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We are full of joy and thanksgiving to the Lord that in an age in which everyone loves himself and desires a prosperous future, one hundred thirty saints are willing to disregard their future for the sake of the Lord’s interest and go to the towns and villages for the spread of the gospel. The first group that went out consisted of one hundred saints. Recently, thirty more saints joined them. This brings the total to one hundred thirty saints.
By being willing to take this narrow way to witness for the Lord, these young saints have shown that they are absolute and consecrated to the Lord. In addition, their testimonies show that their work in the spread of the gospel has been effective. They did not go out to speak empty words or abstract ideas. Rather, their speaking enabled the Holy Spirit to work in people, and this operation of the Spirit caused people to change. The testimonies of these young saints also show that they are gospel propagators and that the Lord is in them. They are full of Christ. When they went out to preach the gospel and lead sinners to salvation, they were distributing, dispensing, Christ into people. The Christ who is in these young saints is the real Fruit-bearer. He is the enlarging One, the multiplying One. He is the One establishing the churches.
The first wave of saints raised up fifteen churches in sixty days. On average, they baptized fifty people in each locality. According to their records, the full-timers baptized seven hundred fifty to eight hundred people in two months. A little less than one-fourth of the people they baptized are remaining fruit; that is, they are in the Lord’s Day meeting and have entered the church life. This means that there are about one hundred fifty new ones in fifteen new churches.
In addition to the new ones, there are some brothers and sisters who formerly were scattered. These brothers and sisters were like orphans without a home or without a proper dwelling place, because there was no church in their town. But the one hundred full-timers went to the towns and villages and established fifteen churches in two months. Consequently, the scattered saints have found a dwelling place in the new churches; they have returned home. Hence, in every new locality there are local saints in addition to new believers. In some places there are only a few local saints, but in other places there are more than twenty local saints. These fifteen places now bear the testimony of the golden lampstand; that is, there is a church in these localities. We believe that by the end of this year, there will be a twofold increase in these new localities. This is the present situation of the spread.
In considering the practical situation, we feel that there is much room for improvement; we need to endeavor to do better. We will first reduce the number of persons on each team from twenty to six. In addition, every team will have a base. The saints responsible for making arrangements are renting and furnishing places that will be suitable to use as a base. By the time the second wave of saints is ready to set out, there will be twelve towns or villages ready for them. The second wave will have twelve teams with six members on each team. This is a total of seventy-two people.
The first wave consisted of one hundred full-timers. We estimated that they could establish fifteen churches in two months. After a locality was raised up, two full-timers remained in the new locality to continue laboring. This means that thirty saints remained in fifteen new localities. After the new localities were raised up, an additional thirty full-timers joined the labor. Therefore, there are a total of one hundred thirty saints laboring on the island of Taiwan for the propagation of the Lord’s recovery. These saints are about the same age and are balanced in every aspect. We should all rejoice and give thanks to the Lord for these saints.
We dare not say that such a spread of the gospel is an unprecedented move for Christianity in the Far East, but we can say that at least in Taiwan, such a move has never occurred before. One hundred thirty young saints are willing to hand themselves over for the propagation of the gospel. These are college graduates who have gone through substantial spiritual training and are willing to come forth for the Lord’s move. It is truly marvelous that in this day and age so many full-time serving ones can be produced from among college graduates.
This is one of the main reasons I returned to Taiwan in 1984. America is a large country with numerous colleges and universities, but because the universities are scattered, it was difficult for us to concentrate our work in one place. However, the Lord has particularly blessed the situation in Taiwan, in that the island is small, and the people are educated. As a result, it is easy to concentrate our effort on the campuses. For this reason we have been able to gain hundreds of college students in Taiwan. If it were not for the hundreds of college students who are joining Calvary’s hosts, the Lord’s spreading work would not be able to proceed.
In August 1986 we began the first term of the full-time training. There were two terms in 1987 and also in 1988. We have finished five terms, and we are presently in the sixth term. Several hundred brothers and sisters were gained through the first five terms. Prior to the current move for the spread of the gospel, some saints returned to their jobs after the training. Even though it will not be easy to locate these saints now, we can use them as reserves. When the need arises, they can be enlisted. From this we can see the Lord’s sovereign preparation.
