimonies there. We practiced this way for quite a number of years. This practice was even brought over to Taiwan and somewhat to the United States. By this you could see that in the past years we practiced the Lord’s recovery in three stages — the initial stage, the second stage of the Antioch line, and the third stage of the Jerusalem line until 1984.
In the last years, especially from 1980, I began to realize that we have somewhat become dull, without much sense of the spiritual situation and condition among us. For years we simply went according to what we had seen through Brother Nee. We had no intention to question whether we should still continue in that way or not. We did not realize how old and how cold we were and how much we were retained in our old practice. This practice was new in 1948, but since 1980 it has become no longer new. With the practice according to the vision we had received through Brother Nee concerning the line of Jerusalem, we brought the Lord’s recovery to this country in 1962. In the first ten years the recovery was new and living. It was not as cold and old as it has been in the last seven or eight years.
This cold and old situation and condition was more serious in Taiwan than in the United States. Taiwan’s situation in 1984 was the primary factor that caused me to reconsider our way. In the five years since 1980, whenever the leading ones came to this country to meet with me, I always charged them seriously and thoroughly, even warning them, that the work there could not go on in this way. However, within these five years of charging, warning, and exhorting, there was very little change or advancement.
During those years I had to spend about ninety days to prepare for the summer training and another ninety days to prepare for the winter training, mainly in the writing of the footnotes. Even while I was so busy, I was considering Taiwan very much because it is the source of the spreading of the Lord’s recovery outside of mainland China. Because there was a new start there in 1949, I considered that as a great part of the produce of my ministry. Therefore, I was very much concerned for the situation. I realized that if Taiwan would be like that, they would be a spring full of sulfur. The churches elsewhere would not be able to receive the current from Taiwan without the taste of sulfur.
In order to purify the current of the Lord’s recovery around the globe, I had to purify that spring as the source. I made this decision after a long period of consideration. During those five years while I was advising and exhorting the leading ones there to improve the work, I was already considering to go back to do something. I was not able to be spared, however, in order that I could finish the Life-study of the New Testament. After the last word of the footnotes on the New Testament was written, I felt that this was the time. I had to go back to Taiwan. At the end of September of 1984 I finished the writing, and in October I went back. I indicated that I would stay a longer time there and that I probably would go back quite often.
Something stirred up within my spirit telling me that I had to revolutionize the church life, not leaving a bit of the old practice. The entire practice had to be overturned. It was too old. Perhaps thirty years ago it was good. This can be compared to our means of transportation. In 1947 I flew from Shanghai to Hong Kong on a DC-4, which was called the King in the Air. It seemed so pleasant and comfortable. Again in 1958 I flew from Taiwan to San Francisco on a DC-4. It was marvelous to us that we could cross the entire Pacific and arrive at San Francisco within twenty-four hours. However, today we may travel to Taiwan in twelve hours. It is much more comfortable; I could even walk and exercise on that 747. What an improvement! No one can change the earth created by God, but surely we can improve the transportation around it. Throughout the centuries there have been many improvements in transportation. In previous centuries travel by wagon from the East Coast to the West Coast may have taken about one hundred days. But today to fly from the West Coast to New York takes a little over five hours. This is due to the changes, the improvements, in the methods of travel.
Why in working for the Lord would we remain in the oldness? This is the way of the Catholic Church; the ordinances of the Catholic Church have existed for over fourteen centuries since the establishment of the papal system. There has been hardly any change. It is somewhat the same with us. By remaining in the old way we surely have suffered. We suffered first in the growth of life. We suffered as well in the matter of the truth, and we suffered the most in the loss of the increase. In the last five years we have not had much increase. It is the same in all the churches. Only a few places are better. We generally remained the same. This is a great loss. However, within the last ten years other groups have risen up in the United States. In the Far East in at least three or more places, some Christian groups increased from one thousand to a hundred thousand. In 1958, the same year the church in Taipei began to drop the small group meetings, a church in Seoul, Korea, started. It started simply with the pastor, his wife, and two other couples. Now they claim to have a few hundred thousand members in that one city. When I began to study their situation in October of 1984, they claimed that they had three hundred thousand. Today they claim that they have more. Another little group in Singapore was started by a student who returned from the United States within the last ten years. Every Lord’s Day they have several sessions in one rented auditorium. Quite a few thousand rotate to meet there, session after session.
