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In this chapter we want to make the Lord’s new move and the way to carry out His move clear. First, I would like to mention something about what the Lord’s recovery has gone through in the past sixty-four years. Our beginning in the Lord’s recovery was very difficult. This was because we were new and young, and Christianity was prevailing. Of course, the Lord was merciful to us. He gave us a heart to seek after Him, after His Word, after His truth, and after His way. By His mercy we were absolute in our desire to drop the traditional, unscriptural way of Christianity and simply take the Lord Himself, His gospel, and His Word. However, we did not clearly see the right way to carry out what the Lord had shown us concerning the church. We went mostly to the writings of the Brethren for help concerning the practice of the church life. As young men, we had no choice except to follow those writings discerningly. Later, we found that the practice of the Brethren was neither absolutely scriptural nor adequate to meet our need.
Both Brother Nee and I came out from Christianity. Brother Nee’s grandfather was a pastor, and my mother was a third-generation Christian. We studied in Christian schools. By the Lord’s mercy we began to meet outside of Christianity to have the Lord’s recovery. Although we had come out of Christianity, we realized that we still unintentionally maintained some parts of the practice of Christianity as a kind of unconscious tradition in our meetings.
According to the natural concept, a Christian meeting must be a meeting with a large congregation. However, according to the principle of Matthew 18:20, only two or three are required for a Christian meeting. Nearly all the local churches began with a small number. In the early days of the Lord’s recovery in mainland China, many churches began with not more than five saints. Spontaneously, these localities grew to a larger number.
Eventually, in 1948 Brother Nee began to say that the Lord’s Day morning meeting among us was not so good. He uttered his strong feeling definitely to us. He indicated strongly that we should stop the Lord’s Day morning meetings and spend that time to preach the gospel (see Church Affairs, ch. 4). He told us that our way of meeting was altogether not according to the Scriptures. He pointed out to us that the most clear word in the New Testament concerning the way the believers should meet is in 1 Corinthians 14. He especially stressed verse 26, which says that when we come together, all of us should have something. He also pointed out that the proper Christian meeting should be fully in mutuality.
He said that the Lord’s Day message meeting with one speaking and the rest listening was according to the “customs of the nations.” In the Old Testament God warned the children of Israel that when they entered the good land, they should not follow the customs of the nations (2 Kings 17:8; Lev. 18:3; Deut. 18:9, NASB). Brother Nee compared all the denominations to the nations. The children of Israel followed the nations, but today we are following the denominations. To have one speaking and the rest listening on the Lord’s Day morning is a custom of the fallen denominations. If we take this way, we are like the children of Israel who followed the customs of the nations, and this is serious in the Lord’s eyes.
Brother Nee also said that it would be hard for us to change since we were accustomed to this traditional way of meeting. If we changed suddenly, it might result in a great loss. Thus, he proposed a brothers’ meeting for the brothers and a sisters’ meeting for the sisters. In these meetings he said that there should not be any assigned speaker. He made it clear that all the saints should speak in mutuality. These meetings, however, did not succeed. Eventually, we were not able to practice the truth that Brother Nee saw in 1 Corinthians 14:26.
As our history progressed in the Lord’s recovery, some situations of our meetings have gradually drifted back more to the same as that of Christianity. Even though we have renounced the traditional and unscriptural way of Christianity, we still carry with us some of Christianity’s practice of meeting. Christianity is still prevailing among us as long as we continue the practice of having church meetings with one person speaking and the rest listening. For the church life the way of meeting is vital. How the church goes on depends upon how we meet. If we still meet according to the traditional way of Christianity, how can we say that we have given up Christianity? We are still continuing in this unscriptural practice.
This traditional practice — the practice of the clergy and laity — results in hierarchy. We have said that we hate, despise, and condemn the clergy-laity system, but what has been the real situation among us in the past years? We have to admit that the clergy-laity system has unconsciously crept in among us. Spontaneously, hierarchy has also begun to exist among us, and the clergy-laity system has been increasing unintentionally among us. In nearly every locality there has been one big speaker. Not much attention or regard was given to all the saints functioning in mutuality. In the meetings of the church everyone expected to have a good speaker.
