What is the Purpose and Goal of the Full-Time Training?

What is the Purpose and Goal of the Full-Time Training? What is the Full-time Training, and how are the Nazarites related to the training?

If the return of the Lord should be delayed, it will be necessary to raise up a number of young people to continue the testimony and the work for the following generations…My thought is not to establish a seminary or a Bible institute, but to have young people staying together to live the Body life and practice the spiritual life.
In such a place they would receive training for the purpose of edification, by learning to read the Scripture, to pray, and to build up a good character. On the negative side, there would be training for the purpose of learning how to deal with sin, the world, the flesh, and the natural life.
At a suitable time, the young people would return to their respective churches in various places to be tempered together with other saints to serve the Lord in the church.
Watchman Nee

This is my burden. I must finish my responsibility before the Lord to make the Lord’s revelation in the holy Word as clear as I can to all of us. I must continue to present what the Lord has shown us from the beginning of the Lord’s recovery in mainland China through Brother Nee until the present time.
I am also burdened to train some young saints, not with the expectation that they all will become lifelong full-timers to serve the Lord. But we do have an expectation that many of the young college graduates among us will spend either one or two years of time to learn something of the Lord, that is, to learn the Word and to learn the lessons in life.
After such a training they may decide to go back to continue their schooling, or they may go back to get a job. Of course, by having such a training some will be tested out and approved to be lifelong full-time servants of the Lord.
Witness Lee

The Purpose of the Training

1. To build up the trainees in Christ in the growth of His life unto maturity— Eph. 4:15; Col. 1:28.
2. To equip the trainees in the realisation of the divine truths according to the Scriptures by the revelation of the Holy Spirit—2 Tim. 3:16-17; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:18.
3. To raise up the trainees in the cultivation of their spiritual capacity in the preaching of the gospel, the nourishing of the young believers, the perfecting of the saints, and the prophesying of the word of God for the building up of the local churches, consummating in the building up of the Body of Christ—Matt. 28:19; 1 Thes. 2:7; Eph. 4:12; 1 Cor. 14:1.

The Goal of the Training

1. To reach the highest peak of the divine revelation—God becoming a man that man may become God in life and in nature, but not in the Godhead—Eph. 3:3-11; John 1:1, 14; Heb. 2:14; John 1:12-13; Eph. 1:4; Rom. 8:29-30; 2 Pet. 1:4; Matt. 4:10; cf. Acts 14:12, 15.
2. To reach the high peak of today’s Zion (the overcomers) in today’s Jerusalem (the church)—Rev. 14:1.
3. To reach the reality of the Body of Christ by living a life conformed to Christ’s death in the power of His resurrection—Phil. 3:10.

Sharing on the Purpose of the Full-Time Training

We need to see a scenery – from Genesis to Revelation – Christ and the church! He’s the all-inclusive Christ, who is touchable, contactable, receivable, experiential, something to enter into and enjoy! What a Christ we have! We are brought into this divine scene!

And the church today is just Christ enlarged and expanded, just a corporate vessel to contain Him as the content. The church is wonderful! This is God’s economy, His desire.

The purpose of the training is to raise up the trainees to preach the gospel – bring people the good news and let people know about this wonderful Christ. Also, it is to nourish the young believers – we need to be those nourished and fed and then nourish and feed others.

The purpose of the training is to perfect the saints, group them together and be vitalized together, so that we may be brought into the prophesying life, to prophesy the word of God. That is, to speak for God and speak God forth.

All this is for the goal of building up the local churches consummating in the building up of the Body of Christ! There is a mountain peak we need to reach: the highest peak of the divine revelation. There are many wonderful revelations in the Bible, but there’s a peak, God became man so that man may become God in life and nature.

God in Christ was incarnated, lived a human life, died on the cross, resurrected, and ascended, that we would realize that this One wants to make us Him in life and nature, but having nothing to do with the Godhead. We need to reach the high peak of Zion, just above Jerusalem; these are the overcomers.

There is the church with many believers, but there is a lot of degradation and failures, but in the midst of this the Lord wants overcomers – the highlight, the strength, the blessing, and the beauty in the church!

These are the ones who bring in the reality of the Body of Christ on the earth today! We want to reach the reality of the Body by living a life!

The full-time trainees are trained not to be professionals but to live a life, whatever they do, not by their own strength, but to be conformed to His death, not live by their natural life and constitution or self, but by another life! Live by the resurrection life of Christ! Amen!

A sharing from the recent FTTL (Full-Time Training in London) graduation meeting. Full information related to the FTTL can be found on their website at fttl.org, and if you are considering joining the training, see this link. This article is part of the 2024 Fall FTTL Graduation series.