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Scripture Reading: Luke 10:1-3, 5-7; 19:5, 9; Acts 2:46; 5:42; 1 Cor. 14:1, 4, 26, 31
In the previous chapter we saw that the goal of the new way is to build up the Body of Christ. In the Body of Christ the emphasis is on organic function, not organizational work. This can be compared to our human body relying on the inward organic function of every member for its existence, not on outward organizational methods. The church as the Body of Christ is completely organic. Every believer is an organic member of this one Body and has an organic function. The God-ordained way, which God has revealed to us in the Bible, builds up the Body of Christ through the organic function of each one part.
In this chapter we will look at the four steps in the practice of the new way.
The first step in the practice of the new way is to preach the gospel. When we visit people to preach the gospel, we gain people for the Lord. We want people not merely to be saved; we want them to become building material for the Body of Christ. Hence, people need to repent, be regenerated, be transformed, and grow in the divine life. Regeneration, transformation, and growth in life are organic matters for the organic building.
Previously, when we wanted to preach the gospel, the church set a day for a big gospel meeting, and everyone passed out tracts and put up posters. All the brothers and sisters did their best to invite their friends, neighbors, classmates, and colleagues. We spent much energy to invite people to come hear the gospel, but we did not have good results. Such a method was not wrong, and it was not entirely useless. The Bible does record an incident when people were invited to listen to the gospel (Acts 10:21-24). However, if we read the New Testament carefully, we will see that the main way to preach the gospel is to go to the sinners.
The Lord wants us to be fishers of men (Matt. 4:19). This means that the evangelists are fishers of men. Where can we find fishermen who, instead of going to the rivers and oceans to catch fish, send out invitations asking the fish to come to them? The Lord Himself came down from heaven to seek man. He went from village to village and even visited people in their homes. Later, He sent the twelve disciples to visit people (10:5; Luke 9:1-2), and He appointed seventy others and sent them out (10:1). The Lord Jesus sent them out as lambs in the midst of wolves (v. 3). It is not easy for a lamb to visit wolves. A lamb that visits wolves will not find it enjoyable but will encounter difficulty and even be reviled.
Those of us who visit people to preach the gospel have experienced meeting people who really were “wolves,” and they gave us trouble. However, sometimes the person who opens the door is happy to welcome us, and we know that this is a son of peace. He will receive the gospel and be baptized. The saints who knock on doors to preach the gospel have many stories about how they met such sons of peace.
There are now more than one thousand local churches on the earth, and most of them are practicing the new way of visiting people to preach the gospel. Since the second half of 1986 more than ten thousand people have been baptized because the saints visited them to preach the gospel. Some Roman Catholic congregations have been influenced by us, and now they are visiting people to preach the gospel. In the past, even though we invited twenty to thirty guests to hear the gospel, only two or three would actually come. Now when we spend two or three hours to knock on twenty to thirty doors, we are able to lead at least one person to salvation. This is a scientific method, and it is very effective. However, it is not that easy, because it requires us to pay a price and set aside our status.
When we speak the Lord’s word to others, we must believe that the Holy Spirit is with us, and we must exercise our spirit. Some of the people we meet when we knock on doors are mean when they open the door, but after we speak with them, they not only repent, pray, and believe, but they also get baptized. Within a few minutes they are transformed from being a “wolf” to being a “lamb.” During the past year and a half several hundred people spent all their time to experiment with preaching the gospel by knocking on doors. As a result, we have confirmed that this is the most practical and effective way.
The secret to our ability to go door to door and visit people with the gospel is that we must have thick skin. No matter how insulting people are to us, we should remain composed, and even if they curse us, we should not waiver. Before we go out, we must pray, thoroughly confess our sins to the Lord, and ask Him to cleanse us with His blood so that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. In this way the Holy Spirit will be released, and we will be bold and full of authority. We will be able to announce to the heavens and the earth that we are preaching the gospel to sinners with the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will have the authority to command people to believe and be saved. We will even be able to command the demons to leave the houses that we are visiting, because the Lord Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:18-20). The Lord has given us the authority to go and disciple the nations by baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and by teaching them. This is not a small matter.