Such a study confirmed very much to me that there must be a change among us. Otherwise, we would be foolish. We may not take a mule wagon, yet we still may use the DC-4 of about forty years ago. Why would we not change our “airplane”? Jump out of the oldness and enter into the 747! We cannot change the truth, just as we cannot change the globe. But why would we not change the transportation? What is wrong with changing the transportation? This is not to change the truth. This is not to change the recovery. This is not to change God’s New Testament economy. This is not to change the great mystery, Christ and the church. But surely we have to change our cold and old situation.
The Chinese young people have good parents who have brought to them ethics and morality with a good education. The young generation has been brought up in this good way. But today in Taiwan all those who do business, establish factories, and produce and export articles do not follow their fathers’ way. They pick up the American way to compete with Korea, with Hong Kong, and even with Japan. Taiwan has now had a great success and has become rich. Financially speaking, in the entire Far East, Taiwan ranks second only to Japan. This is due to their improvement in the way of doing things, from the old way to an absolutely new way. They do everything in a new, scientific way, according to the modern standard.
I asked the young trainees why the worldlings would be so wise to change their way in doing things, but we would be so foolish. They all are taking the 747, but we still prefer the old mule wagon. A mule wagon could travel only thirty miles a day. At least three or four groups of Christians around us, some even in Taipei, have made great improvements. They all have attained to a good number. You may say that we do not care for numbers — we only care for life. However, without quantity could you have quality? Quality comes from quantity. How much life could you have with such a small number?
Twenty years ago the membership in Taipei was over twenty-two thousand. Those who took care of the name cards can testify to this. However, after more than twenty years the membership had gone down to eleven thousand. The city had nearly doubled in population, but our membership had gone down fifty percent. It is foolish to remain there without any change. For this reason I told the young people to not take the old way. Even now you must respect the old generation in life and in truth. But in the way to practice the church life, to carry out the Lord’s recovery, to preach the gospel, and to teach the truth, you have to repudiate the old way to the uttermost. We must no longer use the mule wagon or even the old style of airplane. We must jump into the 747.
In the moral sense you must respect your father and highly regard him, but in doing business, in teaching classes, in doing everything, even in packing a little package, you must not take his old way. You must go the new way; otherwise, you will lose the market and lose your job. Today all around the earth, people are competing. Do not think that in the field of Christian work there is no competition. There is a great amount of competition. Not only in this country but even the more in the Far East, people take my ministry and use it for their own way. Our Gospel Book Room in Taipei sells books to outsiders by the bundles. They know that what we have as far as the truth is concerned is the best. In Taiwan the others use these materials, but many in the church life just put them on the shelf and are indifferent toward these treasures. They remain in the old, routine way to have the meetings, to take care of the church, to do the work, to preach the gospel, and to preach the truth. Everything is done in a routine way.
If you do things merely according to a routine, even in the most scientific way, there will be no success. In every corporation or big bank, the employees in the office may do things according to routines, but the managers have to “fast.” Every founder, manager, or top executive “fasts.” They may not care for breakfast but utilize breakfast to get more business. They eat while they get business but may not remember what they have eaten. They have no heart to eat. This is their fast. They have no heart to sleep; they work until midnight. A Japanese motorcycle corporation established a large office in Los Angeles and hired many Americans as clerks, who worked at their desk according to a routine, eight hours a day, five days a week. But in the back rooms the Japanese work until midnight. They do not know what Sunday is. They do not know what the weekend is. Their success rests in that, not in the American clerks.
