Search
Scripture Reading: Luke 10:1-3, 5-7; 19:5; Acts 2:46; 5:42; 1, 4, 1 Cor. 14:26, 31b
I. Preaching the gospel to gain people:
А. By visiting people — Luke 10:1-3, 5-7:
1. Needing to pay a price.
2. Being sent as lambs in the midst of wolves.
3. Finding the sons of peace.
B. Bringing salvation to people’s homes — 19:5, 9.
II. Perfecting new believers:
А. Setting up meetings in new believers’ homes.
B. Continuing steadfastly to meet with new believers.
C. Leading new believers to function in the meetings.
III. Establishing group meetings:
А. Gradually bringing the new believers to form a group meeting.
B. Leading new believers to fellowship and care for one another mutually.
C. Leading them further to speak for the Lord in the meetings.
IV. Arriving at the practice of the district meetings:
А. Gradually bringing the cared-for ones to district meetings.
B. Helping the cared-for ones to get further into the church life.
C. Leading the cared-for ones to speak for the Lord and to speak forth the Lord in district meetings.
D. Through the saints’ organic functioning, mutual speaking and supplying, and mutual establishing to build up the Body of Christ.
We have already seen that the goal of the new way is to build up the Body of Christ. Building up the Body of Christ is an organic function, not an organizational work. Like our human body, it is not by outward organizational means that the Body is sustained but by the inward organic function of each part. The church is the Body of Christ; it is altogether organic. Every brother and sister is a member of this Body, that is, an organic part with an organic function within. This Bible-revealed, God-ordained new way that the Lord has shown us is to build up the organic Body of Christ through the organic functions.
The first major step in God’s ordained way is preaching the gospel to gain people. In visiting people to preach the gospel to gain them for the Lord, we not only desire that people be saved but also that they become the material for the building up of the Body of Christ. They must repent and be regenerated; then they must be transformed and grow up. Regeneration, transformation, and growing up are all organic matters. These are included in the organic building up.
For many years in the past, the way we preached the gospel was for the church to set the date for a gospel campaign. We passed out tracts and pasted up posters. Then the brothers and sisters were exhorted to endeavor to invite relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates, and colleagues. Though we exerted great effort, it was often without much good result. You cannot say that this way is not a right way or a useful way, since there is such a gathering of people for the gospel from the Bible. However, if you study the Bible carefully, you will see the basic thought in gospel preaching is to go to where the sinners are. The Lord wants us to be the fishers of men (Matt. 4:19), indicating that the gospel preachers are fishermen. Which fishermen, instead of going to the ponds or sea to fish, send invitations asking fish to come to them? The Bible shows us that the Lord Jesus Himself came from the heavens to visit us. He visited people village by village and even house to house. Afterward, He sent twelve disciples to visit people (10:5), and later He sent out seventy (Luke 10:1). For lambs to visit wolves is not an easy thing — not only is there no blessing, but they must be prepared to encounter hardships and even scoldings.
We who have gone out to preach the gospel by visiting have all had such experiences. Sometimes we meet people who really are like “wolves”; but other times when the door is opened, the people inside welcome us joyfully, and we know at first glance that they are sons of peace. By just a little speaking, they immediately believe and are baptized and thus are saved. There are many wonderful stories about meeting the sons of peace while preaching the gospel by visiting. (We hope to publish a periodical to relate these testimonies.) There are over one thousand churches around the world, and most are practicing this way of preaching the gospel by visiting. There have already been over a hundred thousand people who have believed and been baptized since the second half of 1986 through the preaching of the gospel by visiting. Even some other Christian groups have been influenced by us and are practicing preaching the gospel by visiting.
We used to invite twenty to thirty guests to hear the gospel, and not even two would show up. Now we go to knock at twenty to thirty doors, and at least one person will be brought to salvation. This is the scientific way of working, and it is very effective. However, it is not easy to carry this out. It requires us to pay a price to lay down our status. We must believe that the Holy Spirit is with us, and we must speak the Lord’s word to people, sentence by sentence, by the spirit. Some people are very rough with us at the start, but after our preaching they not only repent, pray, and believe but also are baptized. Truly in an instant, wolves become lambs. We have spent one and a half years with hundreds of people, concentrating on experimenting with this matter. As a result we have the proof that this is the most workable and effective way.
