Concerning the way to bear fruit, first you should set aside three hours every week to contact your acquaintances for the preaching of the gospel. If you are willing to do this, every month you will baptize one person. After that person is baptized, you should immediately give him a lesson concerning the way of life. The lesson does not need to be too long; the important thing is to tell him that the Lord is the processed Triune God, that He died on the cross for our redemption and resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit, and that now He is in the spirit of those who call on His name, to be their life and reality. At any time we can turn to Him from deep within, call on His holy name, and pray to Him. Whenever we encounter some problem or need in our living, we should immediately call on Him. After you finish the lesson, you should lead him to practice, and you can demonstrate so that he can see what you are doing, and also ask him to demonstrate for you, until he learns how to do it.
Besides this, you should tell him that we Christians not only need to pray but also need to read the Bible. First, you must tell him that from that night on, every night before he goes to bed he should read one chapter of the New Testament, and that this will help him to have a pleasant sleep and will also benefit him in the long run. Next, you should teach him how to pray-read. Then ask him to have morning revival with you over the phone for ten minutes, beginning the next day, that by doing this he can contact and enjoy the Lord. Do not read too many verses each time; to read just two or three verses is good enough. Not only so, you should also visit him every three or more days. In the first month of his baptism, it is best for you to visit him seven or eight times, to have face-to-face fellowship with him, to minister life to him, and to give him some proper proposals and definite guidance. Not long after this, you will be able to see that he is growing in the Lord and has changed; thus, he will have become stable.
During the same period of time, after he is saved, you should bring him to a group meeting. In the group meeting, the main thing is to do the work of perfecting; it is best to spend half the time to do this work. You can use the verses for the morning revival as the content, and everyone can open his mouth to share and fellowship what he has received during the week. Those who are more experienced can fellowship some deeper points; if some make errors in their sharing, the experienced ones should exercise wisdom to make adjustments. Then, unconsciously the truth will be released, and the attendants will spontaneously be nurtured and edified.
Another point is that when we preach the gospel, we not only can go to knock on "warm doors," but we can also bring our relatives, friends, colleagues, and classmates to the group meeting. In the meeting, we should not greet them in a conventional way or converse with them regarding mundane matters; rather, we should exercise the Lord’s authority and act according to the Lord’s command, leading them to believe, be baptized, and be saved. We must believe that whatever we do in the Lord’s name will count. Matthew 28:18-19 tells us that the Lord has received all authority in heaven and on earth, and He commanded us to go to disciple the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Therefore, we should not be afraid; we simply need to say by faith, "Today Jesus Christ commands you to believe in Him." If they say that they do not know how to believe, we should lead them to pray and call on the Lord’s name; then we should say to them that to call on the Lord is to be saved. After this we should tell them to be baptized immediately. We should never think that we need to speak until they are clear and then lead them to be baptized. It is the Lord who regenerates people; it is not time that regenerates. First, we baptize people into the Triune God; then we teach them what the Lord commanded us (Matt. 28:20).
The practice of the new way requires that we be slow and steady like a stream. The more I study it, the more I feel we cannot be too hurried or too quick. However, we should know that the Lord will fulfill these Scriptures in us. We must look to the Lord’s mercy to lead us completely into these things.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee in Kuching, Malaysia on November 1, 1990)
(The Up-to-Date Presentation of the God-Ordained Way and the Signs Concerning the Coming of Christ, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee)