This does not mean that once we go back to the home meetings we will drop all big meetings. Even the airplanes today cannot violate God’s law of creation. They must depend on two wings to fly. The big meetings are one wing and the home meetings are another wing. Both wings are needed. However, in the long run the small gatherings are more dependable than the big ones.
Dear brothers, truly from my spirit I am asking you—I am actually begging you—to receive the Lord’s leading today. If you do not believe my words, you can wait and see. If we cannot follow the Lord, then He will have to find others, just as He found us in the beginning. If we should go back to repeat the history of Christianity, then the Lord would say, “All right, that is enough. I must go to others.” Big meetings definitely cannot reach God’s goal. To reach God’s goal we must depend on small gatherings.
Today is the scientific era. In everything we are all accustomed to specialization. When we are sick, we go to the doctor; when we are sued, we go to the lawyer; and when we need prayers, we go to the pastor. This is because only doctors know medicine, only lawyers know the law, and only pastors know how to pray. Such concepts as these are natural. The poison of Christianity has spread into us. Subconsciously, we also would like to have a specialist to preach to all of us. However, even sixty years ago I had already seen that the Lord called us out to go this way to be His testimony. This testimony is different from this age, and it is absolutely different from today’s Christianity. The Lord’s recovery is absolutely not just another work in Christianity.
Nevertheless, in Taipei, the birthplace of the Lord’s recovery in Taiwan, in the past twenty-six or twenty-seven years the brothers have faithfully “kept the family property,” which is to emphasize the big meetings without having the small gatherings. Even though everyone has been endeavoring to testify for the Lord, unconsciously we have been going downhill on a seemingly level road. Over twenty years this downward trend has made quite a difference. Now I beg everyone to change his concept, to turn his attention from the big meetings to the small gatherings. Try your best to do this. Dear brothers and sisters, there is no other way. If we depart from this, we can only go downhill and will be in the same stream as Christianity. We will be unable to keep the Lord’s present testimony.
If we are faithful to keep the Lord’s present testimony, we must do our best to build up the home meetings. Do not think the home meetings cannot bring people into salvation. Let me tell you, in the eleven years after we moved to Anaheim, we had increase in the first three years, but in the last eight years, because of the rising up of the libelous ones, there were hardly any English-speaking ones brought in. Then, after the home meetings began in January 1985, within three months forty or fifty were added. All of these were not brought in through the big meetings but through the home meetings. Another discovery is that people brought in through the home meetings are remaining fruit. People who slip in through the big meetings will also slip out at the end of the big meetings. Therefore, by comparison, the effort spent saving people in the home meetings is more dependable than that spent in the big meetings.
We do not plan to drop the big meetings. On the Lord’s Day when everyone has a day off, we ought to use big meetings to preach the truth, spread the gospel, and seize the opportunity to propagate the work of the Lord. However, if we should totally depend on the big meetings as in the past, we would give up the future of the Lord’s recovery.
From now on we must all turn and put our attention on the home meetings. This is the fundamental level of the church meetings. On this solid fundamental level we can expand. The big meetings are useful but not dependable, whereas the home meetings are dependable. I hope this kind of fellowship will get into you. I plead with you to receive this vision and revelation. Let us spare no effort, but with one heart work in coordination to strengthen and enrich the home meetings. Then the Lord will have a way. I know that if the Lord speaks these words into your being, then the blessing is upon us and the horizon is glorious and full of expectation!