Brought into the One Accord, William Hirst

How grateful I am that I have been brought to a place where my spiritual appetite for the one accord can be satisfied and I am able to grow in a normal manner. Deep within me I also realize that the Lord is satisfied when we gather together in oneness with other believers.

I was raised in a Christian home and am thankful that my dad and mom had a heart for the things of the Lord. I attended Wheaton College in Illinois and taught in the public schools of Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Virginia for 36 years before retiring last year. Even though I was saved when I was a young boy there came a time through a series of circumstances that I felt there was something missing in my Christian life. I was bothered that even though there were so many Christians on the earth there was no practical expression of that oneness that I felt the Lord desired and even prayed for in John 17. I also desired to subjectively experience and enjoy the Lord more than I was experiencing Him.

After starting a Sunday school class in the book of 1^st Corinthians, I realized that Paul in the first chapter of the book told the believers in the city of Corinth that divisions were wrong. If that was the case in Corinth it was also true in the town of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania where my wife and I lived at that time. As a result of a Saturday evening meeting we started with believers from different backgrounds, we enjoyed in a fresh way the Lord Jesus as we sang and testified concerning our experience of Him.

At this time I also started to read the writings of Watchman Nee. A neighbor had given me The Normal Christian Life ten years before, yet I never had an appetite to get into the book. Reading this one and others that I bought from a Christian bookstore in our area, I started to appreciate the deeper truths concerning God's Word. A short time later my wife and I met the local church in Philadelphia. How thankful we are for all of the riches of the Word that we have enjoyed through the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. I can testify that these last twenty-five years have been rich in revelation and experiences of what the Lord desire--to conform us to His image (Romans 8:29) so He can have a practical expression of His Body on the earth.