Our heart rejoices to see one hundred thirty college graduates who are trained and can be sent to labor in various places. In the past decades we labored much on the campuses, but we never saw such a sight. This is different from our scattered labor of the past, in which everyone did his own work. Now we are trained, and we go out in teams. Moreover, before the saints go to specific destinations, there is detailed planning, much prayer, and sufficient preparation. Then the saints are sent out at the same time.
Within two months we saw the effectiveness of this work. We are full of thanksgiving, but we feel that there is still the need for improvement. Therefore, we are reducing the size of the teams from twenty people to six. Even though we have one hundred thirty young people laboring in the spread of the gospel, and they have already spread to fifteen places, giving us fifteen bases, we have insufficient manpower to guard what has been established. This is our present problem. Therefore, the additional thirty brothers and sisters will be used to strengthen the fifteen bases. This will give us four full-timers in every locality to care for the new church. Initially, some places had only two young sisters overseeing the new church but no brothers. This situation made it difficult to care for the new saints, and it caused concern for the security of the sisters. Now two more saints are being added in each place, and this doubles the manpower to labor together in coordination.
Furthermore, from now on the four people in each base will not be moved to another place; they will labor in one place for four months. It is rather precarious for newborn babies to have their nannies changed frequently. Hence, we are adding two more “nannies” to each team. The original two “nannies” already have two months of experience. Four saints will now labor continuously for four months, and they will not take a leave of absence without a legitimate reason so that the ones who are under their care can grow normally.
In every place where the spread is going on, there are about forty to fifty newly baptized believers. The four full-timers need to work on these new ones until they are stable. The full-timers should persistently work on them step by step. After that the full-timers can knock on doors and gain more new ones. The number of new ones should increase steadily over time. We hope that after four months there will be about forty saints in each locality who are regular and steady in the church life. We can then move two of the full-timers to another place, and two can remain in the new locality for the long term. We hope that in every locality some saints would be produced as responsible ones and that several suitable homes would be available for the church life. These new saints will be able to bear the local burden with the serving ones.
As we said earlier, accommodations in the twelve new bases are ready for the second wave of full-timers; hence, the second wave can set out immediately. Twelve teams with six members each will labor in these twelve places for four months. In other words, a total of seventy-two persons will labor in twelve bases for four months. This means that after four months we will have spread to a total of twenty-seven new places on the island of Taiwan. There are four full-timers stationed in each of the initial fifteen places, and the twelve new places will have six full-timers each. Each of the first fifteen places had two people laboring in them for two months, and they will have four people laboring in them for another four months. In this way the manpower is balanced and evenly distributed in every place. This is the situation of the twenty-seven new places for the spread.
If we continue spreading according to this pattern, in 1991 we will conclude this stage in the work of evangelizing Taiwan. There will be one hundred newly established churches and two full-time serving ones in every church for a total of two hundred full-timers. We began with one hundred full-timers and an additional thirty full-timers joined them. We need to continue adding more full-timers until there are two hundred full-timers laboring in the new churches. We should send the full-timers out in waves. In 1991 there will be one hundred new churches with two serving ones stationed in every church. This will bring us to the end of the first stage of evangelizing Taiwan.
By the end of 1991 there will be two hundred trained young brothers and sisters in one hundred new churches. Depending on our need and the situation, we will then decide whether we should continue the spread. We are presently laboring mainly in larger townships that have a population of over thirty thousand people. Later, we will labor in the towns that have a population of over ten thousand people. In most of these smaller towns people tend to be scattered instead of living in clusters; hence, we feel that it may not be effective to establish bases for the work in these towns. Our future direction will be to use the one hundred churches as bases and spread out from them. This will be the second stage of evangelizing Taiwan.
Thereafter, the full-timers who graduate from the full-time training will most likely stay in Taipei. We hope that they will form teams of six to labor in the various communities in Taipei, just like the full-timers who are laboring in the towns and villages. The labor of the full-timers in Taipei to gain enough fruit for a district meeting will be equivalent to establishing a church in one of the towns. Furthermore, the newly trained graduates can also replace those who have labored six months or longer in the towns and villages. This will release some from the first wave of full-timers to go overseas. The United States will be the first place that they will go to labor overseas. All the full-timers should be prepared to learn either English or Spanish. Then after the full-timers have labored in America for a few years, perhaps some can go to the Spanish-speaking countries where there is a vast field for the work.