I do not like to see that you co-workers and elders do a routine work, caring for the church in a routine way. Then the church would be reduced to nothing. If all the Japanese managers worked like the clerks in the front office, their corporation would be closed. In America professors in the top universities have a slogan — publish or perish. The top professors do not have a good stomach. They cannot sleep or eat well. They have to write something and get it published. Without publishing, they perish. I encourage all the young ones to pick up such a way.
Especially with the Chinese, to have a change is extremely difficult. When Western civilization and culture went to the Far East centuries ago, the Japanese received it. Then Japan became an important power, while China remained in the oldness to be robbed by the major powers. They all went to China to exercise their imperialism, but none of the major powers could carry out their imperialism in Japan. The Japanese picked up the new, scientific, modern, and up-to-date Western culture. They were able to compete with the Western powers. They changed, but China remained old. To have a change may offend the old generation. I am going to carry out a change according to the Lord’s charge. This way is not for myself or not according to my feeling. It is for the Lord’s interest.
A quarter century ago the church in Taipei had twenty-two thousand members. However, the membership went down. There was not much spreading or evangelizing on that island, even though the church there owns properties and has many halls. Because of the number of saints and the flourishing economy, the church also has much money. Recently, one hall had the feeling to spread and set up another hall in a nearby section of the city. Those who were there reported that they needed a large van for transportation. In one meeting, without going home to consider, the saints gave five thousand dollars. For the thirty-seven and a half acres of land in Linkou we had to pay eight hundred fifty thousand American dollars. This amount was raised in almost one day from the halls of the church in Taipei.
Since the beginning of 1985 one hundred thirty young ones have come into full-time service. I visited their training occasionally to give some foundational matters and some principles. In just over two months sixteen teams with six hundred people were sent out for the gospel. The center, the nucleus, of that move was the one hundred thirty young ones. Within three weeks they baptized one thousand nine hundred seventy-five people. This came out from the absence of the old tradition. The sixteen teams went out in an absolutely new way.
I still have the burden to bring the Lord’s recovery out of the old practice and into the new. This is why I called these urgent trainings. If I would not do this, all the churches in the West would only copy what Taiwan is doing. That would not work. You would merely copy the things of the new way, yet you would not take the new way. This is what the Lord likened to putting new wine into an old wineskin (Matt. 9:17). The new wine will ferment and burst the old wineskin. If you do not have a change in the way of practice in the Lord’s recovery, yet you would imitate the points, this will burst your church life. It does not work. I am a little concerned. If you will not change, I would rather propose to you to not pick up any new points. Just go back to your locality and manage your church in the old way. Let me go to Taiwan to do something new in the new way. You are still safe. You will not increase much. You will not improve much, but you will still be quite safe. You will have no trouble. However, if you take the new way without a real change, you will make trouble for yourself.
The new way is first to build the church in, through, and based upon the home meetings, having the church life in the home meetings. We do not care that much for having the church life in the big meetings. We do not believe that it is possible to do so. According to our experience and observation, the proper, adequate, one hundred percent church life could be possible only in the home meetings.
Second, the new way is to lead every member to get used to functioning without any idea of depending on a giant speaker, thus annulling hierarchy, clergy, position, and ambition. Drop the idea of a special speaker. That is a foreign article put into the Body. Let there be no more giant speakers. Christianity depends on the giant speakers. That is a fallen state, the condition of the book of Judges. In Judges whenever a great man became a judge, he rescued the people, and they had a revival. When the man left or died, the revival also died. That is not the church life. This way will surely rescue me from my concern for the ambition. This is the way to annul the ambition and to give up control.
Third, the new way is to teach all the saints to know the basic truths in an educational way so that they may teach others for the spreading of the truths. This should have been one of the goals for the Lord’s recovery to carry out, but we had a failure due to our inadequate practice. For this purpose and goal we want to have truth lessons, to teach all the saints to know all the truths in an educational way so that they may teach others for the spreading of the truth.
