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Scripture Reading: 1 Thes. 2:7, 11; 2 Cor. 12:15; 1 Cor. 4:14-15
As we saw in the previous chapter, the main thing we need in the church service is the building up. Because most Christians do not realize the need for building, Christianity today is mainly a group of organizations. A building is not merely a collection of materials. The true nature of the building of God is indicated by Ephesians 4:16, which says, “All the Body, being joined together and being knit together.” All the materials in a building eventually lose their individual identification. Each piece loses its own peculiarity, and every piece becomes the same. A house, for example, is built with many materials. Before each individual, separate, and particular item is built into the house, it is easy to identify because it has its own peculiarity. To be built up, therefore, is to deal with and be delivered from our peculiarities. Whatever is in us that is peculiar needs to be dealt with.
We do not wish to speak concerning this matter in a mere doctrinal way. If we do this, we will only repeat the tragic history of Christianity. Some of the dear saints in the Lord’s recovery have the concept that the recovery will grow in a quick way. We can easily hire laborers to pile up materials in a quick way, but we cannot produce a proper building very quickly. In the same way, the Lord’s recovery cannot advance quickly, because it is a building, not a movement. If we desire to build up a movement, we can do it quickly, but this will simply be a repetition of the failures of Christianity. There is no need to repeat this history. Rather, we desire to see the saints grow in life and increase in number in all the churches. We do not desire to see a “piling up” of materials; we desire to see the genuine building up. To be built up is to have our peculiarity dealt with. This is not a small matter.
In addition, every building is something vertical, not only horizontal, and the most useful buildings are the tallest ones. We human beings were not created flat. Only Satan, the serpent, is flat. In principle, every worldly society is a flat serpent, creeping on the dirty earth. Even some of the saints in the Lord’s recovery still hold to the concept that the church is “flat,” that is, that everyone has the same place in the Body. If we try to make everyone the same in this way, we will turn the church into a serpent. The church is the Body of Christ. A body is not only horizontal but also vertical. For a man to stand vertically indicates that he is strong, but when he is tired, he sits down, and when he is worn out, he lies down. Eventually, when a person is dead, his body lies flat. Too many dear saints still desire the Body to be “flat.” This is the subtlety of the enemy. Anything vertical is useful, but whatever is only horizontal loses most of its usefulness. To pull down the pieces of a building and lay them horizontally renders them useless.
To build up something is to cause it to rise up vertically. The more “vertical” a local church is, the stronger it is. Anything that is vertical must have a proper order. The Lord does not set the members in His Body too high or too low. Rather, He has set us all in the proper place (1 Cor. 12:18, 28). If we all remain where we are placed, we will be in the proper order. This is the way of the building. To say that the church is the Body of Christ with the function of all the members does not mean that the members have the same place in the Body. Such a thing would not be the Body. In our physical body, the feet are on the bottom and the head is on top. The feet cannot say, “Head, you are too high; you need to come down. Let us all be the same.” Neither can the head say, “Feet, you are too low. Please come up.” We hate hierarchy in the church, but we appreciate the headship. Our whole body depends on the head. We may say that a body stands on its feet, but if we would cut off its head, the feet would no longer function. For our body to stand depends very little on the feet. It depends mainly on the head to hold it up. Without the headship, we lose the heading up.
The term to head up is not our invention. In Ephesians 1:10 the apostle Paul says, “To head up all things in Christ.” In God’s creation there was a good order, but by the fall that order was destroyed, and humanity became “flat,” without the proper headship. From that time until the present and beyond, what God is doing is heading up all things in Christ. Today Christ is our Head, which implies the headship, the authority of the Head over the whole Body. It is the headship of the Head that heads up and holds the entire Body. If we lose the Head, we have no headship, and the Body collapses. In our physical body, every member has its own place in the proper order. The arm is under the shoulder, the hand is under the arm, and the fingers are under the hand. This kind of order maintains the headship, and it is the keeping of the headship that makes the members useful. Once a member loses its position, it is out from under the headship, it is out of function, and it is out of the proper building up. This is not a small matter. It is the problems related to the headship that keep the churches in the Lord’s recovery from advancing very quickly.
Many of us have a wrong understanding of the building. If the Lord opens our eyes to see what the proper building is, we will see how short we are of the building up. On the one hand, Christianity throughout the past centuries has rendered much help to us. Even today we are standing on the shoulders of many who have gone before us. On the other hand, Christianity has influenced us in a negative way, and it is very difficult today to lose this influence. If we all mean business with the Lord, we should have a thorough dealing with the Lord, saying, “Lord, from today I would drop all the doctrinal knowledge, teaching, and practices that I picked up in Christianity and remain in the spirit with You.” If we do this, we will be different persons, and our concept will be fully revolutionized.
