Hero of the Faith – Watchman Nee and the “Little Flock” Church

One of my favorite authors is Watchman Nee, a hero of the Christian faith who spent the last 20 years of his life in prison in China. Nee’s last written words were found at his side at his death…“Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and resurrected after three days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ.”

Watchman Nee (Ni Shu-tsu or Ni To-sheng, 1903 – 1972) was a Chinese Christian pastor and author who is said to have started approximately 400 local churches throughout China before his arrest by the Communist authorities in 1952. As a Christian pastor who refused to adopt the official Communist version of the church, he remained in prison for 20 years until his death. His writings have inspired many Christians around the world. The following excerpt from Against the Tide: The Story of Watchman Nee by Angus I. Kinnear (p. 152-153), describes circumstances in his primary ministry home, the “Little Flock” meeting at Assembly Hall on Hardoon Road, Shanghai, around 1940.

Bible teaching was seriously constricted by the inadequate premises. Many wooden pillars of the three-property space (later extended to five properties) compelled various adaptations of the ground floor area for tight packed meetings. The hall had no heating and the floor squeaked atrociously when walked on. On Sunday morning crowds gather quietly at 9:30 to hear the preaching of the Word. On backless benches all must sit as close as possible to make the maximum use of the space, for outside the building on three sides more people sit at the windows and the big double doors or listen to the loudspeakers, and there is even an overflow upstairs. As well as the poor the educated and rich are here: doctors mingle with labourers, lawyers and teachers with rickshaw men and cooks. … Children run about, dogs wander in, hawkers enter the lane, cars honk in the road outside, and the P.A. system is erratic. But each Sunday the word of the Cross is faithfully preached. Sin and salvation, the new life in Christ and the eternal purpose of God, service and spiritual warfare – all are expounded and nothing is held back. They are given the strongest food and the straightest challenge.

Watchman held their attention with his gentle manner, his simple but thorough reasoning and his apt analogies. No one ever saw him use any notes for he remembered and could reproduce anything he read. To illustrate a thing visually he would drat a swift imaginary sketch in the air (which a young worker might reproduce on poster paper afterwards) and if to illumine some point he told a personal anecdote it was nearly always a story against himself. His keen sense of humor sent frequent ripples of laughter round the hall and ‘you never got sleepy in his meetings.’ But from start to finish he never strayed from his subject. ‘What matters’ he used to say, ‘is the effectiveness of the word proclaimed,’ and unfailingly at the end he had left a clear and deep impression on the minds and hearts of his hearers.