Looking back, from 1949 to 1957 there were many small groups and they retained people. Once we began to practice the small groups people were brought in. On the other hand, because there were not many capable speakers, the message delivery was not that strong. This is the weakness of the home meetings. Now let us compare the profit and loss. The advantage of the home meetings is that it is easy to bring people in and retain them. But if the contents are poor, this weakness can be remedied. In the United States there are many schools with thousands of students and many teachers. If you expect every teacher to be like Billy Graham, then there is no way for the schools to go on. It does not matter how capable Billy Graham is; he cannot compare to those thousands of teachers, each one teaching twenty-five students. This is more than enough. In this way the education will be successful.
The Lord’s wisdom is great. From the beginning there were big meetings in the temple and small group meetings in the homes. This was a good start which developed a good habit and laid a good foundation. On the day of Pentecost, as soon as one got saved, right away he began to speak. But our concept is not like this. We wonder how a person who just got saved yesterday can begin to preach today. We cannot believe that this is possible. This kind of view and atmosphere kills people. Who does not know how to speak? Even the most stupid person is able to learn a language. After learning, he naturally will speak. On the spiritual side, once we are saved, we have the Spirit of the Lord, we pray, we read the Bible, we attend the meetings, and we listen to so many messages. Yet when it is our turn to speak, we say that we do not know how. This is how the habit of having the big meetings has damaged us. The big meetings have killed all the functions of the saints and deprived people of their rights.
An elderly person will become sick if he stops walking for a few days. But all the sicknesses will disappear when he practices walking a few thousand steps every day. If an elderly person can be recovered by exercise, how much more this will do to a young person! The reason you are not able to speak is because you do not speak. The big meetings have killed the people’s opportunity to exercise. The reason that we all do not speak is that we do not know how to speak. But, as an old Chinese saying says, “Three stinky cobblers are better than one smart general.” If we rely only on the speakers, no one will like to speak in the meetings. I do not believe that anyone will prepare anything before the meetings. Everyone will come in to the meetings with a mouth waiting to be fed. If you do not give your children the opportunity to practice speaking while they are little, and later on you blame them for not knowing how to speak, it is because their father talks too much. Every time the father opens his mouth he gives a lecture. This causes the children to become dumb. I would rather have the father speak less and let the children speak more. Very often the so-called capable gifts kill many other gifts.
Now we need to use our calm mind and quiet spirit to consider the actual situation. I am very concerned that in the past twenty-seven years the number in the church in Taipei has not increased but rather decreased. Every aspect of the church in Taipei is stable, and there is no excuse for not having any increase. In Taiwan civilization is highly developed, education is widespread, the economy is prosperous, and public safety is well maintained. All the conditions are met, yet there has been no increase. This must mean that we have missed the mark. I am like a businessman wanting to see whether there is any profit after closing the account. It does not matter how well you have done; a loss indicates that something is not right. People who open factories and shops count money, but in the church we count people. In the business world making money does not prove everything, but in the church the number of people means everything. Without adequate gospel preaching in the church there will be no increase in number; without proper shepherding the church will not retain people; without adequate building up the number still will not increase. Only when the number in the church increases does it prove that every aspect of the church is doing well. As long as the number decreases, it does not matter how much you say a certain aspect is doing well, it is still not doing well. If a person is healthy, yet he cannot give birth to a child, this kind of health is not real health. The statistics of the church are absolutely the statistics of the number of people.