By Xiran, China

In November 2021, I was elected as a church leader. At first, I actively learned from my partners and participated in various tasks, and although it was a bit busy and tiring, I felt really fulfilled. After a while, I found that I needed to look into, follow up on, and participate in solving issues in various items of the church’s work, and that this took a lot of time and energy. I thought, “If I actually participate in every task, wouldn’t I be even busier and more tired?” At that time, I was supervising the gospel work, but there were a lot of things I didn’t understand when I first started out, and to do the work well, I had to spend more time and energy on learning and seeking. I thought of Mo Li, who had been a leader before, and understood better than I did how to implement and follow up on the gospel work. I felt that it should be fine for her to supervise the gospel work, and that with an experienced person handling the work, things would be much easier for me. After that, I let Mo Li supervise the gospel work for a while, and I’d just ask her about how the gospel work was going at each gathering. I’d listen as she’d tell me that all the necessary work had been implemented, so I didn’t ask her about the details and just told her to follow up on the work closely. At that time, I knew that as a leader, I needed to follow up on the details of the work, but I didn’t want to wear myself out too much. I thought it was fine that Mo Li was in charge, so I rarely inquired about the gospel work. Some time later, the upper leaders sent a letter asking which potential gospel recipients could be preached to, and which could not. I was taken aback as I hadn’t understood these specific details. So I asked Mo Li about this, but she said that she only had a general understanding of this, and that she didn’t know the specifics about each potential gospel recipient either and hadn’t actually followed up on them. I got angry after hearing this, and I thought, “You’ve been supervising the gospel work, and yet you haven’t come to understand the details of it! You’re not doing actual work!” Later, I looked into the details, and only then did I find out that Mo Li’s usual way of implementing gospel work arrangements just involved reading through them with the brothers and sisters, and that she wasn’t doing any detailed fellowship or arrangements. When I heard the brothers and sisters report this, I felt uneasy, thinking Mo Li had been so perfunctory in her duties. At that time, I also realized that the main issue was with me. I usually just arranged the work during gatherings, and though I told the brothers and sisters to put more effort into their duties, and to rely on God when facing difficulties, I was really just talking in doctrines and slogans, and rarely inquiring about the details of the work, which was akin to washing my hands of it. Just like with the gospel work, after assigning the tasks to Mo Li, I’d just wait for her to get the work done well while I’d just sit back and reap the benefits. How could I do my duties well this way? The problems with the work had all been caused by my indulging in comfort and being perfunctory. I remember there were two potential gospel recipients at that time, but because I didn’t look into or follow up on them in time, it delayed preaching the gospel to them. Later, the preacher warned me, “You’ve been a leader for a month; why do you still not understand these tasks? You should really reflect on yourself.”

During my devotionals, I read God’s words: “The chief characteristic of the work of false leaders is blathering on about doctrine and parroting slogans. After issuing their orders, they simply wash their hands of the matter. They don’t ask questions about the work’s subsequent development; they do not ask whether any problems, deviations, or difficulties have arisen. They consider their job finished as soon as they assign the work. In fact, as a leader, after arranging the work, you must follow up on the work’s progress. Even if you aren’t familiar with that field of work—even if you lack any knowledge of it—you can find a way to do your work. You can find someone who truly grasps it, who understands the profession in question, to carry out vetting and make suggestions. From their suggestions you can identify the appropriate principles, and thus you will be able to follow up on the work. Whether or not you are familiar with or understand the profession in question, at the very least you must preside over the work, follow up on it, and continuously make inquiries and ask questions about its progress. You must maintain a grasp of such matters; this is your responsibility, it is part of your job. Not following up on the work, not doing anything more once it has been assigned, washing your hands of it—this is the way false leaders do things. Not following up on or providing direction regarding the work, not inquiring about or resolving issues that arise, and not grasping the progress or efficiency of the work—these are also manifestations of false leaders” (The Word, Vol. 5. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers (4)). “Because false leaders do not learn about the progress of the work, and because they are incapable of promptly identifying—much less solving—problems that arise in it, this often leads to repeated delays. In certain work, because people have no grasp of the principles and there is no one suitable to be responsible for it or preside over it, those carrying out the work are often in a state of negativity, passivity, and waiting, which severely affects the progress of the work. If the leader had fulfilled their responsibilities—if they had presided over the work, pushed it forward, supervised it, and found someone who understands that field to guide the work, then the work would have progressed faster rather than suffering repeated delays. For leaders, then, it is vital to understand and grasp the status of the work. Of course, it is also very necessary for leaders to understand and grasp how the work is progressing, as progress relates to the efficiency of the work and the results it’s supposed to achieve. If leaders and workers do not have a grasp on how the church’s work is progressing, and they do not follow up on or supervise things, then the progress of the church’s work is bound to be slow. This is due to the fact that the majority of people doing duties are seriously scummy, do not have a sense of burden, and are often negative, passive, and perfunctory. If there is nobody with a sense of burden and work capabilities taking responsibility for the work in a concrete manner, learning about the progress of the work in a timely manner, and guiding, supervising, disciplining, and pruning personnel who do duties, then naturally, the level of work efficiency is going to be very low and the results of the work are going to be very poor. If leaders and workers can’t even see this clearly, they are foolish and blind. And so, leaders and workers must promptly look into, follow up on, and grasp the progress of work, look into what problems people doing duties have that need to be resolved, and understand which problems should be resolved in order to achieve better results. These things are all very crucial, a person acting as a leader must be clear on these things. To do your duty well, you must not be like a false leader, who does some superficial work and then thinks they’ve done their duty well. False leaders are careless and slapdash in their work, they have no sense of responsibility, they don’t solve problems when they arise, and no matter what work they’re doing, they only skim the surface of it and approach it perfunctorily; they just speak high-sounding words, spout doctrines and empty talk, and go through the motions in their work. In general, this is the state of how false leaders do work. Although, in comparison to antichrists, false leaders do nothing overtly evil and are not deliberately doing evil, when you look at the effectiveness of their work, it is fair to characterize them as being perfunctory, as not bearing a burden, as being irresponsible and having no loyalty toward their work” (The Word, Vol. 5. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers (4)). God’s words pointed out the attitude that leaders and workers should have in their work, namely, to actively follow up on, inquire about, and look into the progress of the work, and to resolve various problems and difficulties, ensuring the smooth progress of the work. These are the responsibilities of leaders and workers. Even if one is inexperienced, they can seek from those who understand professional skills, and find principles of practice through it so that they will be able to follow up on the work. But a false leader doesn’t grasp the current conditions or progress of the work, and they don’t understand the results each task should achieve or how people are doing. They work in a superficial and slipshod manner, just going through the motions and not doing actual work, causing the work to not progress. What God exposed was exactly my behavior. In the gospel work, I used my initial lack of understanding as an excuse and handed the work over to Mo Li to supervise. I thought that since she’d been a leader and was familiar with gospel work, she should be able to shoulder it, but later, I didn’t actually follow up on or inquire about how many potential gospel recipients there were who could be preached to or about what problems or difficulties the brothers and sisters were having in their duties. I even thought that since Mo Li had said the work had all been implemented, and she didn’t mention any difficulties, I didn’t have much to worry about, and so I didn’t participate in the gospel work. As a leader, I was supposed to be responsible for following up on, looking into, and supervising the progress and status of all items of the work, and even if I let Mo Li supervise the gospel work, I should still follow up on, oversee, and look into the specifics. If the work wasn’t yielding results, I had to find the causes and resolve the problems and difficulties in time. But I pushed the work onto others, and began to take on a hands-off attitude, and as a result, the gospel work was delayed. On the surface, it seemed like I was doing my duties without committing any obvious evil or disturbing, but as a leader, I was catering to the flesh and not doing actual work, and this led to the gospel work not yielding results. I was a false leader, and I was wholly unworthy of this duty. Thinking of this, I felt deeply regretful. I couldn’t go on like this any longer, and I had to quickly change my attitude toward my duties. Afterward, I started to actually follow up on the gospel work, and when I discovered issues in the work, I fellowshipped to resolve them. The gospel work gradually began to yield results. After working for some time, I thought I had changed a bit, but to my surprise, not long after, I was revealed again.

A few months later, I was transferred to another church to be a leader, with my primary responsibility being overseeing the church’s cleansing work. I saw that some of the materials for cleansing away disbelievers and evil people were incomplete and needed additional factual evidence, so I fellowshipped with the brothers and sisters doing the cleansing work. However, because they had just started training, they didn’t grasp the principles and couldn’t come to grips with key points, resulting in materials they’d supplemented being incomplete and having to go back and forth for revisions. One time, I saw that the materials they’d supplemented still lacked details, and I thought to myself, “I’ve fellowshipped these principles several times. Although they understand them in theory, when faced with different situations in practice, they don’t know what to do. It seems that I have to actually guide them through putting together some materials to get them up to speed. This way, their duties would be done more efficiently.” But then I reconsidered, “If I help them put together cleansing materials, it’ll take up a lot of time and energy. I’m already so busy with my duties, so who knows how exhausting that would be? Moreover, I’m not neglecting these tasks; they need to train, and it should be fine if I just supervise and check on them. Only in this way can they make some progress.” With these things in mind, I only gave them fellowship and analysis, and I let them supplement these materials themselves. But there were still gaps in the supplemented materials, and a lot of materials kept having to be reworked, seriously delaying progress. Later, during a gathering, the upper leaders learned about how the cleansing work was going and pointed out to me, “Although you’ve provided the brothers and sisters with fellowship and analysis on these tasks, they’ve had to supplement each of these materials several times, and this has delayed the progress a lot. At this point, you need to go along with them in collecting and organizing these materials, actually train them, and improve the efficiency of their duties. This is also the responsibility of a leader.” Hearing the leaders point this out to me, I felt somewhat guilty. If I had actually participated in this task, the work wouldn’t have been delayed for so long.

During the gathering, we read God’s words: “There is another type of false leader, which we have often talked about while fellowshipping on the topic of ‘the responsibilities of leaders and workers.’ This type has some caliber, they’re not unintelligent, in their work, they have ways and methods, and plans for solving problems, and when they are given a piece of work, they can implement it close to the expected standards. They are able to discover any problems that arise in the work and can also resolve some of them; when they hear the problems some people report, or they observe the behavior, manifestations, speech and actions of some people, they have a reaction in their heart, and they have their own opinion and an attitude. Of course, if these people pursue the truth and have a sense of burden, then all these problems can be resolved. However, problems unexpectedly go unresolved in work that’s under the responsibility of the type of person we’re fellowshipping on today. Why is that? It’s because these people don’t do real work. They love ease and hate hard work, they are just making perfunctory efforts on the surface, they like being idle and enjoying the benefits of status, they like ordering people around, and they just move their mouths a bit and give some suggestions and then consider their work done. They don’t take any of the real work of the church or the critical work God entrusts to them to heart—they don’t have this sense of burden, and even if God’s house repeatedly emphasizes these things, they still don’t take them to heart. For example, they don’t want to intervene in or inquire about the film production work or text-based work of God’s house, nor do they wish to look into how these types of work are progressing and what results they’re achieving. They just make some indirect inquiries, and once they know that people are busy with this work and doing this work, they don’t concern themselves with it any further. Even when they know perfectly well that there are problems in the work, they still don’t want to fellowship on and resolve them, nor do they make inquiries about or look into how people are doing their duties. Why don’t they make inquiries or look into these things? They think that if they look into them, then there will be lots of problems waiting for them to resolve, and that will be too worrisome. Life will be far too exhausting if they always have to be solving problems! If they worry too much, food will no longer taste good to