In the building there must be the proper “vertical” order. Without the proper order, nothing can be built up, and we cannot be useful. This is exactly what the enemy desires. As long as we do not have the building, it makes no difference to him how many meetings we have or how large a crowd we draw. The Roman Catholic Church today has many millions of people all over the world, but since it is the same in principle as any great secular movement in the world, the Lord has no use for it. What the Lord needs is the genuine building. Therefore, we must all pray, look to the Lord for His mercy, and tell Him, “Lord, I need to be built up.” This will spontaneously cause us to be radically changed. Those outside the churches do not realize what we are doing here, and they speak all manner of things about us. They understand us only according to what they are and what they practice. Nevertheless, if the Lord has mercy upon us, we will have the proper building up among us.
In this chapter we will speak concerning our need to shepherd people. To speak about this is difficult, because this matter touches each one of us. To play politics with people is easy, but to touch people in an honest, frank way is not easy. In 1956, when a servant of the Lord visited us in Taiwan, he recommended to us the political way to touch people. He illustrated this way by saying that we should never speak the truth about little babes to their mothers. If a baby is beautiful, we can say, “What a beautiful girl is this!” If the baby is not good looking, however, we should say, “Oh, what a girl this is!” When I heard this, I could not agree with this kind of political speaking. I felt that it was a kind of “British diplomacy.” In the Lord’s recovery we cannot play politics in this way. If I were here to play politics, there would be no need for the present training.
The sisters who are mothers know that nothing is as demanding as being a mother. Those who have never had children do not know the real meaning of demanding. Nothing and no one in the universe is as demanding as children. If an adult catches a cold, he may not ask for anything, but if a little one has a cold, he must be cared for. A mother can never ask for “sick leave.” Even if she is about to die, she must first take care of her child’s need. It is the same for fathers. A proper father must take care of his children’s demand. A child’s demand is without mercy. I have seen many young sisters who could not be adjusted by their father, mother, or even husband, but once they had children, they learned many lessons from these little ones (1 Tim. 2:15). Before they have children, some sisters do not practice to rise early in the morning. It seems that everything in their world is just right for sleeping late. After they have children, however, the little ones wake them up very early. Sometimes when I saw this, I wanted to commend the little children and say, “Very good! What no one else could accomplish for many years, you have done in only a few months.” Nothing is as demanding as shepherding, not even gospel preaching. Just as in child raising, everything related to shepherding is not up to us; it is up to the new ones. We cannot say that we have no time or that it is not convenient. This is for those under our care to decide.
The way of Christianity is to hire a pastor to shepherd a church. This is not what we mean by shepherding. Some may argue that shepherding is a gift that not every brother or sister has. However, no one would say that raising children is a gift that some have and others do not. Every parent, regardless of how smart or foolish he is, has a talent for raising children. Child raising is not a special talent; it is a talent given by birth. In the same way, by our spiritual birth every member in the church has the gift of shepherding. To say that we do not have the gift of shepherding is to annul our spiritual birth. Some think that because they are too young and are not pastors, elders, or experienced Christians, they cannot shepherd others. This is a wrong understanding and concept. We should forget the wrong teachings we received about shepherding. Someone may not know how to raise children, but when the children come, they are forced to learn. The parents of a young mother may think that she cannot raise her children, but the more they let her do her job, the more she will learn how to do it. We need to drop the wrong concept and pick up the proper one. Even someone who has been saved for only a few days can learn to shepherd.
In order to be the proper, normal members of the church in the Lord’s recovery, we need to build up a daily life of the gospel, and we need to go to the Lord for Him to show us who should be under the care of our shepherding. If these two matters are built up in the church, we will have a normal, proper church. A normal church is not merely one in which the members stand to speak something in the meetings. This is only a small part of our service. The main part of the service in the church is a daily gospel life and shepherding. Our concept must be regulated and radically changed. We should realize that it is a great lack and a shame not to bear fruit each year and have someone under our care. All the members in the churches should bear fruit and shepherd people all the time. If we build up these items, the church will be wonderful. The Lord’s way is always the best and wisest way. His way is to depend not on spiritual giants but on every member, on those who have a daily gospel life with shepherding. We all need a change of concept in this regard.