Fourth, the new way is to build up the saints in the growth of life so that they may minister life to others, shepherd each other, and take care of the backsliding ones. This is one stone that could kill three birds — to have growth in life, to have adequate shepherding, and to take care of the backsliding ones. Today there is an accumulation of many backsliding ones. We must practice the new way to take care of every backsliding one. We do not like to have an accumulation of thousands of backsliding ones. It is a shame that no one takes care of them. That is the old way. The saints come to the big meeting to have a giant speaker to speak the truth to them. After that they go back home and leave the responsibility of shepherding to the elders. It is impossible for the elders to care for ten thousand people, and it is not fair to charge them with such a burden. The shepherding should be one to another. Even as a strong member I need a young one to shepherd me, to take care of me, to do some things for me. Of course, you also need me.
It is impossible to carry out this shepherding in the big meetings. It can be done only in the small gatherings with ten or twelve members. Everyone there knows each one. Surely you can take care of each other. This will build up the best communal life. Human beings are communal; we like to have a community. However, it is hard to have the best communal life. Most communal life is rotten and corrupting, and it ruins people. Only the church communal life is pure. I hope that even in many cities we will have at least two hundred homes where the proper, pure, communal church life is being carried out. That will surely attract the best people.
Brothers and sisters who intend to go full time, do not think of going the old way. My burden is to impress you with a new way. The home gatherings should be very much helped by the full-timers. All the full-timers should learn to the uttermost how to help the home meetings. You must do a lot in the home meeting, yet nothing you do should replace anyone. This requires the top skill. According to our natural habit, either we do it all ourselves or we do not do it at all. If we do it, we do everything. We keep everybody far away, leaving the job to ourselves. That is replacement. The full-timers have to learn how to go into a small gathering with about eight persons and do much to teach the truth, preach the gospel, and minister life. Everyone will get the help, but no one will have the feeling that you are replacing them. They will feel that they themselves are doing the job. You may wonder how this could be possible. Simply go to do it. Then you will know how it can be done. To play the piano or the violin is a hard job for me. However, my grandchildren play the violin quite well. They learned by practice. After they do their homework, they also practice the piano. Eventually, they could play it. I never practice, so I cannot do it, nor do I know anything about it. It depends upon the skill, and the skill depends upon practice.
The main thing needed for the new way is for the full-timers to be trained in two things — preaching the gospel and helping the small gatherings. You must know how to go out to reach people for the spreading of the gospel. Then every week you have to spare one night to attend the home gathering. In Taipei, with about four hundred home meetings, they could have eight hundred full-timers. Two could go to one gathering. In that gathering, there are at most twelve, and of this number there are two experts to do everything for the attendants, yet without any replacement. Could you do this? Just as a cow could not play a piano, you may not be able to do it. Therefore, you need to be not only changed but revolutionized. You need to have a new start. This is a new way; it is absolutely different. When I first heard of the airplane, I said that it could never be done. This was my old idea, but now I am quite convinced. I would like to convince you that this can be done.
Although it may seem that I am not speaking about the truth lessons, I actually am. I am speaking about something in newness of spirit (Rom. 7:6). In the past we have spoken of being in the oldness of the letter. I would change the word letter to routine. You are keeping yourselves in the oldness of routine. Many young ones in the United States would say that they are so glad to have the new training. They would like to change with the new way to spread the glad tidings and to go to the home meetings to do many things for everyone there, yet without any replacement. They will want me to teach them to practice this. I would like to do it, but I still need to go back to Taiwan. If you have the heart and you mean business, you will hear more about the new way.
Fifth, the new way is to lead all the saints to preach the gospel in every possible way. There are many ways and many objects for our preaching, including our schools and home, the people on the street, our neighbors, and many more.