In conclusion, the new way is proper. In order to preach the gospel to others, we must go to them. If we do not go, who will go? Whom can God send? God will not send the angels, because in the New Testament God did not become an angel; He became a man. God became flesh to live among men. If we are not willing to move, He has no way to reach people. Hence, we must bring salvation to people in their homes, just as the Lord Jesus brought salvation to the house of Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10).
The second step in the practice of the new way is to perfect the new believers. The people who believe in the Lord and are baptized through our preaching the gospel are new believers. They are newborn babes, and they need much care. This is perfecting. In the past we were lacking in this matter, because most of the saints did not receive the proper leading and perfecting to know how to lead and perfect the new believers. We did not have good results even though we visited the new ones and encouraged them to attend the meetings. We were not clear that God does not want to force people to attend meetings; instead, He wants us to bring the meetings to people’s homes.
Just as we visit people to bring the gospel and salvation into their homes, we should take the meeting to their homes to perfect them after they are saved. We cannot expect that only two or three meetings will be sufficient to perfect them. When a new baby is born, we cannot feed him merely two or three times and then stop. In the past not many of the people remained, because we were not clear about this. Now we have learned the lesson. When we researched this point in the Bible, we realized that after a person is saved and baptized, we should immediately meet with him in his home.
For this reason we should not leave immediately after we baptize a person; rather, we should spend at least half an hour to an hour with him. We should use this time to lead him to know that Jesus Christ the Savior is now the life-giving Spirit and that when he believed, the Spirit entered into his spirit to enliven and regenerate him. We should also show him the pertinent verses in the Bible. Then we should lead him to pray and call on the Lord so that he contacts the Spirit with his spirit. After this first meeting we should visit him again after two or three days and continue visiting him every few days for a month. During this month we should use ten meetings to lead him into the basic Christian knowledge and experience. This will give him a good foundation in the divine life.
After the first month we can visit the new ones once a week or at least once every two weeks to have a home meeting. We should have meetings with them for a year. During this time we should tell them that we are not preachers who visit people for a living; rather, we have simply received grace from the Lord and have been moved by the Lord’s love to lead people to be saved, to grow in life, and to be perfected. The new believers need to know that we are the same as them and that we are all brothers in the church. They also need to know that when we meet together, everyone should function. We must lead them to do what we do in the meetings so that they gradually learn to pray, sing and speak the hymns, read the Bible, and speak the Lord to others. This is for the development of their organic function.
The third step in the practice of the God-ordained way is to establish group meetings. We should first have meetings in the homes of the new believers. After one or two months they will be willing to meet with other Christians. At this point we can bring together three to five families of new believers who live in the same neighborhood to establish a group meeting. As the new ones get to know one another, they will encourage and build one another up. They will also be joined together in love to fellowship together and care for one another. This will give everyone a chance to manifest their organic function by speaking and testifying for the Lord.
Human beings are social, and they like to be with other people, not by themselves. The best people to be with are Christians, because in a Christian gathering people do not merely avoid being polluted and doing evil; they can enjoy grace and learn the truth. When a few home gatherings form a group meeting, the saints will have more of an interest to read the Bible. They will be encouraged to love the Lord and gain experiences in their love of the Lord. In this way the members of the group meetings will be able to testify, and they will be able to take a step further to speak for the Lord in the district meetings.
The fourth step in the practice of the God-ordained way is to function in the district meetings. We must gradually lead the new believers from the group meetings into the district meetings and help them enter into the church life. The content of the district meetings is rich because we break bread for the remembrance of the Lord, and we study the truth. The mutual fellowship and enjoyment allows every person the opportunity to function, to speak for the Lord, and to build up others. Hence, we should lead the new ones to speak for the Lord and speak forth the Lord in the district meetings. Then all the saints in the meeting will function organically by speaking to supply and build up one another. In this way we will build up the Body of Christ.
