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The content of the training was very rich. Brother Nee gave messages for six hours a day, five days a week. Some of the details are as follows:

  1. How to be a minister of God's Word. A minister of the Word is one who serves men with God's Word.
    1. You must know how to use your spirit. To be a minister of the Word, the basic requirement is that you learn how to use your spirit; otherwise, what you do will be from the soul, the emotion, and the mind.
    2. You must touch authority. A worker must touch authority. He must not only submit to direct authority but also to deputy authority. Only one who touches authority and learns to obey can be the authority and can minister God's Word.
    3. You must know people. You must know whether the spiritual condition of the brothers and sisters is proper or abnormal before you can help them. To know people, you must not simply listen to their words, but learn to touch their spirit. This requires that you yourself receive God's serious dealing and let God dig deep and touch you thoroughly. If you have never been dealt with and if you are unclear and foolish, you can never know others. So you must live in God's light.
    4. Learn how to study God's Word.
      1. Spend time. Especially the young people must spend time to study the Word.
      2. You must be the right person. What kind of person you are determines what kind of Bible you read. You should not be sloppy, subjective, hardened, or curious.
    5. Learn how to deliver God's Word. You must not preach yourself, but the Word. With some, what comes out of their speaking is not God's Word, but man's thinking, concept, and opinion. Not only must your spiritual condition be right, even your words must be right. Otherwise, people will not touch God or receive light and supply.
    6. You must have revelation and a burden. One who serves the Lord must receive revelation from God and discharge that burden. Only thus can you give people the real supply.
  2. How to help new believers:
    1. The past must be torn down. After a new believer has been saved, he still carries on his back all the things of his former life. He mixes the Lord's life with all his past. In evaluating himself, he is still righteous and proud; he still covets vainglory; he still has a peculiar temper and cannot get along with others. All these things must be done away, and he must become like a little child in order that he might begin to be a new man.
    2. Christians have a standard. There is a standard for the Christian in his living, concept, and opinion. If he does not know this standard, it will be very easy for him to boast in himself, be satisfied with himself, and trust in himself. What he thinks is wrong may not be wrong, and what he thinks is right may not be right. Only those who know this standard know what things they should not do and what words they should not speak. Only those who know the standard are able to discover what is right and what is wrong. The kind of edification that new beginners need is that which helps them tear down what should be torn down and add what should be added. Only by this means can they be expected to become Christians with a Christian standard.
    3. Practice:
      1. Who is a new beginner?
        1. After a sinner believes in the Lord and is baptized, he is a new beginner. Regardless of his age, education, position, or experience in the world, he needs to receive the new beginners' edification.
        2. Those who have believed in the Lord for years but have never been edified should also participate.
      2. The way:
        1. By speaking. When you speak, you should speak loudly and clearly, pick up the main points, and stay with the subject. Do not use a topic as a platform to speak what you want to speak; do not speak as though giving a sermon.
        2. Ask questions. You should encourage the asking of questions (1 Cor. 14:35). However, questions should be in line with the subject and should not go beyond.
        3. Answer. The answer must be clear. If the question is too far off, you must bring it back in line. When you answer, you must not try to save face by not paying attention to the truth. If you know, you must say that you know; if you do not know, you must say that you do not know.
        4. Speak according to the order of the fifty subjects for the new beginners' edification. Cover fifty subjects every year.
        5. Get into the matter of the daily living. Do not just speak. You must check to see if they have carried out what you said. You must keep on pushing and checking until the word has been implemented into their living and until it is clear that they really mean business.
    4. Concerning those who take the lead:
      1. Have a proper attitude. The position of those who take the lead must be that of messengers delivering God's Word, not of teachers coming to teach. They must be like low ones speaking to low ones, not like high ones teaching low ones.
      2. Touch the fresh spirit. The fifty subjects already mentioned will be repeated every year, so those who deliver the messages must touch the fresh spirit. If your spirit becomes old, what you say will be merely a doctrine, like repeating a prayer book.
      3. Ask for the Lord's blessing. A Christian's life depends upon the Lord's blessing. If you do not have the Lord's blessing, even though what you say is nicely arranged and in order, you still cannot work it out well. It is not a matter of whether Christians walk on the right path; it is a matter of whether they walk on the path of the Lord's blessing.
