Starting from December 15, every Lord’s Day morning we will be divided into classes for our truth lessons. Then on the Lord’s Day evening, after the Lord’s table meeting we will reserve half an hour for fellowship concerning a message on life. After the Tuesday evening prayer meeting we will reserve another half an hour for everyone to get into a message on service. After the Thursday evening meeting we will have another half an hour for some related message. By the time the weekend comes, when we come to the home meetings, we will have prepared another message for fellowship. In this way, all the brothers and sisters who come regularly to the church meetings will be supplied by four or five messages per week. Then when you go to visit people one-on-one, you will have at least one or two spiritual messages with which to supply them. It will not be as it was in the past. In the past, whenever you went to visit others, as soon as they saw your face, they only saw the words “Come to the meetings” written on your forehead.
We should not drag people to meetings anymore. Instead, we should go to their homes to give injections. They cannot come to the meetings because they do not have time. But if you would go to them every week to give them an injection, in the long run you will undoubtedly see results. Before we go out to practice one-on-one, we must first learn the truth. In the church we must first be supplied with messages of life four or five times a week. Only then can we supply others, and only then can those whom we beget be preserved and nurtured. Formerly, many were baptized among us, but few of them remained. This is because we did not have the proper way to nurture them. Or to put it simply, we did not know how to raise them up. Now we need to mend this hole. Not only do we have to beget, but we must nurture as well. And after the nurturing there is still the need for educating.
Previously, the way of the big meetings was like a big family with three generations together. Every Lord’s Day all three generations came together. Those who had been saved only a short time were invited to the same table as those who had been saved for a long time. Everyone ate the same food. There was no consideration as to whether the food was suitable for the newborn babes, the toddlers, or those who could only take milk. Now we are practicing the one-on-one. What we are doing is to go to the new ones’ homes, to lift them up in our arms, and to feed them with milk. Perhaps after half a year, we will not need to go to them anymore; they will be able to come to the table by themselves. The power of the home meeting lies in its potential to nurture. By the time a new one can come to the meetings by himself, he is also ready for teaching. Every week we will teach him with four or five messages. All the teaching will be centered on these messages of life. Gradually, with these two things, nurturing and teaching, as a cycle, he will grow.
There are two more matters that I wish to fellowship with all of you. The first is concerning the matter of the full-timers. The second is concerning the large meeting hall in Lin-Ko. We are looking to the Lord’s mercy that through our cooperation with Him, Taiwan could be evangelized in five years. In order to evangelize Taiwan, there must be full-timers. In August, twenty gospel teams went to different places to preach the gospel. In ten days over nine hundred people were gained. Most of them were brought in through the full-timers and the local saints. From this you can see the need for the full-timers.
Our gospel teams have begotten many children in different places. After spending ten days to preach the gospel they came back, and the children were left there. This was a flaw in our victory. Without the proper care, all those newly saved ones were soon scattered. I believe all those sitting here do love the Lord and do love the church and are all concerned about the Lord’s move. I would like to tell you that at present we have one hundred and thirty full-time brothers and sisters. Every morning for six months they are receiving proper training in Hall One. They are all college graduates. When I heard their testimonies and prayers and had some contact with them, I was quite encouraged. Praise the Lord that He has raised up such good material. By the time the training ends in May of next year, they will be ready to migrate to the villages.
Let me give you a testimony. On December 31, 1942, we were having a meeting in Chefoo. In the middle of the meeting I picked a hymn:
Many crowd the Savior’s kingdom,
Few receive His cross;
Many seek His consolation,
Few will suffer loss.
For the dear sake of the Master,
Counting all but dross....
Hymns, #472
When we sang that hymn, everyone in the meeting wept. That day there were about five hundred people in that meeting. Everyone was weeping. I could not sing either. I had to cry with everyone else. The next day was the first day of 1943, and everyone came together again. After this we met continuously for one hundred days. Every day that we met, the number of attendants grew more and more. The hall was filled with people inside and outside, upstairs and downstairs. All the rooms, big or small, were filled with people. No one was idle; no one dropped his job. But every day people walked to the meeting from their homes. There were no cars then. Even the sisters walked every day for half an hour to the meeting hall. The reason our attendance at the home meetings is not high is because we lack a revival among us.
In 1969 we experienced a revival in Elden Hall in America. The meeting began before the brothers and sisters arrived at the meeting hall, while they were still on the way. With their books in their hand, they sang while they walked. It was like the children of Israel ascending Mount Zion for the feast. During the evenings when no meetings were scheduled, I used to take a stroll outside my apartment after dinner. As I was walking, I could hear the sound of singing coming from different homes. Actually, the saints were having home meetings. This situation reached its climax in the summer of 1969. God brought in a revival. The number of brothers and sisters jumped from three or five hundred all the way to seven or eight hundred. The meeting hall could hold only five hundred people. When seven or eight hundred people crowded in the hall, many were forced to stand by the wall.
Brothers and sisters, we need to pray. Within us we need a revival. This is not a matter of outward stirring. It must come from our love to the Lord. When we love the Lord, fellowship with Him, walk according to the Spirit, and are filled in spirit, we will speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and we will sing and praise with our hearts to the Lord. When this happens, the revival will come. When a revival is here, we can have home meetings every night of the week. Everyone will have time. This is the key to the home meetings.