THE PRACTICE HANDBOOK FOR THE DISTRICT SERVING ONES
SERIES THREE
PRACTICAL SERVICES
Message Three
Budgeting, Having Statistics, and Reminding Service
Eph. 1:5 Predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
Exo. 1:2 Take the sum of all the assembly of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers’ households, according to the number of names, every male, head by head.
2 Pet. 1:12 Therefore I will be ready always to remind you concerning these things, even though you know them and have been established in the present truth.
GOD’S WORK BEING ALL ACCORDING TO A PLAN
In the past you may not have heard that the increase of the church requires planning. However, the Bible shows that God’s work, including creation, redemption, the establishment in His new creation, and the building of the New Jerusalem, are all according to a plan. For example, Ephesians 1:4-5 speaks of God’s will and of His choosing and predestinating of us according to His will. Our salvation was not an accidental occurrence; we were saved according to God’s wise plan, which He carried out with much consideration and prudence (v. 8). People move from place to place, and when they move, they often come in contact with Christians who preach the gospel to them. They may ignore the word of the gospel, but then they may find that their new neighbors are also Christians. Their salvation may seem to be a coincidence, but there are no coincidences with God. We were chosen and predestinated by God for salvation. This indicates that God is a planning God.
The preparation of a plan requires consideration prior to taking action. Planning is essential for businessmen, who must consider such things as the amount of money that is available for expenses and investment, the skill level of the company’s manpower, and the amount of other resources that are needed to be profitable. Although these considerations are common in business planning, very few people apply planning to matters related to spirituality, to the church, and to the growth in life.
A PLAN BEING NEEDED FOR THE CHURCH TO INCREASE AND SPREAD
Planning for the Church
In order for the church to increase and spread, there must be a plan. The plan for a church should be based on the condition of the believers’ spiritual life, the social conditions in the church’s locality, and the relationship between the believers and those in various social classes. The church in a locality must set a rate for increase at the beginning of each year. This rate can be ten percent, twenty percent, fifty percent, or even one hundred percent. For the past twenty years we have suffered a loss because we have conducted business without a plan (Luke 19:13). It is as though we have labored aimlessly for more than twenty years. As a result, our time has been wasted, and the Lord’s work has been delayed. From now on, a church must make a plan at the beginning of each year.
Planning for District Meeting Halls
We need to focus on a few matters concerning our plan for district meeting halls. First, the rate of increase set by the whole church must be accepted by those in the district meeting halls. If the church decides on a one hundred percent increase, no one should throw cold water on the idea and propose a fifty percent increase instead. We must learn to accept the plan set by the church. Second, the plan set by the church must be carried out and accomplished by those in every district meeting hall. The plan must be accepted and carried out with diligent effort. Third, the plans of the saints must be monitored and promoted on a monthly basis in the district meeting halls. A good company reviews its accounting figures monthly in order to see if it is meeting its annual goals. If a plan is not working, a company will make adjustments in order to achieve its goals. Similarly, we should not wait until the end of the year to review our progress. We must pay close attention to this every month in order to promote the plans of the saints.
Planning for Each Believer
The most important plan is the daily plan for each believer. Please accept our suggestions, and work out a schedule for a personal plan according to the simple ways listed below.
First, develop a plan based on the number of your family members, friends, neighbors, and other acquaintances. If you know a hundred people, it is not appropriate to plan to lead only one person to salvation. However, it may be difficult to lead four people to salvation if you know only two people. Your plan should be based on the number of people you know. If you know a hundred people, you can plan to lead at least four people to salvation this year.
Second, you should make a list of those whom you plan to lead to salvation. Then you can seek the Lord’s leading as to whom you should labor on first, and you can begin to pray over each name. Making a list is very helpful especially in the matter of prayer. Prayers for others cannot be general; you must name them in prayer one by one. You should be careful not to labor on too many people at the same time. Focus on eight to ten people, praying specifically for them by name.
