In Taiwan the practice of the small group meetings is not just a method. I realize that a number of the churches in the United States are now practicing the small group gatherings. However, I am really concerned that it is probably just a method without any incentive, without any inner motivation. On the day of Pentecost, those three thousand all began to meet from house to house on the same day they were saved. No doubt there was a strong motivation with them. Their motivation was not just a method. The motivation was that they heard the word of the New Testament. They were all Jews filled with the old religion of their fathers, but on the day of Pentecost they heard something new. They heard Peter speaking the gospel of Jesus! They heard how Jesus was God, how Jesus became a man, how Jesus lived among them, how He was rejected and how He was put on the cross, crucified, yet God had honored Him, God raised Him up, and He was living. They all heard the message, they received the word, they repented, they were baptized, and they received the Holy Spirit. They heard the word and they believed it. Through believing in the word they all received the Holy Spirit; they were filled up. They had to meet; they had to gather in the homes. That was not a method, but an issue, an overflow from their being filled with these two things: the word and the Spirit.
What about us? I would say, in the Lord’s recovery today in the United States, most of the saints in all the churches are in a standstill condition. There is no motivation. They are like a car in which there is no gasoline and whose tires have no air. They are short of gas and short of air. Even the best car with no air in the tires and no gasoline is at a standstill. It needs more gasoline. It needs more air. We must send the saints to the “gasoline station” to fill up the tires with air and fill up the car with gas. Then the car will run. This is not a method. To simply have a method is to have a car without air and without gas which we push and pull. This is hard. The real situation needs to be exposed. In some places the churches now realize they are at a standstill and that they have become a Dead Sea.
What is going on in Taiwan is that the saints are experiencing the filling of the Spirit. All the young saints received the help to repent and to make a thorough confession to receive the filling of the Spirit. When they practiced repenting and making a thorough confession, they were filled with the Spirit inwardly, essentially, and they received the outpouring of the Spirit upon them outwardly, economically. Now they have become “crazy,” going out to contact people one on one. They baptize people nearly every day in Taipei. The baptistery is not only in the hall, but in the homes and everywhere. If there is no baptistery, they use the bathtub. They do not need the elders to make a decision as to who should be baptized or who should not be baptized. This is absolutely right. If you have the right to preach the gospel, why would you not have the right to baptize people? Philip in Acts 8 had the privilege, the right, and the position to preach the gospel to that eunuch and to immediately baptize him (vv. 36-37). He did not say, “Oh, I am not an elder. I had better bring you back to the church in Samaria and let the church elders have an interview with you to see whether you are qualified to be baptized or not. I am not privileged and I do not have the position to baptize you. I am just an evangelist, not a baptizer. The baptizer should be one of the elders.” We must forget this way. We must revolutionize!
Everybody can preach the gospel. Everyone can baptize someone anywhere. Acts 2:47 is now the experience of the church in Taipei—“the Lord added together those who were being saved from day to day.” I was in Taipei for about ten weeks. Within those ten weeks over three thousand were baptized, and these baptisms took place nearly every day and everywhere. On one occasion, without my knowledge, there was suddenly a gospel-preaching meeting in the hall and young people were baptizing other young people.
For the Lord’s recovery to spread, there is the need of more increase, and there is the need of meetings with a higher atmosphere. The meetings in all the churches should be very attractive, even very attracting. In 1969-1971 in Los Angeles in the hall on Elden Street, the meetings were attractive and attracted everybody. While the saints were at work, they anticipated the end of the work day when they could go to the meeting.
What is needed today is the motivation. The motivation is the filling of the Holy Spirit. All the saints in the Lord’s recovery today need to be filled with the Spirit and to be poured out upon by the Spirit.