The service that God ordains for us in His New Testament economy is first to “Go therefore and disciple all the nations” (Matt. 28:19). The meaning of the word “go” is very extensive. When you go, surely you have to visit people. After our prolonged study, we have discovered that to visit people by knocking on their doors is the most effective way to carry out the going.
In order to take care of the begetting, nourishing, teaching, and building all at the same time, we should not beget too many all at once. If we do, we will not be able to nourish them. It is better that we beget only a few and then care for them properly. Hence, we do not need to knock on doors every day. We do not even need to do that every week, or every month. For example, there may be five or six brothers and sisters who are burdened to go out. You should then come together to pray until all the sins in you have been thoroughly dealt with and all of you are full of life. You can then go out three to a team to preach the gospel by visiting others by knocking on their doors. If you devote one evening a week to do this, after four weeks, you will gain about a dozen people. Dividing these new ones among the three, each will have three or four to care for. Then you should temporarily stop the door knocking and should spend your time to care for these three or four people.
If you care for them once every two or three days and continue this way for half a year, at least one out of three or four of these new ones will remain. This one that remains, after having been cared for, nourished, and helped for half a year, will be able to function in the church. By then, you can begin afresh, three to a team, to go out and knock on more doors. In another four weeks, you will gain about another dozen new ones, with each one of you caring for three or four. Then you will stop the door knocking again and will care for these new ones for another half a year. In this way, by the end of the year, you will surely have two remaining fruit. The Lord said, “I chose you, and I appointed you that you should go forth and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain” (John 15:16). If you would follow this way conscientiously, you will definitely bear two remaining fruit each year.
Moreover, you need to work according to your ability. Do not baptize too many people and leave them there without the proper nourishing. Also, do not try to go out all at the same time in a big crowd. Simply take your time to go out, three by three, at your convenience. According to the statistics we received from the Training Center, we should knock more on what we call the “warm doors.” Everyone has friends and relatives. You should put the people you know on a list, and you should visit them and preach the gospel to them after careful arrangement and proper telephone appointment. You can also ask the new ones to give you their business cards, with a few words on them to their friends and relatives, explaining that you are a devout Christian desiring to visit them. After such arrangements, the three of you can set out together.
After visiting people, preaching the gospel to them, and bringing them to salvation, you should care for them in the home meetings. This is like a mother who has just given birth to a baby; she has to nurse the baby. All the mothers know that it is very easy for a child to die during the first three months after he is born. The mother must care for the baby carefully and cautiously. After three months, the condition is more stable. In the same way, after you baptize a person, you should preferably spend one to two hours to nourish and teach him. Within three days, you must go back to him. Thereafter, you should visit him on an average of once every three days, or two times a week. If you care for him in this way for a month, his condition will become stable. To get the best result, the same person should beget, nourish, and care for the new one.
The home meetings are easy to conduct. But it requires your diligence. After a person is baptized, immediately you have to help him to call on the Lord so that he would know that he has a spirit and that the Lord is the Spirit and that He is living in him. Thereafter, once every three days, you should go back to him and teach him one lesson each time. For the content of these lessons, you can refer to the ten points that we have mentioned before. After a month, you should start bringing him to the small group meetings and the district meetings.