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Based on our observations over the past few years, we have a heavy burden and feel that we must change our way. We need a new beginning. There is no doubt that God, the Bible, the truth, and salvation do not and cannot change. No one can change the fact that God created the earth. Man can go to the moon, but he cannot change the moon, nor can he change the earth. However, man’s activities change, and his method of working and the tools he uses to work are constantly changing. Over the past six thousand years the methods used by human beings for transportation have continually improved. These improvements are evident to everyone.
In the church life, however, there has not been much improvement in the way we meet, preach the gospel, serve, and shepherd the brothers and sisters, even though there are many things that can be improved and need to be changed. Twenty years ago factories, commerce, and methods of communication were outdated in Taiwan, but Taiwan’s present advancement in technology is recognized all over the world. Taiwan has improved to the extent that it is considered modern. In the same way the church life should advance. This does not mean that we change the truth or salvation but that we must improve the church life. The Bible is unique, but we should consider the way we read and teach the Bible. According to our practice of the new way, we established home meetings for nourishing new believers. However, we need to research the best way to carry out the home meetings.
In our research to find the best way to nourish the new believers, we have tried two ways. We first tried using the Life-study messages. I spent one week with the elders in America to present the crucial points in each of Paul’s fourteen Epistles. This was to help them study the Life-studies. The elders were happy to receive the help, but they were unable to use the Life-studies to nourish the new believers. The problem was not with the material; rather, we did not know how to use the material. Therefore, we are now using another way. We are teaching Life Lessons, which consists of four volumes with twelve lessons in each volume. This is a total of forty-eight lessons. Using Life Lessons has been successful.
In the past the full-time trainees suffered when they went to nourish the new ones in their homes because they did not know what to say. Before we began the new way, the brothers who minister the word had a difficult time, and they dreaded Lord’s Day morning because they were responsible to speak. Despite our numerous publications, it was difficult for them to select a topic to speak on. If their messages were shallow, many saints would not want to listen. If their messages were deep, no one would receive their speaking. The main requirement in leading a meeting is the Spirit and the Word. If we have the Spirit without the Word, the meeting will be empty, and if we have the Word without the Spirit, the meeting will be dead. We need both the Spirit and the Word. This is not easy. Should the topic of a good message be the heavens or the earth? Should it be the Lord Jesus or the Spirit? Should it be the church or the cross? Or should it be justification or salvation? It is difficult to find an appropriate topic.
For this reason we have put much consideration into the writing of Life Lessons. The first volume begins with the assurance of salvation and ends with knowing the church. In other words, it leads a new believer from being assured of his salvation to knowing the church. This volume also includes household salvation, clearance of the past, prayer, reading the Bible, knowing the true God, knowing Christ, knowing the Holy Spirit, and knowing the cross of Christ. The topics in this volume can be compared to a staircase because they lead a person step by step to know five great truths: the Bible, God, Christ, the Spirit, and the church. This is the content of the first volume.
Volume 1 ends with a lesson on knowing the church, and volume 2 begins with the negative matter of knowing the sects. The result of a person knowing the sects is that he desires to meet. Therefore, the second lesson is on meetings. The most important meeting is the Lord’s table meeting in which we break bread to remember the Lord. After the Lord’s table meeting there is a lesson on consecration. When a person is consecrated, he wants to serve the Lord, but because he is empty, he does not have the strength. He needs the inward and outward filling of the Holy Spirit. After being filled inwardly and outwardly with the Holy Spirit, he can preach the gospel and serve the Lord. When he preaches the gospel and serves the Lord, he sees the financial needs and participates in material offerings. This is the content of the second volume.
The third volume is somewhat deeper. It begins with being transferred into Christ, that is, being transferred out of Adam into Christ. Then it speaks of being joined to Christ, abiding in Christ, experiencing Christ, taking Christ as everything, becoming one spirit with the Lord, living in the fellowship of life, obeying the sense of life, obeying the teaching of the anointing, walking according to the spirit, and awaiting the Lord’s coming. The last lesson is on being raptured to meet the Lord. The third volume begins with being transferred into Christ and ends with being raptured to meet the Lord.
