None of these matters—door-knocking, visiting people, teaching the truth, and ministering life—are simple. Bringing people into the Body of Christ to live the church life is even more difficult. All of these things need time and manpower. Therefore, after repeated study and consultation with various sources and with much prayer, we deeply felt that in order to carry out these four main items, we need to produce one full-timer out of every twenty people from among those who meet.
Currently the church in Taipei has over ten thousand names on the list, but there are only four thousand regular meeting-goers. From among these four thousand, we should be able to produce two hundred full-time serving ones. One full-timer should be produced out of every twenty people, and the other nineteen should endeavor to support this one.
According to our observations and experiences, we believe that since all the full-timers spend most of their time meeting on the Lord’s Day, they do not have to go door-knocking on that day, but they should go door-knocking every day of the rest of the week. For these six days, they do not need to go door-knocking eight hours each day. They need to go simply for about one-third of eight hours, two and a half hours or three hours at the most. Six consecutive days of door-knocking per week would guarantee one person being gained and baptized every week. In this way, a full-timer’s labor will be able to bring in fifty-two people through door-knocking during the fifty-two weeks of the year, and two hundred full-timers will be able bring in ten thousand four hundred people, which rounded down is ten thousand people.
Next, one out of every four people who meet regularly should go out at least once a week to knock on doors, visit people, teach the truth, or fellowship with people and minister life to them, each for two hours. Four thousand people meet in the church in Taipei, so there can be one thousand part-time serving ones going door-knocking every week. To be sure, door-knocking in this way every week for two hours, at least one person will be saved every two months, or every eight weeks. In a conservative estimation one person can gain six people per year; one thousand can gain six thousand. This, added to the people gained by the two hundred full-timers, gives us sixteen thousand people, which is the quadruple of four thousand. This requires us to carry it out together.
“Rescue the perishing, / Care for the dying, / Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; / Weep o’er the erring one, / Lift up the fallen, / Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save. / Rescue the perishing, / Care for the dying; / Jesus is merciful, / Jesus will save” (Hymns, #921, stanza 1 and chorus). The elders should take the lead to rescue the perishing. From now on, the elders will not sit in the offices in the meeting halls, but they will go door-knocking every day. One experience of door-knocking is different from another; there is little value when a careless person goes door-knocking, but there is much value when a dignified and noble person goes door-knocking. Therefore, it is weightier when the elders go door-knocking. According to what the Bible says, elders should not be “as lording it over your allotments but by becoming patterns of the flock” (1 Pet. 5:3). To this end, the elders should be the first to go door-knocking to be the patterns of the flock.
If every twenty people produce one full-timer and every four people produce one who goes door-knocking weekly, then with four thousand people as the base number, Taipei will be able to gain sixteen thousand people in a year through door-knocking—a fourfold multiplication. If we continue in this way, Taipei will have gained two million seven hundred thousand through door-knocking by 1990. Let us wait and see, but please do not be a bystander. Every twenty saints produce one full-timer; every four produce one part-timer; the elders take the lead in preaching the gospel; and all the saints pray with one accord and endeavor to provide financially. If we do this, the Lord will have a way.
I firmly believe that the gospelization of Taiwan can be fulfilled in five years under the leading of the grace of the Lord. According to various observations and general experiences, we do have the full assurance that we can gospelize the whole of Taiwan. Therefore, we have to pray for the gospelization of Taiwan within five years. Starting from January of next year, the four hundred fifty full-timers will begin to move on this island. There are two hundred fifty from overseas in this term of the training. Out of these two hundred fifty, one hundred eighteen signed a petition requesting me to allow them to stay in Taiwan for at least a year. Some even requested to stay until Taiwan is fully gospelized. It would also be effective if only the native saints went door-knocking, yet it would definitely be more effective if every team included a foreigner, especially an American. Sometimes the same words are not as easily received when they are spoken by a Chinese person as when they are spoken by a foreigner.
Therefore, the gospelization, truth-ization, and church-ization of Taiwan in five years is a promising prospect. I hope the saints in all the churches in different localities would say amen from deep within to the Lord’s new move today and cooperate through prayer, with no one dissenting or speaking something different. Thank and praise the Lord that He gave us a unique way that succeeds into eternity!
(A message given in a conference on November 23, 1986 in Taipei.)