THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE CHURCH
AND THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD
Before traveling abroad in 1933, Brother Nee was in northern China and stayed in my home for six days. At that time the Lord’s work had already begun in northern China, but I was still working professionally. So I shared with him to know his perception about this matter—whether I should keep my job or serve full-time. He simply said, “Brother, when you are not sure, it is better to wait and see.”
He returned from his overseas trip in the fall. In that same season I was struggling inwardly, because the Lord wanted me to leave my job. During those days I received a letter from Brother Nee, which he had sent while on board a ship in the Mediterranean Sea, returning from Europe. The letter was a great encouragement and confirmation to me. It said, “Brother Witness, regarding your future, I feel you should serve the Lord full-time. How do you feel about it? May the Lord lead you.”
I received the letter more than a month after Brother Nee had written it. By that time I had already resigned from my job and had been serving in Manchuria for three weeks. As soon as I returned from Manchuria, I read Brother Nee’s letter and was greatly encouraged. The letter came as a strong confirmation to me. Although it had been six months since I had parted from Brother Nee and he did not usually correspond with me, he sent that simple, clear, and timely word concerning my leaving my job and serving full-time.
The most impressive thing is that he had written the letter around the same time I had been struggling before the Lord about whether or not to leave my job. I deeply sensed that this was the Lord’s leading on the matter, so I became determined to go to Shanghai to see Brother Nee. In the fall I went to Shanghai. It was my first trip to that city.
It was around that time that Brother Nee stated that he had clearly understood the matter of the ground of locality. He had just returned from England and saw this matter in the Word of God. Spiritually speaking, it was also around that same time that he received the central vision concerning Christ as the centrality and universality of God.
Therefore, he decided to convene a national conference in January 1934. While I was in Shanghai, Brother Nee asked me to help him reply to some letters concerning spiritual matters. I wrote a long letter on his behalf to Brother Hsieh Tien En of Canton.
That letter was later published in the Collection of Newsletters (see The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 25, pp. 77–80, 107–117). The letter was mainly concerning denominations.
At that time we paid much attention to spiritual matters and to denominations. Only Brother Nee had the conviction concerning the ground; the rest of us had not yet seen it clearly. We only knew that the church was one and the denominations were wrong.
Enjoy more: Hymn 155
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