Thus, volumes 1 through 3 of Life Lessons cover the entire Christian life. The fourth volume then gives a brief presentation of every aspect of God’s full salvation. It begins with the way to enjoy God’s salvation through repenting, believing, and being baptized. Then it presents the contents of salvation: forgiveness of sins, cleansing of sins, propitiation, reconciliation, sanctification, justification, regeneration, renewing, transformation, maturity, conformation, and glorification. These lessons contain all the stages of salvation from believing to glorification.
When we go to the home meetings, we should not merely exchange greetings. In every meeting we should use the Life Lessons to inject the new ones with life. Whenever we go to a home meeting, we are “doctors” making house calls to give injections. We have forty-eight different medications, or nutrients, with which we inject the new ones. In the meeting we obtain a diagnosis based on their need, and we give them an injection of the nutrients that they are lacking. If they are lacking vitamin C, we give them vitamin C. After twenty minutes we may give them an injection of vitamin B. Then our time with them will not be a waste.
In every meeting we should inject the new ones with nutrients when we speak with them, pray with them, and pray-read with them. If we lead the new ones to read one lesson a week, we can read through all forty-eight lessons in one year. However, because every lesson has many points, we should not read through the lessons quickly. We should give the new ones an injection point by point. We may even need to read one topic two or three times. If we read the lessons quickly, the new ones will not be able to absorb the points. If we take the way of reading the lessons slowly, we may need a year and a half or even two years to read all the lessons.
When we announced the change in the system in October 1984, we said that even though the vision concerning changing the system is clear and we know how to take this way, this is still a new way. In other words, this is our first time to take this way. Therefore, we are still researching, even though we are practicing the new way. We first discovered the way to knock on doors. Then we discovered the way to have home meetings. These are the two most basic steps in practicing the new way.
The church in Taipei is the largest church in the Lord’s recovery. It is also the most stable church. It has a history of more than thirty years. However, during the past ten to twenty years our condition has gradually declined to the extent that we are maintaining the status quo, but we are not spreading or increasing. Our numbers have remained almost the same for ten to twenty years. In 1961 the church in Taipei had more than twenty thousand information cards. This was the number of brothers and sisters in the church. Of this number, four to five thousand people were regularly in the meetings. Twenty-three years later, in 1984, the number of people in the church in Taipei had still not increased. Moreover, all the churches in the Lord’s recovery seemed to be in the same condition; they were neither increasing nor spreading. We lacked the increase in numbers and the spread of the church life to new localities. This is the reason that we felt the need to change the system in order to break through our condition of not doing business for the Lord (Luke 19:13).
We thank the Lord that during these twenty-three years no corrupt situation was manifested among us. The co-workers and the elders are holding to truth and pursuing life; hence, there is no corruption in the churches. In spite of this the churches are not able to move forward and improve in order to increase in numbers and spread to new localities. We began the work in Taiwan in 1949, and in six to seven years the number of people in the meetings increased from four or five hundred people to forty or fifty thousand people, and many local churches were established. Regretfully, the increase stopped. There has not been any increase since 1961. All the churches fell into the condition of maintaining the status quo.
When I returned to Taiwan in 1985, I was saddened by the situation. On the one hand, I felt that I had not provided a better way; on the other hand, I felt that the saints who have been here for twenty to thirty years could have found a way. Even though we faithfully preach the gospel to our friends and neighbors, invite people to love feasts, and even rent cars to take them to the meetings, year after year almost no one is gained for the church life. Perhaps many were baptized, but few remained. For example, out of ten people who are baptized, few remain in the church life. Therefore, the number of those in the churches has not increased.
On the one hand, I am sorry that I did not provide a way for better results; on the other hand, I am concerned for our future. What will we do if we do not have a way to go on? We have been in Taiwan for nearly forty years. We began the work exactly thirty-eight years ago on August 1, 1949. Even though Taiwan is not a large island, only one out of every forty people is a Christian. This ratio is too low. This proves that we have not preached the gospel with our whole heart and our whole strength. We are indebted to the Lord and to our fellow citizens. This is the reason that we were determined to change the system.