Sixth, the new way is to avoid leadership as much as possible. We are not going to practice anarchy. We do not intend to have anarchy, but neither do we want monarchy. We need quite a good government but without leaders. We have only one governor — the Head, Jesus Christ. The only way to annul all the position, leadership, and ambition is to have a strong practice of the home gatherings. In any home meeting do not set up a leader, and do not try to be a leader. Otherwise, we will have many who consider themselves to be the head. Actually, Christ is the Head, not you. Try your best to avoid any kind of leadership. Some may wonder how this could work without any leadership. This will work because of the unique Head. If you and I would not be the Head, this will give Him the best way to exercise His headship. We have been frustrating Him too much.
Last, the new way is to have the home gatherings for home nurture. For any human being to be raised up, he needs a proper home nurture as well as a school education. The home gatherings are for the home nurture, and the bigger meetings are for the school education. In the human life we need the home to nurture us and the school to educate us. We must use the Lord’s Day morning to train our people with the truth, whereas the small meetings in our homes are for home nurturing.
We have to carry out at least these seven things in a new way. Please fellowship about this matter one with another in your locality. It is worthwhile for even two or three to spend time to fellowship about these points. This will revolutionize your concept. These all are basic points and principles. The new way is to make the home meetings as homes to nurture our children, the saints. Then we will have bigger meetings mainly on the Lord’s Day as schools to educate our people. We will have nurture and education, nurture by the home meetings and education by the bigger meetings. We must consider the home meetings as homes and the bigger meetings as schools.
Pray about these seven items very much after you return home. You should have a period of time for training, at least two weeks, to train the saints in your locality with all these points. The points need not be in good sequence as long as you cover every point.
A message needs to be prepared for all the different kinds of meetings. This is your cooking. This does not mean that you pick up the thought, the idea, with the terminology from the Life-study messages and our other publications and recompose them. If you do this, you will spoil them. You need to get into the Life-studies and the other publications. This could never be done by only one person. There are too many groceries. You need a group of elders, helpers, or co-workers, including some knowledgeable sisters, to help you. Some sisters have a very good knowledge of our publications. Select the portions that you consider suitable to your church’s present situation, and put them together exactly as they are into one message. Train the saints to not simply read it but to use it as a message given by themselves and to themselves. They must take it as a message first to themselves and then to others. Furthermore, they should do this in a mutual way by mutual speaking with a little defining. Such a speaking for about thirty to forty minutes will become a rich, living, and uplifting message. Everyone will get the benefit. Also take care of all the points I have fellowshipped with you in this book. Train the saints to exercise their spirit, and train them how to speak. This requires time for the elders to labor in the Word to select portions for the messages.
You also must train some promising ones as full-timers. Train them to go into the home meetings to be the basic elements of that meeting. There are no leaders, but you need one or two to be the basic elements, not simply the common members. The eight or ten are common members, but you need one or two basic elements, not leaders. Within a growing tree there are some basic elements by which the tree grows. Likewise, the entire weight of the meeting hall in Anaheim rests on some large steel columns concealed within the stone. Within the red stone is the cement, and under the cement are the steel columns. Neither the stone on the outside nor the cement is the basic element. The basic element is the steel. The entire building is very solid and strong because within it is the solid element.
Within every home meeting, the elders should put in the basic element. Then every gathering will be strong, but the source of the strength will be a secret. The ones not so knowledgeable may attribute the strength of the column to the red stone. Actually, the strength is the steel within. You must train some to be the steel in the home meeting. This requires much labor. It is not sufficient to merely set up some homes and make a schedule and an announcement concerning the home gatherings. This will never work. You need much labor. The new way needs the elders, the co-workers, and the full-timers to labor to the uttermost. Without this you have no way to carry it out.
