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In this and the following chapter, we will review the practice of the new way so that we may make some changes and adjustments. This may be likened to the need of examining the Passover lamb before it could be offered. Our purpose in doing this is not to find fault but to make a proper assessment.
Since October of 1984 we have brought up the matter of changing the system. At that time I called together the saints in the church in Taipei and told them that our changing of the system is to discard the old practices of the past and adopt new practices for doing everything. The so-called new practices are those that are already in the Holy Scriptures but are not being practiced by us. We have been practicing the old way with ease, and now all of a sudden we want to practice the new way, and the so-called new way has not yet been paved. Therefore, we need to continue probing as we go along, researching on the one hand and adjusting on the other. At the same time I also told the saints that although I vigorously brought up the matter of changing the system, I myself did not have any confidence. This is because although I had experienced and had gotten into many things, I had not yet done any research on how to practice the new way, and neither had I personally experienced it. For this reason we are studying while we are practicing; no final conclusion has been made.
Any matter without a final conclusion is very difficult to carry out, and complications can easily arise. Generally, Christians have the religious concept that people must worship in a big chapel to be proper. Today in the research stage of our practice of the new way, we must at least get rid of this kind of religious formality. On the positive side, however, we still have to improve.
Last Saturday I attended a meeting in a home. If I had not gone, no one would have been baptized, but I went, and two persons were baptized. In that home meeting there were many gospel friends, and they were very open. Some of them had been to the meeting many times already, and one of them even helped in serving. But the meeting had gone on for a long time, and still no one was going to be baptized. I refrained, however, from doing anything right away; rather, I yielded the meeting to the saints. I wanted to understand why they had so many good gospel candidates, yet they would not baptize them. An elder present at the meeting thought that these gospel friends still needed to understand the truth, so he started to speak from the Bible and then from the hymns. When I saw the situation, I became more clear within. I knew that the more he talked, the more he would surely hinder people from being baptized; people might repent and believe, but they would not be baptized. Therefore, I waited for an opportunity.
After the elder finished his talk, the host also spoke something; then there was a “selah.” If everyone had been like Job, speaking eloquently with long discourses, I would have had no way, but when the “selah” came, this gave me a good opportunity. Immediately, I turned to the most promising gospel friend and asked him if he had prayed before. He said that he had not. Therefore, I turned to Romans 10:13 and showed him the verse, which says, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Then I led him in prayer and finally asked him to pray by himself. After that, I asked him what Romans 10:13 says. He answered, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” I asked him if he had called upon the name of the Lord. He said that he had. I asked him if he was saved. He answered that he was saved. Then I led everyone to congratulate him for his salvation. Next I asked him to read the first half of Mark 16:16, which says, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” As he was going to continue reading the second half, I said, “No need to read on; that part is for those who will perish. You only need to read this part of the sentence: ‘He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.’” I asked him to repeat this sentence a few times, then I asked the host to prepare water for baptism. He was baptized within fifteen minutes. An elderly sister even went and got a camera to take pictures.
As the baptism was going on, the sister of the host’s daughter-in-law came with a sister in the Lord; this one was also a very good “gospel contact,” who was also not yet baptized. I was very clear within that this one also should be baptized. Right after the brother was baptized and had his picture taken, this new sister was also baptized. This would have been impossible in a big meeting. At the end the elderly sister said, “Brother Lee, for thirty years I had not spoken with you. Today I am very happy that I can have my picture taken together with you.” How do you feel about this kind of meeting? If someone comes to visit the church in Taipei and sees this kind of home meeting with speedy baptisms and also with picture taking, he might ask, “What kind of meeting is this?”
