The reason for the decline in Christianity is that people have taken the way of chance. Spiritual giants cannot perfect many saints. Even though the charismatic movement does much promoting of miraculous healing, casting out demons, and speaking in tongues, they are still very small in number. For this reason, we must take the right way. The right way today is the homes.
Billy Graham, the famous preacher in Christianity, was manifested in a big convention in Los Angeles in 1948. In the past thirty-nine years, he has been all over the globe, traveling to many countries and holding numerous evangelistic meetings. However, even though he has worked in this way for thirty-nine years, the number of people in Christianity is still diminishing. The place he visited the most is England. In 1954 and 1955, he preached there every day for several months. At that time it rained very often, but people still went with umbrellas to listen to his preaching. Despite this prosperous circumstance, after thirty-nine years the number of people in Christianity is still dropping. We are not here to criticize people. We are simply pointing out the fact that we cannot take the same way.
The reason for our change of system is that we do not want to take the way of chance, the way of inviting famous people to give speeches. No college education has been successfully carried out merely by inviting famous people to give lectures. Every success has come about through diligent study. About forty to fifty years ago, Nankai University was a famous university in northern China. Its founder was a naval captain named Chang Po-ling. He realized that in the eyes of the international community at that time China was despised and persecuted, and the people in general were ignorant of the times, circumstances, and world situation. He felt that instead of continuing to be a naval captain, he should offer himself for the field of education. He was not merely a talented person, but he was truly for his nation and people. He ran a school in Tientsin very well, and many useful persons have come from Nankai University. We labored at that campus in Tientsin from 1935 to 1936, and it was not until we baptized a professor of physical education that we learned about this situation. Our point is that Mr. Chang carried out the work of education not by inviting famous people from all over the world to give lectures but through great effort and practical work.
From the age of six, we began to suffer in school. After graduating from elementary school, we suffered for another three years in junior high. After graduating from there, we suffered for yet another three or four years in high school. Then after entering into college, we still suffered for four more years. Finally with much difficulty we were produced as persons useful to the country, to society, and to our family. Today Christianity does not take this laborious way. Rather, it takes the way of chance. The result has been a drastic decline in numbers.
We are truly joyful that there are about one thousand young people here who are willing to serve full-time. We need to thank our government for providing a complete educational system so that many of our young people have been able to receive a high education. Our work in America was quite promising, but we left our work there to return to Taiwan. Even if we cannot call this a sacrifice, it is at least a very great price. We chose to come here because there are so many young people here who have already worked hard for sixteen years. This is very precious. They started working diligently even from kindergarten, and now they have all become useful material and have joined the procession of the Lord’s recovery. This is truly very encouraging. Since we are in the procession of the Lord’s recovery, we should reject the degraded practice of Christianity and take God’s ordained new way. By the Lord’s grace, we have to establish the home meetings in Taiwan and even in the whole world.
Our home meetings are not a bondage. Rather, the home meetings are pleasant and good. Our home meetings should be our Canaan, the good land. We need to endeavor not only to enter into them but also to develop them, so that every home meeting will become our Canaan, the good land. For this we need to strengthen our prayers, be strong to receive the burden, and do our best to labor on every home and strengthen every home. We should arrive early before the meeting and stay late after the meeting. We should not make a schedule to be in one home meeting for fifty minutes and then attend another meeting for another fifty minutes. If we do this, we will not be able to produce Canaan. Canaan needs to be developed, cultivated, and watered. Although the meeting is supposed to be fifty minutes, if we are willing to stay for an hour and a half, and people are happy with us and not bored, this home meeting will be successful and will have the potential to become our Canaan.
Someone may ask, “What will happen if we are not able to labor on so many homes?” Regardless of the situation, we must endeavor to labor. We must do whatever we are able to do and labor as much as we are able to labor. We ought to produce some Canaans from among the homes we care for. After putting in so much effort, we do not want to see that all the homes are unstable and that none of them is a Canaan. It would be regrettable if this were the case. We need to produce some Canaans which are stable. In addition, we should pay attention and observe to see whether we should combine a few neighboring homes to teach them how to have a small group meeting. Using this as a starting point, we should lead them to know each other and to have their own meeting. At the same time, we can lead them to have one more meeting during the week. If they have only one meeting at first, we can help them to add another one. However, we should not add too many at first. To meet twice a week is sufficient, once on the Lord’s Day and another time during the week. This depends on how we do it. Not only so, but we must also lead them to build up a relationship with the meeting in the meeting hall. According to the district they are in, we should take them to the meeting hall to attend the Lord’s table meeting. All of this depends upon our effort. If we put in the effort, there will certainly be the result.