In 1984 I felt strongly that I should go back to Taiwan to have a new start for the Lord’s recovery. I was clear that we needed a new start, and the way to have a new start among us was to change the system of our meetings. The new start had to be revolutionary in the sense of overthrowing the unscriptural and traditional way of meeting. I saw clearly that if we could overthrow this way of meeting, hierarchy would have no place among us. We must overthrow the way of meeting with a big congregation and with one person speaking and the rest listening. This annuls the clergy-laity system. The proper way of meeting is a way that is full of mutuality.
Furthermore, the practice of the saints in the early church was to meet in their homes (Acts 2:46; 5:42; 20:20). To gain the increase we need to have the home meetings. The church has been dead, passive, and low in the rate of increase because we did not have the crucial way to gain people through the home meetings. We need to have meetings in the new believers’ homes, in the homes of the ones we gain through our preaching of the gospel. If we can only gain people without setting up meetings in their homes, this will be a failure. The most successful way is to gain people’s homes for home meetings. Meetings in the homes will work to the uttermost.
Seemingly, it was a risk to have such a change among us. But actually, it was not a risk, because we have the word of the Lord as a base for our practice. Acts tells us that when the church was initially established, the believers met from house to house. Meeting in homes as the Christian way of meeting together is fitting to God’s New Testament economy. This way differs from the Judaic way of meeting in the synagogues (6:9). Meeting in homes became a continual and general practice in the churches (cf. Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2). The three thousand that were saved on the day of Pentecost immediately began to meet from house to house.
To overthrow the old way of meeting is to make the so-called clergy jobless. Then the building of the clergy is torn down, and the producing of the clergy has no opportunity. If we mean business with the Lord in sincerity to take the new way, this will overthrow the clergy-laity system. Those of us who love the Lord and His recovery have to realize that our old way of meeting with one speaking and the rest listening was according to the traditional and unscriptural practice of Christianity. We said that we dropped Christianity and that we left Christianity, but we still brought some part of the practice of Christianity with us and continued to keep it. As long as we prefer to have big meetings with one speaking and the rest listening, we are a continuation of Christianity in some sense.
We cannot deny that many people have been brought to the Lord through the old way of meeting with big congregations. But there is another fact that no one can deny, that is, that the old practice kills the functions of the members of Christ. The way of Christianity builds up hierarchy. It builds up the clergy and produces the laity. This way has both a credit side and a debit side. However, the failure on the debit side is much greater than any success on the credit side. Would we still take a way that causes us to suffer so much loss, the loss of the functioning of the members of the Body of Christ?
Brother Nee’s eyes were opened long ago to see the truth concerning the church meetings in mutuality with all the saints functioning. But at that time we were not so clear as to how to handle the situation. Today we need to have a change to the God-ordained way of meeting and serving for the building up of the Body of Christ.
I realized that initially it might be a suffering to have such a change. Seemingly, we may not make that much profit at the beginning, but we will lay a good foundation so that we can make an unlimited profit in the future. I have the full assurance that the God-ordained way, the biblical way (according to Acts 2:46; 5:42 and 1 Corinthians 14), works. This new way is insured by God’s Word and will not suffer loss eventually.
The number one thing in my heart since 1984 has been to overthrow the system of one man speaking and the rest listening. We need to drop that old way and pick up the God-ordained, scriptural, new way. We need to have an absolute change to meetings of mutuality and to the home meetings. The basic factor for our meetings is that we need to meet in our homes. This is in the Bible, and this is God’s ordained way.
Many of us can testify that at the beginning of our church life experience, when we were meeting in the homes, we increased rather quickly. But once we began to concentrate our meeting life in the meeting hall, our rate of increase gradually declined. To have the home meetings is not an easy task. The way of having big congregations is somewhat easy, but to have home meetings in every believer’s home is a difficult job. If we have the home meetings, we will receive the benefit. We all have to drop our old way and pick up the new way.
In the new way we have to learn how to go to every believer’s home to have a meeting in each home. This is not an easy work. On the one hand, to work for the Lord we have to go to the people who can be considered as producing soil. On the other hand, we have to learn to recover those who have backslidden. Where there is a will, there is a way. If we would set our will to visit people with much prayer, the Lord will honor our will because this is His will. We will experience the Lord’s blessing if we cooperate with Him to visit others.
The elders and co-workers also need to learn how to use the positive ones among us who are desirous to serve and burdened to function. We need to visit people with these ones as helpers. Eventually, we can assign the whole burden of the home meetings to these helpers. Concerning these things, we are still in the laboratory. We are still in the experimental stage. We need many experiences in the lab. We need to find out the most prevailing way to build up a Christian meeting in each member’s home if possible. We have to endeavor to do this.
