There is power in the proper baptism. Baptism is not a ritual, but we have made it a ritual by our practice. Many times we would wait weeks or months before we baptized someone. That kind of baptism became a ritual. But the present new way is that we baptize people immediately after they believe (Acts 8:35-38; 16:14-15, 33-34; 22:16; Mark 16:16). After they pray, we direct them to be baptized in their bathtub. Many of those baptized in the new way experienced a real change and came up out of the water to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4).

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. Now in Taipei they have four hundred old home meetings plus the over two thousand new home meetings. We are going to have another term of training, and I believe this term will bring in more than three thousand home meetings. Then by the summer of 1987, the church in Taipei will have about six thousand home meetings. Every home will be meeting, every home will be working, every home will be teaching, and every home will be preaching. What spiritual giant can replace six thousand home meetings with the entire household functioning?

Our way to baptize people and gain homes is wonderful. Sometimes the husband got baptized and the next week his wife believed. Our trainees then directed the husband to baptize his wife, and the husband baptized his wife! The bathtubs in Taiwan are not so big, so the ones who were baptized had to be immersed and have the water sprinkled and poured upon them at the same time. The water in the bathtub was not that much, but the Spirit was so much! Often when our trainees were talking to the husband, the wife resigned with the husband that they would go to the restroom to prepare the water for baptism, even though the wife was not saved yet. When they baptized the husband, they all prayed, "We baptize you into the Triune God!" Some fathers baptized their sons in the week following their own baptism. This is all new. After these household baptisms, these houses began to meet. What a wonderful taste in the home meetings! This is a different taste from the practice of today's Christianity. We have been drugged with the way of Christianity, so a taste of the way of Christianity has been built up within us. We need to take the new way to get another taste.