During the past two years, I have released many messages. Some are in English; others are in Chinese. I believe you can find two expressions which I have used in a particular way. They are "organic" and "intrinsic." All my messages from the second half of 1986 never depart in thought and idea from these two points of being "organic" and "intrinsic." I feel that during this recent storm, many sayings and rumors have deviated from organic matters into organizational matters, and many have departed from the intrinsic things to the outward things. Romans 2:28-29 says, "For he is not...who is one outwardly...But he is...who is one inwardly." Hence, everything that is done outwardly does not count. Everything that is not intrinsic, but is outward, is worthless before God. This shows that the Bible does not give any credit to outward matters. In the same way, organization is not only worthless but also condemnable before God. Only that which issues forth from the divine life of the Triune God is organic and is of worth and of value before God. This is why my messages for the past few years have repeatedly been on the organic and intrinsic matters.
The Lord’s recovery among us began with Brother Nee. He paid much attention to the matter of being organic. Although he did not use the term organic much, all of the messages he released had to do with life. In the foreword of his book The Normal Christian Church Life, he made it clear that although the book covers his view concerning the work and the church, he would much rather concentrate himself on the spiritual side of his ministry and avoid dealing with the outward, technical aspects of the work and the church. When we began mentioning the new way five years ago, some brothers thought that it was but an outward method. This is a great misunderstanding. On the one hand, our human body is very organic. On the other hand, this organic body cannot be cut off from activities. If we are right and proper in our eating, working, and exercise, the body will be healthy. The same is true with the Body of Christ. It has its works and activities. Seemingly these works and activities are outward and superficial. Actually they issue from the source, element, and essence of the inward life.
Hence, the new way that we are practicing here is absolutely not an outward activity that has to do only with budgets, statistics, or numbers as the outsiders say. Everything that I have spoken to the trainees concerns either Christ’s death and resurrection or spirit and life. This can be proved from the messages that I have released. It is true that when we first started four or five years ago, I did ask them to have statistics and budgets, and to pay attention to results. But during that trial period, I said again and again that it was an experiment; nothing was final yet. I was taking the lead to experiment. I knew what we were trying to obtain. Thank the Lord. By today we have obtained what we wanted to obtain.
(The Mysteries in God's New Testament Economy, Chapter 0, by Witness Lee)