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Watchman Nee had a definite goal for his ministry. His ministry focused on Christ and was expressed in the local churches. The goal of his ministry was to establish local churches. He preached the gospel with the intention of producing material for the building of the churches. His Bible teaching, edifying the young believers, holding conferences, conducting trainings, and issuing publications were all with the goal and view of building a corporate testimony in the local churches. By reading his writings we can realize that he received a clear vision and a definite commission from the Lord concerning this goal.
In the introduction of his book The Assembly Life, he stressed this goal emphatically:
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...Before times eternal, God had a will and a foreordained plan of His own. His goal is to have a group of people containing His life who are like His Son. The goal of God was to establish not just the individual Christ, but also the corporate Christ. This corporate Christ is the church. From this we can know that it is the church which God pays attention to today. Unfortunately, it is not only the carnal believers who fail to emphasize what God stresses, but even the spiritual believers fail to emphasize it. They always replace the church of God with many works.
Today what Satan causes man to do is substitute the church of God with various kinds of work. However, we know that the purpose of God from beginning to end is to have a corporate Christ, which is the church, so that Christ might be the Head and the believers might be the members. Satan is determined to destroy this plan. This is why he causes man to pursue various works in order to replace the church.
Today some lay much stress on preaching the gospel, and by so doing they replace the church with gospel preaching. There are many today who can surely preach the gospel and save sinners. And preaching the gospel is good, but if gospel preaching replaces the church and causes men never to think about the church, then we are definitely deceived by Satan. What I have said is not too strong. God's intention in gospel preaching is merely to collect stones for the church. If gospel preaching substitutes for the church, that is wrong.
There are some who establish missions, encourage foreign evangelism, zealously donate money, form national councils, set up organizations for foreign evangelism, and send missionaries to foreign lands for evangelistic work. But why do many people today know only missions and not the church? The reason is because from eternity past God's emphasis was the church, but man's emphasis in this age is missions. Many have forgotten the church! Mr. Gordon has said, "God never sets up missions; He only establishes the church." However, men today set up mission boards, evangelistic organizations, schools, hospitals, humanistic societies, orphanages, charitable associations (as the Methodist Episcopal Church does), and even Sunday schools to help others. Are these good or bad? They are good, but if man uses these to replace the church of God, God will never be satisfied. Do you see Satan's craftiness? Satan's subtle method is to utilize works used by God and substitute them for the church, which God in His eternal will intends to establish. If your eyes are open, you will see that all these things should be dropped and that you should turn your attention to the church, because the church life, the life of the Body of Christ, is the goal of God.
Many Christians may say, "We have not established mission boards, humanistic societies, Sunday schools, schools, and hospitals." Please do not speak so fast. You may not have done these wrong things on the negative side, but what have you done on the positive side? Many would think, "As long as I am zealous, victorious, and a holy Christian, that is good enough." Brothers and sisters, I say a strong word; these are not what God is after; they are not His unique goal. I am by no means saying that zeal, victory, and holiness are insignificant. These are significant, but they are not God's ultimate goal. What God desires is the corporate church, the building, the spiritual house. He is not after fragmentary or individual pieces of brick, tile, wood, or stone. God desires a body, not a finger or any other member. What God wants is the church. His desire is for Christ to have the preeminence in the church and to be Head of the church as well. Although wood, stone, brick, and tile are necessary, they are by no means the goal of God. You have been a Christian for these many years, but how much time have you spent considering what God is after? Have you ever thought about this matter of the church? Or has your primary attention been paid to how to pray, how to overcome sin, how to help sinners be saved, and how to study the Bible well? Do you only think about these things, or have you really considered what the church is? What God wants is a church. Anything that falls short of this fails to meet the goal of God. I am by no means saying that these other things are not good, but I am saying that anything short of the church cannot be counted as the goal of God. If Sunday schools are merely for the sake of Sunday schools, orphanages merely for orphanages, humanistic societies merely for humanistic societies, and gospel preaching merely for gospel preaching, it is fine as long as they do not replace the church. For all these things fall short of the church of God. What God wants is the church. The death of the Lord Jesus was for the church, and the coming of the Holy Spirit was also for the church. From beginning to end, in the New Testament, one principle can be found: Everything is for the church. Take, for example, the fact that the Lord's death was for the church. The book of Ephesians tells us, "Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her." The Lord was raised from the dead to be far above all rule and authority, and He is above all to be Head over all things to the church. The Lord builds the church on this rock. The work of the Holy Spirit for the past two thousand years has been for the building up of the church. God saves sinners and enables men to overcome in order to establish the church. It is for the building up of the church that God has given us apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Ephesians tells us that the Lord cleanses the church by the washing of water in the word and sanctifies her in order that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she should be holy and without blemish. Here again it is a matter of the church. God's ultimate goal is to have the New Jerusalem, and what the New Jerusalem typifies is the church. God's goal as recorded in the Old Testament, New Testament, the four Gospels, and Revelation is to have the New Jerusalem, which is for the church. I say strongly that unless our aim, work, and living today are for the church—that is, for the accomplishment of what God is after—we are a big failure. May the Lord have mercy on us and deliver us from our limited vision into His goal and into what He emphasizes in the Scriptures....
