II. The Attitude and Relationship of the Workers

A. Our Work Being to Minister Christ and to Build Up the Church

Chapter thirteen of The Life and Way for the Practice of the Church Life begins with a very frank exhortation to all of the Lord’s workers concerning the content of their ministry to mankind. As Witness Lee explains, the aim of all Christian work and ministry must be simply and solely to minister Christ and to build up local churches:

Dear brothers, as the workers, as the servants of the Lord, in the New Testament age, first, you have to see that your work, your ministry, is to preach or minister Christ and to build up the church. These two items must be the governing rules. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you must be governed, ruled, by these two items.

You should not go to any place to preach immersion or predestination. What you should preach and minister is Christ Himself. God has no intention to tell people about immersion or predestination. God also has no intention to tell people about prophecy. If prophecy is a help for people to know Christ, that is all right. But if that becomes a factor to draw people away from Christ, you have to give it up. The ministry of the Lord’s servants in this present age is nothing else than to preach and minister Christ to others and to build up the church. You should not preach anything but Christ, and you should not work for the building up of your work, your ministry, but for the building up of the church. If any servant of the Lord breaks these two rules, you can be assured that he is sectarian. This is something very basic, about which we all need to be clear.

We are sent by the Lord to preach Christ either as the Savior to the sinners or as the all-inclusive Christ to the saints. We have to preach, to minister, Him to people with the building up of the church in view. If the view of your work is to enlarge and build up your ministry, that is absolutely wrong. You must preach Christ with only one intention, one purpose, and that is to build up the saints as a local church to express Christ in a corporate way. (112-113)

In this exhortation to his fellow Christian workers, Witness Lee clarifies the two fundamental rules governing the ministry of Lord’s servants in the local churches. In all their work for the Lord, they must solely minister Christ Himself to the believers, and then build them up as a local church in each city to express His one Body on the earth.

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