In the Bay area, for instance, I did my best to avoid this trouble. Some of you, I know, also tried to avoid this. In fact, I am concerned that among some of you there is still the desire to avoid this. If in your heart you are thinking, “How good it will be if there is no Chinese-speaking meeting,” you are trying to avoid this. But the situation does not give you any way to escape.
If you avoid this, the church which you take care of will surely suffer. It has been suffering already. At least three years ago, a Chinese-speaking meeting should have been set up in the Bay area. I am not criticizing; at most I am analyzing. Three years ago there was a great demand for such a meeting, but there was a strong avoiding. I did not say anything at that time, because I knew the time was not ripe. But don’t think I feel the time is ripe now so I am initiating it. The setting up of Chinese meetings was not initiated by me. It was Abraham Chang who started it. Since it has been initiated, however, the tide is going on. If we, all of us, refuse to have a Chinese-speaking meeting set up in the Bay area, the church will suffer. I do not say this in a light way. By the Lord’s mercy, I speak very seriously.
Especially three or four places in the Bay area need such a meeting. There is no need to mention San Francisco because that is almost a Chinese meeting. But San Jose and Berkeley both need one. Probably Sacramento does too; I’m not sure. As for the other places in the Bay area, like Santa Cruz, Pleasant Hill, and Hayward, the scale is still small and the need has not yet become evident. But where there is a need, if we delay, under today’s atmosphere the church will suffer. We must consider how to find a way.
Tonight we have a number of brothers added. Most of them are the ones who will take care of such meetings. This doesn’t mean that they are elders or will be elders.
Let me give you an illustration of the type of situation you will face. Last weekend four brothers from Palo Alto told me that they now have twenty saints coming together in a brother’s home for the prayer meeting. They feel a meeting is needed, and they are ready to have the church life started there. I told them that we did attempt to start the church life in Palo Alto more than five years ago. Then I received a phone call from a brother who already had a little meeting there under his hand. After resigning from the eldership in San Francisco, he took over a little group which was an outpost of the church in San Francisco. Some saints were unhappy about it, so instead of joining him they kept going to San Francisco or San Jose. When this brother heard that the brothers in the Bay area had a burden to start the church life in Palo Alto, he called me, saying, “Brother Lee, we are all one family. We are already here, meeting as a local church. Why are the brothers coming here to compete with us?”
I realized the situation was complicated. Without hesitating, I fellowshipped with the brothers that probably the time was not right. The number was few, although one brother had bought a house for this purpose. Since there were so few who would be going there, it would be better not to go and get involved in the complicated situation. Because of this, the brothers retreated, and the one who had bought a house sold it.
Well, when the four brothers from Palo Alto came to me this time, I realized that they were aware of that situation. I told them, “The problem still exists there. If you want to start the church life, you surely need to clarify some of those things.” Then they asked how to do this.
“First of all,” I answered them, “you must clarify yourselves. Why did we feel the situation there in Palo Alto was not clear? We were deeply concerned as to whether they were clear about the truth. We also questioned, sorry to say, whether their motive was pure. Was their understanding of the truth clear? Was their motive pure? These questions bothered us because of the way that outpost was taken over. If there was the likelihood that that outpost was going to be a church, it should have been done under a sweet fellowship. But there was no fellowship. All of a sudden a kind of church was set up. If there were no other city on earth which had a church, there might not be a problem. But Palo Alto is one city among many cities in the Bay area with churches; and it was originally an outpost of an already-existing church. For such an outpost suddenly to become a church without fellowshipping with the nearby churches raises the question as to what kind of ground it is on.
“Brothers,” I continued, “this complicated situation came about because of doubtful ground and a motive not so pure. If you want to begin the church life, how about your motive? If you are unhappy with the church you are now attending and still think this is the time to start a church in your locality (they all live in Palo Alto), this doesn’t qualify you. If my motive was not pure, even if the conditions were favorable, even if I knew about the flesh and the lesson of the cross, I would never start a church. I would choose rather to drive a half hour to keep meeting in that place, even if that is another city.”