Apparently, teaching the truth in home meetings where all may participate in the fellowship does not have the prevailing atmosphere of the big meetings, yet it is very practical. Big meetings are too big. Dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people come together to listen to one person speaking, and after listening, they forget almost everything, not having much concern for what they heard. However, when we are in a home with perhaps only three or five people, everyone learns the truth together, each one focuses and pays attention, and everyone answers each other’s questions. The result of learning in this way is that the truth is impressed deeply within each person. Therefore, in purpose or in result, saints can come to the full knowledge of the truth only by meeting in the homes.
Furthermore, this issues in the functioning of each saint as a member of Christ. In the big meetings one person speaks, and everyone else listens, and after listening, everyone feels good and appreciative, yet hardly anyone functions. In the past the so-called service in the church life was mostly cleaning, ushering, or making bread, as some sisters do, and preparing the cup, as some brothers do, or at the most, sharing and giving testimonies at the end of a message meeting. Actually, the supply of the members of Christ is firstly that everyone preaches the gospel, secondly that everyone teaches the truth, and thirdly that everyone helps the newly saved ones to meet in the homes. If every saint would do this, the gospel will be widely preached, the number of saved ones will increase, and the believers will be equipped with the truth practically.
The above three points are lacking in practice not merely in the denominations but also among us. Therefore, beginning from today, our church life must take this step: After a person is saved, he should be able to preach the gospel, and after a period of time he should be able to teach the truth. Then he should be able to care for other newly saved households. The purpose and result of these practices are tremendous, giving each saint the opportunity to function. If we meet only in the meeting hall, with one person speaking and everyone else listening, whether we have three hundred people or five hundred, only a few will “monopolize” the meeting, and all the other saints will have no opportunity to function. We truly hope that every brother and sister will function. Everyone must have opportunities, even an abundance of opportunities. This is our goal.
Finally, we need to see that the more we practice this, the more we love the Lord, and the more we love the Lord, the more we pursue Him. Then the result of pursuing the Lord is growth in life. In this way we are able to live out the testimony of Christ, not merely the individual Christ, but even more the corporate Christ, which is every one of us living out Christ. In other words, we are the church; all the saints become one corporate entity, and all live out Christ. Our bearing the testimony of Christ is that which the apostle John spoke of: “I John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and endurance in Jesus...because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 1:9). When people see us, they will know that we are bearing the testimony together.
Moreover, each and every saint should come to the full knowledge of the truth, as 1 Timothy 3 says, “The house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth” (v. 15). The church should uphold the truth. We are striving toward the day in which every home has a home meeting, everyone is learning the truth, and as a result everyone is able to teach the truth. In that day we can declare to Satan, to the angels, and to mankind, “The church is the pillar and base of the truth on the earth.” Therefore, on the one hand, we love Him and pursue Him, growing in life; on the other hand, we live Him and bear a good testimony for Him, having the reality of the truth.
From the result of our practice in recent years, we can see that our training is successful. Door-knocking and visiting people is truly the best way to gain people for them to believe in the Lord. Some have baptized forty-one new ones in three and a half months. According to the statistics, more than sixty people were saved and baptized every day. This is unprecedented in the history of Taiwan. Among the more than seven thousand new believers gained, we have established over two thousand new home meetings. Originally there were four hundred home meetings in the church in Taipei, and now there are over two thousand new home meetings, so together the two categories add up to about two thousand five hundred home meetings. The two thousand new home meetings were established in the last three and a half months. This proves that this new way—door-knocking house by house, preaching the gospel, and leading people to believe in the Lord and be saved—is not only feasible but yields great results.
We all know that it is easier to succeed in something if it is done by a professional. We may use growing trees as an example. In my back yard there are two trees, an apricot tree and a peach tree. Dispositionally, I am a neat person. I like to fix and arrange things in a proper order, so one day I pruned the two trees so that they were neat and tidy, pleasing to the eye. However, one year went by and then two years, and the trees did not bear any fruit. Then a third year went by, and they still did not bear fruit. I wondered what the cause might be. I thought to myself that perhaps the soil was the problem.
There was a young sister who lived in a nearby city, whose father managed an orchard. She grew up in the orchard and knew about planting and growing fruit trees. One day when she came with others to my house, she chuckled when she saw the two trees, which were as neatly pruned as if they had gotten a haircut. She was too embarrassed to say anything, so I asked her directly, “Young sister, do you know why these two trees are fruitless?” Then she told me that I should not have pruned the trees as I did. I should not have cut the branches that were drooping downward, because the drooping branches are the fruit-bearing branches. The branches I cut off were the fruit-bearing branches, and the branches I left uncut were the unfruitful branches. I then realized that I was quite foolish, thinking myself to be very capable and feeling that my work was aesthetically pleasing. In actuality, I was entirely unprofessional. This was my personal experience.
After we started to practice door-knocking and had good results, many places responded to the report and began to do the same, but the outcome was a failure. They thought that door-knocking was just knocking on doors. How difficult could that be? How could anyone not be able to do it? Although everyone can knock on doors, no one produced any result. Actually, successful door-knocking involves many details. People let certain brothers and sisters come in when they knocked on their doors, but after they entered, it seems that it would have been better for them not to say anything, because the more they talked, the more the people resented them. Therefore, some have practiced door-knocking for a period of time but became disheartened and finally stopped. Eventually, everyone was discouraged, assuming that the new way does not work. That is not true. In actuality, door-knocking requires training.