How to Gain People, Retain People,
and Perfect People
III. How to perfect people
A. We must not be afraid of the trouble or difficulties involved in perfecting the saints. They must also transcend their feelings by teaching and accommodating the saints. We must work to the extent that even the saints who seemingly have no capacity become useful. We must make use of every kind of material; we must perfect the saints. In the work and in the church we are not measured by whether or not we are capable; we are measured by how many useful ones we are able to produce. The standard of success does not depend on our ability to do a certain thing. The standard is determined by how many useful ones we can produce. My ability to serve is not the standard; the standard is whether I can perfect another saint to do better than me. This requires that we learn our lessons. (Shepherding the Church and Perfecting the Young People, ch. 3)
B. Children
1. Today, many young people have been damaged with respect to their character; it is because of this that we have a children’s work for the children; we need to build up their character. The children must be built up as proper human beings; this is a matter of character, that is, behavior and habit. From their youth they must learn to honor their parents, love their brothers and sisters, and respect others. We do not need to give the young ones too much knowledge of the Bible; we should rather build them up with the proper ethics and morality that will constitute a proper character. (Raising Up The Next Generation For The Church Life, part 4, ch. 12)
Specific Serving——the blueprint of the Children’s serving
2. Testimony:
a. Vidoe of the Children’s Training in Bangkok, Thailand
b. The Children’s Group in Thailand
c. The Children’s Conference in Paraguay
d. Children Character-Building Class
e. The Specific serving of Children:the Children’s Group of in district 12 in Taipei
3. Materials for children
a. Videos of practice of Children’s Character
C. Young People
1. Today, in some cities there are many young people and students. We must have a forward-looking insight to labor on them more and more. We may need to spend most of the time working on the adolescents. This is also good works of bearing the fruits. The potential and future of the Lord’s work and testimony, mainly not depends on the older people, but on the young people. Since the potential of the future is on the young people, we must have a forward-looking insight, and spend more time on the adolescents. (Enjoying the Lord in the Lord’s Words by Pray-reading for the Building of the Church in Oneness, ch.10)
2. Testimonies:
a. Parents-Children Camp for Healthy Living—Experiencing Christ and Shepherding According to God
b. Young People’s Perfecting Training in Nepal
c. Report of Young People’s Trainning in Yangon
d. the vital Group makes me a different life
e. National Young People’s Training in Sri Lanka
D. Campus:
1. We must pay attention to a fundamental point in the young people’s work, which is that we must bring them into working with us. We should not replace others in whatever we do. In every school we must produce young saints who are so burdened for the gospel that the work becomes theirs, and we only assist and supply them from a distance.
In order to produce a useful brother, we must spend a few months to labor with him. This is the secret of our work. We must work on the brother until his burden is only to bring people in his school to salvation. If we can achieve this, our work will be a success. The basic principle is to work to produce useful saints who can carry out the work. We must also work with the elementary school students, because they will be gospel seeds in junior high school, Senior high school, and college. When we gain the young people as gospel seeds, the work will multiply and increase in every level of education. If the co-workers work in this way, the work will go on unhindered and without limitation. (Shepherding The Church And Perfecting The Young People, ch. 7)
2. Testimonies:
a. The short time perfecting training of Students
b. The Chinese-speaking perfecting training in New Jersey in 2015
c. Doing the students’ work, Leading them to function and developing the organic function of man
d. The Exhibition of Campus Groups
E. Working saints
1. Due to the strong demand of sociability, flexible and the desire for truth of the working Saints, each church should establish the group or the district for working saints, the responsible brothers should concern about the working saints and perfect the working saints. The church should establish the regular perfecting and training to perfect them in truth, life, service and the common problem of career and marriage.
a. Specific Serving——the frame and the blueprint of the serving of working Saints
b. Specific Serving——the Establishing of the serving of working Saints
2. Testimonies:
a. The words at the beginning of the Blending Meeting of Workers and Businessmen by Brother Yu
b. One week’s training in Ethiopia
d. A brief letter concerning young people training in Myanmar
e. The conference of working saints in Taiwan
f. Establishing a vital relationship between God and man
F. Community
1. To the present moment, I have not yet discharged my burden in the matter of training. … To be trained is to have the rich supply of Christ ministered to us that we may grow, and it is to be equipped that we may be skillful in speaking, in contacting new ones, in shepherding, and in preaching and teaching. …The way to perfect the saints is to feed them so that they may grow and to train them so that they may learn certain skills.… In these days I bear a very heavy burden concerning the perfecting of the saints. This burden cannot be discharged until I see that all the saints are able to do the same kind of work as was done by the early apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. …My hope is that many would be able to function as apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. Finding themselves in an unfamiliar place, some would become burdened for the Lord’s interests there. Firstly, they would preach the gospel. Then they would care for those who are saved by shepherding them and teaching them. We all need to be perfected in order to do this work. (Life-study of Ephesians, msg. 41)
2. Testimonies:
a. The Second International blending Conference in Sri Lanka in 2015
b. perfecting training status in Cambodia in 2015
c. perfecting training in Sri Lanka – being perfected by training
d. The churches in Bangladesh enter into the shepherding and perfecting stage
e. The perfecting training in inland of US
f. The Testimony Exhibition of Community vital Group
G. Sisters:
1. From this time onward, the co-workers should give more thought to the way they lead people to know the Lord. They must pay attention to the sisters and the children. The co-workers should not say that they are not gifted for these two aspects of the work and therefore cannot do the work. If they cannot do it, they must learn how to do it; they should always learn. (Raising up the Next Generation for the Church Life, msg. 4)
2. Testimonies:
a. Fragrant witness in Ghana, Africa
b. Sisters’ meeting in the churches of India – Tian Casey
c. Sister’s Cooperation is the blessing of the church
d. Being filled by Prayer, serving as priests
e. The testimony of A minister who obey his husband in everything (Dingwu Gan sister)
3. Reference books for sisters perfecting:
a. Proper Sisters
b. Messages for Sisters’ Meeting
c. Service in cooperation and Washing in Love, ch. 11, 16
d. CWWL, 1968, vol. 1, “Various Meetings in Los Angeles”, ch. 14, 15