We did not have the confidence to change the system two and a half years ago. However, we are now confident concerning two things. We are confident concerning the effectiveness of door-knocking. In the past we were unable to bring one person to the Lord in one year, but now we can baptize two people in one evening. According to the experience of the full-time trainees, who are also door-knocking in coordination with the local saints, in two terms they baptized twenty thousand people in Taipei and its suburbs. Of these twenty thousand people, more than six thousand are in meetings. These figures exceed our original calculations.
Initially, we estimated that out of ten thousand people who are baptized, two thousand five hundred would remain in the church life. This would be one-fourth of those who are baptized. This estimation is based on the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. In this parable the Lord Jesus spoke of four kinds of soil, three of which are not good. In the first kind of soil, which is beside the way, the seeds that are sown cannot penetrate the soil; instead, Satan comes and takes the seeds away. In the second kind of soil, which is rocky, the seeds spring up and then wither. In the third kind of soil, which is thorny, the seeds are choked and cannot grow. The fourth and last kind of soil is the good earth. Therefore, we estimated that one-fourth of the people who are baptized will be like the good earth.
We also have confidence in the home meetings that are established with the new ones who are gained through door-knocking. We asked the trainees to establish home meetings, and they are now busy visiting people and taking care of more than two thousand home meetings. The trainees made a list of their home meetings, which included the names of the new ones, their addresses, and their districts. Most new ones have at least one meeting in their home a week. Some new ones have two or more meetings a week. There are also new ones who have only one meeting a month. The home meetings do not have a noticeable result; hence, some elders are saying that they have not seen the newly baptized ones. Even some of the brothers and sisters are complaining because the newly baptized ones are not in the big meetings. The saints do not understand what the trainees are doing. The trainees will bring the new ones to our next corporate meeting, but I am concerned that there will not be enough seating in the meeting hall. Then everyone will see what the trainees are doing. For example, there is a hall that has almost one hundred people meeting on Lord’s Day morning. The same hall also has more than three hundred and seventy new ones in home meetings every week. If only half of those in the home meetings were to join the meeting on the Lord’s Day, that would be an additional one hundred and eighty people. This is good news that should cause us to rejoice.
These results show that it is possible to preach the gospel by door-knocking and to nourish the new ones in home meetings. Hence, we must present these ways to the brothers and sisters. We have two to three hundred full-time trainees who are from more than twenty different countries. The rest of the trainees are from the churches in Taiwan. When the trainees complete the training, some of them will probably return to their original localities. Therefore, the new ones need to be transferred gradually to the care of the local brothers and sisters. The local brothers and sisters must be willing to receive this burden. In other words, everything that the trainees are doing must be transferred to the local brothers and sisters.
Some of the elders are worried because they have not seen the newly baptized believers. However, I am concerned that when we give them the new ones, they will say that there are too many new ones. Therefore, according to our present situation, the elders must rise up and lead the saints to take the new way. The only way to do this is by door-knocking and having home meetings. This is our church life.
In the past our church life was centered on the meeting hall, and it was very convenient. For example, every administrative district in the city of Taipei has a meeting hall, and each hall has elders, who handle the church affairs, and co-workers, who give messages to release the word. There is a meeting in each hall every Lord’s Day morning, and there are brothers who bear the responsibility to minister the word in these meetings. The saints only need to enjoy the meetings and say Amen. The word preached among us is higher than what is preached in Christian denominations, and everyone likes to listen to the speaking. However, this old way of meeting is according to our natural man.
For example, a saint who works five or six days a week hopes that on Lord’s Day morning he can relax in the meeting by listening to a good message and then fellowship with the brothers and sisters. Therefore, our former way of meeting matched his need, enabling him to relax. However, twenty years of experience has shown that this kind of living has no impact in the gospel; it is unable to gain people. Even though we may baptize many people, few remain. We have experienced the suffering of failing in the gospel and being unable to keep people. Eventually, we are the only ones who remain.
