Our foremost brother, Watchman Nee, who brought the Lord’s recovery to us, pointed out quite early in his messages that the Lord’s Day morning message meeting is according to the customs of the nations; it is a waste, and we do not need to maintain it. Fifty years ago, not only did I hear him say this, but I also discussed with him how to eliminate the Lord’s Day message meeting. I still remember him saying that 1 Corinthians 14:26 tells us clearly that when the whole church gathers together, it is not one person speaking and the rest listening, but each one has a hymn, or has a revelation, or has a teaching. It is evident that the meeting is mutual, with one another, and is not one-sided. We must return to such a situation. Later on, we decided to gather the brothers together to practice first. When these brothers came together, we absolutely did not want anyone to take the lead, or any one person to select the hymns, or pray, or give a message. Everyone could open his mouth to pray, to speak, to testify, or to call a hymn. This was the brothers’ meeting at that time. At the beginning, this one testified, and that one also testified. But after two or three months, the testimonies were exhausted, and there was nothing else to do. Hence, that trial was not successful. Afterwards, we came to Taiwan. We still tried our best to have brothers’ meetings and sisters’ meetings in Taipei. However, before long they had to stop those meetings due to the lack of speaking. At the beginning Brother Nee had already said that in order to eliminate the Lord’s Day message meeting, there was the need of a better substitute. Otherwise, we can predict already that as soon as the meeting with one person speaking and the rest listening is eliminated, a small number among us who like to listen to messages may go to other places to listen to messages. Needless to say, those outsiders who like to listen to messages and attend services will not come either.
I would like to let all of you know that what we have done recently to change the system may be considered a success in every respect. Regarding the matter of preaching the gospel by visiting peoples’ homes, as long as you would do this according to the secrets we have discovered through our study, you will definitely gain people. Not only has this matter been tested successfully here in Taipei, but among the churches on the six continents of the earth, many places have also tested it successfully. Now the key is how to bring the brothers and sisters into the spirit to live and walk by the Spirit daily and to become overcomers. If there are ten persons meeting, and four or five among them are like this, then there will be no problem with that meeting. Of course, we hope that every brother and sister will live in the spirit, but church history has shown us that probably only on the day of Pentecost were every one of the hundred and twenty disciples and the three thousand newly saved ones filled with the Spirit. After that, even at Paul’s time, the meetings of the saints also had imperfect areas. Some walked by the Spirit, and some did not walk by the Spirit. Therefore, after much study, we expect to have only twenty-five percent. What this means is that if we went out to knock on doors to preach the gospel and baptized one thousand people, we would expect only two hundred fifty to stand firm. And among these two hundred fifty, we would expect only about sixty to be used by the Lord. Based on this way of budgeting, if in a meeting of ten people there are two or three persons who are living, then we will consider that as successful. According to this standard, our change of the system will surely succeed. Of course, the key to this success still lies in our endeavoring.