When you go door-knocking, you have to pay attention to your attitude. You should never be reckless or hasty. Rather, you should be modest, courteous, gentle, respectful, dignified, and weighty. Moreover, when you speak, you should learn to be concise instead of being wordy and to be affectionate instead of being cold. If you are too wordy and mechanical, people may close their door immediately or find an excuse to reject you. Thus, you have to exercise to speak straightforwardly, directly, affectionately, and politely. If they answer, “I do not have time,” you should not give up. Instead, you should say, “It will take you just one minute.” Eventually, the person may be saved and baptized because of this one-minute gospel preaching. It is because we have had this kind of experience that we practice the “one-minute gospel.”
Even if you have learned all the truths, a person whom you visit by knocking on his door will not be able to discern that. However, if you take out a book and open it to read with him, his attitude will instantly become more respectful. This also was one of the results of our experiment in Taipei. Anything that is printed in a volume or published as a book is something that is not common. Words that are trivial will not be printed in a book. It does not matter who the person is or how high his speaking skill is, no one can speak as neatly and concisely as a book. The words used in our books have been considered over and over again during the course of writing. Therefore, the wording and the phrasing are clearer and more concise. One co-worker told me, “I found out that while door-knocking, especially on the college campuses, it is useless to speak our own words. The more efficient way is to read our publications. Sometimes I simply open up the Recovery Version and ask the person to read a paragraph of a footnote, and he gets saved.” He also uses the life-studies from time to time. He simply opens them for the person to read a section, and the person gets saved. The words of the footnotes in our Recovery Version are refined and pure, and they are also the crucial truths. Some of the sections in our life-studies are also very important. We need to learn to use these.
The booklet The Mystery of Human Life has also been greatly used by the Lord in this year. I believe that the total print quantity of this booklet in all the localities is about one million copies. Hence, we also have to learn to use this booklet. While using it, do not be wordy; furthermore, the shorter the time you take the better. First, you should memorize the four main sections. The first section is on God’s creation, the second section is on man’s fall, the third section is on Christ’s redemption, and the fourth section is on God’s dispensing. While you are reading with someone, do not read from the beginning to the end in a dead and rigid way. You need to learn to follow the Spirit’s leading within you. When you sense you need to read a certain section, then turn to that section and read it. Do not read too much; if you read too much, you will lose the Lord in the reading. A sales person once told me that the technique to making sales is not to speak too much. Just speak a few sentences that are clear and concise, and then draw the person to say, “Very good.” Once you hear this word, you should immediately say, “Very good; please buy one!” and take out your order book. Because he has already said it is good, he will be reluctant to refuse.
A brother once testified that the person he visited said that his speaking was very good. I instructed those present that this was the right moment to “tie the knot” and lead that person to pray. If that person would pray, he would believe and receive the Lord, and then the brother should baptize him. However, if he would not grasp the opportunity but would continue to talk, the opportunity may slip away, and he would not be able to “close the deal.” However, some brothers present said, “We are afraid that this is too fast; we are still strangers to one another.” Such a consideration means that it is not the new one who is not willing to pray, but it is you who are not willing to pray. It is not that he is not willing to lose his face, but it is you who are not willing to lose your face in leading the prayer. I am speaking these things from my experience. It was the same with me in the past. When I went to lead someone to the Lord, often at the critical juncture I did not have the boldness to lead him to pray. Instead, I kept thinking that it might be too early and that I should not take the opportunity. Once I lost the opportunity, though, I may have lost it for my whole life; I may never have had the opportunity to see him again.
Brother Nee once told us that gospel preachers have to be thick-skinned. Those who are thin-skinned cannot lead people to salvation. Perhaps some brothers and sisters would say, “If this is the case, then since I am such a thin-skinned person, I may as well forget about going out to knock on doors.” You may do so as long as you have the peace, but everyone else will still continue to knock on doors. In the past, when I saw strangers, I would start sweating, and my face would turn red. Every time my mother wanted to invite people to our home, I would be the first one to object because I did not like to meet strangers, and I disliked even more going to other people’s homes. Therefore, when I had to preach the gospel to others and lead them to pray at the end, I could not relax my face or open my mouth. Later the Lord arranged the environment and forced me into a situation in which I had to stand and speak from the platform. It does not matter if you are thin-skinned; as long as you are willing to practice, willing to go visit by door-knocking, slowly you will have the boldness. On the other hand, while you are door-knocking, you must learn the technique of grasping the opportunity to lead a person to believe and pray. Immediately after he prays, you should show him Romans 10:13, which says, “For ‘whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’” Then say to him, “My friend, congratulations! You are saved!” The next thing is to lead him to be baptized.
Before October of 1984, I did not thoroughly study the Bible regarding the most appropriate way of baptism. Christianity has unceasingly debated the two ways of baptism—baptism by immersion or baptism by sprinkling. Baptism by immersion is to put the entire person into the water, whereas baptism by sprinkling is merely to drop some water on the person. The Bible speaks only about the need for baptism, but it does not emphasize the method of baptism. After one and a half years of door-knocking, our study has shown us that the important matter is not how we baptize people but how to baptize people at the opportune time. Sometimes the person we visit has already believed and received the Lord; he has already prayed to be saved. In this case we must baptize him immediately. If we insist on a method, such as bringing him to the meeting hall’s baptistery to be baptized, then before we reach the meeting hall, he probably will have changed his mind and made up excuses to not be baptized. There have been times when some people already had arrived at the meeting hall to be baptized; however, when they were about to change their clothes, they rejected the idea and ran away. Therefore, you have to carry out the baptism while “the iron is still hot.” Once you see the opportunity, you should grasp it and baptize people. There are many new and modern apartment buildings in Taipei where there is a big bathtub in the bathroom, and the temperature of the water is easily managed to be hot or cold. As long as there is the opportunity for baptism, the sisters can go fill the tub with water while others are praying. Then after the prayer, the brothers can baptize the person. Sometimes the bathtub is big enough only for the lower part of the body to be baptized. In that case we can pour water on the upper part. This kind of baptism by half immersion and half pouring is also convenient. Hence, do not pay attention to the form but rather to the Spirit.
Beginning from this August, the saints who are coming to join the Full-time Training in Taipei will include almost five hundred from Taiwan, close to one hundred fifty from America, twenty or more from Europe, and a few from South America and Africa. Thus, the number of trainees will be well over six hundred fifty. Including twenty to thirty language class teachers, the total will be over seven hundred. This time the training has one regulation, that is, that the trainees have to go out and visit people two mornings a week and also visit the community and college campuses every afternoon and on the evenings when there are no scheduled meetings. Each of the seven hundred trainees should baptize at least one person per week. In this way, two thousand eight hundred people will be baptized in just a few weeks. I hope that from now on not only the full-time trainees but also each elder and co-worker will practice door-knocking and visiting people. This is the first item we should practice. Maybe we cannot go out to knock on doors every day, but one thing we can do is spend two to three hours each week for door-knocking. We should visit not only those whom we know but also those we do not know. We should knock on all the doors in the district in which we live. Do not worry or be anxious. As long as we are willing to do it, we will be successful.