For this reason we need to have more research. I do not have time to visit all the serving saints in Taipei. If I would visit them, I believe that they would have excellent ideas. Some might just smile, while others might be sad and shed tears. Some of the elders may feel that the church has been supplying several full-timers every month, and even though they heard that several hundreds were baptized and many homes were opened, they could not see any increase in the number of people in the meeting hall. They “heard the thunder but saw no rain.” So where are the people? This may be compared to someone who hears that people planted fruit trees in the orchard and that the trees have grown very well and have borne much fruit, but he is not able to taste any of the fruit. What is this all about? On the one hand, the baptismal pool in hall number three is not idle throughout the day. In one moment someone on the street was brought in by the full-timers to be baptized; in another moment a taxi driver who was saved when the saints rode in his cab and preached the gospel to him was brought in to be baptized. This surely is very encouraging. On the other hand, the situation of the meetings also makes one sad. For this reason, we need to have some study and adjustment.
In our training, on the one hand, we are researching and experimenting, and on the other hand, we are also correcting. Therefore, we need subjective experiences. Because of my work in translating the Recovery Version of the New Testament, I do not have much time to research; you are my best assistants here. I would very much like to know what your feelings are concerning the practice of the new way since you have been going out every week to preach the gospel by door-knocking and to hold meetings in the homes. After all, is the practice of the new way proper? Is it convenient? Is it economical? Is there any room for improvement? I need your study and help in all these matters.
Firstly, the greatest matter that we need to study is the result of our knocking on doors for visiting people. Up to the present we have already visited close to twenty thousand homes with seven hundred and ten persons baptized and more than eighteen hundred homes welcoming us to revisit them. But have you considered how we are going to follow up and take care of them? Concerning the eighteen hundred homes, if we need to visit them once a week, how are we going to do it? And who can go? Secondly, now we have no problem bringing people to salvation; we can get a person baptized with only fifteen minutes of gospel preaching. But to be baptized is not to graduate and obtain a ticket to heaven. The recently baptized ones are like newborn babies. After we have begotten them, we should not neglect them; if we do not nourish or cherish them, they will surely die prematurely. To have remaining fruit depends on how we nourish and cherish them as a nursing mother. If we do not do well in this matter, then the churches will rise up to condemn us, saying that people were baptized too hastily and therefore have become premature babies, and that since we baptize people before the time is ripe, so many of them die after baptism. Therefore, this is also a big problem that requires us to carefully study and make improvement. Thirdly, concerning the new believers, how should we bring them to the church? Once a person is saved, spontaneously he is in the church and becomes a member of the church. But how do we bring them practically into the church life? This matter also needs to be studied.
In addition, I would like to make a serious statement: What we are studying and practicing here is not to be made public yet. Even when the saints in your locality ask what kind of training you are having and what we are teaching you, you have to explain it politely, without publicizing. We are not strictly prohibiting you to speak about what we are doing here. But what we are practicing and studying here is mostly experimental; hence, before we have some definite steps in a procedure, I want only you trainees to know, and it is best that the others do not know. This is not because we are trying to keep a secret here, nor is it because we are doing some hidden, shameful things. But before we have results from our research, I do not wish for everyone to be spreading rumors. What we are doing today might be changed tomorrow; if it is being spread outside from one to the other, this will cause many difficulties. I hope that we are clear on this point.
I also know the love of the saints. Although they are not in the training, they want to know what we are doing here and how we are leading here that they may closely follow. But we have also learned from previous mistakes. We did this in the past, but eventually the result was not good and even not sweet. This time the Lord has led us to have a new beginning, but nothing has been finalized; therefore, it is not time to put it forth yet. I told the saints in the United States, “We will let you know what we are doing and practicing. Whatever we do not let you know, you do not need to know. When we succeed in our research and have found by experimenting the concrete, workable steps, then we will teach you the whole thing and tell you how to do them. You will not miss anything.” Therefore, before we have the confidence, we should not make it known.
For this reason I am crying out in desperation here, hoping that those in the United States, Canada, and even the whole world can hear my cry: I urge all of you not to be anxious because now we are still in the stage of research; after the results of the research come out, you all can enjoy with us. However, human beings are human beings; hence, they are still very anxious and they insistently question what we are doing here. Now there are saints from the United States and Canada who desire to come and join the training; many who are not accepted feel very sad within, and they long to find out what is going on.
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