As you are teaching the young people in your class, you should frequently talk to them in a personal and practical way. For instance, you might say, “Are you not unhappy when your brother or sister has something that you do not have? Do you not hate that? Also, have you not offended your parents many times? Do you not have a sense deep within that it is wrong to offend your parents? Do you not realize that you should honor, respect, regard, and love your parents?” Instead of only covering the points in the lesson book, talk to the young people in a very personal way. Every point of the lesson should be presented in a way that will create an experiential impression. Apply every point to their actual situation.
When you teach a class in the Summer School of Truth, do not take the way of giving messages or lectures. Instead, you need to have personal talks with the young people, teaching every point experientially. As you are talking with them, you should be watchful over each one, paying particular attention to their expressions. This will help you to know the needs of your students. Then in the next class session you should endeavor to meet these needs. As the Lord leads you, you may speak to certain ones in particular and then ask them to pray with you. In this way you will help them to open up, you will strengthen their praying spirit, and you will bring them into the experience of the truths which you are presenting.
The principle is the same with preaching the gospel. When we preach the gospel, we should not just gather people together and give them a message. We should have direct, personal contact with people. We may give a message, but afterward, according to the condition of the attendants, we need to talk with them in a personal way about their need. Then we should pray with them. We all need to learn to do this.
The hardest thing for us to do in teaching in an experiential way is to get people to pray with us. You may be able to give a message and talk with others, but when you come to the point where it is necessary to pray, you may be void of the praying spirit. If you are void of the praying spirit, you cannot stir up a praying spirit in someone else. If you want to stir up a praying spirit in the person with whom you are speaking, you yourself must be a person who is full of the praying spirit.
I hope that there will be much prayer in your class in the Summer School of Truth. Adequate prayer will accomplish at least three things. It will impress the young people in an experiential way with the points of the lesson; it will stir up the praying spirit within them; and it will cause them to become living. Those who attend such a summer school will surely become very living.
Let us not merely train the young people in our summer school with the knowledge of truth. Mere doctrinal knowledge is vain, and I have no confidence in it. Rather, let us impress the young ones with truth as the reality of God’s economy. This is the truth which we are burdened to impart to our young people. In order to carry out this burden, you need to put into practice all the points we have covered in this message. Be governed by a clear view of God’s economy; fan into flame the gift of God which is within you; and be a person of prayer with an atmosphere of prayer who can stir up a praying spirit in others. As a teacher in the Summer School of Truth, you should be ready to pray at any time. Then you will be able to teach.
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