Last winter I read a book entitled The Pilings which was written by a Chinese Catholic priest. It mentioned that for the church to be built up, it must use pilings for its foundation in order to be stable. The pilings are the home meetings. As an example to illustrate his point, he said that the church assembly hall in Taiwan practiced home meetings and that they did the best in driving pilings.
In recent years we put much emphasis on the big meetings. When we saw the number decreasing, we changed our way of speaking. When we saw that people disliked what they were hearing, we changed to another topic. Whether we did it this way or that way, we were only concerned with the speaker. However, we did not really know how to use our family treasure—the home meetings. We went back to depending on big meetings and following the way of Christianity. This is my burden tonight: we must change our concept. The big meetings have their usefulness, but the people of the entire world are “on the ice.” We want to lead some of them to skate to the “land” and keep them in the home meetings. Only in this way can the church survive.
According to my several decades of experience, I know that when the home meetings were set up, at the beginning those who had not been meeting just came back to meet and give testimonies. This made everyone happy. After the second or third week had passed, what else could we speak? Serving a dessert again and again made it lose its taste. Why did these meetings not last long? Because there was no content. By now you have already experienced this taste. While I was in the United States, I received a letter from some brothers in Taipei that said, “The situation of the home meetings in Taipei is one-third up, one-third down, and one-third breaking even.” In accounting terms, the credit side was the same as the debit side, that is, it was a wasted effort. This is because everyone has the concept that we still depend on the big meetings. You are still hoping to have a capable speaker to come and preach to you.
For the home meetings to last, we must bring Christ. Only Christ will not wither; only Christ will not wane. There is a famous hymn in Christianity that goes, “Beautiful flowers will wither and the full moon will wane; only my best friend will never depart.” The best friend is the Lord Jesus. Perhaps you may say that your home meeting has not waned, nor has it withered, but I am afraid that over half of our home meetings are already like a night-blooming flower; midnight has passed and they have started to droop. Tonight I want to proclaim the word of John the Baptist—“Repent!” To repent means to change your concept. You must change your concept. Do not emphasize the big meetings. As a minimum, you must consider the home meetings to be on the same level as the big meetings.
I admit that the big meetings have their use and are necessary. We are now actively looking for land to build a big meeting hall. I can guarantee that the Lord will surely lead us to success. As soon as the big hall is completed, within half a year you will see its uses. Do we not want to evangelize Taiwan? At least five hundred new co-workers should be raised up each year. These young brothers and sisters need to be trained, and the training requires a place for them to live. On this land there will be not only a meeting hall, but also a place for activities which may serve as a weekend camp. The twenty-one halls of Taipei are twenty-one units. There are also almost twenty satellite churches surrounding Taipei. When both are added together, there are forty units, and each unit may use this facility for a week. Furthermore, the campus work of the churches in each locality will also be able to use it.
Our gospel must spread to the homes, cities, and villages. However, to really gain the good material, we need to go to the young students. Therefore, we need to work on the campuses. Based on our past experience, the most effective way to work on the campuses is through the summer and winter camps. We go to a campus to contact some gospel friends. When the weekend comes, we do not go to movies or dancing parties. We only go to look for gospel friends. Then we may tell them, “Our church has a mountain camp with a garden and dormitories. Let us go and stay there for a day.” If you bring them up to the mountain to have a walk together and a little talk, they will surely be saved.
We will build a baptismal on the mountain, so that people can be baptized as soon as they get saved. Every week we will bring people in groups up to the mountain. Out of the ten we bring up the mountain, even though not all ten will be baptized, at least there could be seven or eight. This is what has been on my heart. It is surely worth promoting. Those of you who are at least somewhat involved in the campus work all know that this is the most effective way. Especially today in Taiwan, when the weekend comes, the students do not like to stay on the campus. They will surely go out to travel. The best place is to go up to the mountain. The big meeting hall does have its uses, but if we simply do this kind of work and have no foundation, then we will still use the ice-skating way, and many will skate away. Just as they skate in, they will skate out.
When it comes to God’s work, the beginning is always the best. After it is handed over to man, it begins to go downhill. The beginning of Acts was the best. There was the “skating rink” in the big meetings to skate people in. Many skated in. Then there were the meetings from house to house to bring people into the foundation of the church. Once a person joined the home meetings, he was kept. This is God’s wisdom.
The churches in the Lord’s recovery on the five continents number about six hundred fifty in total. Particularly in Central and South America, the rate of increase has been very fast, and it is still increasing. My work in the United States is very busy, yet I had to come back to lead Taipei, to lay a good foundation here, because this is the model. If the source here is not clear, the work cannot be spread elsewhere. Thus, I beg you all to pick up the burden to pray and to strive together. Do not belittle the home meetings. Whether we can succeed, whether the Lord can work out a way among us, all depends on our effort now. Otherwise, the Lord will have to look for some other people, and we will go downhill, becoming yet another group in Christianity.