Question: We feel that we are not skillful enough in the matter of service. Can we still carry out the change of system and take the new way?
Answer: It does not matter whether or not you are skillful. To become skillful requires experience and time. The most essential thing is that we all have to get on the right track. We hope that all the full-time serving ones and elders will get on the right track. If they do, it will not be difficult for the whole church to preach the gospel or to gain people. The reason that our gospel is not strong is that we do not have the kind of living that we mentioned earlier as our base. If we truly had that kind of living and meeting, our preaching of the gospel and gaining of people would surely be effective.
In the past our work did not have much impact because our system was wrong and because we were off, particularly in the matter of meeting. However, the Lord has given us a new start. Our home meetings, small group meetings, and districts meetings will all be brand new. At the same time, the way is very clear. Now the most important thing is that four groups of people—the elders, the co-workers, the full-timers, and the trainees—go on together. If these four groups of people do not go on and enter into the new way, it will be very difficult for the churches to go on. If these four groups of people take the lead to enter in and go on in life, then the saints will be able to follow. In practicality, the co-workers particularly need to establish this as the goal of their work.
Question: Through this fellowship, the goal of our work is getting clearer. But we want to know how we can practically cooperate with and carry out what the ministry has seen.
Answer: Even though we have not fully seen the goal, we will gradually get on the right track. This will require much effort, much prayer, and much living in the spirit. After receiving the burden, we will spontaneously apply it and exercise in the meeting. In the meetings we still may not know when we should open our mouths and when we should not, but this does not matter. For example, when you are learning how to play basketball, as long as you practice enough on the court, you will automatically learn when to pass the ball and when to shoot the ball. You simply need to play and practice, and eventually you will learn the secrets.
Today whatever secular people do, they do it with all their time and being. If they do not concentrate on doing one thing, it is very hard for them to be good at it. For instance, if a teacher does not spend all his time teaching, he will not teach well or become a famous teacher or professor. Hence, to serve the Lord full-time and have a job at the same time is almost always a hindrance and an entanglement. If the Lord has not arranged the environment for you to have a job and is allowing you to serve full-time, this is a great mercy. If I had taken a job and had not served full-time in a concentrated way every day for the past sixty years, I am afraid that I would have accomplished only one-fourth of what I have done to this day. Hence, it is very precious to be able to serve the Lord full-time.
We who serve the Lord full-time also have to practice how to work, that is, how to meet. The work that we do should be either in the small groups or in the home meetings. This is a great opportunity for us to learn how to serve properly. I hope that we all would spend time to learn how to meet properly. For example, if in a meeting of more than one hundred saints there are more than twenty who know how to meet, the meeting will definitely be rich. This depends on the full-timers. Since the rest of the saints are working, they are very busy and only have time to serve after work. They are not like the full-timers who can devote all of their energy to studying how to serve, how to pray, how to follow the spirit, and how to release the spirit. This is the difference between us and them. We have to know that truth and life are our capital. Our capital is our qualification.
Question: Because we are all serving on the college campuses, and usually our work is to contact students, we do not really have much time to go to the communities. Is this all right?
Answer: Actually, there should be some full-timers who labor in the schools and some who work in the communities. One person cannot take care of both sides.
Question: At present we have several brothers coordinating together to gather seven to eight brothers and sisters who are students leading them to pray and enter into the Lord’s Word and training them how to function in the meetings. Is this proper?
Answer: This is good, but you still have to study while you are carrying out this way because it is hard to set a pattern for a certain matter in one day. You have to carry out this way personally, and as you are doing it, you have to study it and fellowship with the more experienced ones. As long as you are diligent in doing it, you will find a way. For example, if you want to go to a certain place, as long as you keep asking for directions as you go, eventually you will arrive there. But if you stay in one place asking, you will never get on the way. You should at least get on the way. You should walk and believe that as long as you continue trying, you will find the way.
