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Prayer: Lord, we look to You and ask You to take us through this crucial stage. Give us an inward sense related to how we should proceed with the home meetings and the church meetings so that we can be clear and have the same burden. Lord, give us an open spirit so that we can enter into and touch Your feeling. Thank You for being within us as the Spirit. We are one with You in our spirit. Lord, speak through every person during this time of fellowship so that we can touch Your heart’s intention and Your way in our fellowship. May Your presence lead us. Amen.
During two terms of the full-time training more than twenty thousand people were brought into the church in Taipei. One-third of these people are in home meetings; about six thousand people are in at least two thousand home meetings. Presently, the responsibility for caring for these two thousand home meetings rests on the shoulders of six or seven hundred trainees. Almost every day these trainees go to several different homes to care for new ones. However, this term of training will end, and some of the trainees will return to their localities while others will return for another term of the training. Hence, the saints need to take over the care of these homes. I am afraid that the saints in the church in Taipei are not prepared to care for these two thousand home meetings. We need to fellowship concerning this matter.
We gained these new ones and their homes by mobilizing one thousand trainees during two terms of the full-time training. We did not spare time or money in this effort. Who will continue to feed these new ones? The church in Taipei has picked up this burden, and according to our statistics, the church has around one thousand five hundred saints attending the training; one thousand are from the city of Taipei, and around five hundred are from the nearby suburbs as far as Taoyuan. We must ask all the brothers and sisters who have heard this fellowship what they intend to do. Since we began to change the system, we have stressed the homes. We said that the Lord’s way is in the homes and that the homes are the foundation of the church. During two years of door-knocking, six to seven hundred trainees were busy taking care of homes every day. We discovered that it is not easy to care for the home meetings. How should we proceed?
God created man with many needs. These needs are a part of human nature. Man has a nature that needs to eat and to drink and a nature that delights in doing good works. Man also has a communal nature that enjoys being with other humans; therefore, after people are married, they want children. Having children satisfies an inner need of man. However, even a family is not sufficient; man still needs friends. Man also desires pleasure. People go to places of entertainment to satisfy their human need for companionship. If human beings did not have a communal nature, there would be no need for the places of entertainment.
Human nature was created by God, but it is not easy to respond to our human nature properly. For example, it is not easy for a person to be balanced rather than excessive when he eats. Almost everyone makes mistakes in the matter of eating. People become ill because of their improper response to their desire for food. It is not wrong to eat and drink, but it is wrong to abuse this need. This also applies to man’s communal nature. Man needs companions, but the wrong companions can bring a person into different sins. The corrupt things in society are mainly the result of keeping improper companions. There is, however, a noble community in human society, and this community is the church. The church is the noblest community, because the Lord, who is holy, is in the church.
The church life ordained by the Lord is founded upon the home meetings. The home meetings can be compared to eating at home and the big meetings, to eating in a restaurant. When we go to a restaurant, we do not need to work; we simply enjoy. However, people who frequently eat in restaurants are not very healthy. In contrast, food that is prepared at home may not be spicy, but it is healthier. Just as people prefer to eat in restaurants, Christians like to go to big meetings in cathedrals. These meetings can be compared to eating in a restaurant because a person does not need to cook for himself. In the cathedrals there are choirs, prayer ministers, and a minister who gives the blessing; hence, the people do not need to expend any energy. Such a gathering meets the demands of society today. In today’s society everyone is busy from morning to night and works five or six days a week. Therefore, they want to sleep late and relax on the Lord’s Day. When they go to worship services, the ministers and preachers do everything for them, and they only need to put money in the collection plate. Consequently, everyone likes to attend worship services.
In the Lord’s recovery, even though we are taking the Lord’s way, we still want to rest on the Lord’s Day. However, contrary to our expectations we are required to function in the Lord’s Day meetings by prophesying. In addition, we must take the church meetings to the homes of the new believers, and everyone in our home is expected to meet. In our hearts we prefer the big meetings because we do not need to speak, pray, or even sing hymns in the big meetings; we can simply sit and enjoy. However, the home meetings are different because we must do everything ourselves in these meetings. The Lord’s church has almost no way on this earth, because everyone likes and welcomes the big meetings.
After many years of observation and research, we discovered that in almost every denominational group everyone likes the big meetings. We need to have meetings, but our meetings should be proper. We should gather together to enjoy the big meetings and also the small meetings in the homes. Even though we enjoy eating in restaurants, we must still eat at home.
