Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, servants of the Lord Jesus, labored together to build up the local churches. Their labor included conducting full-time Christian trainings. These trainings, such as the Full-time Training in Anaheim, California (FTTA), are currently offered by the Living Stream Ministry. This website is comprised mainly of testimonies from some trainees at FTTA. As mentioned below, the Lord Jesus and Paul trained the disciples.

Jesus

The Lord Jesus taught and trained His disciples throughout the three and one-half years of His earthly ministry. For example, it was to His disciples that he spoke about His kingdom in Matthew chapters 5-7. It was also the Lord's disciples that He trained to practice and enjoy His invisible presence during the 40-day period between His resurrection and public ascension.

Paul

Acts 19:9-10 reveal that Paul continued to train the disciples by separating them and reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus for two years in Ephesus. Then for two whole years in Rome he rented his own dwelling “and welcomed all those who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:30-31).

Watchman Nee

Trainings conducted by Watchman Nee

1. Shanghai, China – 1936
2. Shanghai, China – 1939-1942
3. Mount Kuling (Foochow), China – 1948

From the very beginning of the Lord's fresh move in China in the 1920s, Brother Watchman Nee realized that there was the need for a training. In 1936 Watchman Nee built a house in a suburb of Shanghai in order to have a training there. However, immediately after the completion of this house, Japan invaded China and the house was destroyed.

In 1939, Watchman Nee saw that the church is the Body of Christ in its inward life, and that in this outward coordination there is the need for practical building. As a result, he rented a place in You-hwa Village, Shanghai, for training 50 to 80 people. Watchman Nee trained brothers on the matters of consecration and the knowledge of the Body two to three times weekly.

When Watchman Nee tried again to have a training in the early 1940s, turmoil arose in the church in Shanghai and this caused Watchman Nee to suspend his ministry for six years from 1942 to 1948. During this time he bought about 20 houses on Mount Kuling near Foochow from the money he made from the pharmaceutical business, and prepared it to be used as a training center. When Watchman Nee's ministry was recovered in 1948, he trained over 80 coworkers on Mount Kuling for half a year. Witness Lee gave the following account of this training:

Everybody was joyful in this training. They lived together day by day, praising, singing, praying, and coming to training meetings three times daily. Every day Brother Nee gave at least four or five messages, morning, afternoon, and evening. After that training, these eighty to one hundred saints came down from the mountain and were scattered throughout China. This caused a bigger explosion. In Tsingtao, the biggest city in my province, the church baptized seven hundred people in one day. That was in November 1948, one month after Brother Nee's six-month training course was finished. (The History of the Church and the Local Churches, p. 67, by Witness Lee)

Watchman Nee intended to conduct a second training in 1949, in which Witness Lee participated for a short time before the Communist Chinese came in, terminated the training, and confiscated the buildings used for it.

Witness Lee

Trainings conducted by Witness Lee

1. Taipei, Taiwan – 1950s
2. Taipei, Taiwan – 1986-1988? (continued to the present by others)
3. Irving, Texas – 1988-1989
4. Anaheim, California – 1989-97 (continued to the present by others)

Witness Lee, Watchman Nee's closest co-worker, also conducted full-time trainings. In order to perfect more young believers to know the truth in the Bible and to participate in the Lord's building up of His church, Witness Lee established international Bible Truth and Church Service Training centers for those serving the Lord full-time. There are nine full-time training centers in the following locations:

Many of the graduates of these trainings have continued to serve the Lord full-time and to help spread the Lord's testimony throughout the earth. Some of them who attended the training in Anaheim have written their testimonies concerning the training. The two-year training consists of four semesters or terms.

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