We have to anticipate that as we cooperate with the Lord to carry out His ordained way, we will gain a substantial increase. This is why we need the meeting halls. When our number is low, we do not need a hall, but when we gain a certain amount of increase, it is good for all the saints to gather together. When we gain the proper increase, our meeting halls will become very useful. Regardless of how large a local church becomes, there is still the need for the whole church to come together periodically. Such a gathering will be a great stirring up and encouragement to the saints.
In the Lord’s new move in the churches, we need the home meetings, the truth lessons, the Lord’s table, and the prayer meeting, and we also need big meetings periodically to gather all the new ones together. We need periodic conferences with all the new converts. For the new ones just to meet in homes to receive nourishment and to learn the truth in the group meetings will not be fully adequate to make them so living and equipped to bear more burden for the Lord. For the long run, they also need to be gathered together for a conference with all the saints. This kind of gathering stirs up and encourages the saints. This opens the eyes of the seeking ones to see something further. Otherwise, they will remain in their homes, and they will not receive a broader view of the Lord’s move.
We also have to admit our failure in the teaching of the truth. The Lord has given us many truths, but not many of these truths have been imparted into the saints. We must change our way of teaching the truths. In 2 Timothy 2:2 Paul told Timothy, “The things which you have heard from me through many witnesses, these commit to faithful men, who will be competent to teach others also.” Some may want to do the teaching by themselves, having no trust in others. We surely have to change. If someone in a local church has a deposit of the Lord’s healthy words, he should train the faithful ones that they too may have a good deposit from the Lord and be competent to teach others. All the saints should be those who are learning and teaching the truth. This is why we published the series of books entitled Truth Lessons. It is possible that these lessons can be used for a group meeting in the homes of the saints every week. Assigned teachers are not needed, because each lesson is fully explained. We can read them and impress ourselves with the content.
All of us need to be absolute for the God-ordained way, totally abandoning the old way. If we try to “put our feet in two boats,” we will end up in the water. We should determine which boat we want to be in — the boat of the new way or the boat of the old way. The “new boat” works better. For all the saints to meet in their homes and for them to get into Truth Lessons week after week in the group meetings will be very fruitful. Then every family will be revived. The saints will be brought into function. They will work for the Lord by preaching the gospel to their relatives and their neighbors. When the saints are meeting in their homes every week according to the God-ordained way, each home can bring in at least one new one a year. It is even possible for each home to bring in six persons a year. We need to take this new way for the increase of the church.
All the saints need to learn to teach the truth. They can learn the truth by getting into Truth Lessons. I composed these lessons to make every member of the church a teacher of the truth and a speaker of the truth. After getting into these lessons for half a year in a regular way, the saints will be equipped to speak. The saints can come together to read these lesson books. They can read one lesson a week. After a year they can finish reading forty-eight lessons. This will be very fruitful for the church life. The God-ordained way will make all the members of the church functioning members.
The Lord has given us all the truths and has brought His recovery to the United States to be a center of His recovery. We need to give ourselves to see the truths of the Lord’s recovery spread to the entire earth. All the dear Christians need the same truths. We have to go out to send them the truths also. We should not try to get them to come out of the denominations to join us. We are not for this. We are for the spreading of the truths so that the Lord’s people may be enlightened, nourished, and edified. We have to believe that the truth wins and that the Lord’s words will do a marvelous job. This is the right way to spread the Lord’s recovery without any sectarianism. Whether other Christians would come to meet with us or not is up to them. The local churches have to comprise all the saints.
We should endeavor to have one out of twenty saints in our locality serve the Lord with all their time. In this way nineteen saints can support one full-timer. The saints need to be helped by us to give for the sake of supporting full-timers for the Lord’s move on this earth. We need the full-timers for the spread of the Lord’s recovery. If the Lord had five thousand full-timers in His recovery today, the result would be marvelous. The United States is a strong country because it has a strong military. The full-time trainees should be trained to be such a strong army for the Lord.
We have the burden to train the full-timers in the truths. Every full-time trainee must become very knowledgeable concerning the truths. We want them to dive into the Recovery Version of the New Testament with the footnotes on the text and into the Life-study messages. They must have a proper knowledge of the divine truths. Then when they go out, they will have something to speak.
