We should consider all the people we know and choose two or three unbelievers to care for the year round. We should not take care of too many. The best way to do this is to open our homes and invite them in. This is especially true for students. If we live on or close to a campus and have a way to contact people, it is easy to bring them to the Lord by inviting them to our home. Again, we should not invite too many, perhaps only two or three or even just one. Then we will know the best way to contact them. If we care for a certain one in this way and invite him to our home, he will be saved in half a year. Learn to do this.
There is also the need, especially for the young brothers and sisters, to have the habit of distributing tracts. We may do this on the street corner, on the bus, or other places. We should always have a tract or booklet in our pocket, and whenever there is the opportunity, we can give one to someone. This is a great help to our gospel preaching. This will create the atmosphere for preaching. A church should prepare a number of good tracts and booklets with the address of the meeting place, printing them in the thousands, and the brothers and sisters should take some of them in their pocket and distribute them wherever they go. This will bring people in.
A church should also have gospel preaching on the street or in the park, not every day but once every one or two weeks. We also need a gospel preaching meeting of the church.
A gospel preaching meeting, however, is not the most important matter. If we are not balanced, a meeting for the gospel will not work. Instead, all the regular attendants of the church meetings should care year round, on the one hand, for two or three unbelievers, and on the other hand, for two or three younger, weaker believers. If we always have someone under our care in this way, we will see how much we will learn and how much growth in life we will have. This will help us and cause us to seek the Lord. It will enlarge our heart and capacity, not to care for our business, family, home, studies, or future, but to care for others. We will experience the Spirit of Christ, and we will have the attitude and heart of Christ.
Life, truth, service, gospel, and going out for the gospel always work together. We should not say that we are too shallow and young in life, so we should concentrate our attention only on life. If we do this, we will not have much growth in life for even three, four, or five years. But if we pay attention not only to life but also to truth, to the church meetings and service, and to the gospel, we will rapidly grow in life. In the spiritual life as in the physical life there is the need of different aspects. To be healthy in the physical life we need food, clothing, housing, and hygiene. We cannot take only one of these aspects. It is the same with the spiritual life. Life, truth, service, gospel preaching, and going out for the gospel are all basically necessary.
I have the assurance that the Lord is merciful to us. If in addition to this we are faithful to Him, in no more than three years some brothers and sisters will go out for the purpose of the gospel. Some may go to the east coast, Canada, Mexico, or South America, not as missionaries but simply as disciples going out for the gospel. For the Lord’s recovery we need to go out.
We cannot stay here merely meeting and talking in a spiritual way. If we do, the first year we may have fifty meeting with us, the next year fifty-one, the third year forty-nine, and the fourth year forty-five. If we lift up our standard too high, people will not come in. There are certain groups that speak much about spirituality, but after a few years their numbers are reduced. Finally everyone leaves because they cannot meet the high standard. This is one hundred percent wrong because it is unbalanced. A proper table needs four legs to be stable, and we also need to be balanced.
We all have to go on by the grace of God in the growth of life. We must know Christ as our life, know how to exercise our spirit, and know how to fellowship with Christ and contact Him not only day by day but also hour by hour. We also need to learn the lessons of the cross. These are the matters of life, but these are not all. If we have only these matters, we cannot grow properly; rather, we will be unhealthy. We also need to read the Word to know the truth in a living way. However, this is still not all. We also need the service. We need to come to the meetings to exercise, minister, contribute, function, and do everything we can to partake of the service. This also is a balance. In addition, we always need gospel preaching to bring people to the Lord. We should go to the street, the park, the city square, the schools, the factories, and to our businesses to do something for gospel preaching, the more the better. Still this is not all. Even life, truth, service, and the gospel are not sufficient or adequate. We also have to go out for the gospel.
Not all of us will go out for the gospel. Some will go, but all will follow them with prayer and even with the material supply. Then the Lord’s kingdom will be expanded. This is the right way, and this is proof that we mean business with the Lord and we are not merely talking in a good way. If we do this, whatever the Lord has shown us will constantly increase, spread, and expand, as it did in the book of Acts.
Many Christians, including us, are not adequately balanced. To some degree, we go to one extreme or the other. May the Lord be merciful to us. We should not go to any extreme. We need to be balanced in several directions—in life, truth, service, gospel preaching, and in going out for the gospel. Therefore the church should stress that all the regular attendants do something for gospel preaching to reach unbelievers and to bring people to the Lord.
To be faithful in this matter, we must offer much prayer to the Lord, and we must be dealt with by the Lord. We may need to pray, “Lord, I cannot bring this person to You. Why is this?” We may be wrong or short in certain matters, so we must be dealt with, made right, and learn the lessons. Then we will know many things, not in speech only but in practice. This is the proper way for us to be balanced. If we do this, the church will be very much benefited, and we will gain the advantage to grow in life.