For this reason we need to have more research. I do not have time to visit all the serving saints in Taipei. If I would visit them, I believe that they would have excellent ideas. Some might just smile, whereas others might be sad and shed tears. Some of the elders may feel that the church has been supplying several full-timers every month, and even though they heard that several hundreds were baptized and many homes were opened, they could not see any increase in the number of people in the meeting hall. They “heard the thunder but saw no rain.” So where are the people? This may be compared to someone who hears that people planted fruit trees in the orchard and that the trees have grown very well and have borne much fruit, but he is not able to taste any of the fruit. What is this all about? On the one hand, the baptismal pool in hall three is not idle throughout the day. In one moment someone on the street was brought in by the full-timers to be baptized; in another moment a taxi driver who was saved when the saints rode in his cab and preached the gospel to him was brought in to be baptized. This surely is very encouraging. On the other hand, the situation of the meetings also makes one sad. For this reason we need to have some study and adjustment.
In our training, on the one hand, we are researching and experimenting, and on the other hand, we are also correcting. Therefore, we need subjective experiences. Because of my work in translating the Recovery Version of the New Testament, I do not have much time to research; you are my best assistants here. I would very much like to know what your feelings are concerning the practice of the new way since you have been going out every week to preach the gospel by door-knocking and to hold meetings in the homes. After all, is the practice of the new way proper? Is it convenient? Is it economical? Is there any room for improvement? I need your study and help in all these matters.
First, the greatest matter that we need to study is the result of our knocking on doors for visiting people. Up to the present we have already visited close to twenty thousand homes with seven hundred and ten persons baptized and more than eighteen hundred homes welcoming us to revisit them. But have you considered how we are going to follow up and take care of them? Concerning the eighteen hundred homes, if we need to visit them once a week, how are we going to do it? And who can go? Second, now we have no problem bringing people to salvation; we can get a person baptized with only fifteen minutes of gospel preaching. But to be baptized is not to graduate and obtain a ticket to heaven. The recently baptized ones are like newborn babies. After we have begotten them, we should not neglect them; if we do not nourish or cherish them, they will surely die prematurely. To have remaining fruit depends on how we nourish and cherish them as a nursing mother. If we do not do well in this matter, then the churches will rise up to condemn us, saying that people were baptized too hastily and therefore have become premature babies, and that since we baptize people before the time is ripe, so many of them die after baptism. Therefore, this is also a big problem that requires us to carefully study and make improvement. Third, concerning the new believers, how should we bring them to the church? Once a person is saved, spontaneously he is in the church and becomes a member of the church. But how do we bring him practically into the church life? This matter also needs to be studied.
In addition, I would like to make a serious statement: What we are studying and practicing here is not to be made public yet. Even when the saints in your locality ask what kind of training you are having and what we are teaching you, you have to explain it politely, without publicizing. We are not strictly prohibiting you to speak about what we are doing here. But what we are practicing and studying here is mostly experimental; hence, before we have some definite steps in a procedure, I want only you trainees to know, and it is best that the others do not know. This is not because we are trying to keep a secret here, nor is it because we are doing some hidden, shameful things. But before we have results from our research, I do not wish for everyone to be spreading rumors. What we are doing today might be changed tomorrow; if it is being spread outside from one to the other, this will cause many difficulties. I hope that we are clear on this point.
I also know the love of the saints. Although they are not in the training, they want to know what we are doing here and how we are leading here so that they may closely follow. But we have also learned from previous mistakes. We did this in the past, but eventually the result was not good and even not sweet. This time the Lord has led us to have a new beginning, but nothing has been finalized; therefore, it is not time to put it forth yet. I told the saints in the United States, “We will let you know what we are doing and practicing. Whatever we do not let you know, you do not need to know. When we succeed in our research and have found by experimenting the concrete, workable steps, then we will teach you all the steps and tell you how to do them. You will not miss anything.” Therefore, before we have the confidence, we should not make it known.
For this reason I am crying out in desperation here, hoping that those in the United States, Canada, and even the whole world can hear my cry: I urge all of you not to be anxious, because now we are still in the stage of research; after the results of the research come out, you all can enjoy with us. However, human beings are human beings; hence, they are still very anxious, and they insistently question what we are doing here. Now there are saints from the United States and Canada who desire to come and join the training; many who are not accepted feel very sad within, and they long to find out what is going on.
