I originally intended to use only the first two nights to speak about the home meetings. But the more I speak the more burden I have. Tonight I will speak more on the comparison of the profit and loss of the home meetings and the big meetings. I feel that we should consult the methods of others and also reconsider our experiences in the past thirty-six years here in Taipei. I believe that by comparing these two kinds of meetings, we will receive much benefit.
We must admit that God’s wisdom surpasses all. God’s works are created by Him and accomplished by Him and have no need of any improvement. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out. As a result three thousand were saved. Immediately the church was established and began to meet.
Acts 2:46 says, “And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house.” Furthermore, we see in verse 42 that they were continuing steadfastly in the teaching of the apostles. Here we see a clear picture that the church meetings include on the one hand the big meetings and on the other hand the small gatherings. The big meetings were in the temple and the small gatherings were from house to house. In the big meetings in the temple surely Peter spoke and others listened to his speaking. When it came to the meetings from house to house, there must have been a good number of people sharing what they had heard in the temple.
Verse 42 says, “...continuing steadfastly in the teaching...of the apostles,” and verse 46 says, “breaking bread from house to house.” These two verses are two little show windows through which you can see the contents inside. They met from house to house and everyone spoke. They did not speak of their own things but they continued steadfastly in the teaching of the apostles and spoke whatever Peter had spoken. Within one to two days one speaking brother, Peter, was propagated into hundreds of speaking brothers and sisters.
No one can deny that the home meetings have recovered some people, but they also have a danger. The danger of the home meetings is that while the capable ones are holding back, those who speak nonsense will speak in the meetings. The result of this situation is that nobody enjoys the meetings. In my garden there was a piece of lawn where the old grass was not growing. The brothers came to replace it for me, and they threw pieces of new sod here and there. After two to three months, these pieces of new sod all spread out and green grass grew everywhere. In a few years the grass will have no place to grow. Then it will crowd itself out and it all will become old. From this matter I learned a lesson that the church is like this. In Taipei, at the beginning we “threw pieces of sod out,” but we did not have the assurance, for example, that the small meeting in Mu Zha was a church. We dared not say that the one in Shi Lin was a church or that the one in Pei Tao was a church, fearing that they would all be scattered by this kind of throwing out. But history tells us that the piece in Mu Zha became a church, the piece in Shi Lin became a church, and the piece in Pei Tao also became a church. Originally we were extremely worried about the small number meeting in Yong Ho and expended much effort there. To our surprise, today Yong Ho is larger than hall one in Taipei. Brothers and sisters in Yong Ho, if you do not spread further you will become old.
Today in the church in Taipei there is too much old grass crowding there. In 1949 we met first in hall one. The following year meeting halls were built. Immediately after the subdivision the small groups were established, group after group. All these pieces of sod were scattered and they grew very fast. Later on we got distracted, and a group of young people were influenced. They began to have dissenting opinions. In these circumstances the Lord led me to the United States. Since I arrived in the United States in 1960, three hundred fifty churches have been raised up in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Australia. Yet here in Asia we have degraded into the Christianity way of meeting, the way of emphasizing the big meetings. The meetings in homes and small groups were either put aside or disregarded. We hoped that the big meetings would be attractive and that the number attending the big meetings would increase. We gave message after message, expecting to raise up some capable speakers. But this way did not bring in many and retained even fewer people. After twenty-seven years of labor the actual number of those attending the meetings was lower than it was over twenty years ago. This is the history. In these twenty-seven years many were baptized but they were not retained.