For the truth lesson classes you do not need to prepare any messages. Still you must learn how to charge the teacher to teach the truth lessons as I have pointed out earlier. For the rest of the meetings, including the general meeting, you should not trust in one person to speak. For the general meeting you must cook a message and charge one among you who is able to present this message in an adequate way. Actually, it will not be his own message but a message prepared by a group of you. This way is altogether new. Then you must prepare some kind of message for the gospel preaching in case you will need it. If there are no new ones present, then forget about it. If there are some new ones, then right away there will be something on hand to use in every home meeting. This is according to the principle of 1 Corinthians 14:26. You do have something. If the need arises, you may use it.
You also need to prepare the messages for all the home meetings. This is a hard job. Every week there must be one good message. Then you need to prepare a message for the Lord’s table and another one for the prayer meeting. In principle, for the Lord’s table you need a message on life for the nourishment, and for the prayer meeting you need a message on the service, but it is hard for us to separate these two matters. In Matthew 24 and 25 there is the parable of the ten virgins, denoting life, and the parable of the talents, denoting service. These are two aspects. However, in order to encourage people to serve properly you sometimes need life messages. Likewise, to encourage people to grow in life you sometimes need some messages on service. It all depends upon your learning and your discernment.
You should learn, you should labor, and you should practice not only to speak but to prepare some good messages. We have the storage of so many riches. It is doubtful that anyone could give a new message richer or more living than what we have stored up. The wisest way is to use the existing riches and skillfully present them as a prevailing message with which to serve the saints in the meeting. This is the top way. These will be not only my messages, but they will be yours because you will have digested them and put them together as one message to nourish the saints. These are the riches of the Lord’s house. We all need to use them. In the parable of Matthew 24:45-51 the servant knew how to serve food to the household at the appointed time. We do have much food. Now we need the diligence, the faithfulness, and the skill to use all these materials as proper meals to serve the Lord’s people, including the sinners, at the appointed time.
The church meetings are not only the big meetings in the halls. The church meetings are mainly the home gatherings. Only in a little sense are the big meetings the church meetings. The tradition still remains in our unconscious concept. When you speak of the big meetings, you refer to them as the church meetings, indicating that subconsciously you do not consider the home gatherings to be the church meetings. This is our problem. We need to have a purifying change, a purification of our thought and idea that have been with us for so many years.
The new way is constituted with these five things: the home gatherings, the functioning of all the members, the knowledge and spread of the truth, the growth in life, and the preaching of the gospel in every way. Brother Nee in his ministry stressed these five points very strongly. Chapter 9 of The Normal Christian Church Life has a long section concerning the home meetings, the small group meetings. He was very much disappointed by the failure to carry this out. He stressed this very much. He even suggested annulling the Lord’s Day morning meeting and asked all the saints to preach the gospel on the Lord’s Day. However, that did not work out.
He stressed very much that everyone needs to function. In his writings concerning the parable of the talents, he said that the most dangerous one is the one-talented member. He warned us. Of course, he also stressed very much the knowledge of the truth. For this he invented the way of training. He initiated the way of training that I have been carrying out. His way was by training, not by a seminary or a school. He also stressed life very much and planned to evangelize all of China within twenty years by five routes. The new way that we are now considering to take is altogether constituted with the same basic points that he stressed. We should not merely say that if Brother Nee were here he would be willing to be one with this new way. Actually, he was stressing this new way years ago. But due to our foolishness and dullness we did not go along with him. He was very much disappointed. He did not carry it out. He could not have the way.
I knew this quite well. To me this is not something new. We knew of this way years ago, but we were always held back and frustrated. I beg you young ones to take the new way absolutely. I beg the old generation to also take the new way. If you do not feel capable of taking the new way, then please keep silent. Do not say anything in a dissenting way. Rather, try your best to encourage the young ones to take the new way, and you pray for it. The majority of the old generation in Taiwan encouraged the young ones to take this new way. They are all happy to see the young ones take this new way. This is what I expect and what I would beg you all to do. The young ones must take this way, and the old generation also must take this way. If not, please do not be dissenting, but encourage the young ones to go on. All our children are the new generation. We are the parents. We would like to see our children take the new way and have a great success.