There are many colleges and universities in Taiwan, and people on this small island live in a clustered environment. This makes it easy to spread the gospel and to gain college graduates who can receive the full-time training. This spontaneously makes Taiwan a place that can produce full-time workers. I believe that in six or seven years there will be three to five hundred full-timers going out from Taiwan; some will go to North America, others to Central and South America, and still others to Africa. In this way we will be able to evangelize not only Taiwan but also the Americas and even all of Africa. This is a good prospect, and we should all endeavor toward this prospect. In particular, those who are laboring on the campuses in Taiwan need to gain college students with this in view.
We hope that the full-time training will produce at least sixty full-timers every year. After five or six years three to five hundred saints will have gone through the training. These saints should go to various places for the spread of the gospel. The “apprentices” can be produced in Taiwan. After these apprentices receive the training, they will go to the towns and villages to labor for six months to one year, and then they will go to labor overseas. Every new group of apprentices who are raised up will follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before them. This will be a blessing to the island of Taiwan. We hope that in relation to this spread all the churches will be in coordination and that all the co-workers will understand that this is our goal. Then the churches in Taiwan can enter into an atmosphere of propagation and increase for God’s pleasure and satisfaction. Furthermore, through this process some saints will mature in their experience and growth in life, and their human experience will reach a certain measure of maturity. The trainees who mature can be sent overseas to evangelize Latin America and Africa. May the Lord fulfill this plan.
We need to consider two practical problems that we have encountered. First, as much as possible we must avoid the practice of sisters baptizing people. When we knock on doors, we should not let the sisters baptize males, but the sisters can be allowed to baptize females. Suppose after preaching the gospel in a home that both the husband and the wife are willing to be baptized. The sisters can baptize the wife, and if there is no brother present, the sisters should make an arrangement for the husband to be baptized later. They can even arrange for the husband to be baptized in the meeting hall. Under no circumstance is it appropriate for our young sisters to baptize a male. Even if the sister is older, it is still not appropriate for her to baptize a male. During baptism a person’s clothing might not cover his entire body. It is therefore best to avoid such a situation.
Second, I hope that every locality will have a gospel van and a telephone. The first wave of saints who went to the towns and villages were equipped with two ten-passenger vans per team. In every locality there should be at least one ten-passenger van. Transportation in the rural areas is not convenient; buses do not run frequently. Therefore, these vans can be used to transport saints. Most saints do not own cars, and it may take them one or two hours to walk to the meeting. This is burdensome. It would be wonderful to have a vehicle that can transport ten saints to the meeting in one trip. In a locality where forty people meet together, if half of them require a ride, we will only need to make two trips. This is needed.
Furthermore, if each of the one hundred newly established churches has a van, there will be one hundred gospel vans. The vans will all be of the same make and the same shape with a logo, such as “God loves the world” or “Jesus is Lord,” painted on them. When these one hundred vans travel from town to town, the townspeople will know that these are the gospel vans of the local churches.
Every church must have a van and a telephone. Then when the sisters go to preach the gospel and a person is willing to be baptized, they can contact the brothers to come and assist them in the baptism. These are some matters that we should pay attention to and for which we should be prepared.
In addition, we should not be timid or frightened when we preach the gospel to people who are older, more experienced, rather accomplished, or famous. We should not feel that we are too young, inexperienced, or unqualified to speak to them. We should be bold and speak Christ to everyone. We should preach the gospel and dispense Christ. Even if the person we are speaking to is the head of a big company or a college professor with a wealth of human experiences, he does not have Christ or the experience of Christ. We can boast that we have Christ. They may have something that they can boast of, but we have even more of which to boast.
We should simply present Christ to people. This should be our exercise and our practice. In Philippians 3:8 Paul says, “I also count all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ.” This verse should help us deal with different kinds of people. We should read Philippians 3 and pray over the verses to apply these verses to ourselves. We need to experience Christ as our riches and as everything to us. I trust that this experience will help us in speaking to people who have positions in society.