The secret in preaching the gospel by visiting is to be thick-skinned and tenacious. No matter how people revile you, your countenance is not changed, and no matter how much your head is hit, it is not broken. First, you need to pray, confess thoroughly, ask for the cleansing of the Lord’s blood to get the filling of the Holy Spirit, and offer yourself to the Holy Spirit that He will go out with you. Then you will surely have the boldness and be full of authority. You can declare to the heavens and the earth that you are going out with the Lord Christ to preach the gospel to sinners, commanding them to believe that they may be saved. You can even command demons to leave the homes that you are about to visit. Because the Lord said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, we therefore should go and disciple the nations with this authority, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is not a small thing.
All in all, we have rightly seen that this is the correct way. If we want to preach the gospel to people, we must go to the people. Who will go if you and I do not go? Whom can God send? God cannot send the angels, since in the New Testament God did not become an angel but a man. God became flesh to move together with us. If we would not move, God has no way. Hence, we need to go to bring salvation to people’s homes, just as the Lord Jesus brought salvation to Zaccheus’s home.
The second big step is to perfect the new believers. In our preaching the gospel by visiting, we bring people to believe in the Lord, and we baptize them; then they become new believers. Now they are newborn babes, and what they need most is care, which is also the perfecting. In the past we have been short in this matter, because most brothers and sisters have not been under such leading and perfecting to enable them to lead and perfect new believers. Although we have sometimes cared for them, visited them, and encouraged them to come to meetings in the meeting hall, the result has not been encouraging. This is because we did not see clearly that what God wanted was not to compel people to come to the meetings but rather to bring the meetings to their homes. When we visit people, it is to bring the gospel of salvation to people. In the same way, when we perfect them after they are saved, it is to bring the meetings to their homes. We cannot expect that bringing the meetings to them two or three times will be sufficient, just as we cannot feed a newborn babe only two or three times. We were not clear about this in the past. So although we have baptized many, only a few are left. This time we have learned the lesson. As we go back to the Bible, we see that immediately after people are saved and baptized, we need to meet with them in their homes.
Therefore, we should not leave a new one right away after we baptize him. We need to spend at least half an hour to an hour to lead a newly baptized one to know that today Christ as the Savior is the Spirit, even the life-giving Spirit, and that He entered into his spirit at the moment he believed, to enliven his spirit and to cause him to be regenerated. Simply speak to him in this way according to the Bible, show him the related verses, and then lead him to pray and use his spirit to call on the name of the Lord to contact the Lord Spirit. Afterward, go back every two or three days for a month. Use ten home meetings to work into him the basic Christian knowledge and experience in order to lay a good foundation of life. Then change the home meeting frequency to once a week or at least once every other week, caring for him this way for as long as a year. In the process you must tell him that we are not professional preachers but only those who have had the Lord’s grace and are constrained by the Lord’s love to bring people to be saved, to grow, and to be perfected by the Lord. We are the same as they are, all being brothers in the church, meeting and functioning together. For this reason, bring them to learn all that we do in the meetings. Bit by bit they can learn to pray, to call hymns, to speak the hymns, to read the Bible, and to speak for the Lord, thereby developing their organic ability.
The third major step is to establish group meetings. First we have meetings in the new believers’ homes. Perhaps after one or two months, they would like to meet other Christians. We could then bring three to five nearby new believers together and establish a group meeting. Once the saints know one another, they will encourage and establish one another. Meanwhile there will be the bond of love, the mutual fellowship, and the mutual care. Moreover, there will be the opportunity for all to manifest the organic ability in each one by speaking for the Lord and testifying for the Lord.
It is hard for a single piece of coal to start burning, but by putting a pile of coals together, they will burn, and the more they burn, the hotter and the bigger the fire will get. Needless to say, human beings are social. They do not like to be alone. The best gathering is a Christian gathering, where believers are not only undefiled and away from evil deeds, but they also enjoy grace and know the truth. What was originally meetings in homes becomes a group meeting, where people can be more interested in reading the Bible and be more encouraged to love the Lord. They can learn from the Bible reading and can experience the Lord in loving Him. Spontaneously, they have more to testify of and can further speak for the Lord in the meetings.