Third, you should regularly contact the people on your list by phone calls, letters, and invitations. Give them Bibles, spiritual books, and gospel tracts. You should not be zealous for a month but then do nothing in the following months. If you try to do something every day, you will become exhausted. It is better to be regular, doing something once a week or even once every other week.
Fourth, you should allocate your time daily, weekly, and monthly according to the needs of your family and work responsibilities. In any case, an appropriate amount of time should be set aside specifically to contact people to preach the gospel.
Fifth, according to the allocation of time, you must faithfully carry out your schedule, week after week, month after month, expecting a harvest every season. Based on our experience, it is best to set aside at least one hour every week in order to contact people to preach the gospel.
Laboring on These Matters Over the Long Term,
You Will See Results Gradually
You have to labor on these matters over the long term; nothing will be accomplished overnight. You may not see any results in the first few months, but if you continue month after month, you will see results gradually. If we practice this, everyone will be able to lead at least one person to salvation in a year. Only a person who is unwilling will be unable to lead at least one person to salvation in a year.
These are suggestions. May we work on them seriously and not treat them as if they are too difficult. Some people may think that this is difficult, because many saints have not led anyone to salvation, even though the church has been preaching the gospel for over thirty years. However, the past is the past, and beginning this year we can practice according to a schedule. In our daily life and church life we must set aside time specifically for preaching the gospel. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 1, “Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 4: The Increase and Spread of the Church,” msg. 4)
VALUE THE STATISTICS
Evaluating the Statistics of the Church
Now we need to fellowship concerning the statistics of the church in Taipei and evaluate them in light of our condition.
When the church in Taipei began to meet, there were only twenty to thirty people. Not long afterward, Brother Chang Wu-chen and others contacted me and then came here. Thereafter, the number increased gradually. In April or May of the following year, I also came here. At that time the church was meeting in a Japanese-style house on Shanghai Road.
Later I spent some time traveling south by train from Taipei, visiting the saints who were scattered in various places along the way. After this time of visitation I realized that the Lord had a way to go on, even though the saints were scattered throughout Taiwan. After returning to Taipei, we decided to officially start the work on August 1, 1949.
At that time there were between three and five hundred brothers and sisters in Taiwan. The meetings of the church in Taipei included seventy to eighty saints. With these saints as a base, our numbers increased to three thousand over the next six years. We had an annual rate of increase of over one hundred percent. Even when counting all the saints in the churches on the island, we still had a forty percent annual rate of increase.
Three thousand saints is a conservative number. In the past thirty-five years more than fifty-seven thousand information cards have been filled out by saints in the church in Taipei. In 1956 there were approximately thirteen thousand eight hundred. In other words, the church in Taipei included over thirteen thousand saints in 1956. Although we had a large number of people on record, a smaller number regularly attended the meetings. In particular, the church in Taipei was well known for its high percentage of absent saints. In times of good attendance, approximately one-third would come to the meetings. At other times, only twenty-five percent would come. Thus, the actual number of regular attendees, those who were solidly in the church life, was about three thousand in Taipei in 1956. Nevertheless, the rate of increase was very high in the first five to six years.
Since 1956 to 1984, this base number of three thousand has remained fairly constant. While we do not need annual rates of increase that equal our early years, we do need to increase. Even a twenty percent rate of increase would be commendable. However, over the past twenty-eight years we have not even reached this standard; this exposes a great shortcoming.
Paying Attention to Our Statistics, We Could Have Redeemed Much Time
I regret very much that I did not pay attention to our statistics when I came back over ten years ago. If we had paid attention to them, perhaps we could have redeemed much time. For many years the number of people attending the Lord’s Day meeting in the church in Taipei has averaged about three thousand one hundred. On the most recent Lord’s Day, however, there were about three thousand five hundred, an increase of four hundred. This increase reflects the impact of beginning to once again meet in small groups, which has brought in some new ones and recovered some dormant saints.
