KNOWING THE NEW ONES
We should not merely make the new one pleasant or happy; that is not our purpose. We must be on the alert while we are talking to him in order to know what kind of person he is. The best way to do this is to leave some time for him to say something. We should not occupy all the time. While we are making him feel pleasant, we must give him some time to say something. By his speaking we can get to know him by realizing what his feeling, thinking, and intention are. We should learn to encourage him to speak more. Then we will know what we should say. We will realize whether or not this is the right time to get our time with him “on track.” If this is the proper time, we can introduce a subject related to spiritual things. We must learn all these things. It is not so simple, but if we have a good preparation, it will be easy to talk to this person on the “right track.”
SPEAKING THE OBJECTIVE TRUTH BEFORE THE SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE
When you talk to people about spiritual things, you should first touch the objective side. You should not touch the subjective side too quickly. Immediately after baptism, some may touch the subjective experience, telling the new one that he has a human spirit. However, this may be too soon. If you have the burden to talk about this, you must lay a foundation. First you must tell him, “God is Spirit, and the Savior I have preached to you is this very God. Today, He is God, He is the Savior, and He is the Spirit.” You must lay a foundation by telling him something objective. This gives him a basis for the experience. After the objective teaching, you can come to the subjective experience. You can say, “He is the Spirit, and we also have a spirit.” We should avoid talking about subjective experience without first presenting some objective truth.
This is true not only for the home meetings but also for any kind of meeting. In any kind of speaking, you must first present something as an object for people to seek after, to touch. Otherwise, if a person is thoughtful and you tell him that he has a human spirit and that he can receive the Lord Jesus into his spirit, he may say, “Who is the Lord Jesus? Why can I receive Him into my spirit?” Your talk concerning subjective experience can stir up many questions. You must lay a foundation with the objective truth.
SPEAKING CONCERNING GOD
In principle, after one is baptized, the first thing we should tell them about is our God and Savior. After we have prepared the situation, the atmosphere, we must exercise to tell this new one about God, the Savior, Jesus Christ. There are many ways to present God to people. We may talk with one man about God in this way: “Many times, regardless of who we are, all human beings do have a feeling that in this universe there must be some sovereignty.” This could touch people’s inner feeling. In our talk about God, we may also tell him, “If you go to Buddha, you will find out that this Buddha cannot solve your inward problems.” By this we touch the matter of idols. We may continue: “There is only One who can satisfy us, solving our problems, dispelling our doubts, and answering the questions within us. This One is the very God whom we worship, whom we believe in, and whom we have preached to you.” This is one way.
Another way to speak to him concerning God which is also from the inner feeling, yet from another angle, is to talk about the conscience. We may say, “Everyone who does something that hurts others, even if he can justify himself by certain reasonings, feels deep within that he is not right and that he is offending someone. Who is this someone? Why does man have a conscience?” This is another way to lead him to the point concerning God.
By these examples we can realize that we must learn many things. The home meetings depend upon our talk with the new ones. After our talk has induced a new one to speak a number of sentences, we may realize that he is a person who takes care of his conscience. Therefore, we may talk about God based upon the conscience. With another, we may realize he is a very ethical person. Then we can talk about God based upon his being ethical. In principle, the first thing we have to tell the new ones about is God.
We should always limit ourselves to one talk per visit, and in this talk, we should thoroughly cover one matter. We should not raise up subject after subject. To cover a number of subjects will not help; it will hurt.
(The Exercise and Practice of the God-Ordained Way, Chapter 13, by Witness Lee)