The prospects of what you have fellowshipped may be very good, but it will take a period of time to work this out. Because many people have not entered into and do not understand what we are doing, they may say their own things and may even criticize us. I want you to know that these practices of the new way are divine and in the divine realm, so it will be very hard for people on the outside to understand what we are doing. If you are not in the midst of this new way and do not have a part in it, you also will not understand, because the methods of this way are not the same as those of the past. Some people may ask, “Why do we have to preach the gospel by door-knocking? If we preach the gospel without knocking on doors, does this mean that we are not preaching the gospel?” No one has said that if you do not knock on doors, you are not preaching the gospel. When you go to preach the gospel, you can do it in various ways. However, if you go out to preach the gospel, you will realize that door-knocking is the most effective way.
Those of us who are serving full-time are getting clearer in our vision, having gained more understanding in the truth and having had some growth in life. If we all have this burden within us, the Lord will surely use us. Every single thing that we do must be for the building up of the Body of Christ. Consider our old way of doing things. Can our old way of meeting build up the Body of Christ? In that kind of meeting, we even had trouble taking care of ourselves. Thus, it was impossible to have any building. Our basic system in the past was wrong. We must have a deep understanding and a clear vision regarding this.
Question: How can we enable all the saints to enter into the new way and bring their potential into full use? What we have been doing in these two to three years is, as one brother said, like beginning to learn how to walk. Based on the foundation that we have gained, how can we walk better and faster?
Answer: The church in Taipei is able to go forward, but this requires your effort—the corporate effort of the elders, the co-workers, and the full-time serving ones. I cannot encourage the working saints to take the new way too much, but as long as the elders, co-workers, and full-time brothers and sisters take this way, they will spontaneously follow, and the newly saved ones will also follow this way.
Question: Since full-timers are so important, should we lead the students under our care to join the full-time training?
Answer: I hope so. The more people that join the full-time training each year, the better.
Question: It seems very difficult to produce five hundred full-timers a year. What should we do?
Answer: If we are unable to produce five hundred full-timers, it will be good to have even two hundred. If we have two hundred or more full-timers each year, that will be quite good.
Question: If we do well, we will be able to produce more full-time serving ones, and if more new ones are brought in, there will correspondingly be more full-timers. Is this correct?
Answer: You who are the first group of full-time trainees are the pioneers. If you can break through in this matter, it will be easier for those who follow, and a great part of the situation will be set. The breakthrough must be in the meetings. We must spend much effort in the meetings so that every meeting—the district meetings, the small group meetings, and the home meetings—will be successful. This is the goal of our work as full-time serving ones. We have to see that our goal is not merely to bring people to salvation. We were unable to bring the thirty thousand people whom we brought to salvation fully into the church life because our meetings were not up-to-date. If our meetings are up-to-date, at least half of our new ones will be brought into the church life. Moreover, if there is a need on the campuses, there can also be district meetings there.
The campus work should gain at least half of the students who are saved, not merely one-fourth. For instance, for every two students who are saved, at least one of them should eventually be meeting with us. Currently there are twenty-seven brothers and sisters who are serving on the campuses. I hope that the brothers will fellowship with us more often, try what we have fellowshipped, and then some time later come back to fellowship and discuss their progress with us. In this way we will be able to help them according to their need.
Question: Can you give the young people more fellowship before you go back to America?
Answer: No doubt you are hoping that I can fellowship more with you regarding the campus work. However, I have not been to the campuses, so I do not know what the campus environment is like. If your environment does not allow you to do anything, then you should go to the communities. There are always many aspects to such matters and also to our work.
Question: You have encouraged the high schoolers to choose Taiwan Normal University as their first choice so that later they may gain people there through their preaching. I would like to ask you whether it would be better for the brothers and sisters who graduate from Normal University to go to the training for a year before they go preaching or should they go preaching to gain people right after they graduate?
Answer: As a rule, they should first be trained. It would be good for them to go through a year of the full-time training. Training forms a base that can help a person to serve the Lord for his whole life. In brief, it makes a difference whether or not a person is trained.