Furthermore, we also need to take the Body as our means (Rom. 12:5). This Body is not our body, but Christ’s. When you go to preach the gospel, the entire Body is going, not you alone. You are preaching in the Body and serving in the Body. We are the Body of Christ, and in this Body every member serves (Rom. 12:4; 1 Cor. 12:7, 11). Moreover, each one serves in the coordination of the Body, resulting in a corporate service of the Body (Rom. 12:5). In preaching the gospel, it is best that three or five join together, with some of them going out to preach, others praying at home, and all having fellowship together afterwards. This is coordination.
The big gospel meetings of the past were good except for one shortcoming: only one spoke and not all could function. Suppose everyone here in the audience would go and contact people for gospel preaching by either visiting, making phone calls, or writing gospel letters. I believe the result of all this would be much greater than that of one man speaking every day. I realize that you are often occupied, but still you can do this kind of work once a week. You can make telephone calls. Try to get some telephone numbers. You can begin by calling up your relatives, acquaintances, colleagues, or classmates and talking with them on the phone. You can also make an appointment to visit them or write a gospel letter to them. I absolutely believe that if you would do these three things together-letter writing, telephoning, and visiting-in the coordination of the Body, they will be very effective.
In most big corporations today, tasks are spread out among many people and not concentrated in the hands of a few. Our mistake in the old way was due to the principle of being dependent on one or two persons to do everything. Modern business administration seeks to abandon this principle in favor of division of labor and mutual cooperation. This is also the principle of our practice of the new way-everyone should be involved. The clearest example of this is that two thousand new fruit have been brought in during the past year or so by two hundred people who went to the countryside to spread the gospel. Surely we would not have gained this fruit if these two hundred had not gone out. In the same respect, would we not have gained still more if we had sent out more? If we had relied only on a few speakers, the number we would gain in a few years would probably be quite small.
For this reason, I want to share with you one thing which can be easily achieved. I hope that after their graduation from college, our young people would not be anxious to further their education or to find jobs immediately. Rather, they should set apart two years of their time for church service by serving the Lord on a full-time basis. They should spend a year in the training and another year in the villages. After two years, they can then consider how the Lord would lead them-to serve the Lord full-time for the rest of their lives or to serve the Lord with a job like most others. By this way, there will be a rotation of serving ones among us to bring the gospel to all of Taiwan.
We have not fully preached the gospel even in Taipei. The total number of saved people in Taiwan does not amount to five percent of its total population. If the college graduates among us would be led to serve the church for two years upon graduation by preaching the gospel in a persistent, steady, and diligent way through phone calls, gospel letters, or visitations, and if they would be coordinated with all the saints in the corporate service of the Body, I do believe the church will experience a great increase.
I have been taking the lead in the practice of the new way here for more than five years. There are still three things that I would like to do which have not been done. First, the majority of the eighty or more elders in the twenty-three halls in Taipei are young people. All these elders need shepherding. Yet we have not had the appropriate persons to shepherd them in the past few years. Second, in the past practice of the new way we have stressed only door-to-door visitation for gospel preaching and not telephoning or letter writing. From now on, we must do all three. At the same time, we need to hold “reaping” meetings at least once a month, so that our gospel can be preached more thoroughly and completely. We should bring our contacts from our districts, groups, and homes together to hear the preaching of the truths of the gospel by the gifted ones that they may be reaped. Third, we do not yet have an adequate meeting hall to accommodate the increase of believers among us. I anticipate that in the near future we will be able to build a meeting hall that can seat ten thousand people on our property on Hsin-Yi Road. Then we can have conferences every two or three months to release the Lord’s messages. This is also a great need. Do pray much for the ongoing developments concerning the building up of that hall.
Home | First | Prev | Next