Prayer: Lord, thank You for Your recovery on this earth. Do burden us to pray. Give us the utterance, and save us from ordinary prayers. We desire to pray something living, even to pray Your prayer with Your utterance. Lord, do cleanse us with Your precious blood and anoint us with Your ointment that we may enjoy You. You are the real revival, every day aspiring within us to be revived. Lord, we do beg You to stir up our spirits, and we also want to fan our spirits into flame.
After the time of the apostles the church became abnormal. This is the reason that we must move to form the vital groups. The church today is below the normal level. Brother Nee gave a series of messages which he published in a book entitled The Normal Christian Life. He gave those messages in order to uplift the situation among Christians back to the normal level. If a Christian is uplifted and lives a life at the level portrayed in Brother Nee’s messages, he is no longer abnormal but is a normal Christian. We must admit honestly and with repentance that our church’s situation is below the normal level. Therefore, we must do something to uplift the level of the church life.
The matter of increase has become a bothersome problem among us. For a long period of time the rate of increase among us has been low, especially among the typical American people. The United States was established mainly by Caucasians from northern Europe. These Caucasians may be considered as the typical Americans. When I first came to America, I had no intention of doing a work among the Chinese people. I had been given a commission from the Lord to bring His recovery to this country, and I made a determination not to do a particular work among the Chinese.
Today, however, the situation in the churches has been damaged. When I began the work in the United States, two-thirds of the saints were Caucasians, and one-third were from other races. That situation was very normal. In 1970 approximately three hundred saints migrated out of Los Angeles to several large cities in the United States. Those migrations were a prevailing success. Before the migrations began, people outside the recovery paid little attention to us. But two years later, in 1972, the number among us began to increase. This caused some outside the recovery to be stirred up.
The Lord’s recovery began in the United States in 1962 with about twenty-five saints meeting in a home. Eight years later, in 1970, we met with over one thousand saints in the Embassy Hotel in Los Angeles. This was the year that we had the migration. By 1972 our number went up to about twelve hundred, and we realized that we could no longer meet in the Embassy Hotel, because our number was too large. So we prepared ourselves to meet in the Los Angeles Convention Center, which had a meeting capacity of three thousand. The next year, in 1973, we met in the Convention Center, and our number was over three thousand. In those meetings we had several overflow rooms with television monitors. This was an indication of how the Lord’s move in His recovery had become prevailing.
At that time the outsiders, stirred up by the devil, began to oppose us. At first, some distributed mimeographed leaflets in order to smear us, damage us, and defame us. Eventually, the opposers published two evil books, The Mindbenders and The God-men. After we moved from Los Angeles to Orange County in 1974, two large Christian organizations in Orange County began to oppose us. Although we responded publicly to the accusations made against us and were successful in getting the two defamatory books removed from the bookstores, our name had already been spoiled. To some extent the opposers succeeded in blockading us. For approximately ten years, from 1976 until 1986, it was difficult for us to gain any Caucasians, especially in Orange County. The rate of increase in other parts of the United States has been better, but in Orange County the rate of increase has been very low. In the past forty months, from April 1989 until today, very few Caucasians have been gained, and a number who were gained have been damaged by the opposers.
This situation has caused me to ask myself, “Is there no way?” My answer to this question has been, “I do not believe that there is no way.” There is a way, if there is a will. Where there is a will, there is a way. In October 1984 I purposely went to Taipei to study our situation. As I studied with the other brothers, the Lord showed us the biblical way, the God-ordained way. But not until these recent days did I feel burdened to directly practice this way myself. In these days the Lord has led me to make a strong decision to practice the new way directly.
We need to thank the Lord that He has preserved His recovery and strengthened the churches to go on in spite of the turmoil caused by the opposition. Although the churches are going on well, the condition and morale are still not up to the standard. Therefore, I am not content. We need to step out of the blockade. I do not believe that we have to remain here. On the contrary, I believe that through the Lord’s mercy and by His grace and in His power, there is a way for us to leap over the blockade.
Our intention in forming the new groups is to have groups of overcomers. This is the reason that the groups are called the “vital groups.” We do have some groups already, and we honor them, but there is still the need for some vital groups to fulfill the purpose of the groups and to discharge our burden. The groups that are up to the standard should be up to the normal level revealed in the Bible.