After someone gets saved through us, we should consider that he is our spiritual child. After a child is born, he needs to be fed in a regular way. We need to feed the young believers as a nursing mother that they may grow in the spiritual life (John 21:15; 1 Thes. 2:7; 1 Pet. 2:2). We can shepherd the new ones by calling them on the phone. A new one needs a lot of help. At the beginning, we should go to be with him at least three times a week to keep him, to retain him, to sustain him, to feed him, to strengthen him, and to comfort him. Then we can protect him, preserve him, and rescue him from many distractions because the devil is very busy.
The Bible tells us that when someone is saved, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God (Luke 15:10). Besides these positive angels, there are also the fallen angels and the demons. They surely are not happy about this person being saved, and they will work on him. The demons may cause this one to have a car accident. Then they would cause one of his friends to say, “You see, this is because you believed in Jesus. If you had not believed in this Jesus, you would never have had a car accident.” This shows how crucial it is for us to take care of the new ones, especially at the beginning of their salvation.
The Lord charged us in John 15 to go to bear remaining fruit (v. 16). In order to bear remaining fruit, we have to go to care for the new ones by shepherding and feeding them in a regular way. We cannot raise up a child in only three months. It requires much labor to raise up a new believer. We should exercise to always have two or three new ones under our care year-round.
We should not think that only some among us are full-timers. All the saints are full-timers. We should be full- timers who work for Christ, who go to our jobs for Christ, and who do everything for Christ. If we labor in the way of always having two or three new ones under our care, we can have two as remaining fruit each year. We will bring them not only to the Lord but also to the church.
Our group meetings also need to be carried out in an organic way. Perhaps a certain brother has been a Christian for twenty-five years and an elder for twelve years. He may go to a group meeting, considering that he is somewhat superior. Many in the meeting may be new ones. They do not know Genesis and do not understand Revelation. Since this brother considers that he is superior, he may take the opportunity to teach the Bible. However, this is not organic; this is this brother’s art.
This was the way of our group meetings in the past. This is wrong. A formal religious service void of life does not produce anything. When we come to the group meetings, we should just consider ourselves as living members of Christ. We may look to the new ones to get the help. We should have the attitude that we do not know anything. We only know one thing-to exercise our spirit. In the meetings we should exercise our spirit constantly. Then when the opportune time comes, we can speak something. Our speaking is the sowing, and whatever we say is the seed, Christ. We should minister Christ and sow Christ into the attendants. The Christ whom they receive will grow within them. This is the new way ordained by God.
Anything we do apart from Christ as the Spirit is vain religion. To go to a group meeting without any Christ, without any Spirit, is religion. We should be burdened for the group meeting. We may be so burdened that we would fast by not eating dinner. Instead, we would go to our bedroom and pray in a thorough way. Then we will go to the meeting with Christ, with the Spirit, with a living burden, and with a living word. We will not go with any pretense, and we will not try to show others that we are superior. We will go as a common member, waiting and looking for the proper time that the Lord would assign to us. When that time comes and we speak, Christ will come out, and the living word will enter into people as the seed and the Spirit. Such speaking will enliven and beget others. This is the proper group meeting.
Many of our group meetings today are old. We may say that we take the new way, but we walk the new way by the old steps. This does not work. To my observation, there are not many real starts of the new way in our group meetings. Some think that the group meetings are just a matter of dividing the large congregation into many groups. Although we can talk more freely in the smaller meetings, these meetings may be dead. The attendants may not have anything to say that is full of Christ as the Spirit. This is the old way.
We need to feed the new ones and also help them to practice the group meetings. The group meetings are for mutual fellowship, mutual intercession, mutual care, mutual shepherding, mutual asking of questions, and mutual answering for teaching. This is for the perfecting of the saints that they may participate in the work of the ministry, that is, to build up the organic Body of Christ (Heb. 10:24-25; Eph. 4:12). We need to lead the new ones into this kind of organic group meeting.
When we lead the new ones into the organic group meetings, they will spontaneously be educated and will be initiated into prophesying. We need to teach the saints to prophesy, that is, to speak for the Lord and to speak forth the Lord, in the church meetings for the building up of the church (1 Cor. 14:1, 3-5, 12, 23-26, 31, 39a). Then the new ones will be living and functioning members in the Body of Christ.
In our labor with and for the Lord in His ordained way, we need to be like farmers who have the expectation of a yearly harvest. However, today many churches have very little increase. If we would receive this fellowship and practice the God-ordained way, we will definitely bring new ones to the Lord. We should not expect all the saints to take this way. This is impossible because some are too weak or unable. At least one-third of the saints can practice this way. If each gains two new ones a year, there will be a sixty percent increase.
In Christianity’s statistics there is not a record of a church that has a sixty percent increase every year. The most might be twenty percent. But today many churches have not had a twenty percent increase. We should pray in a desperate way for the increase of the church. Then we should practice the God-ordained way, the way the Lord has ordained for us.
I have given three means for the success of the God-ordained way: by prayer (Acts 6:4), by the Spirit (Acts 4:31), and by constant and regular contact with people. It is only by these three means that we can be prevailing. We must budget our time to contact people and pray for them. We need to pray for two or three and labor on them for about one year. Then we will gain some definite fruit.
We may contact people by personal visiting, by telephone, and by written correspondence. There are many ways to contact people. In principle every contact is “door-knocking.” When we contact people in the Lord, we are knocking on the door of their heart. We should not think that the practice of door-knocking is merely a physical thing. To visit people is door-knocking, to call people is door-knocking, to write a letter is door-knocking, and to send some booklets is door-knocking. Anything that reaches people to touch them with Christ, is a kind of door-knocking.
While we are carrying out the God-ordained way to gain the increase, we should not neglect the church meetings. To carry out this way, we must budget our time and give the Lord certain hours every week to go to contact people to save them, feed them, shepherd them, teach them, perfect them, and eventually bring them up so that they can speak for the Lord. Then the church will receive the building up.
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