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The five general means of Watchman Nee's ministry mentioned in the previous chapter are common to all Christian workers. But since Watchman was burdened and commissioned with a specific ministry for the Lord's present testimony in this age, he adopted three further specific means for the carrying out of his particular ministry.
The first specific means Watchman employed in his ministry was the holding of conferences. The regular meetings of the church were not sufficient for the release of the special messages he received from the Lord for the present day. A larger audience composed of those genuinely seeking the Lord and His interest and consecutive meetings held within a designated time span were needed for the release of his specific burdens. For these reasons he held many special conferences. The main conferences were called overcomer conferences, while the rest were simply called special conferences.
The following excerpt from his open letter in the twenty-second issue of The Present Testimony, published in September—December 1931, explains the purpose of his conferences:
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In our conferences our intention is only to speak forth the message of the victory of Christ, not to speak of other matters. The preaching of this message is our particular responsibility....In reality, unless a person knows God in the aspects of trusting and obeying Him, it is of little use to speak to him concerning other matters. We can mention many other matters to those who are faithful, but if we share them with those who are yet unwilling to serve God faithfully, it will only give rise to disputes....Our Bible study meetings, on the other hand, are of a different nature: They are conducted for those who are willing to serve God faithfully and are seeking to have a clearer understanding of Bible truths. For this reason, we are free in these meetings to bring up those things which we would be reluctant to bring up in conferences. We hope that in our future conferences, neither the speaker nor the listeners will bring up, either publicly or privately, any matters outside the victory of Christ, in order that we might have God's full blessing....This does not mean that other matters are not important; but it does mean that when men sincerely desire to receive the victory of Christ and to believe and obey the Lord, He will spontaneously direct their attention to these other external matters, and they will automatically obey...At this stage, if certain things are not clear to some, we would be most willing to help them in the Bible study meetings. We deeply sense that what the church of God urgently needs and what she absolutely must experience today is the victory of Christ—the facts and principles which He declared through His death and resurrection. In this matter we need to be faithful and steadfast, and we need to preach it wholeheartedly.
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The following is his second personal testimony, given in Kulangsu, October 20, 1936 concerning the overcomer conferences:
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God has shown me that in every local church a group of overcomers should be raised up (as those mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3) to be the Lord's witnesses. For this reason, every year an overcomer conference has been held to faithfully deliver the messages that God has given me.
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Watchman's first overcomer conference was held in Shanghai in February 1928. His messages were on the eternal purpose of God and the victory of Christ. He unveiled the mystery that a spiritual warfare has taken place: God had a plan to accomplish, but His enemy Satan, the power of darkness, opposed it. However, Christ defeated Satan in His death on the cross and won a full victory. Now God's need is for believers in Christ to share His victory and fight against the power of darkness by executing what Christ has accomplished. The number attending the first conference was fifty, at the most. Twenty or thirty were from outside Shanghai, mostly from the northern province of Kiangsu and the county of Ping-Yang in Chekiang province. The audience was small, but the impact and the result were great.
The second overcomer conference was held in Shanghai from October 8-18, 1931. The announcement of the conference in the The Present Testimony, published in May 1931 reads:
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The purpose of this conference is to unite all the believers in every place who are of the same mind that they might wait before God and receive the message which comes from Him. Our past experience tells us that we must all receive deeper edification. For this reason we must lay much emphasis on the testimony of "the victory of Christ," which the Lord has committed to us. May those who intercede before the Lord pray in one accord for this conference that we may genuinely have the power which is purely of the Holy Spirit with no mixture of soulish power whatsoever.
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Watchman's burden in this conference was the covenant of God and the wisdom of God. He unveiled the real meaning and content of the new covenant God enacted for us through the redemption of Christ. God first dealt with His people by His Word. First, He promised His people in His Word that He would do certain things for them according to His plan; then, His Word became His promise. When His promise was accomplished in Christ, it became the fact. When He bequeathed the fact to His chosen ones, a covenant was established. This covenant is the new covenant, which is better than the old one. It was established through the blood of Christ and supported by the ministry of His indestructible life. These messages were first delivered in this second overcomer conference, then published in The Present Testimony from 1932 to 1934, and later printed as the first half of a book entitled What Is the New Covenant?
In November of 1932 he held a special conference with the church in Shanghai. At that time eight brothers and sisters came to have fellowship with us from the Brethren assemblies in England, the United States, and Australia.
In January 1934 he held his third overcomer conference in Shanghai. The following excerpt is taken from his announcement of this conference. The announcement appeared as part of his open letter in the thirty-second issue of The Present Testimony of October—December 1933 and tells us the nature of that conference:
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We have previously held two conferences of the same nature, one in February of 1928 and one in October of 1931. The conference held in November of last year was of a different nature, and for that reason we consider the upcoming conference to be the third overcomer conference.
