My burden is that the co-workers and elders must give some of their burdens to others. Regardless of how hard they work, the co-workers and elders can bear only so much. Hence, they must raise up the saints to be useful. If the co-workers and elders have a change of concept, it will be easy to change the situation; otherwise, the work will come to a stop, and we will have problems.
Suppose that in a locality there are three elders who truly love the Lord and are irreproachable. However, they are not willing to allocate responsibilities to the saints or bring others into the service. All the responsibilities in that local church are on their shoulders. The more these elders serve, the more experienced they become, and the eldership becomes a lifelong occupation; that is, they occupy a “position” of being elders. In this situation there is no possibility for new elders to be raised up. Even though these elders love and fear the Lord, are irreproachable, attend the meetings regularly, and are faithful and responsible in taking care of the church affairs, they can do only so much. They must be willing to share the burden and perfect the saints.
Since the three elders have been serving for many years, their local church becomes their territory, even though they do not make this claim consciously. As a result, any co-worker who goes there to serve must do things the way that the elders direct. This means that the elders limit the co-workers. Any co-worker who goes there will be restricted and immobilized. The young saints in that local church will not be raised up and will not gain experience. Although the young ones love the Lord and are in their twenties, they will seem rash and reckless. They will be under the direction of the elders, who regard them as unsuitable to do anything but accept the elders’ directions. Thus, the young saints will leave, and new elders will not be raised up. Under this situation, such a local church does not have a future. The three elders love the Lord, tithe more than ten percent, are in every meeting, and bear all the responsibilities in the church. They are busy serving God with a conscience void of offense, and the Lord has kept them faithful for twenty years; they have made no mistakes. Nonetheless, as a result of their service, the local church is dead. There is no way for the local church to increase. This is our basic problem.
The co-workers first need to learn and then teach. They must learn to teach the saints. Without this change, our work will stop. We will have no way to spread unless the Lord changes our environment by sending us to another island to do a pioneering work. That would give us the possibility of a fresh start to begin the work from scratch. If we do not change our way, we will not learn something new; rather, we will keep the old things and have only old people. The co-workers and elders will occupy their “positions.” They will serve for many years, loving the Lord and being irreproachable, but they will be unable to bring other saints into the service. Since there is no clear word in the Bible concerning the retirement of elders, and the elders love the Lord and have no desire to retire, no one asks them to retire. As a result, if other saints are not brought into the service, the elders will, according to a Chinese saying, “occupy the nest but not lay any eggs.” This will cause problems.
Even though the elders are good, they are unable to bring others into service and cannot teach others. In such a situation a co-worker would be of little help. Although the elders do not make mistakes or commit any sin, the church will not increase, and the second generation will be lost. Hence, we must change our concept. In a family it does not matter how much a grandfather is able to do, he must teach the next generation and let the younger ones bear the responsibility of the family. If we do not change our concept and our system, we will reach a point where we can no longer grow.
In the churches in Taiwan many saints have been baptized, many have been recovered, and the saints are in one accord. This is very good. Nevertheless, there is no increase in the number of saints. After studying this situation, we believe the basic problem is that the responsible saints are good but are unwilling to change and to teach other saints until everyone is brought into function. We must change this trend. The elders must change, and the co-workers must change; everyone must change. Then there will be more saints who can serve in the churches. Furthermore, it will not matter where the co-workers go; whether they stay in one place or go to a new place for the spread, the churches will not suffer any loss.
Without a change we will not be able to undertake the work in large cities. In other words, we will not be able to establish a large church. At most we will produce churches that are as large as the church in Taipei currently is. The co-workers and elders cannot handle more than that. We can produce a local church with two to three thousand saints, but we do not have the capacity to do more than this. In order to increase our capacity, we must change our way. Our capacity should not be limited to what we can do. We must use the younger saints and encourage them to serve. The increase in capacity of a local church depends on the younger saints. We must therefore maximize our use of the younger saints. Although there is no basis for elders retiring, in principle the older elders should be willing to reduce their responsibilities and bring the next generation, the middle-age saints, into the service according to their function.
If we do not have a breakthrough in this matter, the work in Taiwan will hit a barrier. No matter how much more we work, we will merely maintain our present situation. This is our capacity. Without fresh troops, an army has no way to win a battle. Likewise, we cannot spread unless we bring in both new saints and younger saints. However, this does not mean that we should have a revolution and ask all the senior elders to retire. If the system does not change, even if we appoint new elders, our situation will remain the same. This is not a revolution related to leadership but a change in our system of leading. Those who are serving now should continue to serve, but new manpower must be added. We need to produce new serving ones by teaching other saints and asking them to serve with us.
The districts have the same situation as the local churches. Every district resembles a small territory. The responsible brothers for a district try their best to take care of everything in the district. However, they are somewhat indifferent to matters pertaining to the whole church, since that is not their territory. This is the situation of some families. A son may be capable and keep his room tidy, but he does not care if the rest of the house is messy. It seems as if we care only for our districts; we do not care for the needs of the church. This is our situation.
In recent years the number of saints in district one has decreased instead of increasing. Moreover, there are fewer serving ones. We must study this situation and find the cause of the problem in order to improve. In the past there were many serving ones in district one. Fewer serving ones means that the saints are not functioning; instead, only the responsible ones in the district are functioning. If our situation is normal, the responsible ones will not be the only ones functioning; all the saints will be functioning. This is what we are lacking today. If we can serve to the extent that every saint bears some responsibility, our situation will change.