The fourth step is arriving at the practice of the district meetings. We still need to gradually bring the new believers from the group meetings to the district meetings in order to help them come further into the church life. The meeting content is richer in the district meetings. There is the breaking of the bread to remember the Lord, the learning of the truths, as well as the mutual fellowship and sharing. Everyone has more opportunity to function, to speak for the Lord, and to edify one another. We all can also have a higher enjoyment, hear more complete messages, and obtain a more perfect edification and comprehensive building up. Therefore, we ought to inspire the ones whom we are helping to speak for the Lord and to speak forth the Lord in the district meetings. Then all the saints in the meeting can function organically, speak to supply one another, and edify mutually and thus build up the Body of Christ.
I have given you a sketch hoping we all may see that the practical steps in building up the Body of Christ are completely different from the organized ways of religion. The way of organized religion is to get together, collect some capital, and hire a preacher or pastor to bear a particular responsibility and do a particular work. Most there merely offer some financial support and have no direct relation with this work. Among us, however, it is not so. As soon as we bring people to salvation, we should meet in their homes, lead them to call on the name of the Lord, lead them to pray-read the Word, and bring them closer to the Lord. As they grow in life, they will spontaneously speak and testify for the Lord. They do this not for money or gain, but they spontaneously have an organic function because they have the Lord’s life and the Lord’s Spirit within them. If quite a few brothers and sisters in a local church all function organically by the ability of the inward life, the effect will surely be living and organic.
Through participating in the home meetings, the group meetings, and the district meetings, it will take about a year for a new believer to go from being saved and baptized to functioning a little in the district meeting. At this time we can hand him over to the care of the church to be built up in the Body of Christ. He then will become a useful member and will lead others in the same way. He will also be able to care for, lead, perfect, and meet others’ needs. This way of “teachers bringing up students” will raise up many useful persons. The new way that the Lord is leading us into is indeed an organic way. Those raised up in this way are naturally organic. Contained in our preaching of the gospel, which is by visiting people to give freely the grace that we have obtained freely, is the life power with the organic ability. Further on in this way, an organic entity, which is the church in a locality, will develop. This church is the local expression of the universal Body of Christ, and her functioning in the locality is not organizational but organic.
We all love the Lord and are concerned for the Lord’s move. We know that the Lord’s building up of His Body is not accomplished just by a few gifted persons. It takes all those who belong to the Lord, who are motivated by the Lord’s love, to bear their share in preaching the gospel by visiting, perfecting the new believers, establishing the group meetings, and arriving at the practice of the district meetings. Only thus can the Body of Christ be built up.
Today the practical steps of the new way have already been put before us. This is now our responsibility. As long as there are one thousand saints in Taipei who would receive this word, pay the price, exert themselves, put themselves willingly in the Lord’s move, and practice the new way according to the Lord’s leading, the situation in the church will be greatly improved. The church will have a dynamic spreading, and the Body of Christ will also be properly built up.
As an illustration, in a place with one hundred meeting together, we hope that there would be thirty who are motivated by the Lord’s love to be willing to take the Lord’s leading to practice the new way step by step. Grouped in threes, with different ages and sexes, they would coordinate to preach the gospel by visiting people. Doing so every other week, for two hours each time, they can bring one to salvation in a month. They can bring twelve people to be saved in a year, since there are twelve months in a year. Thus, thirty saints, divided into ten teams, can in one year bring a hundred and twenty people to be saved, which is more than the original number. Then they can lead the new believers to have home, group, and district meetings. Even if we figure that two out of four will be lost, there will eventually be sixty remaining out of the one hundred and twenty. Thus, the rate of increase is still sixty percent. In addition, this place of one hundred saints can support at least two or three full-timers. They, laboring this way, can also bring in fifty. Adding the two figures together, there will be one hundred and ten added in a year. This is quite a considerable number.
Concerning the weekly meeting schedule, we can arrange it in the following way. The district meeting will be on the Lord’s Day morning to break the bread for remembering the Lord, to learn the truths, and to fellowship and share. The prayer and service meeting will be on Tuesday to cry out to the Lord for the new way with one accord. Then we either preach the gospel by visiting people or go to a home or a group meeting on two other evenings to bear the responsibility for caring for and perfecting the saints. If we all do this willingly, faithfully, and with much labor, the church in Taipei will be on the track of the organic way. The whole church life will be organic and not organizational, and it will belong to all the saints, not to just a few. In this way it will be a prosperous and blessed situation, and the effect will be glorious and bountiful.