I want all the brothers to understand the nature of this type of conference; no attention will be paid to the less significant matters of the Bible. What we want to see in the Holy Spirit is Christ and Him crucified. Matters such as prophecy, church organization, Scripture exposition, types, baptism, laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, miracles, and a hundred other questions have their proper place. As Christians we should not deny them their proper place. However, these are neither the center of the Scriptures nor the center of the life of the Holy Spirit. God has only one center, which is Christ—Christ and Him crucified. Our annual conferences of this nature are to bring us back to this center. Therefore, we are reluctant to mention any minor matters in these conferences. Rather, we would emphasize only the central point which God Himself stressed....
In our conference this time, as before, we wish to stress the central message. After much prayer I feel the theme which the Lord has given me for this conference is "God's overcomers." Everything in the conference will focus on this center....
Finally, in this conference, our hope is to meet Christ, to receive light and revelation from heaven, and to be filled with the life that is unknown to ordinary people. We do not intend to pay attention to the many minor, outward matters. "To know Him" (Phil. 3:10)—this is what we seek.
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The number of attendants at the third overcomer conference was about three hundred, with over one hundred from different provinces throughout the country. There were two lines of messages. One line was the centrality and universality of Christ. This line disclosed how Christ is the center and the circumference in the universe and in the Christian life. He must have the pre-eminence in everything. The second line was God's overcomers. This line revealed how God called His overcomers in every age to replace His defeated people for the fulfillment of His purpose. The extract of these messages was published in the thirty-fourth issue of The Present Testimony of March—April 1934.
In October of the same year, his fourth overcomer conference was held in Hangchow. The attendants were generally the same ones who came to his third conference in Shanghai. His messages again were along two lines. The first line was the life of Abraham, showing how Abraham was an overcomer to fulfill God's purpose. The second line was the spiritual warfare, showing how to fight the enemy for the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose.
In his third visit to Chefoo in August of 1935, he held a special conference with the church there on the overcoming life of Christ. At that time the saints were greatly helped to experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Through this conference a revival was brought in, which spread to Shanghai and other cities. After the revival broke out in Chefoo, Watchman returned in September to Shanghai and held a conference with the church on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
In October, following the conference in Shanghai, he also held a conference with the co-workers in Kulangsu in south Fukien on the same subject.
In January of 1937 he called an urgent conference in Shanghai for all the co-workers throughout the country. His burden was to share with his co-workers the new vision he had received from the Lord concerning the work and the local churches.
In the following November he held a conference in Hankow with his co-workers to release the same messages more adequately on his new revelation regarding the work and the local churches. Although the messages were the same as those given in Shanghai, the content was deeper and the revelation clearer. These messages were printed in a book entitled Rethinking the Work (The Normal Christian Church Life).
After his return from his trip to Europe, he called a special eleven-day conference in August of 1939. In this conference he released his messages on the principles of the Body.
In the years from 1940 to 1942, he held many special meetings. During this period he was both carrying out a training of the co-workers and at the same time helping the church in Shanghai to be built up practically. The crucial point he stressed in all these meetings was the need to see the Body. He also delivered a number of messages on the deeper things of the spiritual life. The messages contained in his book The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were delivered at that time.
In April and May of 1948, a special conference was held in Shanghai not only for the local saints but also for about eighty seeking saints from other cities throughout the country. In this special conference he spoke mostly concerning the work. His burden was to learn from the lessons of the past how best to go on in the future. It was in this special conference that he resumed his ministry. This conference resulted in all the brothers and sisters handing over all their possessions to the work. Brother Nee took the lead in this matter. This resulted in a revival, which in turn resulted in about eighty seeking brothers and sisters attending Watchman's first prolonged period of training in Kuling Mountain, Foochow.
In 1950 during the months of January and February, he held a long special conference with the church in Hong Kong. He spoke on overcoming wealth and how to hand over all our possessions for the furtherance of the Lord's work. At the same time he stressed that the believers who have been baptized in the Spirit into one Body should be built up in the church that the church might be a corporate means for the Lord to spread His gospel. A number of brothers and sisters were led to hand over all their possessions to the work, which in turn revived the whole church. Through this visit, the foundation was laid for the church in Hong Kong to receive much blessing in the years to come, both in life and in numbers.
