Since October of 1984 the Lord has been speaking to us concerning His new way for His new move. We have gained much understanding in these last one and a half years in Taipei and have found out the sure way to gain the increase. Within the past three months 700 full-time trainees in Taipei baptized over 7,000 new believers and set up over 2,000 new home meetings. In over 520 of these homes, the whole household got saved. Despite this success, I cannot say I am fully satisfied, because my budget was that 700 would baptize 700 each week. This means that every week one full-time trainee should get one baptized. That would have yielded 2,800 a month and 11,200 baptized in four months.
The main reason we did not reach this goal was that we did not have our training facility quite prepared when the training began. Our work on a lodging place took away some of our time. Also, in the training we did not have enough experience to know how to motivate the trainees in the way that a coach trains athletes. One full-time trainee from Malaysia baptized 120, and another brother from the United States baptized 126. On the one hand, the trainers in Taipei were very happy to get over 7,000 baptized. But on the other hand, I am not fully satisfied, because I wanted to get over 11,000. In this next phase of the training with the proper coaching, I believe that we will go over our budget for the increase. It is still wonderful, however, that within a short time over 7,000 were baptized, and over 2,000 new home meetings were set up in one city. On the day of Pentecost three thousand were added, and later “the number of men came to about five thousand” (Acts 4:4). This proves that the new way the Lord has given us for His new move really works.
Recently, I have been receiving letters, not only from different states but also from different countries, encouraging me to encourage the saints to take this new way. To talk about going this new way is easy. To practice the new way is also easy if you have the heart. With the practice of the new way, “if there is a will, there is a way.”
I recently received an encouraging letter from a certain local church in the United States of about sixty saints. A leading brother there wanted to let me know how the Lord has been blessing their door-knocking since they began to take the trained way of one out of four saints knocking on doors for two to three hours a week. After last summer’s training, they began going out door-knocking. On the Lord’s Day morning after the truth lesson, the saints would haphazardly break into groups and go out to knock on doors in whatever part of the city they desired. He said that this proved to be unsuccessful because their method was loose, and they were not strict in applying the new way. In light of the five messages given in August of 1986 (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1986, vol. 3, The New Way to Carry Out the Increase and Spread of the Church) and after receiving much fellowship from the full-time training in Taipei, they turned to take a much stricter way with the door-knocking.
© Living Stream Ministry All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.