them, and they won’t be able to sleep well, their flesh will feel tired, and then life will become miserable. That’s why, when they see a problem, they evade it and ignore it if they can. What is the problem with this type of person? (They’re too lazy.) Tell Me, who has a serious problem: lazy people, or people with poor caliber? (Lazy people.) Why do lazy people have a serious problem? (People of poor caliber cannot be leaders or workers, but they can be somewhat effective when they do a duty that is within their abilities. However, people who are lazy can’t do anything; even if they do have caliber, it has no effect.) Lazy people can’t do anything. To summarize it in two words, they are useless people; they have a second-class disability. No matter how good the caliber of lazy people is, it is nothing more than window dressing; even though they have good caliber, it is of no use. They are too lazy—they know what they are supposed to do, but they don’t do it, and even if they know something is a problem, they do not seek the truth to resolve it, and though they know what hardships they should suffer in order for the work to be effective, they are unwilling to endure these worthwhile hardships—so they cannot gain any truths, and they cannot do any real work. They do not wish to endure the hardships people are supposed to; they only know to indulge in comfort, enjoy times of joy and leisure, and enjoy a free and relaxed life. Are they not useless? People who cannot endure hardship don’t deserve to live. Those who always wish to live the life of a parasite are people without conscience or reason; they are beasts, and such people are unfit even to perform labor. Because they cannot endure hardship, even when they do perform labor, they are not able to do it well, and if they wish to gain the truth, there is even less hope of that. Someone who cannot suffer and does not love the truth is a useless person; they are unqualified even to perform labor. They are a beast, without a shred of humanity. Such people must be eliminated; only this accords with God’s intentions” (The Word, Vol. 5. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers (8)). God exposes that the main reason false leaders don’t do actual work is laziness. They indulge in fleshly comfort, love bossing people around, and don’t want to solve problems even when they see them. They have no sense of burden or responsibility for their duties, and no matter how good their caliber is, they are still useless. It felt like the various behaviors of false leaders exposed by God were descriptions of my own behavior. In recent times, my duty had just consisted of me bossing people around. I’d been all talk and only ever asked about how things were going on a basic level. I didn’t seek results or solve problems, and in essence, I wasn’t doing actual work, but just enjoying the benefits of my status. In particular, I saw that God says lazy people have character issues, that they are unwilling to suffer and pay a price in their duties, lack conscience and reason, that even their labor isn’t up to standard, and that God truly detests such people. This made me feel very upset. Not only had I failed to put in my heart and strength and fulfill my responsibilities in my duty, but I’d also become a person detested by God. Being able to do the duty of a leader was already a great elevation from God, and it was an opportunity God had given me to train. I should do my best to fulfill this duty, and this would also benefit my life growth. It was clear to me that the brothers and sisters organizing materials for clearing out people had just begun to train, and that they didn’t grasp the principles, and even after several rounds of supplementations, the materials were still incomplete. If this continued, it would delay the work. I should have put more thought into this matter and guided them in detail. I had to personally go along with them in putting together some materials, so they could grasp the principles as soon as possible. But I felt that doing so would take a lot of time and energy, which would mean fleshly suffering and fatigue, so I didn’t want to actually solve this issue. I even made excuses saying they needed to train on their own to improve. As a result, several pieces of material weren’t supplemented for a long time. Really, these problems could have been solved if I’d put in more thought and paid a price, but I was just too lazy, thinking only of my flesh in my duties. I had a perfunctory attitude, and had no sense of burden or responsibility toward the work, and as a result, the cleansing work was delayed. If I carried on like this, I would be eliminated by God sooner or later. I couldn’t carry on as I had been. I should shoulder my responsibilities and do my duties well according to God’s requirements.