Recently, the brothers from Tainan came to make a request. More than ten saints serving full time in their locality were not accepted into the training because they did not have sufficient education. When the training is going on here, they are very burning within; therefore, they requested that they be allowed to watch the video tapes of the training. I said that we are not afraid for the content of the training to be known, so there is no harm to let them watch the video. But after watching, they must not go and carry it out right away, because they will surely not be able to practice it properly. To sum up, do not be anxious about what to do; nothing good can come out of hastiness. When it is necessary to slow down, we need to slow down.
Take for example the translation of the Recovery Version of the New Testament. This burden is very heavy, but it cannot be rushed at all. When we first started, it was I who was encouraging the translators from behind. Now that we have come to the book of Romans, they turned around and said that it will not be too hard. When I heard this, I only said that now we are just starting to climb a high mountain; I did not want to say that now we are just beginning to be crucified. The grammar in Paul’s Epistles is harder than the grammar in the four Gospels and in Acts; it is not easy to produce a translation that corresponds with the original language and at the same time reads like a Chinese composition. For example, we repeatedly considered and studied before we finally decided on how to translate the phrase separated unto the gospel of God in Romans 1:1. Another example is the rendering of the phrase on behalf of His name in verse 5. In the original language, the preposition used here denotes “for,” “on behalf of,” “instead of,” “in the interest of.” It is not so easy to decide which of these four denotations to take. In the book of Romans every word involves the truth. It is hard to decide on the meaning of even just this one particular preposition. I still have three months here, and I do not have much confidence that I will be able to finish this work. Therefore, we must be quick in doing things but not be hasty. We cannot do anything well by being hasty.
I am very fast in doing things, but when it is necessary to be slow, I am very slow, because a fine and delicate work must be done slowly. For instance, about half a year ago, I announced that I would put out the Gospel of Matthew as a sample, but until now it is not yet out. This is due to the inclusion of “The Chart of the Seventy Weeks and the Coming of Christ, with the Rapture of the Saints” in the Gospel of Matthew as an appendix. I had intended to draw the chart here in the spring, but I was limited by time, energy, and manpower; thus, I did not start. Then I went back to the United States to hold the summer training there, and after its conclusion I began to draw the chart. Then during my rest on the mountain I continued to draw until I came back to Taipei. During this period of time I made many long-distance telephone calls, making corrections repeatedly. What I mean is this: In order to have a good product, I do not wish to do a rough job; rather, I want to do a fine job.
Let us use this training as a further example. Three days ago your trainer told me that when you went out to knock on doors, you did not do it one hundred percent according to the way established by the training; instead, you did it mostly according to your natural way. This morning he told me that now more than ninety percent of the time, you do it according to the new way. According to my observation, however, perhaps seventy percent of what you are doing is according to the way established by the training, and the remaining thirty percent is by trusting in your own natural way. I have the confidence to say that the way established by the training came out of our repeated research, so you must follow it. It is the same in doing anything, not only in this matter of door-knocking. We can take calligraphy as an example. If you want to write nicely, you need to copy or imitate by using a copybook, tracing each stroke accurately; you must not be a bit careless. I myself suffered a great loss in this matter because I did not spend enough effort on it. Therefore, it makes a very great difference whether or not you learn and practice according to the prescribed way.
This term of training is very special. There is not much homework; it mainly leads you to read the reference books. I wish to make you understand that this term of training does not emphasize the study of the lessons; rather, it emphasizes the practice and exercise. Visiting people by door-knocking is a course of great learning for changing the system to practice the new way. How to take care of the new ones after the door-knocking is an even greater subject of learning, and it is even harder to bring the new ones into the Body life and into the truth. These matters all require our study in many aspects and in a thorough manner. Not only so, I also hope that the Lord’s recovery in the days to come will have only one move; I do not wish to create two moves. This is why I do not want our move and our practice here to be publicized, because we are still in the stage of study. If others try to follow what we are doing and if later we make some improvements, then they will have wasted their time, and it will also not be easy for them to change. This is like publishing books; if the first edition contains some mistakes, we can put out a second edition with corrections. But the errors in the first edition can never be removed completely, because they have already gone out. Therefore, before our research here reaches a final result, I do not want the news to leak out and let others follow what we are doing. Otherwise, if we need to make any correction here, they might not be able to change right away. Consequently, this may affect the future move of the Lord’s recovery on earth. Therefore, this matter cannot be rushed at all.
