THE BASIC REQUIREMENTS FOR PREACHING THE GOSPEL
The Lord’s recovery is multifaceted, and it requires us to care for the truth, life, the church, and the gospel. In this chapter we will cover the gospel. Concerning the preaching of the gospel, there are three basic requirements: being beside ourselves, being thick-skinned, and opening our homes.
The first basic requirement for gospel preaching is that we need to be beside ourselves. Prayer makes people beside themselves (2 Cor. 5:13). A person who has prayed thoroughly cannot help but be beside himself when he preaches the gospel. Even in other things, he will be beside himself, crazy, after he has prayed thoroughly. In addition to being crazy, we need to be thick-skinned.
The basic requirements for preaching the gospel can be summed up in two words: crazy and thick. We say this from our experience. If we are not crazy or if our skin is not thick, all our efforts will be in vain. We must learn to be crazy, and we must exercise to have a thick skin. We must also be practical and open our homes. The Holy Spirit was poured out upon all flesh long ago, but the shortage is that we are not crazy, our skin is not thick enough, and our homes are not open. We would like to fellowship concerning opening our homes. Even though opening our homes is not easy, it is the easiest thing we can do for the gospel. Furthermore, it is very effective. Opening our homes is very important. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 4, “Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service”, ch. 11, p. 163)
The church in Zamboanga 