Therefore, we must put aside the old way and take the new way with all our strength. Even though there are many saints who still prefer the big meetings, simply enjoying a meeting is not enough to gain people or to keep them. The new way, however, does not merely bring people in; it also causes people to remain. New ones are brought in through door-knocking, and they are kept through the home meetings. This way has been proven. How many of the six thousand new believers we can keep depends on what we do. If we do a good job, we will be able to keep at least ninety percent of the new ones. They are our treasures. Whether the new ones remain depends on how we serve and nourish them. If the new ones are properly nourished, they will grow and be healthy.
The life expectancy of human beings has increased because of good food and a hygienic environment. Nearly seventy years ago many babies died within the first few days of their birth, and the people who lived to be sixty years old needed others to help them walk. However, many who are presently seventy years old live alone and cook their own meals, because they are physically strong. When we take care of nutrition and hygiene, germs will not be able to grow, and we will live long and be healthy. The new ones will remain if they are properly nourished and are healthy.
All the saints, especially the elderly brothers and sisters, love the church. We should never think that we have nothing because we do not practice the old way, do not focus on the meeting hall, and do not stress material offerings. We should not think that the church has nothing or that the church does not need anything. Door-knocking and home meetings are our church life. They are our meeting life. Previously, our meetings were in the meeting halls; now they are in people’s homes. Previously, we preached the gospel in the halls; now we knock on people’s doors and lead them to be baptized. The people whom we baptize are our children. We must begin immediately to meet with them in their homes to nourish them. This is our church life, and this is our meeting life. After we meet with them for a period of time, we will eventually break bread, have prayer meetings, and have meetings to read the Bible and study the truth with them. This is our church life. Hence, all the activities of the church life are now in the homes.
In the past everyone in northern China liked to hire Cantonese nurses as servants, because the Cantonese nurses could do everything. We all need to be Cantonese nurses, those who are able to serve as elders, responsible brothers, and full-timers. In other words, we must be able to shepherd people, minister the word, baptize people, and teach Life Lessons and Truth Lessons. We must be able to do all these things without relying on others.
In the past, when we met in the meeting hall, we asked who was giving the message that day. If a “competent” brother was speaking, we were happy, and we thanked the Lord. If a brother whom we did not think was competent was speaking, we were disappointed. We no longer need to ask who will be giving the message, because we will be the ones speaking. Regardless of whether you are a brother or a sister, as long as you are in a home meeting, you will speak. The brothers and the sisters should function. We must all serve as Cantonese nurses; everyone must function and be able to do everything. This is our training.
Everything with human beings depends on habits. As soon as something becomes our habit, we feel that it is good, but when we are not accustomed to doing something, we feel uncomfortable with it. We have the habit of meeting in the old way; hence, we feel that it is very good. The administration of the church is orderly; some saints arrange chairs, some dust, some sweep, others minister the word, and still others preach the gospel. Everyone is comfortable doing things according to their habit.
In the same way, over the past few months the saints in the training have become accustomed to the new church life of door-knocking, baptizing people, and nourishing people in home meetings. They feel that this kind of life is very good. They have developed the habit of door-knocking and leading people to be baptized. If we ask them to stop door-knocking or baptizing people, they will feel a lack. Moreover, the trainees love the people who are saved and baptized. They love to visit the new ones and have home meetings with them. The trainees rejoice when the new ones throw away their idols or when their relatives no longer oppose them.
This is the sweetness of caring for the children we beget. Before we beget children, we do not know that we love children, but after giving birth to a child, as we look at him and feed him, we feel that he is very lovely, and we love him more. All mothers are like this; even the ugliest child is beautiful in the eyes of his mother. For this reason it offends a mother to say that her child is ugly. Every mother loves her children. The feelings we have for the new ones should not come from natural affection. We spontaneously develop a feeling toward the new ones, but this should not be natural. It is proper to have feelings, but it is not proper to have natural affection. Proper feelings can be compared to frankincense in the meal offering (Lev. 2:1), which is acceptable to God. However, natural affection is like honey added to the meal offering. The honey ferments and brings in uncleanness.