The church is God's goal. Today He places this goal before man. God's ultimate desire is to have the New Jerusalem. God intends to put the church, which represents the New Jerusalem, into every city as a unit. Before the New Jerusalem descends from heaven, God's goal is to have a miniature of the New Jerusalem in every city. This means that God desires to have a church in every city to express His eternal will. From beginning to end, the most important work God desires to do is to build up the Body of Christ. For this reason God establishes a local church in every city. The local church is the miniature of the magnificent church of God, a small-scale model expressing the New Jerusalem. The will of God is to establish the church, the Body of Christ, the New Jerusalem. But this scope is too vast; how can we touch the New Jerusalem, which is in the new heaven and new earth? What shall we do? We can never grasp this firmly. However, you can come to Shanghai to achieve this purpose. For in every city there is a miniature where God puts the saved ones and unites and assembles them together to become a local church and thereby express His will....
I am not here accusing you! I myself am guilty! In these many years of evangelistic work in China, very few have paid attention to God's emphasis. Roman Catholicism has been in China for more than three hundred years, and if we count from Nestorianism, Christianity has been in China for over a thousand years. Yet no one has ever paid attention to the expression of the eternal will of God on a small scale. But we also are the same. We only pay attention to personal victory over sins, overcoming experiences, work, and saving souls, but we have not yet seen how to express in a particular locality God's will concerning the church. May God be gracious to us and cause us to see that personal victory over sins, overcoming experiences, and the work of saving souls are merely things related to the local assemblies—they should not replace the church. God's center is fixed on the church in every locality, and everything else should be joined to this center. Therefore, our aim today is not merely to pay attention to overcoming experiences, victory over sin, preaching the gospel to sinners, and having prayers answered. Rather, we should go a step further and ask what we should do in order to be fitly framed together with other brothers and sisters....
The question today is not whether this piece of stone is good or bad, big or small, beautiful or ugly, but whether this piece of stone is properly fitted with other pieces of stone and whether these pieces of stone can be built into a house. Many Christians today are very good, and others are extremely shining and beautiful, but they cannot be framed together. They are either too big or too tall; they just cannot be fitly framed with other Christians. Every person who is saved is a living stone. Therefore, the question is not whether you are victorious, defeated, powerful, weak, good, or bad. The question is whether you can be joined with all the other living stones, properly fitted into the building. If you are a stone which leaves cracks between you and the other stones, you are not of much use in the house of God.
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In an open letter published in the twelfth issue of Collection of Newsletters, July 1935, Watchman stressed this goal again with the following brief, strong word: "We are clear that God wants us to manifest the life of Christ in the local churches. Hence, the reality of our work is the life of Christ, and the outward expression of our work is the local churches."
Watchman Nee's ministry was received by many Christians, but the goal of his ministry was rejected by the majority. They appreciated his ministry of life, but they would not care for his goal of building up the local churches. Some even considered him wrong in having such a goal. Actually, however, it was not that he was wrong, it was that they did not see that the Lord had revealed to him God's desire to have Christ expressed in local churches. Fairly speaking, at the time Watchman Nee was raised up by the Lord, among millions of Christians with all kinds of Christian work, where was there one proper church built up with Christ in oneness without any element of division? In a situation filled with division and confusion, he received the heavenly vision that the Body of Christ should express in one church in each locality what was in the heart of God. He was a man after God's heart, testifying to his fellow Christians the vision he had seen, but he was fully misunderstood and rejected in this matter. Because of their strong backgrounds in the denominational structures, his fellow Christians were veiled from seeing the clear vision of God's heart's desire. Some criticized him as being narrow-minded. Others considered him a "sheep-stealer." Others even accused him of being wrong in the matter of the church. Actually, he was neither narrow-minded nor wrong; he was faithful to his Master's goal and took that goal as the goal of his ministry. He knew the price and was willing to pay the price for this. He even paid this price at the cost of his life. He cared for nothing but his Master's heart's desire—the local churches expressing Him in a corporate way. He was not a "sheep-stealer," but a true witness of his Master, who loved the church and gave Himself for it. He had no intention whatsoever to build up his own "church" or to build up anything for himself. His concern was for God's heart's desire. He had a heart large enough to receive all the children of God, and he loved all the Lord's redeemed ones, even though he was misunderstood and rejected by many. His deep longing was that all would receive the light to see what the Lord was really after and seek the Lord according to His heart.
According to the Lord's own love for the church and according to the vision he had received from the Lord, Watchman Nee bore an anti-testimony to divided Christianity and sounded the trumpet that all the Lord's true seekers should leave denominational divisions and come back to the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ to express Christ corporately in each locality. This was the goal of his entire ministry, and he held this goal to the day he died.