It is not easy to build up the home meetings according to the Lord’s word, because we like the big meetings. We have been meeting in the homes for the past few months, but we still like the big meetings, even though we are bound and our function is annulled in these meetings. For many years we invited people to meetings and preached the gospel to them, but the little fruit that we gained did not remain. This problem is an issue of the big meetings. If we want to solve such problems, we must rely on the small meetings in the homes. However, it is not easy to establish the home meetings, and it is difficult to develop them.
A new believer who has a weekly meeting in his home needs to clean his home and dress neatly for the meeting. On the days that he does not have a meeting in his home, he may be careless with his clothing and watch television, but he cannot be loose on the day of his home meeting. The home meeting will restrict him. When the meeting is in the meeting hall, there are no restrictions on him. He can go to the meetings when he wants to and stay at home when it is not convenient. He is free. This is human nature.
For this reason we need to properly respond to our God-created nature. A person who properly responds to his human nature pays a price. When we accommodate our human nature, we are loose. The home meetings meet the need of our communal nature, but we must pay a price to respond to our communal nature properly.
In a normal family a person eats three home-cooked meals a day, and parents teach and discipline their children at home. If a household is proper, all the members of that family will be healthy. Some families, however, eat out every day, and the children are not disciplined. The children in these families will be unruly.
Christianity has been on the earth for two thousand years, but the gospel still has not been preached to all the corners of the earth. Even though Christianity has been in Taiwan for several hundred years and the island has convenient transportation and communication, there are only about three Christians among every hundred people. During the past eight months we baptized twenty thousand new ones. If the brothers and sisters receive the burden to care for the home meetings, these twenty thousand new ones will be fed and cared for. We have made calculations and budgets to gospelize Taiwan in the near future. In order to gospelize Taiwan, however, we must labor on the home meetings, because the home meetings are the key to the new way. We are at a crucial stage, and we must consider how to care for the households of the newly baptized saints.
We need to study our past practices and consider how we will allocate and use our time in the future. We should also consider whether our care for the home meetings will be appropriate and effective. These are the issues that we must consider. In one of the churches in central Taiwan, the new believers who went from the home meetings to the meetings of the church have remained. Moreover, all the new ones learned from the saints; the new ones are leading other people to believe in the Lord and are establishing home meetings. Recently, we received a letter from the northern part of Italy. The writer said that after reading our books and watching our videos, the believers there were helped to have home meetings. At present there are eleven people meeting together. They learned that we began the new way of door-knocking to preach the gospel, and they began to practice door-knocking. As a result, these eleven people gained eleven more through door-knocking. This locality started with eleven people who began to meet in a home because they did not have a meeting hall. Hence, the locality was raised up through home meetings.
The two thousand new households are the result of two terms of the training. This proves that our way is correct and that door-knocking is effective. If we can take good care of these households, we will receive the blessing. However, we must pay a price. We must attend the training, and we must use two or three evenings a week to visit people. If we are willing to pay this price, we will be blessed, and our households will be blessed. If we live a normal human life according to our God-created nature, we will receive the blessing; our family will be blessed, our friends and relatives will be blessed, and even the entire society and the entire country will be blessed. May we all receive this burden and rise up to be proper Christians according to our God-created nature, not only by going to big meetings to listen to one man speak but also by establishing home meetings in the homes of the new ones. This is the only way for the church to have a solid foundation.
We need to fellowship concerning a few practical matters. The responsible brothers from each meeting hall should meet together to fellowship concerning how to carry out these points. The elders can then fellowship with the saints in each meeting hall concerning how to enter into this burden.
We should lead the saints according to their age. The elderly brothers and sisters can meet together specifically for prayer. The brothers and sisters who are between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five should knock on doors and lead the home meetings. The church in Taipei is not a small church. If the arrangements and leading are done properly, the church will accomplish many things, but if the arrangements are done poorly, we will waste our time. We need to coordinate together and work together in one accord. We should not expect to succeed in two or three weeks. It will not be easy for the trainees and the brothers and sisters in the church to find the time to coordinate together, because the brothers and sisters have jobs. We need to consider this and experiment until we find a way.
