In October 1984 we mentioned the matter of changing the system and taking the new way in Taipei, but we did not change the system immediately because we still had to study the practical steps of the new way. Generally speaking, we should divide the practice of the new way into three steps. The principle of each step is based entirely on the revelation of the New Testament.
In 1986 we began to have a formal training in Taipei. We spent all of our energy, finances, manpower, and resources to hold a training in Taipei because among the over nine hundred churches in the six continents, there was no place more suitable than Taipei for carrying out our experiments and training for the new way. At the present time we have held three terms of training, and the total number of trainees, who were from over twenty countries among the six continents, has been over five thousand. Through the studies and experiments we carried out in the training, the Lord is leading us to take an unprecedented new way.
In September of this year in Taipei, we had a large-scale gospel activity called “the feast.” This name came from the type in the Old Testament. The children of Israel had to go to Jerusalem three times a year to keep certain feasts, including the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. In the Feast of Tabernacles, after gathering in the produce from their threshing floors and winepresses, the children of Israel gathered before God with their sons and daughters, male and female servants, the Levites, and the sojourners, orphans, and widows who were within their gates to enjoy God and the riches that God had given them. At the same time this allowed God to enjoy His people so that He could be satisfied (Deut. 16:13-17).
We deeply feel that if the churches from a certain district, a certain country, or even several countries would come together at a certain time, as the children of Israel came together to keep the feasts in Jerusalem, the impact of this action would be beyond expectation. The training in Taipei during these few years has gathered saints from various places to labor together, and the result has been very good. In the training in Anaheim there were saints from churches all over the United States and some from overseas who labored together; ultimately, the efficiency of our labor was even greater than it was in Taipei. Therefore, in the long run we feel that all the churches should carry out this activity of “feasting.” For example, if a church in a region has the burden to “keep the feast,” the church should fellowship this burden with the surrounding churches so that they may carry it out together. In this way they will gain a considerable number of people, and their labor will be more efficient.
The saints who joined the feast were not only from various places in Taiwan. There were also 617 saints who came from twenty countries all over the world. Prior to the feast, the trainees who had joined the full-time training coordinated with some local saints and went out to preach the gospel by door-knocking. They baptized around twenty-eight thousand people, but due to the shortage of people to take care of and shepherd them, the rate of survival among them was not very high. Therefore, the main focus of our feast this time was not to baptize people but to gain people household by household. Those who went out door-knocking went not only to baptize people and gain them as individuals but to establish home meetings in their homes in order to gain their households, because a person whose entire household is saved is more secure and easier to take care of. By the end of the ten days of the feast, 7,825 people had been baptized and over a thousand homes had home meetings.
After this global feasting event in Taipei, all of us now have the feeling that we absolutely cannot go back to take the old way. At this time we must stand on the foundation of the feast, and, based on the districts where they live, divide the saints up into one hundred districts. This will enhance the care for the saints and the home meetings. Moreover, we must also set a goal for the church that from now on we would establish the following four items—the habit of door-knocking, the home meetings, the meetings of mutuality, and the churches for the building up of the Body of Christ.