My thought is that in the future, regarding the brothers who move away, letters of recommendation can never be the final thing. As the church, after one or two months, we should write a letter to the church where the brother is. We should pay attention to this one thing: Ask them, “Last month a brother was sent to your locality. How is that brother doing now?” We need to ask them to reply. We may say to them in the letter, “We have sent a brother to your locality. How are you helping him? How is the spiritual condition of this brother since he has come into your midst? How are you taking care of him?” If you ask these questions, a lazy church will not be able to answer. Many times people can be lazy. A church can also be lazy. We are afraid of people that are lazy. When we work in this way, many local churches will not be able to be lazy. They must respond. Either they will say, “We are leading him in this way,” or they will say, “We are not leading him.” If they have never helped him, you can write letters exhorting them that in the future they need to help the brothers who move from other places and that they should pay attention to this matter.
Now we come to the care for brothers who come from other places. I hope that many brothers and sisters in our meetings will rise up to serve these saints. This is also one of the duties of a priest. We need to preach the gospel, we need to care for the gospel, we need to care for the new believers, we need to care for problems, we need to care for those who are absent from the meetings, and we need to care for those who come from other places.
Those brothers who are responsible for the care of the brothers and sisters who have moved away can at the same time care for the brothers who move from other places. Because these brothers receive the letters from the ones who have moved away, they can realize the difficulties of the brothers who have moved from other places. For instance, thirty brothers move away from Foochow. A group of brothers write to them and they write back. These brothers are able to realize the difficulties in the other places. They especially understand the hardships, the temptations, and the dangers for the brothers who move away. They see this more than anyone and they also know it more clearly. Therefore, it is most convenient to ask these brothers to guide and take care of those who have come into our midst from other places.
The length of time for this care may not need to be long. After two or three months, these brothers who have come from other places can be considered as local brothers who can be asked to take care of things on their own. The brothers and sisters who have been responsible for their care can go on to take care of other new ones who have come. If this is not done, they will not be able to take care of everyone. It should always be that each group should make room for the next group. In this way, you can labor on many others.
For example, if two brothers from Tsinan come to Tsingtao, the brothers who take care of this matter need to personally be in fellowship with them for two months. Perhaps they will eventually stop, but within this period of time the brothers must be in fellowship with them. These are the tasks for those who are responsible for taking care of the brothers from other places. If the two brothers want to settle down, other brothers can begin to have particular fellowship with them after two or three months have passed. In this way, the two who came from Tsinan can be turned over to others. After a while, two more brothers may come from the church in Weihaiwai; the brothers who took care of the two who moved to Tsingtao then need to go and take care of them. It should always be group by group, letting some go on the one hand, and picking others up on the other hand. Any special needs or special difficulties need to be taken care of properly. If these matters can be practiced more, there will not be much problem with the brothers who move from other places.
Brothers, I do not know if you have ever thought about this. I desire very much to have a heart-to-heart talk with you. Have you seen that Protestantism today emphasizes the messages on Sunday? I feel that this is the problem today. I hope that you can have a thorough consideration these days. Do you want merely to maintain a Lord’s Day morning message meeting on the surface? Next year when I go to Tsingtao, Canton, or Peking, I would rather see no messages given on Sunday morning, but rather see each and every brother in Peking serving and each and every brother busy. During the preaching of the gospel, everyone would be there preaching; during the time for taking care of people, everyone would be there taking care of people; during the time of harvest, everyone would be there harvesting; after the harvest, everyone would be there caring for others; when there are matters needing responsibility, there would be brothers there bearing the responsibility. I would say that this is the church. If in a locality there is a very strong Lord’s Day morning message meeting, but it is without the service of each and every brother, that is not the church; that is Protestantism. If among us there are four, five, or ten brothers doing well while the rest are immobile, what we have is the priestly system of Catholicism and the pastoral system of Protestantism. That is not the church.
The church in the Bible is a church that preaches the gospel, a church that visits people, and a church that cares for others. It is the Body of Christ in a locality. In the Body there are no inactive members. If one day there could be a group of brothers or even a whole church in which everyone serves, everyone carries out spiritual matters properly, everyone bears responsibility, and everyone is busy, then that would be the true Body of Christ.
Our way today is different than before. We should not consider ourselves to be proper simply because we have done much work and have had many experiences in the past. Today we have turned around completely. We do not recognize Catholicism! We do not recognize Protestantism! The way of Catholicism and Protestantism is absolutely different from our way. Our way is the service of the church.
I hope you brothers will pay special attention to this matter because when you go to work in different places, it is very easy to forget the vision. It is very easy when the work is heavy to lose the vision. I hope that whenever you work, you will always put the vision before you. It is only when you have the vision that you can work. If you do not see the vision, you will not be able to work. What you have may merely be what you saw two months earlier. Although you feel that the burden is still upon you, it is of no use. The brothers and sisters have not yet risen up, and they are still not working. Therefore, we should not worry about how great the outward difficulties are or how much people talk. The question is whether or not we have genuinely seen our way of service. Because we have seen clearly, we are putting all of our strength into this so that we may cause everyone to work in this way also. If there are many people, thank God; if there are few, it does not matter. The church must take this way.
If there is a local church with two thousand brothers and sisters and only five hundred are serving while fifteen hundred are not serving, it should be strange. If there are five hundred brothers and sisters, then there should be five hundred who serve; otherwise, the brothers will not be able to bear the load.