More than thirty years ago, I came together every Monday morning with a group of serving ones from 8:00 A.M. until the afternoon to mutually learn how to shepherd people. After meeting for three years in this way, there was a great revival in that locality. This was not due to a movement. It came out spontaneously because of the building up among us. The gospel preaching and the shepherding were adequate and prevailing. This is what the churches need today. The Lord has raised up His recovery in many cities, but we are still short of a daily gospel living and of shepherding.
In order to adequately shepherd people, we must not be too quick. Our quick disposition needs to go. We cannot shepherd someone by speaking to them for only a few minutes. Therefore, we must be prepared to spend enough time with people.
Although we should not be too quick, we must be very positive. Very often, positive persons are quick ones, and slow persons are passive, even sloppy and uncaring. If a brother says, “Let us go to visit someone,” a passive one may say, “We should not be so quick. Let us wait for another two weeks.” However, if mothers care for their little ones in this passive way, their children will not survive. We should not be too quick, but we must be positive and on time. The secret of a good surgeon is not to be quick but to be positive and not lose any time. We all need to learn the best way. To this end, we need much work of the cross on our disposition. Anyone can do some amount of shepherding, but to have shepherding that is up to a proper standard, we should be very positive, though not too quick.
We must learn how to listen to others in order to realize their true need and real situation. This requires us to stop our own thought, concept, feeling, and speaking while we are shepherding them. We should be open to others and allow their situation to speak to us. This is not easy; it means that we must be positive but not quick. We should not say too much or make a decision too quickly. Rather, we should stop ourselves and listen to the person under our care, allowing him to say something, trying our best to understand him, and putting ourselves in his place to understand his situation in the same way that he does.
Many times our visiting damages people rather than helps them. It tears down rather than builds up. This is because we are too raw; we have never been “cooked.” Since we have never been dealt with adequately, we are still too wild. As long as we are raw and wild, we are able only to offend people, not to nourish them. Even if we nourish them to a certain extent, we may offend them to a greater extent, resulting in a net debit. We may feel that we have helped a brother, yet we do not realize that we tore him down even more. Eventually, this kind of shepherding produces a loss. Therefore, we all need to be dealt with. Some may say, “In this case, to be a brother or a sister in the local church is too hard. We simply want to go to the meeting on the Lord’s Day and enjoy ourselves for an hour by listening to the good singing and speaking. To shepherd people according to a high standard is too great a burden.” Yes, this is a burden, but we have no choice. In saying these things, it seems that I am a troublemaker, troubling myself first and then troubling others. However, according to Paul’s writings, he was a “troublemaker.” He gave himself no peace or rest in his care for the churches (2 Cor. 11:23b-28). He troubled himself, he troubled all the saints, and even today he troubles us. If we read his Epistles, we will all be troubled. The church life is a troubling life, but what other way can we take? We are destined to take this way. As human beings, we must believe in the Lord Jesus, and as believers, we have no choice but to take the way of the proper church life.
We must also learn not to say too much when we visit people. This is the hardest lesson to learn in shepherding. The longer we wait to say something, the better it is. Someone may ask, “If we should not say anything, why should we contact anyone?” The secret is simply to contact them without saying much. If we speak too much, we will be like the friends of Job. This will waste our time and cause more problems. The best way to shepherd a person is to visit him without saying much. If he asks if we have anything to say, we can simply say, “Praise the Lord. Amen.” Over forty years ago some of us would go to Brother Nee and say, “Brother Nee, I have been invited by the church in a certain place. Please tell me what I should do?” He told us, “Do not do anything except this: Whenever they ask you something, you should say, ‘I don’t know.’” This answer truly bothered us. We said, “If this is the case, we do not need to go. If we do this, they will simply ask us to leave.” However, we eventually found that this fellowship rendered us the greatest help.
Because we all assume that we know so much, it is hard to say, “I don’t know.” Brother Nee taught us to say, “I don’t know” because, strictly speaking, we do not know much, and what we do know, we do not know thoroughly. We should not contact people in order to teach them. We ourselves have a greater need of teaching. We should go to the saints and to the churches to learn of them. We must not consider that we know more than they do. It is likely that they know more than we do. Those who went out to the churches without practicing Brother Nee’s principle eventually created many problems. The secret to contacting people is not to say much but to let them say something.
We should never make decisions for others. This is to consider that we are superior to them. We should not play politics. We need to be honest with the ones who are under our care, but we must still be restricted by the Lord to not make their decisions.
We also should never argue with people, regardless of whether they are right or wrong. Every conversation is a temptation to adjust others, convince them, or “sell” our good opinions and concepts. We must avoid all these things. There is no need to do this. If we do, it will not help them.
