The Normal Way of Fruit-bearing and Shepherding for the Building Up of the Church

by Witness Lee

Throughout the past centuries, many matters concerning the Christian life and church life were lost in the degradation of the church. Therefore, today the Lord desires to have a recovery. This recovery includes fruit-bearing. A proper Christian life is a fruit-bearing life, because we are the branches of the vine (John 15:5). God's operation in the universe is with His vine, and we are all the branches of this vine. The normal life of the branches is nothing other than to bear fruit. Whatever else a branch on a vine can do means nothing. In actuality, branches can do nothing but bear fruit. Therefore, to bear fruit is the normal living of the branches of the vine.

99 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2005

About the author

Witness Lee (李常受, pinyin Lǐ Chángshòu) was a Chinese Christian preacher associated with the Local Churches movement and the founder of Living Stream Ministry. He was born in the city of Yantai, Shandong Province, China, in 1905, to a Southern Baptist family. He became a Christian in 1925 after hearing the preaching of Peace Wang and later became a close coworker of Watchman Nee. Witness Lee moved to Taiwan in 1949 as the Communists were advancing in mainland China. During the 1950s, his ministry extended throughout Southeast Asia and in 1962 Lee moved to the United States, relocating the base of his ministry to Southern California. He gave his last public conference in February 1997 at the age of 91. Many of Lee's spoken messages have been published in over 400 books and translated into more than fourteen different languages. Lee's major work is Life-study of the Bible, comprising over 25,000 pages of commentary on every book of the Bible from the perspective of the believers' enjoyment and experience of God's divine life in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Lee was also the chief editor of a new translation of the Bible entitled the Recovery Version.