We also have the burden to help the trainees to grow absolutely in the divine life. Finally, they have to be built up in their character. They need to be trained to dress properly and to give people a good impression of their appearance. If we do not have a good appearance, who will listen to us or respect us? We must adjust ourselves. If a co-worker teaches the truth without a necktie, the people’s confidence in him will be killed. The way we dress, cut our hair, and comb our hair will give us a proper appearance, which can help gain people’s regard and respect. In the past we were too loose and self-contented. Those who work for the Lord should dress in a way that is fitting in the Lord’s work.
The trainees also need to be trained in how to speak to people. They need to learn how to present the truths as they have been expounded among us in the Recovery Version and in the Life-study messages. We do not need to invent new messages. We can present the messages that we have already published. We need to present the better things. We have the groceries of the truth among us, so there is no need to try to get new groceries.
If we all would be absolute to take the God-ordained way, and if we can produce one out of twenty full-timers in all the churches, the Lord’s recovery will increase and spread in a marvelous way. The old way should be dropped. We should change our way. Our way in the past was too loose and too sloppy. We have been self-contented. We need to be desperate to take the Lord’s ordained way for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
In our preaching of the gospel we should abandon the system of having large gospel meetings with one speaking and the rest listening. Instead, we should invest our prayer, time, and energy to go out to visit people in our community and on our campuses. The full-timers especially need to spend their time to visit people with the gospel. This should also be a priority with all the elders.
We have the burden in the full-time training to train the young people to not only preach the gospel but also teach the truth. We need to learn how to convince people with the higher truths. Actually, the teaching of the truths that the Lord has committed to us is included in the preaching of the gospel. Many wonderful truths have been given to us. The world is starving for these truths. This is why those who are full-timers must become very knowledgeable concerning the truths and must accumulate the experience in life.
All of us need to be one with the Lord in the life pulse of His new move. For the Lord’s new move, all the churches need to be in one accord. In the past we lost the one accord, but we must endeavor to recover and keep it. We also must teach the same thing in all the churches in every country throughout the earth. There should be no different trumpeting or different voicing among us. We should all voice the same thing, trumpet the same thing, and teach the same thing. We need to be one in teaching (1 Cor. 4:17; 7:17; 16:1; Acts 2:42; Rom. 16:17; 1 Tim. 1:3-4; 6:3; Eph. 4:13-14).
All the churches should also be one in practice (1 Cor. 11:16; 14:33b-34). If the churches are not the same in practice, this will damage the one accord. If we train the full-timers in the God-ordained way, and they return to churches who practice differently, this could cause problems. We will be contradicting ourselves. I hope that all the trainees who return to their churches will be so useful because we are all practicing the same way.
In the early days of the church life, the churches were the same in practice. When Paul went to Jerusalem, however, he saw something different (Acts 21:20 see James 2:10 and footnote, Recovery Version). Eventually, the Lord wiped out that different thing in Jerusalem. In the past we suffered much loss because of our different ways to practice the church life.
Furthermore, we should drop the thought of separate regions among us. Perhaps a brother is raised up in a certain area. When he moves to another area, there should not be any problem, but there have been problems in the past. We have to drop our way of having separate regions in the Lord’s work. It is even good for some who have been in a certain area for a long time to move to another area. In the Lord’s recovery there should be only one work in one move with one ministry for the building up of the one Body.
All the elders and co-workers need to work hard with much prayer to make the Lord’s move today clear to all the saints. The present move of the Lord needs all of us to be given to the Lord. Our entire being and all that we have should be fully consecrated to Him. In the Lord’s move there is the need of persons and material supply. If we help the saints realize the Lord’s present move, there will be no problem. But if the saints do not receive the adequate education to make them knowledgeable of the Lord’s present move, we may suffer some loss. This means that we may be short in the financial supply. This is why we need to spend some time in our locality, perhaps one or two months, to fellowship with the saints concerning the Lord’s move today and the need in this move for the proper supply of persons and finances. We all have to consecrate ourselves with all that we have to the Lord again.
We must also help the saints concerning how they should give. They should give part of their offering to the church in their locality for the monthly local expenses. They should also give part of their offering for the support of the full-timers. This is based upon nineteen of the saints helping to support one full-timer. We have to endeavor to do this so that the Lord can carry out His desire.