  3. Things to pay attention to and the solution to problems:
    1. Things to pay attention to:
      1. Take care of your body. Someone asked an elderly brother what was the most useful age of a man's life. After considering for a moment, he said, "The period between the ages of seventy and eighty." Some were sent to the grave before they reached their most useful age. When this happens, it is a loss to the church. You should not damage your own body. You should exercise self-control regarding your daily living, including your eating and drinking.
      2. Exercise your character. The Lord's servant needs a good character. A loose, lazy, or low character can damage and destroy one's work, even if he is gifted.
    2. Solution to problems. Every day during the training there was a meeting in which the trainees took turns testifying and asking questions. After each testimony Brother Nee would give a thorough judgment and correction according to each person's condition and need. On the one hand, he pointed out where the real problem was, and on the other hand, he laid out before each one the way of blessing. His words of judgment and direction were very much to the point, full of light, and sometimes stern and solemn. When he was finished, those who were judged prayed, and most of them repented and confessed with tears and weeping.
  4. How to administer the church affairs. Brother Nee gave much fellowship on this matter. What he said can be summarized in seven points:
    1. The offices in the church. The two offices are the deacons and the elders (overseers).
    2. How to serve. Service should be the service of the whole Body and not a one-man show. The church is the Body of Christ, and all the saved ones, as the members, must function. There are two aspects to the church service: the priestly service on the spiritual side, and the Levitical service on the business side.
    3. How to meet. The church should have the following kinds of meetings: gospel meetings, new beginners' meetings, prayer meetings, the Lord's table meeting, the meeting referred to in 1 Corinthians 14, sisters' meetings, and children's meetings. The local church need not maintain a message meeting on the Lord's Day. And it should definitely not establish the system of pastors. At any rate, the church should not follow after "the customs of the nations" (denominations). We must throw away the tradition and take the way of recovery.
    4. The relationship between the local church, the work, and the apostles.
      1. The highest authority of the local church is the eldership. Elders are set up by apostles. The removal of elders is also up to the apostles; so the elders should listen to the apostles.
      2. The apostles are responsible for the work, and the elders are responsible for the church. But within the region of the work, the apostles can also be elders.
      3. When there is a problem between the churches, the apostles and elders should come together before the Lord to seek His mind, have fellowship, and resolve the matter, according to Acts 15. But at the same time we must not just practice the scriptural way; we must have the Spirit of the Scriptures.
    5. The matter of coordination among the workers. The workers must coordinate. To have coordination you must:
      1. Know authority. In God's work there is the master builder who takes the lead among the apostles. For this reason you must learn to submit.
      2. Seek fellowship. Without fellowship there is no coordination. In order to practice fellowship, the co-workers must learn to:
        1. Open up their hearts to each other.
        2. Forsake individualism and be in one accord as one man.
        3. Bear one another's burdens.
        4. Actively seek fellowship.
        5. Only in the authority and in the fellowship can there be the real practice of arrangement, sending out, staying, and commitment.
      3. Who is a co-worker and who is an apostle:
        1. Apostle. The apostleship is not a gift but an office. From the gifted ones God chooses some who are vessels fit for His use and sends them to work and establish the church for Him. For example, in Acts 13 Paul and Barnabas were prophets and teachers according to their gifts. But once sent out by the Holy Spirit, they were called "apostles" in Acts 14:4. An apostle is not required either to have an occupation or to forsake it if he has one. Paul's occupation was that of an apostle, not a tentmaker. He simply worked as a tentmaker so that he could be an apostle.
        2. Co-worker. The scope of the co-workers is larger than that of the apostles. All the brothers and sisters must make their occupations a secondary thing for the purpose of serving God. All of those who are for the Lord are our co-workers.
      4. The matter of finances:
        1. Concerning the distribution of money in a local church, there are the following categories:
          1. Regular expenses.
          2. Care of the poor.
          3. Care of the need of the responsible brothers.
          4. The need of other local churches.
          5. The supply to individual workers.
          6. The supply to the entire region of the work.
        2. The financial relationship among the co-workers:
          1. The one who takes the lead should supply the co-workers.
          2. The co-workers should be supplied according to individual need, not according to gift.
          3. All must learn to live by faith, to trust in God instead of in some human source, and not to be responsible for anyone else. All must learn to receive by faith and to give by faith.

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    Watchman Nee-A Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age   pg 115