The actual number of saints in the church life in Taipei may be closer to five thousand five hundred. But even if this is the case, the number of those in the normal church life in Taipei has increased only from three thousand to five thousand five hundred in a span of almost twenty-eight years. This is an average annual rate of increase of less than three percent. This is truly not justifiable.
Even though we have lost contact with some saints in the last twenty-eight years due to moving, emigration, and death, we have also baptized at least ten thousand people and possibly as many as forty thousand. According to our observations, we have not lost contact with many as a result of moving, and at most, five thousand have emigrated. In addition, the increasing life expectancy in Taiwan has limited our losses due to death. This indicates that we have a high rate of those who are simply absent from the meetings. We cannot comfort ourselves with excuses; rather, we should locate the source of our problem.
Paying Attention to Our Statistics so that We Can Make a Correction
Before the Lord I decided to pay attention to the work in the way that I did in 1949 when I began the work in Taiwan with the brothers. Thus, as soon as I returned to Taiwan, I began to pay attention to the matter of statistics. In order to do anything in society today, we cannot neglect statistics. Furthermore, with over thirty years of history, we can more easily locate the source of our problem, based on our history.
Honestly speaking, the condition of the church in Taipei, whether in terms of the number of people or the meetings, is second to none. For this we worship the Lord. However, we must study why we had an annual rate of increase of one hundred percent from 1949 to 1956, but less than three percent since then. Through our lack of attention to the matter of statistics, we missed an opportunity to see our lack. Therefore, we must rise up and once again pay attention to our statistics so that we can make a correction.
According to the information cards, over forty thousand people have been baptized in the past twenty-eight years, but the number of people meeting has increased by only two thousand five hundred. This indicates that most of the believers that we baptized do not meet with us. There is no need to blame anyone for this, but this is a fact that we cannot deny. Actually, we all are responsible for this situation, but those of us who take the lead in the work must bear more of the responsibility. Our way has been wrong because we have ignored our statistics.
Our Negligence of Statistics Keeping Us from Formulating a Way
to Deal with Our Situation
Today, regardless of whether one is operating a business, a government agency, or a school, there is always a set of accounts for each year. From these accounts, statistics can be derived in order to evaluate and make improvements. However, we have neglected statistics for more than ten years. This allowed us to be content with our condition because the church in Taipei was larger than churches in other cities. However, once we began to look at the statistics, we discovered that our condition has not advanced much over the last twenty-eight years. There has not been much increase, because we did not utilize our family assets appropriately.
We preach the gospel quite well; otherwise, forty thousand people would not have been baptized. On average, we baptize one thousand five hundred people every year. According to statistics, many have been “born,” but almost as many have “died.” The average life expectancy of a person in Taiwan is over seventy years, but our spiritual life expectancy may be less than seven years. If we had statistics on the spiritual life expectancy of the saints, I am afraid that it would be quite short. Our negligence of statistics has kept us from formulating a way to deal with our situation. We need to find a way to correct our current situation.
There are mainly three categories of people who have neglected these statistics. The first category includes just myself, because even though I lived overseas, I still bear some responsibility. Furthermore, I have fellowshipped with the brothers often and even returned to Taiwan often; therefore, it is difficult to avoid blame. The second and third categories are the co-workers and the elders. We neglected our statistics and did not formulate a way to properly respond to the facts revealed by these statistics. This is because we were satisfied with the number of saints who were in the meetings. Consequently, we simply muddled along day by day. But many years have passed with no change, and in looking back, we realize that we have gained very little increase. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 1, “Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 4: The Increase and Spread of the Church,” msg. 2)
Statistics Being Very Helpful Wherever They Are Applied
Statistics are very helpful wherever they are applied. No matter what a person does, he cannot have accounting without also having statistics. Accounting is for statistics, and statistics are for the setting up of policies. The operation of our business is all based on statistics. Only when we have statistics will we know how to establish a direction in which we may proceed. If we have been in a certain business for twenty years and have not even gotten a ten percent profit, then we must close our business, change to another business, or make some personnel changes. The establishment of a business’s operational direction must be decided according to accounting and statistics. Therefore, last year in Taipei we did this very thing. When we laid out the accounting and statistics, we saw that the work in Taiwan needed a change in its system. We determined that we could no longer do our work in the way we had been doing it. Not only had we failed to make a profit, but we had even lost some of our principal. Because of this, the work in every locality had no way to advance.
