DROPPING THE OLD WAY AND TAKING THE NEW WAY

… After studying our situation, I began to reconsider the Bible in this matter, and I also began to reconsider the history of the denominations. I became clear that all of Christianity, including us, got off from the Lord’s way.

… The old way is to always have big meetings, a congregation with a speaker. This produces clergy, a hierarchical class with most of the others not functioning. Taking the way of a big congregation with a speaker produces hierarchy and also produces organization. The organizational way is to have clergy and a congregation and to raise up money to hire trained preachers. People are first brought into this way, and then their function is killed. This is the way of Christianity. Brother Nee told us repeatedly and insisted strongly that we give up the Lord’s Day morning meeting in the churches. He proposed that we use that time to go out to preach the gospel. In Brother Nee’s book The Normal Christian Church Life, there is a section on the home meetings (ch. 9). He told us that we needed to have meetings of mutuality, not meetings where one speaks and the other saints sit there to listen. We tried this, but we never carried it out because of the heavy background and influence from Christianity.

… Therefore, I had the boldness to tell the church there that the old way should be put aside, and that they should take the new way according to what is in the Bible. At the very beginning of the church life, according to the first record of Christian meetings, the apostles spoke in the temple to a big congregation for the preaching of the truth, yet the believers met “from house to house” (Acts 2:46). In Greek this means that they met according to the houses. Each and every house was a meeting place; the meeting number was according to the houses. After the day of Pentecost when they were baptized, they met according to the homes. They did not have hired speakers, but they had the church life in their homes. They also met in the temple, but this was according to their tradition and habit and not according to God’s economy. That was not the church life.

The more we studied the situation according to the truth of the New Testament and according to our experience, the more we were assured that the right way is to have the church life built up in the homes. First Corinthians 14 speaks of the whole church coming together in one place (v. 23). But this is not a meeting of only a few speakers but a meeting in which “each one has” (v. 26), a meeting full of mutuality. The old Christianity way of one speaking and the others sitting to listen kills the church life.

In the full-time training in Taipei, I told the trainers not to bring the new ones to the church meetings. Occasionally, some new ones asked the trainees to bring them to a church meeting. After one or two church meetings, these new ones said they did not want to go to the church meeting again. They liked to enjoy the meeting in the homes. They did not have a taste for the big meetings. But with many of us it is exactly the opposite. We have a taste for the big meetings. When you bring your contacts to a meeting, you may like to have a big hall, a large congregation, and a big, eloquent speaker. All of this is a good façade. We have been meeting in this way in our localities for many years, and what has been the result? We have had hardly any increase, but instead have been maintaining a traditional Christian worship service. People today are quarreling, debating about doctrine and about different practices in Christianity, but I am not burdened merely for the doctrines or for practices. I only care for the New Testament faith, the Christian faith, the New Testament economy. As long as we have this, let us take the new way to have the increase.

… Many of us have become drugged with the old way of having big meetings. When we made the change from having the big meetings in the hall to having the small meetings in the homes, many saints were disappointed. But the newly baptized ones like the home meetings. Some brothers in Taipei got addicted to the home meetings, and many trainees got addicted to the baptism in the new way. If they could not get one baptized every evening, they felt they were short. They got addicted to this practice and found that to baptize people in faith is a real joy. These new ones are growing. They have begun to seek after the Lord and to know the truth.

Many of us have become drugged. We are too satisfied with the old way to have a congregation. But I have seen a view that perhaps after five years in Taipei, the church will just be meeting in many homes.

… We have not had much feeling about our years of barrenness in which we did not bring forth much fruit. One leading brother told me that he did not bring anyone to the Lord for twenty years. However, after he began to practice door-knocking in the new way, he baptized seventeen within four months.

My burden is to wake you up because you have been drugged. The Lord says that as a branch, you have to bear fruit. This is serious. If you do not bear fruit, there is the danger that you will be cut off (John 15:2, 6). The words of the Lord in John 15 indicate that as branches of the vine, we must bear fruit. If you abide in Him, you will surely bear fruit (v. 4). God even took away His kingdom from Israel because Israel was barren, fruitless, and gave His kingdom to another people, the church (Matt. 21:43; Luke 13:6-9). But how about today’s church? Who is bearing fruit?

