When we open our homes, we should also preach the gospel to the children, because almost every household has children. There are not enough children in the children’s meeting in Taipei. There are only four to five hundred. The elders said that the children have either grown up, or they are still too young. However, this is not a good reason. We should not neglect the children’s work. We fellowshipped about the children’s work eighteen years ago in 1966. If there were ten thousand children between the ages of six and twelve at that time, today there should be ten thousand young adults between the ages of twenty-four and thirty. If they are not all saved, at least six thousand of them should be saved.
Our labor in the church life is a long-term endeavor. We need to lead our children to salvation, and we also need to gain the children of our relatives and neighbors. This requires the coordination and participation of many saints. We cannot rely on the meeting halls; rather, we must labor in the homes. The saints with large homes can have a meeting with twenty children. The saints with smaller homes should have fewer children. If there are not enough adults to teach the children, the saints who are in high school and college can help. We may need fifty homes in order to gain one thousand children. When the number of children increases to four thousand, we will need two hundred classes. Even though the parents of some of the children may not be in our meetings, they may like to have their children join the children’s meeting. This will give us the opportunity to gain the parents through their children. If we practice this, after a few years we may have ten thousand children in the church in Taipei.
After eight to ten years these children will be seeds for the spread of the gospel in junior high and high school and even in college. This is the way for us to multiply and gain thousands of new ones every year. The gospel work among the children needs the cooperation of the families and the young saints. We also need some co-workers to coordinate the children’s work.
Another way to gain people is through the gospel work on the campuses. This depends on the participation of the full-timers. It would be good to have three hundred full-timers, who are between the ages of twenty-five and forty, to preach the gospel on various campuses. In Taipei there are around 120,000 university students, 80,000 technical college students, 60,000 high school students, and over 100,000 junior high students. This is a total of over 400,000 students. We need many full-time servings ones to labor on the students. This is a good source to gain new believers.
The recovery has been in Taiwan for almost thirty years. We now have brothers and sisters who work in every aspect of society. They work in factories, businesses, hospitals, and even government institutions. Therefore, we should encourage all the saints to preach the gospel. This is another way to gain new believers.
In addition, the church in Taipei has information cards for thirteen to fifteen thousand saints, but only five thousand come to the meetings. This means that at least eight thousand are not in the meetings. It is worthwhile for us to labor on these eight thousand saints. We can restore them to the church life by fellowshipping with them, visiting them, and inviting them to our homes for meals.
Even though five thousand saints attend the meetings in Taipei, there are only three to four thousand saints in any given meeting. The brothers and sisters have a heart for the Lord, but they have not been helped to function. Hence, we must arrange them into groups, with twelve saints in a group. The five thousand saints in the church life will form four hundred groups. We should group the saints according to their geographic location, not according to their spiritual growth.
It may be that fifty to sixty groups will then form a district. There may be seven or eight districts in the church in Taipei. Some co-workers, who can care for and lead the groups, should be assigned to every district. The saints in a group should decide whether to meet once a week or once every two weeks for mutual fellowship and mutual visitation. The people they lead to salvation can later be added to a small group that is located near them.
When the number of saints in a group increases to twelve or sixteen, that group should split. There will then be eight or nine saints in both groups. When the groups increase further, they can split again. The brothers and sisters will not lose contact with one another.
In the past many people were baptized but not many remained. The groups will function to maintain the fellowship among the saints and to care for the new believers. Therefore, we need to organize the information cards so that we will know who is in the church life and who is not attending the meetings. The saints who are not in the meetings can be assigned to groups in their districts. The saints in a group meeting should pray for the dormant ones who are assigned to them and consider how to fellowship with them. It is easy to visit the dormant saints who are in our neighborhood or to invite them to our home. Even though we may not be able to recover every saint initially, we can gradually recover at least one or two thousand saints.