I hope that this overview of the new way will help us see that the practical steps for building up the Body of Christ are altogether different from the methods practiced in organized religion. In organized religion everyone donates money, and they hire a pastor whose responsibility is to devote all his time to take care of the service to God. The believers give material offerings, but they do not participate directly in the work of building up the Body of Christ. This, however, is not our practice. As soon as we lead someone to salvation, we begin to meet in his home, and we help him to call on the Lord’s name, pray-read the Word, and fellowship with the Lord. The more he grows in life, the more he can speak forth the Lord and testify for the Lord. He does not function for money or for any personal benefit. His organic function is the issue of the divine life and the Spirit within him. The brothers and sisters who function according to the operation of the divine life within them are living and organic.
After a new believer is saved and baptized, it takes about a year for him to go from functioning in the home meetings to functioning in the district meetings. When he begins to function in the district meetings, we can entrust him to the church to be built up in the Body of Christ. He has become a useful member who can go out to gain others. At this point we can go out to care for, lead, and perfect other people. This way can be compared to a master leading an apprentice. Many believers can be perfected this way. The Lord has led us to take the new way. This way is an organic way; therefore, the people gained in this way will spontaneously be organic. When we visit people to preach the gospel, we give them the grace that we have received. This grace has a life power and an organic function. If we continue to function in this way, the Body of Christ will be manifested in our local church. Our local church will be an expression of the universal Body of Christ functioning in a locality. It will be an organism, not an organization.
We all love the Lord, and we care for His move. We know that the Lord wants to build up His Body and that the building up of the Body of Christ is not something that only a small number of gifted persons can accomplish. The building up of the Body of Christ requires all those who belong to the Lord to be constrained by His love to function together by visiting people to preach the gospel, by perfecting new believers, by establishing group meetings, and by functioning in district meetings. This is the only way for the Body of Christ to be built up.
The steps for the practice of the new way are set before us, and they are our heavenly duty. If one thousand saints in the church in Taipei receive this word and are willing to pay the price to spend their energy and practice the new way, the condition of the church will improve and the church will spread. At the same time the Body of Christ will be built up.
In a local church with just one hundred people, we hope that thirty saints will be constrained by the Lord to rise up and accept the Lord’s leading to practice the new way. These saints should form teams of three people that include an older person, a middle-aged person, and a young person. There should be brothers and sisters on each team who coordinate to visit people and preach the gospel. If the saints on a team go out at least once every other week for two hours each time, they will be able to lead one person to salvation in a month. In twelve months they will bring twelve people to salvation. This means that in one year ten teams can lead one hundred twenty people to salvation. The saints still need to lead the new ones from the home meetings to the group meetings and finally to the district meetings. Even if we lose two out of every four new ones, we should be able to keep sixty new ones. This is a sixty percent annual rate of increase. Furthermore, a locality with one hundred people should be able to support at least two or three full-time serving ones. The full-time serving ones should spend all their time practicing the new way. They should be able to gain fifty people in one year. This gives a total of one hundred ten people in one year. This is a considerable number.
Concerning the regular weekly meetings, we can make the following arrangements. On the Lord’s Day morning we will have district meetings in which we break bread to remember the Lord, study the truth, and fellowship and testify. On Tuesday evening we will have the church prayer and service meeting to call on the Lord and strive together for the practice of the new way. Then on two other evenings during the week we can either visit people to preach the gospel or have home meetings and group meetings to bear the burden of caring for and perfecting the saints. If we are willing to meet in this way and labor faithfully, the church in Taipei will be organic. The entire church life will be organic, not organized. All the saints will participate in the church life, instead of a few people replacing everyone else. This will be a flourishing and blessed situation, and the results will be rich and glorious.
