THE LORD’S MINISTRY TODAY
The Lord’s ministry today is not to build up big congregations. It is to build up the saints in the new way which involves: 1) Learning how to knock on doors, how to touch people with the high gospel within a short time, how to baptize them not only in water but also into the Triune God, and how to set up meetings in their homes. 2) Learning how to feed them the truths concerning the Triune God, concerning life, concerning Christ, and concerning the church, which means we have to learn how to teach the truths in homes. 3) Learning how to help all the new ones to grow in life. 4) Learning how to bring them into the full knowledge and practice of the church, the Body of Christ. This will be done not only by me or by some of you; this will be done by everyone. Every door-knocker will learn this.
After two or three years the saints will have another taste. They will tell you that they do not like to have the big meetings. They like to have the home meetings where they could preach the gospel by themselves and where they could teach the truths by themselves. They will not need any kind of organization. What elders have been in mainland China for the past fifteen years? You may say that is a mess, but I am glad for that "mess." I like to see this kind of "mess." If there could be such a "mess," after fifteen years another fifty million will be converted. This would be wonderful.
The big denominations, the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians, have all decreased and are still decreasing according to a recent article. Are we still happy to remain in this degraded situation? Will we not wake up? We should not talk about others, but consider ourselves and drop our old way. I have no interest to take care of the work in the old way. I realize that the old way is the killing way. Would we be happy to remain in this kind of work? I like to see homes. I like this word "home"—home sweet home. My dream is home meetings. The homes are the basic foundation for the building up of the local churches, not the halls with big congregations. When the saints rise up to go out knocking on doors, they will get addicted to knocking on doors, addicted to baptizing people in bathtubs, and addicted to home meetings and to teaching people in home meetings. They will not care for having big meetings in the meeting hall. They have been meeting in the old way for years and many are bored of the old way of meeting. All the elders need to be door-knocking elders. They need to take the lead to go door-knocking. May the Lord grant us all the mercy to completely drop the old way and to fully pick up the Lord’s new way.
(Being Desperate and Living Uniquely for the Gospel, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)