An elder who went door-knocking and went to some home meetings testified that he does not want to go back to the old way of being an elder, because he is tired and bored of being an elder for ten years in the old way. Now his church life is full of flavor.
The key to turning the church life from the old way of meeting to the new way is to go door-knocking and have home meetings. We should immediately make an appointment to meet with those whom we baptize. We have heard many messages in the past, but we are still unable to speak. We must now learn to speak in the home meetings. As a result, we will gain more than we did by simply listening to messages. People learn more when they teach a subject than they do when they study it. Similarly, a sister spontaneously learns to be a mother after she is married and has children. Whether or not we can speak, we should all speak in the home meetings.
Hence, our only fear is that we would not take this way. This is a glorious way with a bright future. This is the reason that we are changing the system. Before we changed the system, we saw that the old way of Christianity with hired preachers is not a living way. On the one hand, the congregation does not know if they hired a good preacher, and on the other hand, one good preacher cannot do the work of one thousand or ten thousand people. For the increase and spread of the church, we must beget new ones, nourish them, and teach them.
A society grows through establishing homes. When homes are established, the society has a foundation. When the homes are proper and strong, the society, and even the entire country, is strong. The home is the basic unit of society, and it is the foundation of a country. The reason for Taiwan’s strength today is that it has good homes. The parents give their children a good education. In addition, Taiwan is stable, strong, and prosperous because everyone receives a high level of education. Regretfully, we have not paid attention to the homes in the church life. We need to begin with the homes. We need to beget, nourish, and teach new ones in our homes.
We must give the Lord a way to lead people to salvation through door-knocking. This will cause the number of people in the church to increase. The number of people in the church in Taipei has increased by twenty thousand people from this practice. Of these twenty thousand people, six thousand are in meetings. We must be clear that this is the only way. The road is before us; we must simply follow the proper instructions, or there will be problems. We should not remain in the old way; rather, we must take the way of door-knocking and having home meetings.
The first essential factor of the home meetings is the Spirit. We must be filled with the Spirit. Hence, we must pray and confess our sins every day, not once every three to five days. Especially when we are preparing to knock on doors or preparing for a home meeting, we must pray and thoroughly confess our sins so that the Lord can cause us to be inwardly filled with the Spirit. We must do this, because the first factor of the meetings is the Spirit.
The second essential factor of our meetings is the Word. Some people may not know how to select a topic from the sixty-six books of the Bible. We have published Life Lessons, in which the important points in the Bible have been compiled by topic into lessons with verses and explanations. When we meet with people, we can read the lessons with them. Instead of speaking too much, we should lead them to read by repeating, to read with emphasis, to read livingly, and to pray-read the contents of the lessons. In this way the verses, explanations, and main points of each lesson will enter into them. We simply need to visit people every week and read a lesson with them to inject God’s Word and the light of His truth into them. In less than six months we will see the results. God’s Word is full of life, light, and truth. When the Word enters into the new ones, it will release them and sanctify them.
God’s Word supplies man with light and life. The four volumes of Life Lessons with a total of forty-eight lessons are in our hands. If we are familiar with the contents of each lesson, when we visit the new ones, we will know from speaking with them which lesson they need. We do not need to read through the lessons in sequence; instead, based on the need of the new ones, we can decide which lesson to read, just as a doctor gives medication according to the symptoms of his patient. The young people should thoroughly study each of the forty-eight lessons. We should understand and memorize the lessons so that we are constituted with the lessons. Then when we have a home meeting with people, we will spontaneously speak God’s word. When we visit a new one, it will be easy for light, life, and truth to enter into the new ones because the Lord is within us, and we have His Word, light, and life.
In the home meetings we frequently encounter problems. After some people believe in the Lord, they do not want to destroy their idols. This is a difficult problem. In principle, if a person is not willing to destroy his idols, we should not be quick to baptize him. But what should we do when a person believes in the Lord and knows that he can no longer worship idols but still wants to keep them? If we force him to destroy his idols, he will stop contacting us. We cannot force him, and we cannot push him. We should simply explain to him that all idols should be destroyed.