According to the plan, you are going into the villages in January of next year. However, if this new way is not thoroughly studied this year, then next year we will still need to continue to study it, and the plan to go into the villages will have to be postponed. Therefore, everything depends on the result of our study. If our study is not concluded by the time the semester ends, I am afraid that we still will have to come back next year to continue our study together. Maybe some of you can no longer wait; you think that you have already been trained for two years and must now graduate. But I hope that no one is impatient, and everyone will stay on to research together and go on step by step. In summary, what we are practicing is a brand new way, so we must not decide anything in haste. Even the training here is experimental; we are experimenting as to how to conduct the training. Besides Brother Watchman Nee, none of us has done this before. You have to be clear on this point.
I believe that you have received a certain amount of training and have seen some of the things here; therefore, you are eager to bring these things to practice in the churches. But you have to receive my word here: Do not be anxious to do anything. Even when people ask you, you have to answer, “I am not clear what the brothers will do.” By all means do not publicize.
From now on, once every week we will have a study of the new way for its improvement. I hope that in every session of study we can draw a conclusion according to which you can all go and experiment again. Then perhaps the results achieved will be manifested. The main points of our study will be: Are the methods of the new way convenient? Are they economical in time, in energy, and in monetary expenditures?
According to my observations, at present we can draw several conclusions. First, although the time of our research has not been very long, visiting by door-knocking has definitely been proven to be an effective way. Second, if we want to proceed in the new way, the primary thing we need to learn is to deal with ourselves seriously so that our inner condition may be proper. For example, do you have enough prayer? Are your sins completely dealt with? Do you have the infilling of the Holy Spirit? Is your spirit uplifted and released when you go out? All the other outward conditions are secondary, and they can be taken care of gradually. The first thing is that your person must be right. This means that your prayer must be sufficient and thorough, your sins must be dealt with thoroughly and completely, and your spirit has to be filled and saturated by the Holy Spirit so that your inner being is completely open, released, rich, and overflowing. Once this kind of spirit comes out, it can produce all kinds of effects; when it touches people, it can cause them to be open and released.
Third, when you visit people by door-knocking, do not think that it will be smooth and easy. On the contrary, you have to realize that there surely will be some difficulties. Someone said that he knocked on thirty to forty doors and none of them opened, so immediately he was disheartened. But I would say that you should not be discouraged, because according to our reports, on the average only one in fifty doors we knock on opens up. Someone who researched business advertising said that if there is a two-percent response from the advertisements mailed out, the expenses will be recovered, and if there is a three-percent response, then there will be a profit. I also did a little research on the door-knocking by the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses and found out that they get one open door only after knocking on hundreds and thousands of doors. Therefore, when you go door-knocking, you must have a proper attitude: An unopened door is not discouraging but rather a normal thing. You must be prepared that people are not going to open their doors. If everyone would open the door and were all predestinated by God, then would it be necessary for us to labor in this matter? I believe that God did not predestinate that many people. However, we also should not say that since God has not predestinated so many, we do not have to labor so much. This is not right. Whether or not God has predestinated a certain one, we do not know, but we must go and knock on the doors to visit people so that those who have been predestinated by God can be found. Therefore, do not be distracted by the fact that people do not open their doors.
Fourth, door-knocking requires certain skills. We need to know what to say when we meet someone and how to converse with him. We must study and learn this. The most important point is that you must avoid aimless speaking and learn to cope with all kinds of situations by remaining calm. Whether or not you are welcomed, you must always find a way to “promote your sales.” If someone would not open the door to invite you in but would speak to you only at the door, then you should take the opportunity to show him The Mystery of Human Life. Perhaps in one minute you will be able to gain him. Someone may say that he does not have time or that he believes in another religion, but do not pay attention to his excuse. You simply must try to seize an opportunity to show him your “merchandise.”