We can no longer go on doing something in vain, nor can we stay in self-delusion—always feeling that we are so good and so wonderful because we have the truth and life. If we would look at the statistics carefully, we would see the real situation of everything. The real situation is that the Lord has not gained much among us. If this situation persists, then even after two hundred years, the Lord’s recovery still will not have a way to progress and spread. I hope that the younger generation would especially take this word and go on properly and faithfully before the Lord. There is no problem on the Lord’s side for the churches in the recovery to increase and spread; the problem is on our side.
I hope that the older saints who may have several decades of experience will wake up to see that the situation is wrong and needs to be adjusted. I also hope that all the young people will see the statistics and take them as a reminder and a direction for their advance. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 5, “Speaking for God,” msg. 7)
Studying the Law of Increase with Statistics for Planning
If we have an annual increase of twenty percent, the number of people will double every four years. This kind of planning should be made with the view to doing business. If a person has an abundance of capital, he does not need to do much business; he only needs to give the capital to the money changers, as the Lord Jesus said, and he will get the principal back with interest (cf. Matt. 25:27). This shows that a twenty percent rate of increase is not a high requirement.
Nearly every corporation today, whether big or small, has an accounting department that keeps statistics for the sake of planning. There has to be planning in the operation of any company. Even in a family, planning is important so that the family can measure expenditures by income. Without planning, it is hard for a business to function. The range of planning includes not only income and expenses but also a schedule for the progress of the business. Today everything is very advanced in Taiwan, including the import and export trade, but we are still carrying out our work in the way that we did thirty-five years ago. Furthermore, we have lost almost all our strong practices in the process. In particular, we abandoned the way of leading people with small groups. Consequently, we have not been able to keep people.
Many of us passed through those years. I hope that we would honestly face the situation. Currently, we need to consider our statistics and plan. We need to check the statistics, and then we can have a proper plan to produce a twenty percent increase annually so that our number will double after four years. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 1, “Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 6: The Increase and Spread of the Church,” msg. 2)
USING STATISTICS AND HAVING A PLAN
FOR THE INCREASE AND SPREAD OF THE CHURCH
From now on, we should use our statistics to understand our true situation more clearly. With these statistics we can make a plan. A plan involves more than a vow. Nothing can be done in a good way without a plan. Government organizations and large companies all have a business plan, but even a family or a single person should have a plan. A college student should not be impulsive; rather, he should know when he will graduate, when he should begin to look for a job, how much his monthly income should be, and how much money he can spend each month. If he does not have a plan, it will be easy to buy things that he cannot afford.
May the Lord have mercy on us. The aggregate sum of each of our plans will enable the number of people to double or even triple. In this way the church will surely increase, spread, and flourish. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 1, “Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 4: The Increase and Spread of the Church,” msg. 2)
REMINDING THE SAINTS
Second Peter 1:12 says, “Wherefore I shall be ready always to remind you concerning these things, even though you know them and have been established in the present truth.” By “these things” Peter means things such as the divine power, the things concerning life and godliness, the divine nature, and the development of the divine riches in our experience. Peter was always ready to remind the saints concerning these things, even though they had come to know them and had been established in the present truth, the truth which they already possessed.
By “the present truth” Peter means the truth which is present with the believers and which they have already received and now possess. In the first section of this chapter (vv. 1-11), Peter uses the provision of the divine life for the proper Christian life to inoculate against apostasy. In the second section (vv. 12-21), he uses the revelation of the divine truth, as the second antidote, to inoculate against the heresy in the apostasy, a heresy similar to today’s Modernism.