Watchman conducted trainings as the second specific means of fulfilling his ministry. Let us read his own word concerning this matter, given in his second testimony in Kulangsu, October 20, 1936:
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If the return of the Lord should be delayed, it will be necessary to raise up a number of young people to continue the testimony and the work for the following generations. Many co-workers have already prayed concerning this matter with the hope of providing a suitable place for the purpose of training young people. My thought is not to establish a seminary or a Bible institute, but to have young people staying together to live the Body life and practice the spiritual life. In such a place they would receive training for the purpose of edification, by learning to read the Scripture, to pray, and to build up a good character. On the negative side, there would be training for the purpose of learning how to deal with sin, the world, the flesh, and the natural life. At a suitable time, the young people would return to their respective churches in various places to be tempered together with other saints to serve the Lord in the church. I have purchased over ten acres1 of land at Chenru, in the suburbs of Shanghai. Planning for building on that site is in progress, and before long, young people will be able to go there for training.
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Watchman's trainings were initiated in 1933. In the initial stages he began with a few young brothers, who stayed upstairs in the meeting hall in Shanghai. At that stage the training was informal. The trainees lived together, studied the Bible, and spent some time with him individually for spiritual help. On occasion he would spend time with us in the evening when there was no church meeting. Such informal training lasted for a period of two years.
In 1936 Watchman began to build a training facility in Chenru, in the suburbs of Shanghai. Just before the building work was completed, the war between Japan and China broke out, and the building was destroyed. After that he had no opportunity to carry out his burden until 1940.
After returning to Shanghai from his trip to Europe, he determined to stay in Shanghai all the time to release his messages on the Body of Christ and to help in the practical building up of the church. At that time he rented a place in Yu-hwa village in Shanghai in which to conduct his first training. Since his burden at that time was mostly on the Body of Christ, his training was focused on that theme. In the training he would frequently ask us to give our testimony on how we had seen the Body. Following each testimony, he would frequently declare, "No, you have not seen the Body." Then he would proceed to prove by the very words the trainee had used that the trainee had not seen the Body. To some who testified, he pointed out that the Body to them was just a doctrine or theory, not a vision.
He also trained us in the matter of consecration. Every morning he asked one of the trainees to give a testimony regarding his or her consecration. After each testimony he would diagnose it like a medical doctor, judge it with the thorough discernment of a judge, and frequently operate mercilessly on us as a surgeon. Only a few passed his keen and stern examination regarding their consecration. All, however, received practical help in life. The training lasted about two years, and quite a few from other cities remained in Shanghai for a longer period to be trained. The number of trainees was approximately seventy or eighty.
During Watchman's silent years, he took the opportunity to purchase many houses on a mountain which was called Kuling, close to Foochow, where many missionaries had their summer retreat. During World War II most of the missionaries left the country and gladly sold their houses at very low prices. Watchman bought more than fifteen of their houses with the intention of preparing them for his trainings.
Then, following the revival which came to Shanghai in 1948 when his ministry was recovered, about eighty brothers and sisters went with him to Kuling Mountain and occupied those houses for a four-month training period, from June to October 1948. The following is a testimony of Chang Wu-cheng, one of his trainees:
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At the opening of the training Brother Nee first gave some explanations. "First, this training is not a seminary. Our purpose is not to pass on some scriptural knowledge or methods of work to the trainees, but to help those who are already following the Lord and walking on this way to go further. My ministry is somewhat different from that of Brother Witness Lee. He can cause those who have no heart for the Lord to have a heart for the Lord, those who are incapable to become capable, and those who are not going on to go on. I admit that I do not have what he has. For twenty years I have only been able to help those who had something already to have something more, and to help those who are seeking, to receive help. Whether this training is a success or failure all depends upon what kind of people you are. If you are preoccupied and self-satisfied, you will not receive help. But if you really want to go on, I can help you go on further, and if you have some light, I can help you receive more light. My ministry is not to revive you or to change you, but to lead you if you are already on the way. My ministry is not to pull out those who are sitting at home and force them to walk.
"Second, this training will cover four parts: 1) how to be a minister of God's Word, 2) how to help new believers, 3) things to pay attention to and the solution to problems, 4) how to administer the church affairs."
The content of the training was very rich. Brother Nee gave messages for six hours a day, five days a week. Some of the details are as follows:
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Following the training in October, the trainees returned to their respective places throughout China, taking with them the help they had received. Wherever they went, they spread the revival. The result was a tremendous spiritual explosion. Hundreds of sinners were captured for the Lord's kingdom, many believers were set on fire for the Lord's recovery, and the churches were increased and built up more than ever before.
This was Watchman's first training in Kuling Mountain. His burden was to conduct this kind of training at least once a year on an ongoing basis. The situation then required him to postpone the time of the second training from February to August 1949. The content of this training was the same as that of the first, with some improvements. The trainees were a different group of believers. In the midst of the training, he moved it from Kuling Mountain to his home at Customs Lane within the city of Foochow.
After the second training was completed, due to the political change, he had no more opportunity to continue his training. Although his training plan was terminated, what he released during his two trainings at Kuling were printed and have become a great help to many who are seeking to follow the Lord in the Lord's recovery. The issue of those trainings is invaluable to us today.