Fifth, according to Acts 1:8, the principle of door-knocking is to go from close by to far away; we must not give up the nearby ones for the faraway ones. As you are serving in the various meeting halls, you should first knock on all the doors in the neighborhood of the meeting hall. If you have a good plan, you will save effort and expense.
Sixth, you must always remember that your work must not be affected by the results. When the result is good, of course you can be happy, but do not be too happy. When the result is bad, you must not be affected and become discouraged. When you go to work, you definitely must have a goal, that is, to bring the Triune God to people, to bring the new believers into the church life, and to perfect them to get into the truth. You must have an accurate view of this goal and hold on to it firmly.
You all can testify that the most effective way for door-knocking is to follow the way established by the training. The other ways, the natural ways, may appear to be helpful superficially, but in fact they are damaging to you. For example, when my child was learning to play the piano, I saw the teacher strictly charge her, saying, “You must not play with your fingers according to your convenience. You must play the way I tell you to play. You may feel that it is very effective to play according to your convenience. Eventually, you will discover that it is very damaging to you.” In the same manner, you may feel that to speak with people according to the way established by the training is very foolish and also ineffective, but in reality its effectiveness is invisible to you.
When you go door-knocking, if there are local saints coordinating with you, of course it is a very big help, but you must not rely on them. I hope that you may become experts in the matter of door-knocking. Therefore, in the training you must surely practice strictly, absolutely following the way established by the training. You are allowed to be flexible and make some changes in the details, but you must surely keep the principles.
I also remind you that in door-knocking, the situation of some of the homes may be not good today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but perhaps on the fourth day it will be good. Therefore, if they do not reject you absolutely, you may go back to visit them. However, it takes manpower to do this. Therefore, I already told the elders that I hope they can bring at least one-fourth of the saints to coordinate together, not to knock on doors every day but to do it at least once a week. At present, Taipei has four thousand saints who meet regularly. If one thousand of these saints can go out once a week and knock on at least five doors, then in a month we can knock on and visit twenty thousand homes. The result will be tremendous.
What we are studying here is a long-term, realistic, and serious practice. We do not want merely a momentary practice out of our enthusiasm. Therefore, I hope that everyone will take this matter seriously and do careful research. For example, in playing basketball, as long as someone can dribble, he can play the game and pass the ball around. But if someone wants to play basketball for the long-term and play it effectively, then he must practice seriously according to the instructions of the coach. If, instead of diligently practicing the basic movements, a person cares only for his own convenience, then it may be profitable in the short term, but in the long run it will be of no benefit and will even be harmful. At present, when you go out, you are still practicing; in a year or two you should be able to be coaches when you go back. However, you must not be proud to consider yourself an expert and demand that everyone listen to you. When you have finished this training, I will also instruct you on how to coordinate with the elders and how to deal with the older saints when you go back so that the churches may go on in one accord.
What you need to learn now with all your effort is to practice and practice again in the training. Those who are learning to play the piano told me that they take only one lesson a week, but they have to practice several hours every day. This is what you should do. If you spend a lot of effort to practice diligently every day in confessing your sins, asking to be filled, releasing your spirit, being uplifted in spirit, and going out every day, then you will spontaneously grow in life. Furthermore, you will become proficient through your constant practice. The tone, the gesture, the speed, and the rhythm of your speaking will all be proper. In this way people will naturally want to open the door to hear you speak.
Therefore, I hope that you will do your best to spend time practicing. You may have to give up some of the meetings in the meeting halls. This is because what we hope is not that you assist the meetings in the various meeting halls; rather, we hope that your time will be spent on practicing. When your practice results in proficiency, you will be a tremendous help to the meeting halls or churches when you go back. Therefore, do your very best to practice, and write a report on the results so that we may study them together and make improvements and then continue to practice. In this way the Lord surely will give us a beautiful perspective.
