Watchman Nee was one of the most significant Christians of twentieth-century China and a man who has been a global influence.
Nee was born in 1903 in Fuzhou, south-east China. His grandfather had been one of the first pastors in China and his mother dedicated him to God before his birth. Despite this, and an education in a school run by a missionary society, Nee grew up without a personal faith. However, at the age of 17 he accepted Jesus in a powerful conversion experience. Totally dedicating his life to God, he immediately started witnessing to those around him.
Nee decided he wanted to be a Christian worker and was helped by meeting a remarkable British missionary, Margaret Barber. She fed him with books from the Holiness movements, which emphasised the working of God’s Spirit. Without any formal theological education, Nee developed his own distinctive personal faith – solidly evangelical, with an emphasis on the working of the Holy Spirit.
Nee started preaching and soon became a popular speaker and evangelist. He established home churches wherever he went. In 1925 he took the name ‘Watchman Nee’, reflecting a sense of being a guardian of the Chinese church. Nee’s preaching ministry began to expand through his writing and publishing. In 1928 he wrote the book The Spiritual Man, which has become a global spiritual classic.
By the late 1920s Nee’s ministry as an evangelist and an inspiring preacher was established not just in China but also in the West, where he made several visits. His messages were challenging, emphasising first the total sufficiency of Christ for every spiritual need and, secondly, the priority of building up the local church as the ‘Body of Christ’.
In 1934 Nee married Charity Chang, a woman who was to support him through his many illnesses and his long imprisonment. They had no children. Throughout the 1930s Nee continued to set up more house churches which took the name of ‘The Little Flock’. He taught that every town or community should only have one church, which should be self-governing and self-supporting.
During the Second World War Nee worked in his brother’s company to support impoverished church members. With the ending of the war Nee returned to public ministry and saw such remarkable growth that 700 ‘Little Flock’ churches, with at least 70,000 members, were established in China.
In 1949 the Communist Party took over China and soon missionaries were forced to leave and many denominational churches closed. In 1952 Nee, as a high-profile church leader, was arrested, falsely charged and sentenced to 15 years in prison. During his brutal imprisonment, only his wife was allowed to visit him. Although he was scheduled for release in 1967, Nee was kept in prison. Nee’s wife died in 1971 with his own death occurring a year later. His family found a paper he had written just before his death; it read, ‘Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and was raised up from the dead after three days. This is the greatest truth in the world. I die believing in Christ.’
Nee was an astonishingly powerful evangelist, a productive church planter and, ultimately, a brave martyr.
Let me draw your attention to four things that strike me about his life and ministry.
First, Nee showed strategic initiative. Although no one realised it at the time, the ‘open door’ that the gospel had enjoyed in China was about to close. Whether aware of it or not, Nee made the most of the opportunity with his energetic church-planting programme. And no doubt unintentionally, his creation of independent house churches proved to be what was needed. Dispersed, fluid and almost totally invisible, the Chinese house churches have proved resistant to decades of communist persecution.
Second, Nee showed steadfast individualism. The way that Nee stood at a distance from much of the Christian wisdom of the past was, in many ways, a part of his strength. In his writings there is a freshness that comes from a man hungrily seeking God’s wisdom for his culture and age.
Third, Nee preached spiritual involvement. One of the most compelling things about Nee’s vision of the local church is the notion that everybody in a church has not only value but a part to play. We can all learn from this.
Finally, in all Nee did there is a sacrificial intensity. He taught and practised the deepest form of Christian life. He offered everything, including his own life, to God.
Here are some of my favourite Watchman Nee quotations:
Good is not always God’s will, but God’s will is always good.
We may be weak, but looking at our weakness will not make us strong.
The Spirit is both a builder and a dweller. He cannot dwell where he has not built. He builds to dwell and dwells only in what he has built.
I do not consecrate myself to be a missionary or a preacher. I consecrate myself to God to do his will where I am, be it in school, office, or kitchen, or wherever he may, in his wisdom, send me.
Watchman Nee was indeed God’s watchman for his time and place. May we be watchmen and watchwomen for God today.