Whether we should baptize a person who has believed in the Lord but is unwilling to destroy his idols depends on the situation. Some people should not be baptized; they should wait. Other people should be baptized. There have been people who refused to destroy their idols before they were baptized, but after they were baptized, they experienced a turn and destroyed their idols. Hence, we should not be strict concerning this matter. A person who has believed and been baptized is saved. However, it is not acceptable for him to partake of the Lord’s table if he has not destroyed his idols. We must have proper discernment in these matters. A household that has not destroyed their idols must not partake of the Lord’s table.
There is also the problem of the new ones who smoke. We believe in the Lord, have His life, and are sanctified; therefore, we do not like to see believers smoking cigarettes. This is especially true because we know that smoking is hazardous to their health. However, we have seen many examples of believers who read the Bible and attend meetings even though they smoke. After a short period of time they will stop smoking. We are overzealous if we insist that people who are addicted to smoking should stop before we baptize them.
A more difficult situation to deal with involves new ones who drink alcoholic beverages. In America it is difficult to find a family that does not drink alcohol. Many families have a small glass of wine with every meal. It seems as though they cannot eat their meal if they do not drink wine. What should we do? We must exercise discernment in this matter. Some people should be baptized, and others should wait. There is no definite rule. We should observe the situation and then decide. People cannot change their habits immediately after we preach the gospel to them. The Lord’s life must grow in them, and then their habits will spontaneously change. There are testimonies of believers who smoked, drank alcoholic beverages, and went to the movies but gradually stopped doing these things because the Lord’s life in them grew.
We are wrong to expect people to drop their bad habits immediately after hearing the gospel. Such an expectation is unrealistic. Therefore, we should not do too much or too little; instead, we should maintain our contact with the new ones according to the truth. If we feel that their condition is such that they should not be baptized, we should continue supplying them in the home meetings until we feel that they are ready to be baptized. Then they should be baptized. We must all be able to discern these conditions because there may be only two saints coordinating together for a home meeting. Thus, we must learn the lessons. Regardless of the situations we encounter, we must deal with them in a proper way. We should be neither too much nor too little. We must maintain our contact with people, and we must always give them grace whenever we contact them.
We are frequently asked, “What church do you belong to?” We should learn how to answer this question. We need to know the meaning of the word church and the source of the church. We should also know how the Lord raised up His recovery in mainland China more than sixty years ago. There is no need to give too many details when we speak; instead, we should give people an overview and let them know that there are fifty to eighty thousand saints in approximately one hundred local churches in Taiwan. Furthermore, we should explain that the recovery has more than six hundred local churches in over thirty countries on six major continents. If we speak to people in this way, they will want to come and see the meetings. When they express such a desire, we should not hesitate; rather, we should invite them to the Lord’s table to break bread with us so that they can touch the atmosphere of loving the Lord in the church.
The full-time trainees do not know how to respond when people ask about the church. They hesitate to give a straight answer. This is wrong. We should not hesitate to bring people to the meetings. We simply need to explain that our church is different from the denominations in Christianity. We should explain that we have big meetings in the meeting halls and that we have home meetings like the meeting in their home. We should also explain that a few households with eight to ten people can eventually combine to have a group meeting and that perhaps two groups with a few dozen people can come together to have a joint meeting. In addition, we go to the meeting hall to have a large blending meeting every one or two months. The large blending meetings can be like the meetings we have had in the stadium. We should explain all these things to the new ones so that they are clear about the church life and understand that this is the way of the church.
