STEPS STILL BEING RESEARCHED
The third step, which is still being experimented on, is to set up the small group meetings. After you have baptized a person and have continued to visit and take care of him three to five times, you must fellowship with him about gathering the new ones in his neighborhood and taking turns having small group meetings in each other’s homes. In this way you will not only economize the time in visiting and taking care of them, but you will also be able to perfect them together corporately. Especially in helping them to know the truth, if you are speaking to just one or two persons, the taste will not be so rich. But if three or five families can come together, with perhaps eight or ten persons there, the taste will be much richer when you teach them the truth. At the same time you can teach them how to meet by singing, praying, reading the Scriptures, and testifying.
At present we already have good seeds and good techniques for the preaching of the gospel by door-knocking to lead people to salvation. However, concerning how to lead them to grow in life, learn the truth properly, and enter into the church life, we still need to find the “good seeds.” We do not need to write new teaching materials; we just need to find the suitable materials from the existing publications, and with a little amount of editing we can compile them into messages for edification, such as how to pray, how to read the Bible, and how to offer money or material things.
SOME DETAILS THAT REQUIRE OUR ATTENTION
Concerning door-knocking and visitation, you must draw up a plan in principle. You must clearly plan from now on how much time you will spend on door-knocking to preach the gospel and how much time to visit those who have already been baptized. On the other hand, due to the different situations of the different districts, you cannot be too rigid and inflexible. You need to observe the local situation and the conditions of the people and earnestly look to the Lord in prayer for His leading concerning the allocation of your time. If you make decisions without allowing any room for minor modifications, that will annul the Lord’s leading.
Since one of the goals of this training is to evangelize the whole island of Taiwan, in the future you will all be going to the villages. Then you may have to speak Taiwanese instead of Mandarin. For this reason, if you meet some native Taiwanese during your door-knocking and visitations, it is best if you practice speaking in Taiwanese. Those of you who do not speak Taiwanese must try your best to learn to speak it, and during the door-knocking and visitation, you should let those who can speak Taiwanese demonstrate it first.
Another point to which you must pay attention in door-knocking is that you must not do it only once. I already said that in some of the homes there may not be sons of peace today but tomorrow there may be some. Furthermore, in some of the homes which you knock on today, only the children are home and the parents are not there, or nobody may be home. You need to keep a record, with remarks concerning all these situations, and find time to knock on these doors again. You need some practice in this matter.
According to my personal observations and considerations, after leading a person to salvation, we must consider the care for the new one as our primary responsibility; otherwise, all our previous efforts will be nullified. We may not be able to spend all of our time on this aspect, but this must have the priority. This matter requires your careful study and practice to find out its relative weight.
We also have to pay attention to another matter, that is, the newly saved ones always have some questions about ordinary matters such as the worship of ancestors and the eating of the foods offered to idols, and also some questions about particular matters such as Catholicism and Mormonism. We have to write several kinds of booklets, so that when asked by someone about any of these questions, we can give him a booklet to solve his problem.
All the things mentioned above not only should become the rules of our practical training, but in the future they will also be passed on to all the churches. We may not be able to thoroughly research all of these points during this term, but they must be the goals toward which we strive. I hope that you may all see this matter clearly.
(The Revelation and Vision of God, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee)