By improving our arrangement in the work and by taking care of housing, we have taken care of the full-timers in every way. However, we are still concerned about the steps of our work. The record in the Bible shows that there are four major steps in a Christian’s work for Christ. The first step is to preach the gospel. The second step is to nourish people after they are saved. The third step is to gather the new believers whom we are nourishing into small group meetings so that they may know one another in the Lord and fellowship together. A small group can begin with seven or eight people and gradually increase in number until it can be split into two groups. The fourth step is to bring the new ones to participate in the church life. In particular, we must bring them to the big meeting on Lord’s Day morning for them to practice prophesying together with all the saints.
In conclusion, we need to preach the gospel to lead people to salvation, and we need to nourish the new believers. Then we should connect a new one with eight or nine others in a small group for mutual care and perfecting. We also need to bring the new believers to the church meetings. In particular, they need to prophesy in the Lord’s Day morning meeting for the building up of the church. In the past we emphasized knocking on doors to visit people and baptize them, but now we must emphasize these four steps.
When the full-timers were in the training, Monday was always a day off. However, during our time to spread the gospel, if we use this day to go on an outing, we will not get any rest, and we will be more exhausted afterward. In the Old Testament the children of Israel kept the Sabbath. On this day they were not allowed to walk very far; hence, in Acts there is the phrase a Sabbath day’s journey (1:12). We must not follow the way of people in the world and go on an outing as soon as we have a day off. After going on an outing, people are generally exhausted, and they do not have the energy to go to work or school the next day. This is the wrong way to spend our day off.
The full-timers are busy working from Tuesday through Saturday, and they are busy meeting on the Lord’s Day. Moreover, their pursuit is mainly corporate. Hence, they need one day every week to be calm before the Lord in personal prayer in order to contact and fellowship with the Lord. There is a genuine need for the full-timers to spend one day in personal fellowship with the Lord. In addition to this, they also have miscellaneous personal matters to take care of, for example, taking their clothes to be cleaned and buying personal items. These things should be done on Monday, on their day off. This does not mean that they cannot sit in a park or take a walk but rather that they should not go too far or exhaust themselves. A place that is close by and quiet is all that is needed to fellowship with the Lord. They can also visit their family to take care of family matters. In summary, the full-timers should not walk farther than a Sabbath day’s journey, because this violates the principle of rest.
The full-timers should spend their mornings reading the Bible, studying the truth, or reading spiritual books for the pursuit of life. They should also spend some time to learn a foreign language. The more languages a servant of the Lord knows, the better. For example, if I had not labored diligently to learn English seventy years ago when I lived in China, I would be unable to deal with our present situation. The present need is for the full-timers to learn English, Spanish, and other languages. Those with a burden for Korea should learn Korean. Korea needs a group of Chinese brothers and sisters to join them in the coordination. This also applies to Japan. However, the most important languages are English and Spanish; English is the common language of the world, and there are many Spanish-speaking people in the world. In addition to this, the trainees must continue to improve their Chinese. Perhaps the Lord will use them in the future for the publication work. In any event, those who want to serve the Lord must spend time to learn languages.
The full-timers should use their afternoons and evenings for the work. They should use their time to go out and knock on doors if they do not have a prayer meeting or a small group meeting. They should go out five days a week in gospel teams of three saints. If one gospel team of three can gain five people in one week, the entire team of six saints can gain ten people. If the teams gain ten people in one week, they should be able to gain one hundred people in the first ten weeks. However, this number will be reduced because the full-timers will need to nourish the newly baptized believers in home meetings immediately after they are gained. They will also need to help these new ones form small groups. Hence, the full-timers will spend their time spreading the gospel through three activities: preaching the gospel by knocking on doors, nourishing the new ones in home meetings, and teaching and perfecting the new ones in small group meetings.
It is possible for the full-timers to baptize seventy or eighty people in ten weeks. The second wave of teams will spend a total of one hundred twenty days to spread the gospel. During the first seventy days, or ten weeks, the teams should emphasize knocking on doors. The teams do not need to knock on doors during the remaining fifty days. However, this is not legal. It is possible that more people will be baptized, because the new ones will bring people to be baptized. In any case, during the four months of spreading the gospel, the teams should baptize about eighty new ones either through knocking on doors or through the contacts of newly baptized saints.