We should not avoid responding to a question; otherwise, the new ones will misunderstand us or become suspicious. When they ask about our occupation, we should tell them that we serve full time. If they ask how we take care of our living expenses, we should say that we look to the Lord to meet the needs for our living. The Lord touches the church, and the church gives us support regularly. The Lord may also touch the brothers and sisters to give an individual offering to us. If a person says that he wants to give an offering, we should explain the principles of material offerings to him. We must not withhold anything when we speak to people, because when we hide things, we become mysterious, and this causes people to either misunderstand us or become suspicious. We should be prepared to answer in a good way the questions that people ask. We can explain that we do not write our name on the envelope when we make an offering and that it does not matter how much we give. We follow the principle presented in the Bible in Matthew 6:3, which says, “When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”
If a new one asks how the offerings are used, we should explain clearly that the general offerings are used to build, repair, and renovate meeting halls. The offerings are also used to purchase chairs, tables, and other items that are necessary for the regular operation of the halls. We may also explain that offerings designated to support those who serve full time should also be placed in the offering box. After the offering box is opened, the envelope will be given to the full-time serving one.
If the new ones express concern for the poor brothers and sisters, or if they are burdened for someone who is sick and unable to pay his hospital expenses, we should teach them to write the saint’s name on the envelope and put the envelope in the offering box. When the offering box is opened, the envelope will be given to the saint. We should explain these things clearly. We may eventually suggest that the new ones have an offering box in their home meeting. We should explain that two brothers who are trustworthy should be responsible to count and record the offerings and to take care of the matters related to the offerings.
In principle, whenever the new ones ask a question, we must give them a clear explanation. In addition, from the time that they are baptized, we should take the new ones door-knocking with us so that they can learn how to sing the hymns, read the Bible, and lead the meetings. We should lead and teach them from the beginning of their Christian life, just like parents teach their children to speak and to write when they are small. In other words, we should teach the new ones Life Lessons and also lead them into the practice of what they are reading. If we will do this, after a year and a half, the new ones will be able to do everything that we do. They will learn how to go door-knocking and how to care for other new ones. This is our church life. Our church life is knocking on doors to preach the gospel, leading people to be baptized, having home meetings to nourish the new ones, and perfecting them. Once a week we break bread together in the meeting halls, and every three or four weeks we have a big meeting of the church for blending.
In the way we practiced the church life in the past, the saints were not perfected. We preached the gospel, but not many people were saved; we cared for people, but not many people remained; and we visited people, but there was no result. We have known one another for many years; hence, there was nothing for us to do but go to the big meetings. However, in the new way the needs in the church are great. At present there are at least six thousand people in Taipei who need to be cared for by the brothers and sisters. Hence, everyone must offer themselves and exercise their function. The elders should also make arrangements for the elderly saints who cannot go door-knocking or go to home meetings but can pray and fellowship in the meeting hall.
Almost everyone in the world knows about Christianity. People know that believers worship God every Lord’s Day morning. Therefore, some of the people who come to our Lord’s Day morning meetings were not contacted by door-knocking. They came to our meeting halls of their own accord because they wanted to attend a Christian meeting. For the sake of taking care of these believers, the meeting halls should have a Lord’s Day morning meeting. If there is not a meeting on Lord’s Day morning, they will think that the church has left, and we will owe them an apology. Hence, we need the meetings in the halls to care for these believers. In the new way, we create opportunities for those who love the Lord to be able to function. In other words, all the saints are employed. In the past the saints were unemployed, but now there is a great need for the saints to give themselves. We need everyone to function.
After the period of time when the brothers and sisters went door-knocking and led home meetings, many people in the communities expressed their thankfulness to us. The new ones who were visited four or five times say continually that they admire our perseverance in visiting them. Eventually, this touches them, and they are baptized. They know that we do not want to cheat them; instead, we desire to bring the Lord Jesus to them and to give them the Bible, truth, and light so that they can receive salvation. When we knock on their door the first time, they may not understand these things; hence, they might become angry and slam the door in our faces. However, after they believe in the Lord, they thank us for preaching the Lord Jesus to them and bringing salvation to them.
From this we can see that what we are doing in the new way is a noble service. The evils in society that are reported in the newspapers show the need for the gospel. When we knock on doors, we are bringing the gospel, life, and godliness to society. It will be a tremendous blessing for us to gospelize Taiwan.