… Do you not think we have clergy? Do you not think we have hierarchy? We do not call anyone a pastor, but actually we have “pastors.” We have followed Christianity’s way unconsciously. We brought people in and we killed their function by our way. We say we do not control, but in many respects we do control. The leading ones need to ask themselves if they are part of the clergy and the hierarchy among us. Let us all drop the old way, “the old coat!” I am not only telling the elders to drop “the old coat.” All of the older generation must give up the taste of the old way and take the new taste of the new way. For the Lord’s sake, we need to take the new taste.

… The Lord Jesus was not sitting in the heavens sending out invitations, inviting people to come to Him. He came down out of heaven (John 6:41) to visit Zaccheus’s home (Luke 19:5). Then He said, “Salvation has come to this house” (v. 9). He went to Jacob’s well and waited for a Samaritan woman (John 4:6-7). Why would we not follow Him? Why would we just follow Christianity, set up a church building, and be one of the hierarchies, inviting people and learning to speak eloquent things to attract people? Then once they are attracted by you and come to your meetings, they become dead Christians without any function. They may only pull out their checkbook and write some checks to support you in your hierarchy. I am not only talking about Christianity but about us. I believe that after two or three years of our taking the new way, the elders who remain in the old way will be jobless. A brother who wants to be a good speaker with a congregation will not have one since the church life will be in the homes. All the elders and co-workers must learn to knock on doors. The elders must take the lead in this matter.

… Eventually, in the recovery the way of Christianity with a big congregation and one gifted speaker will be completely annulled. For one to minister the Word depends upon whether he has the real burden of some of the truths from the Lord. Such a person is like Paul, who went to Troas and on the Lord’s Day, after the breaking of the bread, spoke the word to build up the saints there (Acts 20:6-7). This is not like today’s pastors giving sermons week by week. Some of us have been giving people messages week by week for years, but what has been the result? I would not say there is no result, but the rate of the result is too low.

We have tasted the old way, we have experienced the old way, and we have suffered from the old way. Now many of us have tasted the Lord’s new way, which is so sweet and so workable. What would you choose? We have been drugged without bearing fruit in the old way for years, yet we did not have any feeling about it. We came to the big meetings year after year with hardly any new ones brought to the Lord. How could we be satisfied? Let us forget about the old way. When a house gets too old, it should be condemned. You need to get a new house to replace it. I was unhappy with our low rate of increase for the last ten years, but I could not do anything.

THE LORD’S MINISTRY TODAY

The Lord’s ministry today is not to build up big congregations. It is to build up the saints in the new way, which involves:
(1) Learning how to knock on doors, how to touch people with the high gospel within a short time, how to baptize them not only in water but also into the Triune God, and how to set up meetings in their homes.
(2) Learning how to feed them with the truths concerning the Triune God, concerning life, concerning Christ, and concerning the church, which means that we have to learn how to teach the truths in homes.
(3) Learning how to help all the new ones to grow in life.
(4) Learning how to bring them into the full knowledge and practice of the church, the Body of Christ.
This will be done not only by me or by some of you; this will be done by everyone. Every door-knocker will learn this.

After two or three years the saints will have another taste. They will tell you that they do not like to have the big meetings. They like to have the home meetings where they could preach the gospel by themselves and where they could teach the truths by themselves. They will not need any kind of organization. What elders have been in mainland China for the past fifteen years? You may say that is a mess, but I am glad for that “mess.” I like to see this kind of “mess.” If there could be such a “mess,” after fifteen years another fifty million will be converted. This would be wonderful.

The big denominations, the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians, have all decreased and are still decreasing according to a recent article. Are we still happy to remain in this degraded situation? Will we not wake up? We should not talk about others but should consider ourselves and drop our old way. I have no interest to take care of the work in the old way. I realize that the old way is the killing way. Would we be happy to remain in this kind of work? I like to see homes. I like this word home — home sweet home. My dream is home meetings. The homes are the basic foundation for the building up of the local churches, not the halls with big congregations. When the saints rise up to go out knocking on doors, they will get addicted to knocking on doors, addicted to baptizing people in bathtubs, and addicted to home meetings and to teaching people in home meetings. They will not care for having big meetings in the meeting hall. They have been meeting in the old way for years, and many are bored of the old way of meeting. All the elders need to be door-knocking elders. They need to take the lead to go door-knocking. May the Lord grant us all the mercy to completely drop the old way and to fully pick up the Lord’s new way.

(Being Desperate and Living Uniquely for the Gospel, Ch. 1)