The eighty newly baptized believers should be under our step-by-step care for one hundred twenty days. We must first nourish them and then perfect, teach, and cultivate them. The work of nourishing is accomplished through the home meetings. We need to meet with people in their homes, not in large groups. Two people should coordinate together for a home meeting. Gradually, the new ones in a home meeting will be led into a small group meeting. The small group meetings are all-inclusive, having every aspect of the church life. Therefore, as a result of being in a small group, the new ones are brought into the reality of the church life. Finally, there is the prophesying in the church meetings.
The teams in the second wave should baptize eighty or ninety people during the first ten weeks. The six members on a team must labor on these eighty or ninety people. We must first do a nourishing work, and then we must perfect, teach, edify, and cultivate the new ones in the small groups. After being under our care for fifty days, the new ones should be stable and should remain. In the past even though we baptized thousands of people, not many remained, because we did not nourish, teach, perfect, or cultivate them. We are now doing things differently.
In nourishing and perfecting the new ones in the home meetings or the small group meetings, one household can be visited in the afternoon and another in the evening. This is a minimum of two households a day. During the last seven weeks, when the teams are not knocking on doors, they must spend all their time to nourish, teach, perfect, and cultivate the new ones in home meetings and small group meetings. During these seven weeks the full-timers can form several teams, and each team can visit at least two households a day to care for two people. Regardless of whether the full-timers are nourishing or perfecting, they can care for two people a day and ten people in five days. If the teams practice this, more than half the people under their care will remain.
We should nourish a person immediately after he is saved. This is not according to our former practice of baptizing someone and then immediately rushing off to baptize another person. From now on we must change our practice. Immediately after baptizing a person, we should remain in his home and feed him his first meal. Then we should visit him the day after his baptism and visit him again a few days later. By visiting a new one in this way, we should be able to meet with him at least ten times in the first month. All we should do is visit and feed the new ones. When we visit the new ones, we must feed them with the word of the Bible. We can do this with Life Lessons. However, we must use Life Lessons organically, not mechanically.
We must avoid being rigid and using formal methods. For example, at the beginning of a home meeting we always say, “Today we are going to read Life Lessons.” This is unnecessary. As soon as we enter a new one’s home and sit down, we should exercise our spirit by praying or singing out loud so that our spirit rises up. We should even begin singing when we leave our home and pray while we are in the car. Then the meeting will begin before we even arrive at the new one’s home.
It is best to sing hymns while we are waiting at the door. Then when the new one hears us, his spirit will be stirred up, and the home meeting will begin spontaneously. After we enter the home, the new believer may say, “I am so glad you came. I have a question to ask you.” By this mutual asking and answering we may be led to a particular lesson in Life Lessons that is an appropriate response to the question. It is not necessary to read the entire lesson. It may be sufficient to read one point and the important verses. After half an hour the new one will be nourished. We should not leave as soon as the new one is nourished; instead, we should fellowship with him and talk to him. This is not a worship service; it is the best meeting.
Sometimes we will be able to answer a new one’s questions simply by reading Life Lessons with him. Every lesson in Life Lessons has a hymn at the end that is appropriate to sing in coordination with our speaking. If we use the hymn, we will not be rigid, and our method will not become a ritual. When we are spreading the gospel in the rural places, we must do things absolutely according to the new way. We are taking a new way; we are not doing a reforming work. Moreover, if we apply these methods mechanically, they will become old. We must instead be renewed daily and have a fresh spirit to supply others with Christ every day.
In Christian meetings we pray, sing, read, and speak. These are the elements that compose our meetings. In addition, there is fellowship, petition, and mutual care. When we visit people in their homes, we must stir up their spirit, but in order to do this, our spirit must first be stirred up. In the past when we visited people, we did not understand the matters of exercising our spirit or releasing our spirit, because we had not received any leading related to this. Actually, releasing the spirit, exercising the spirit, and using the spirit are terms that we invented. When we were still in mainland China, Brother Nee emphasized and frequently used the phrase use your spirit. At that time we did not yet have the phrases exercise your spirit and release your spirit. We did not begin to use these until we were in Taiwan.