We have a large city and two thousand new households; therefore, we should not waste our time or our manpower. These matters require that the brothers and sisters in each meeting hall coordinate and work together. We must follow the leading and arrangements of the elders and the responsible brothers.
Door-knocking to preach the gospel and having home meetings are noble activities. For this reason we should not do them according to our old ways but according to the instructions of the training. When we go out, our appearance must be proper, and our clothing should be simple but neat. Our clothing should not be luxurious, nor should we wear bright colors. Our clothing should cause people to respect us and to consider that we are weighty people. Then people will feel peaceful and welcome us. Otherwise, our appearance can hinder us from entering their door.
We must also be serious people so that we are not despised. First Timothy 4:12 says, “Let no one despise your youth.” This means that we should be weighty. To be held in high regard requires weight. The weightiness of a Christian depends on the Lord. If we have the Lord in us, we are weighty; if we do not have the Lord in us, we will lack weightiness. The young people can be weighty because the Lord is in them. If they love the Lord and fellowship with Him often, they will be weighty.
Our purpose is not merely to knock on doors in order to bring salvation to others, or to have home meetings in order to bring grace and truth to the new believers. In addition, we must be “cultivated” persons. Being “cultivated,” however, does not mean self-improvement. We cannot improve ourselves. We need to fellowship with the Lord daily and have set times to touch the Lord, confess our sins, and pursue the growth in life. We also need to follow the Spirit, deny the self, not seek our own benefit, and bear the cross daily in order to follow the Lord. The Lord is the living Spirit in our spirit. If we live by the Spirit, we will grow and become weighty persons.
We also need a knowledge of the truth. Truth and life are two aspects of the same thing. When the truth enters into us and is digested in our experience, it becomes life to us. We cannot neglect the truth; hence, we must read the Bible often and know the Bible. Life and truth make us weighty persons. In addition to knocking on doors and having home meetings, our appearance and speech must be weighty, and we must grow in life and be equipped in the truth. The Lord, the divine life, and the truth are in us. Consequently, the words we speak will have value.
Many people seemed light rather than weighty before their salvation, even though they were well educated and had a high position in society. After believing in the Lord, however, they began to pray, read the Bible, grow in life, and be transformed. Now they are proper and weighty in their appearance, speech, and relationship with others. This is not the result of human teachings; rather, this is the issue of the increase of the Lord within them.
Every day we need the spiritual exercise of touching the Lord, dealing with Him, giving Him room within us, following Him, bearing the cross, and studying the truth. If we do this every day of the year, we will become weighty persons regardless of our age. We will be weighty when we speak and when we shake hands with people. Even the unbelievers will sense that we have something within that makes us weighty. This is the difference between believers and unbelievers; what we have within us is expressed outside of us.
We are not in a movement. According to Hymns, #268, we are channels for God’s Spirit to flow through us into others. If we visit the new ones in their homes every week, what is deposited into them will be with them for the rest of their lives. Even if we answer their questions with a few simple sentences, our answer will remain in the deepest part of their being. They may ask a simple question about dealing with their parents; if we are weighty, even a simple response will give them a deep impression. Our response will change their human life. This is what we must give people when we contact them through door-knocking. We must be prepared to do this.
We cannot learn to be weighty, nor can others teach us. Being weighty requires a daily exercise. We exercise to daily fellowship with the Lord and to avoid committing sins and transgressions. We thoroughly confess every sin and transgression to the Lord so that we can be cleansed by His blood, filled with the Holy Spirit, walk according to the spirit, and live a life of bearing the cross instead of living to ourselves. We must also read the Bible often and learn the truth. In this way we will become weighty persons. Our being weighty will influence our home meetings. I am concerned that we are not weighty. This can cause people to find some excuse not to meet with us. They may even ask us not to come again.
We should not receive these words as doctrine; we should receive this burden and pray concerning this matter. If we want the Lord to spread His recovery and increase the church, we must be weighty people who walk on this pathway. The home meetings are not a light matter. We are presenting ourselves to others, and they see what we are. Being weighty depends on a habitual daily exercise before the Lord. We should never despise the home meetings. Even if we do not know how to use Life Lessons, what we are is placed before the new ones. If we are proper and weighty, their entire household will be blessed because they see a pattern that can benefit even their children. The new ones will become weighty people who fear God, believe in the Lord Jesus, speak the truth, and are proper. They will even welcome us for the sake of their children. This type of work is worthwhile and long lasting.