In verses 13 and 14 Peter says, “And I count it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by a reminder, knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle is imminent, even as also our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.” The word “tabernacle” refers to the temporal body (2 Cor. 5:1). To put off the tabernacle is to put off the body, to be unclothed of the body (2 Cor. 5:4), to leave the body, to die physically. Peter, like Paul (2 Tim. 4:6), knew that he would leave the world by martyrdom, and he was ready for this. He remembered the Lord’s word to him concerning his death, when He charged him to feed His sheep (John 21:15-19). (Life-study of 2 Peter, msg. 8)
Laying These Things before the Brothers
Paul says, “Laying these things before the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, being nourished with the words of the faith and of the good teaching which you have closely followed.” By “these things” Paul means all he has covered thus far in this Epistle. Just as a steward lays different courses of food before guests at a dinner, so a good minister of Christ should lay “these things” before the believers. Furthermore, Paul’s use of the term “being nourished” indicates that his concept is that of supplying life to others. It is significant that here Paul does not say “being taught,” but “being nourished” with the words of the faith. If we would minister Christ to others, we ourselves must first be nourished. Being nourished with Christ, we shall have Christ as food, as life supply, to minister to others. The words “being nourished” give us the ground to say that a good minister of Christ does not merely teach others about Christ, but ministers Christ into others as food. Others should be able to testify of us that we have nourished them with Christ.
If you have a heart to care for others in the Lord’s recovery, you should not give them mere teaching. Whenever you fellowship with others concerning Christ, you may give them some knowledge. But while you are teaching them, you need to exercise your spirit to minister spiritual food that they may be nourished. If you do this, you will be a good minister of Christ.
An Excellent Pattern from Paul and Timothy
With Paul and Timothy we see an excellent pattern. As we have pointed out, Paul told Timothy to lay “these things before the brothers,” referring to the things which he was writing in this Epistle. However, before Timothy could lay these things before others, he first had to feed on them himself. He had to digest them, assimilate them, and allow them to saturate his inner being. Then he would be able to lay them before the brothers. Today we should follow Timothy’s example and lay before the saints the things with which we have been nourished by the Lord through the ministry. How wonderful the church life would be if we all did this! However, if we turn from the ministry and seek to produce something different, we may give place to differing teachings. It was not Timothy’s intention to teach anything different from what Paul taught. Rather, he would lay before the brothers what he had received from Paul.
Paul’s expression “laying these things before the brothers” is very significant. We need to be impressed with the fact that this also is part of the Bible, the Word of God. I do not charge anyone to lay my words before the saints. It is not my practice to charge the churches to do anything. Representatives of hundreds of churches can testify that I do not charge them to do things. I do not even know many of the things that take place in the church in Anaheim, where I live. I am very glad that the elders take action regarding many things without letting me know. This is a strong proof that I am not a pope. Very much to the contrary, I am a little servant of the Lord, a farmer burdened to produce groceries for the saints. Far from charging the churches to do anything, I simply long that they feed on the spiritual riches the Lord has given us. Do not lay Witness Lee’s teaching before the brothers. Instead, present them the riches, the groceries, the Lord has shown us from the Word. (Life-study of 1 Timothy, msg. 8)
Reminding You to Fan into Flame the Gift of God
In verse 6 Paul goes on to say, “For which cause I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” This word was written to encourage and strengthen Timothy in his ministry for the Lord, that his ministry not be weakened by Paul’s imprisonment and the degraded situation of the churches. Here Paul seems to be saying to Timothy, “Timothy, I charge you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you. Something in you is burning. However, it is not sufficient for it just to be burning—you need to fan this gift into flame. You have something in you which is a gift of God. Since you have unfeigned faith, I remind you to fan this gift into flame.” (Life-study of 2 Timothy, msg. 1)
Discussion:
1. How to collect accurate data on time?
2. How to organize data and make a statistical table?
3. How to analyze the data to know the actual situation?
4. How to set the goal according to the current situation?
5. How to make a detailed plan?
6. How to determine the reminding ones of each project to carry out the plan?
7. How to keep on fellowshipping with the reminding ones to ensure the plan get implemented?