When we visited people in the past, we knew that we should dress neatly and take our Bible. We knocked on doors in a formal way, and when people answered the door, we were polite and formal. However, our formality became stiff and rigid, and as soon as things are rigid, they become dead. After we sat down and our host also sat down, we would look at one another, not knowing what to do or say. After a while we would select a hymn, and after singing the hymn, we prayed. This was a formal ritual. These were meetings according to the natural human concept of worship and service. It is difficult for a person’s spirit to be moved in such a meeting.
However, when we researched the Bible, we saw a different situation. In Acts we saw that the saints sang hymns, praised, and rejoiced spontaneously. In chapter 4, when Peter and John were released from jail, they went to the brothers, who immediately rejoiced, praised, and prayed out loud. After praying, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness (vv. 23-31). What caused the disciples to speak with boldness? When Peter and John were in custody, the Jewish Sanhedrin charged them not to utter anything at all nor teach based upon the name of Jesus (vv. 17-18). But the more the Sanhedrin exhorted and charged, the more the apostles praised. After praising, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. This enabled them to speak even more boldly. In chapter 5 the apostles were arrested again and reminded of the charge “not to teach based upon this name” (v. 28). However, Peter and the apostles said, “It is necessary to obey God rather than men” (v. 29). This shows that the disciples were freed from formality.
We must remember these points when we go out to spread the gospel. We are wrong if we are merely using these methods to mechanically lead people to salvation. We should not do this. Our commission is to preach the gospel and bring people into the new way. The new way is the only way that has organic edification and building. As we have already fellowshipped, organic building requires organic preaching, organic nourishing, and organic perfecting. Preaching the gospel is organic, nourishing new ones in home meetings is also organic, and perfecting them in small group meetings is even more organic. The new way is entirely organic.
The small group meetings include teaching, edification, building, and perfecting. In the original Greek the word perfecting in Ephesians 4:12 means “equipping.” When a person enters the military, he is trained, taught, made to practice, and thus he is equipped. However, perfecting has the meaning of both equipping and supplying. A soldier is not only equipped with the skills necessary to fight; he is also supplied with a gun and bullets. Then he can fight the battle. This is the meaning of perfecting, and this is achieved in the small group meetings.
On the one hand, the small group meetings emphasize fellowship, and this fellowship should not have regulations. On the other hand, the meetings emphasize prayer. We must pray immediately after we fellowship. Prayer brings in mutual concern and care. Therefore, there should not be many people in a small group meeting, and everyone must function. Suppose there are two hundred people in a church, and they attend only the big meetings. Even though they can greet one another, there is no way for them to know one another’s situation. However, because there are no set forms or regulations in the small group meetings, everyone can function and speak. After fellowshipping about many things, we will have a burden to pray. We may pray for a sister who is sick or for a brother who lost his job. When everyone prays in one accord for five minutes, there will be a concern and care for one another. Fellowship brings in prayer, and prayer brings in mutual concern and care. This is what we should do in the small groups.
Furthermore, in the small group meetings the brothers and sisters can ask questions. Some questions will be concerning our living, concerning life, and other questions will be related to the Bible, concerning the truth. For example, someone may read 1 Corinthians 11 and not understand what is written concerning cutting one’s hair or shaving one’s head and concerning long hair and head coverings. If he asks a question, everyone should corporately answer the question. Instead of only one person responding to the question, everyone should give a short answer. After everyone has answered, an older or more experienced person should give a concluding word. In this way there is mutual perfecting and edifying. In addition, during the mutual fellowshipping, praying, and caring, everyone functions.
The goal of the small groups is to perfect the saints to do the same things we do. If we have twenty people in our group, after five or six months of perfecting, many of them should be able to do what we do. Hence, after six months we can explain that everyone in the group is ready to “graduate,” and therefore we should split into groups of three to five people to form new small groups.
Some people may say that three to five people are too few to form a small group. This is true. Therefore, they must first preach the gospel by knocking on doors. After one week of knocking on doors, they may have three to five people who require their care. They should establish home meetings and then bring the new ones into small groups. Then the new ones will not only have the nourishing of the home meetings but also the perfecting of the small group meetings. The believers we gain are the first generation, and they will do what we do. After six months they can go out to gain the second generation; then in another six months, another generation will be produced. By this continuous reproduction there will be a constant spread and increase. If we are faithful to practice in this way, our numbers will double within one year. Our numbers may more than double, because it is especially easy to increase in the beginning.
Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “He...gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ.” According to these verses, after we are perfected by the gifted members, we become gifts. This can be compared to a university professor who teaches his students so that they can become teachers when they graduate. This is the goal of the new way, and this is what is revealed in the Bible. However, according to our past practice, we would baptize a person and then not care for him for several weeks. If we did care for him, the most we would do is encourage him to come to the Lord’s Day meetings. Hence, people have listened to messages on the Lord’s Day for ten to twenty years without experiencing much growth in life. While the saints may have experienced some growth in life, we did not perfect anyone.
The new way does not merely involve preaching the gospel, establishing home meetings, nourishing new ones, and starting small group meetings with mutual fellowship, prayer, and care. It also involves teaching the truth and pursuing the growth in life. The new way is all-inclusive. All the basic exercises and pursuits in the church life are in the small groups. Eventually, everyone in a small group “graduates” and is able to go out and start a small group meeting. They first preach the gospel and set up home meetings. Then they can set up a small group meeting in the same way that we do. As a result, the second generation, third generation, and the following generations will be the same as the first generation. In other words, one small group will become two small groups, and then it will become four, eight, and eventually twelve small groups. In this way the gospel will be thoroughly preached. Moreover, everyone will be able to preach the gospel, prophesy, and establish churches; that is, everyone will function as an apostle.
After Taiwan is gospelized, the full-time serving ones who graduate from the training will not need to go anywhere for the spread of the gospel; they will remain in Taipei. Presently, six full-time serving ones go to a town or village to establish a church, but when the full-time serving ones remain in Taipei, they will go to a district to establish a district meeting. If they practice in this way, the new ones they gain will do the same things that they do. We also look to the Lord for the perfecting of the five thousand brothers and sisters who meet regularly in the church in Taipei so that they can go out in teams of six to spread the gospel in the communities and raise up district meetings. Among these five thousand saints, there are about one thousand elderly saints who need to pray much for the Lord’s new way. Apart from the elderly saints, the young people who are under the age of eighteen are able to knock on doors, but they are not experienced. If we do not include these two categories of saints, there are about three thousand saints who can go out to knock on doors.
Most of these three thousand saints either work or are housewives; they are not full-time serving ones. Hence, these three thousand saints can function like one thousand saints. They can form one hundred sixty teams with six saints on a team. These teams can labor in a new district to start a district meeting. In this way six people can spend one year to establish a meeting with forty people. This is marvelous.
If we will be faithful to practice this, all of Taipei can be gospelized within one year. During the first six months we will labor to produce the first generation, and in the second six months we will produce the second generation. If we continue in this way, we will not merely gospelize Taipei, but we will spread to every corner of the city. There will be Christians everywhere, and we will hear people singing hymns and praising everywhere. There are many large apartment complexes in Taipei. Eighteen teams can labor in one apartment complex and sing hymns there. This will bring about a wonderful revival.
There are presently one hundred thirty full-time serving ones whom we will send out with our blessing. They have truly received mercy to be the pioneers to open new frontiers. I believe that these serving ones will establish a pattern for the church in Taipei to learn. The population of the city of Taipei is equivalent to two hundred towns with a population of ten thousand people each. Therefore, if we want to gospelize Taiwan, we must also gospelize Taipei. Even though we have set aside Taipei in order to send the full-time serving ones to the countryside, we must be clear that Taipei is still crucial.
The church in Taipei needs three hundred full-time serving ones in addition to the five thousand saints in the church. According to our fellowship, when we subtract the number of elderly saints and teenagers from the five thousand saints, there are three thousand saints who are equivalent to one thousand full-time serving ones. If we apply ourselves, we will succeed. Just as the six-member teams that went to the towns and villages have been successful, the work in Taipei will be successful with six-member teams. We need to testify concerning this in every meeting hall and encourage the saints to follow this pattern for spreading the gospel by going out in teams of six. If the saints will follow this pattern, we will have good results in Taipei.