Later, I read more of God’s words, and I gained some paths for how leaders and workers do actual work. Almighty God says: “When providing initial guidance for a task, besides offering specific implementation plans for special situations, leaders and workers with average caliber and relatively poor work capability should be given more specific and detailed guidance. Although these people may understand the principles and specific implementation plans for a task in terms of doctrine, they still do not know how to put them into practice when it comes to actual implementation. How should you treat the few leaders and workers who have poor caliber and lack work capability? … You must fulfill the responsibilities you should; you must consider the churches where those who are relatively weak and possessed of relatively poor work capability are in charge. Leaders and workers must pay special attention and provide special guidance in these matters. What does special guidance refer to? Besides fellowshipping on the truth, you must also provide more specific and detailed direction and assistance, which requires more effort in terms of communication. If you explain the work to them and they still do not understand, and do not know how to implement it, or even if they understand it in terms of doctrine and seem to know how to implement it, but you are still unsure and a bit worried about how the actual implementation will go, what should you do then? You need to personally go deep into the local church to guide them and to implement the task with them. Tell them the principles while making specific arrangements concerning the tasks that need to be done according to the requirements of the work arrangements, such as what to do first and what to do next, and how to properly allocate people—organize all of these things properly. This is practically guiding them in their work, as opposed to just shouting slogans or giving random orders, and lecturing them with some doctrines, and then considering your work done—that is not a manifestation of doing specific work, and shouting slogans and bossing people around are not the responsibilities of leaders and workers. Once the local church leaders or supervisors can shoulder the work, and the work has entered onto the right track, and there are basically no major issues, only then can the leader or worker leave. This is the first specific task mentioned in the ninth responsibility of leaders and workers for implementing the work arrangements—providing guidance. So, how exactly should guidance be provided? Leaders and workers should first practice pondering and fellowshipping on the work arrangements, learning about and comprehending the various specific requirements of the work arrangements, and understanding and grasping the principles within the work arrangements. Then, they should fellowship together with leaders and workers at all levels on specific plans for implementing the work arrangements. Additionally, they should provide specific implementation plans for special situations and, finally, they should give more detailed and specific assistance and direction to leaders and workers who are relatively weak and have relatively poor caliber. If some leaders and workers are completely unable to implement the task, what should be done in such situations? The upper-level leaders and workers should go deep into the church and personally participate in the task, resolving the actual issues through fellowshipping the truth, and get them to learn how to do the work and how to implement the work according to the principles” (The Word, Vol. 5. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers (10)). God has pointed out the path of practice on how leaders and workers do actual work. For brothers and sisters who don’t grasp principles and have poor work capabilities, we should give more detailed and specific help and guidance. This is what God requires of leaders and workers. For these brothers and sisters who had just started training in the cleansing work and hadn’t come to grasp the principles, I should have given detailed, specific guidance and taught them in person in real-world work scenarios. But I heeded my flesh and didn’t do any of the actual work that needed to be done, delaying the work as a result. This was a serious dereliction of my duty. I was supervising the church’s cleansing work, so I needed to cleanse the church of disbelievers, as well as the evil people and antichrists who disrupted and disturbed church life, allowing the brothers and sisters to have a good church life, better fellowship the truth, and grow in life. But because I didn’t do actual work, the people who should’ve been cleansed from the church weren’t dealt with in time, harming the work of the church. In this, I was essentially doing evil. From then on, I wanted to do my duty well according to God’s requirements, and promptly give fellowship and guidance to brothers and sisters so they could quickly grasp the principles and fulfill their duties.

Before long, the upper leaders returned some cleansing materials that needed to be urgently supplemented with factual evidence. I thought of assigning it to the brothers and sisters, but I realized they still didn’t grasp the principles, and that having them supplement these materials would surely delay progress. So, I went to them and analyzed and fellowshipped the principles together with them. Based on the issues the leaders had pointed out, I had them share their views first, and after, I drew on the principles to fellowship with them on what they were lacking, allowing them to grasp some principles. I found that when I wanted to do my duty well, I didn’t feel as tired, and the brothers and sisters also made progress in their duties. Practicing this way gave me peace of mind. By analyzing the materials with the brothers and sisters, I also understood more about the principles for discerning people. These results were all achieved through doing actual work.

Through the experience, I came to see that it’s really important for leaders and workers to do actual work, as this directly affects the progress of the church’s work. At the same time, I also realized that when people actually do their duties in accordance with God’s requirements, they can achieve some results. Thank God!