When we go to preach the gospel, we should go in teams of three. After many years of experience and study of the Bible, we have found that this is the most economical and effective way for gospel preaching. We must first be stirred up and then pick up another two saints to form a team to go to visit people.
There is no need to wait for the elders to announce a prayer meeting to pray for this or to prepare a register with names and regulations for the teams. We should forget all this and just go! Then maybe the elders and others will follow us to preach the gospel. We should not try to “unify” the church into the practice of gospel preaching. From 1949 through 1955 in the church in Taipei, the gospel atmosphere was quite high, but still the entire church was not “unified” into the practice of the gospel preaching.
In going out as a team, it is best that there are both brothers and sisters. It is best to have at least one brother for baptizing the believers, and it is best to have at least one sister so that if a female is baptized, the sister can take care of her. A team of three, with two brothers and one sister or one brother and two sisters, would be very good. Our experimenting and testing in Taipei has shown that this way will produce results. We need to go in the trained way. I may go to play the piano for two years, yet without being trained I will still not know how to play the piano well. In order to preach the gospel effectively, we must pray and endeavor to learn the secret of gospel preaching.
To prepare ourselves to preach the gospel, we first must consecrate ourselves, give ourselves, to the Lord. We must tell the Lord: “Lord, I was saved by You. I belong to You. You redeemed me. You purchased me. You bought me. I am Your property. I am Your asset. I belong to You, so now I give You Your full rights. I am here.” Then we must pray and prepare ourselves to use some material in order to preach the gospel to someone. We may want to use some Bible verses, but still we need training in order to be able to talk with someone. We may prefer to use The Mystery of Human Life. It is not simple to use this booklet. We have to get ourselves into it until we can nearly recite every paragraph and every section. We can practice at home with the members of our family. Thirty-eight thousand were brought to the Lord through the use of The Mystery of Human Life. We have to give ourselves to be trained. If we humble ourselves, we can be trained.
We even have to learn how to knock on a door. This means that our knocking must sound “sweet.” When the people within open the door, the first sentence out of our mouth should cause them to open the door wide, and the second sentence should open their heart. Our wrong attitude or tone of voice may cause them to close the door. We can practice knocking on doors at home. A husband can knock on his wife’s door, and let his wife criticize him. It is not too much for us to practice like this. When a young girl is learning to play the piano, she sits for hours at the piano. She is always being adjusted by her teacher. Her teacher is always showing her how to hold her fingers, how to sit at the piano, etc. Otherwise, she cannot learn to play the piano well.
In the same way, we must give ourselves to be trained in how to talk with people and how to bring people to the Lord. We must learn when to bring them to the Lord and what words to speak to them. We must exercise and practice. We even have to learn how to be coached by our companions. This means that we must learn to be adjusted. As we practice, we will improve week by week. We need to consider whether people would be caught by our way of talking to them. We have to study and be patient, always learning and always trying. We should never be disappointed or discouraged. Rather, we should always exercise to be encouraged.
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