We must never pass on vain knowledge to people. People may ask us about many matters, but we must learn to exercise our spirit to discern the purpose of the questions. If we discern properly, we may realize that the questions are in vain. People often like to gain knowledge, asking about the elders, the brothers and sisters, and many other matters. We must learn to be wise, not be involved with questionings, and not pass on vain knowledge. This also is a difficult lesson for us all.
We should not be involved in any negative talk. In other words, we should not be a “trash can.” Flies like to find a dirty place, but we must be clean and sterilized. If we do not visit people in a clean way, but rather take germs to them, they may be incited to open up in a wrong way. They will open their “tombs,” and death will come out. We should not get into any negative talk or answer any questions about negative matters. We must be in another realm, another kingdom.
We must learn to be honest, never pretending and never playing politics. We should not be political in order to make the situation easier. We must be honest persons, answering honestly yes or no. If the situation does not allow us to answer yes or no, then we should not say anything. If we learn all these lessons, we will be able to care for others.
Most importantly, we must learn to minister life to others. In order to do this, we ourselves must have life. We may illustrate this with money. If we desire to give money to someone, we must first have some ourselves. If our pocket is empty, we have nothing to give. We must have something before we can minister it to others. Therefore, we must learn the lessons of life. Then we will know how to minister to others. In fact, if we have life, there is no need to purposely minister life to others. Life will already be ministered to them. When visiting others to take care of them, the proper principle is to minister life to them. All the foregoing points are a preparation for ministering life. If we do not have this preparation, whatever we do will only diminish our ministry and supply. If we are careless about any of these matters, our ministry of life will be annulled and swallowed up. If we are careful about all these items, we will remain in a pure condition to minister to others.
We need to pray with others and help them to pray. We should not try to wrongly impress people that we have the way to do things, that we are smart, or that we know everything. Rather, we should simply help people to put their trust in the Lord and depend on Him for everything. To this end, we should bring with us a spirit and atmosphere of prayer to help others to come into a prayer life. We need to create an atmosphere so that whatever happens to people, they will pray, look to the Lord, and rely on Him for His presence and clear leading. We need to build up those under our care with a prayer life. If we ourselves are not persons with a prayer life, we will not be able to build up others as this kind of person. We ourselves need to take the lead.
In order to care for others, we need patience. We should not expect that someone who is newly saved or recovered will immediately be in a proper condition. We need patience to care for the weaker ones. A weaker one may require our patience to contact him again and again. This kind of continual, patient contact will shepherd people. This takes time, but there is nothing else we can do. The church grows through shepherding. If we have gospel preaching without shepherding to take care of the new ones, many of the newly saved ones will fall away. This will spoil and damage our appetite for gospel preaching. Many will say, “We brought so many to the Lord, but most of them are not here anymore.” We will be like a family that has lost its children. Therefore, we need the proper shepherding for the proper child raising. It is impossible for only the leading brothers in a church to take care of the shepherding. Everyone must pick up the burden to take care of others. This requires our patience.
We must learn to trust and rely upon the ones who are under our care. This is to have a proper fellowship. In one sense, we are the parents nourishing our children, but in another sense, we are all brothers and sisters. Therefore, we should show others that not only do they rely on us, but we also rely on them. This mutual reliance creates much profit. It causes others to be open to us, trust us, and have confidence in us. This is to “open our veins for the blood to circulate.” All the members must be open to one another. Then the circulation will do its proper work. We have seen that some of the ones who are under our care do not open to us, regardless of how much time we spend with them. This means that they have no confidence in us. We need to behave in a way to build up a mutual confidence; this will cause them to open to us. This requires us to depend on them, rely on them, and show them that we need their help.
We should never give anyone under our care the sense that we are forcing them to do anything. We must all learn the attributes of God. From the beginning, God never forced people. Rather, He gave them a free choice. We should not even try to overly influence people. Not to force or coerce people is contrary to our natural concept. In shepherding, however, we should stay away from every kind of forcing, coercing, and convincing. We should allow people to have a free choice.
Whatever we fellowship with the dear ones must be according to our own experience. Paul told the Thessalonians, “Just as you know how we were to each one of you, as a father to his own children, exhorting you and consoling you and testifying” (1 Thes. 2:11). No doubt, Paul testified many things to the saints, but a great part of his testimony must have been his own experiences. We need personal experiences to be able to testify to the younger ones. In the proper sense, whatever we render to them as a help should be from our own testimony. How much we can testify in this way depends on how much we have experienced. We must have a certain amount of experience of all of the foregoing detailed items. The more we pick up the burden to shepherd others, the more things we will need to learn.
