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I am very burdened for the church in Anaheim concerning the practice of the group meetings. In 1984 when I went to Taiwan, the first thing I touched was the group meetings. In my ministry regarding this matter I said that we can forget the heavens and the earth, but we must not forsake the group meetings. I also told all the churches that the church life depends eighty percent upon the group meetings.
The group meetings as a part of the God-ordained way are clearly unveiled in the New Testament. The church came into existence on the day of Pentecost. According to Acts 2:46, the newly saved believers immediately began to meet in their homes. Acts 2:46 uses the phrase from house to house. According to the Greek, this phrase means that the believers met by houses, taking the house as the basic unit for their meeting. This implies that wherever there was a home of a believer, there was a meeting. The number of homes was the same as the number of the believers’ meetings. Thus, the New Testament indicates that each one of us should have a meeting in our home. Of course, these home meetings should not be just with our own family; they should also include others. Paul’s Epistles indicate that in some localities the church met in a home (Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2).
The New Testament also shows us that in addition to having the group meetings in homes, the entire church should also come together in one place (1 Cor. 14:23). These two kinds of meetings — the group meetings in the homes and the meetings in which the whole church comes together in one place — are like the two wings of an airplane. With only one wing on one side, an airplane cannot fly. The group meetings in the homes are one “wing,” and the coming together of the whole church is the other. However, we need to see that the group meetings are more basic. Without the group meetings it is difficult to have the increase of the church. Without the members brought in through the group meetings, we could not have the coming together of the whole church. Although the church in Anaheim has been in existence since 1974, the number in the English-speaking meeting on the Lord’s Day is approximately one hundred fifty. This number is too small. The lack of increase among us is due mainly to the shortage of the group meetings in the saints’ homes.
Over a period of more than seven years I gave a number of messages on the practice of the group meetings (see The Exercise and Practice of the God-ordained Way, chs. 23 through 30, and The Practice of the Group Meetings). In these messages I gave the word from the Bible to convey the vision and the revelation concerning this matter. I also gave detailed instructions on how to carry out the group meetings. During this period of time, I did not do anything directly to begin the practice of the group meetings because I fully expected that a number of the saints would rise up and do this. I had the assurance that the elders, the co-workers, and the seeking saints would take the points of my speaking and come together to practice and learn the way to carry out the group meetings. All these saints are very capable; if they would do it, surely they would have a success. I have been waiting to see this in Anaheim since April 1989, but according to the present situation, nearly no one has risen up to practice the group meetings in the new way. Some of the saints do have a kind of group meeting, but those meetings are carried out in the old way. Those meetings do serve a certain purpose, but I must say that that way is not prevailing. That is not the way shown in the Bible. Our desperate need today is to practice the new group meetings in the new way. Without this it is very difficult for us to go on by gaining the increase.
To practice the God-ordained way we need the group meetings. I am happy that a good number of saints have remained faithful to the Lord’s recovery over the past eight years of my ministry on the God-ordained way. However, the churches need “new blood,” that is, new members. The only way to gain the new members for the church is through group meetings.
I realize that many of the saints have the desire to practice the group meetings in the new way, but they have not done so because they feel that they do not know how to do it. However, I would say that they do not know how to do it because they do not do it. If they would do it, they would know how to do it. It is a fact that we know how to do things by doing them. If we do not touch a certain thing, we will not know it. When we get into that thing, we know it. There are many common and ordinary things that we do not know how to do simply because we never did those things. If we would do them, we would learn by doing.
I have the burden to teach you the details concerning the forming of the groups and the practice of the group meetings, just as an English teacher would teach his students the ABCs. However, I cannot do this with the whole church. I do not think that the whole church is ready for this. But I believe that some of the saints are ready.
To form the groups in the new way there is no need to touch any of the existing church meetings or group meetings. We can let them go on as they have been, without attempting to change or to terminate them. If you desire to start a group meeting, you should first pray. You should not do anything without praying first. You should do everything by prayer and do everything according to prayer. In your prayer you may say to the Lord, “Lord, I am burdened to have a group meeting. Lord, give me the people. I cannot have the group meeting by myself. I need at least a few.” To form a group, you do not need a large number; even three to five saints are enough. After you pray to the Lord, the Lord may tell you to go to fellowship with a certain brother. While you are on your way to contact this brother, you should pray, “Lord, what should I say to him?” Do everything by prayer; this makes a difference.
If the brother agrees to join you, you should still pray, “Lord, what shall we do? My brother desires to join me. What shall we do?” In such a situation you should pray and not dominate the other brother by telling him what to do. Rather, you should ask him, “Now that you have expressed your desire to join me, what shall we do?” The other brother may propose that the two of you come together to pray and fellowship the next day. From the time that he says he will join you and you answer him by asking him what you should do, the two of you will be organically united in the Spirit. Your relationship will be different from what it was before. Immediately, the Holy Spirit will confirm this, making the two of you one. The two of you will love each other more than ever. Then you will learn of him, and he will learn of you.
After you pray together, in a few days the Lord may lead you both to contact a third brother. Through your prayerful contact with him, he may agree to join you. Now you have a group of three. I can assure you that if you form your group in this way, everyone who joins your group will immediately become one with you organically.
Do not do anything according to the natural concept. Do everything according to prayer. The Lord may lead you to contact another one. This one may live somewhat far away from you, and you may tell the Lord that he lives too far away. However, that is your concept. Instead of going according to your concept, you should follow the Lord’s leading through your prayer. Within a week or ten days, you may contact four or five saints who agree to join you in a group. This way of grouping together is different from the way of arrangement or assignment by the elders, and it is also different from the way of forming groups according to geography or neighborhood. Actually, both the way of prayer and the way of arrangement are needed in order to have the proper forming of the groups. In later chapters I will say more concerning the way to form the groups.
Before getting four or five, you may have gotten two or three already. You two or three should come together and pray and get to know each other. Although you may have met in the same church for years, you may not know how many children each other has. Furthermore, you may not know that the wife of one of the brothers has been ill for a considerable time. If you had been practicing the proper grouping, within one hour after one of the group members became ill, you would have known it. In grouping together, the first thing to do is to know one another. Whenever you come together, you should ask concerning the present situation of each group member. We may say that we know each other, but actually we do not. When one of our family members is sick, we may avoid telling others. We may say that everyone in our family is well when actually some are not well. Instead of opening our situation to one another, we hide things from one another.
After opening to one another concerning our present situation, we should pray for one another and care for and help one another. This is a further step in the practice of the group meetings. Because we do not open ourselves to one another and do not have the mutual care for one another, we have lost our impact. If you will practice the new way, immediately you will have the impact. After forming a group, you should not go the next day to visit people by knocking on new doors. Rather, the group members should pray together. The Lord is living, and He is real. He is with us, but He is not with us in the old way. In the old way He is not living and He is not real to us, because we do not practice His organic way. When we come together to fellowship, we still do not fully open ourselves to one another. Thus, there has been little result from our fellowship. It seems that the Lord is not with us, or that He is with us only partially. Yes, the Lord is gracious, and He is broad. He takes care of us, but that does not mean that He is happy with us. He is happy with us to the extent that we open ourselves to our fellow members.
Because we have never opened ourselves to our fellow members, we have very little impact. When you go out to knock on doors, even the unbelievers can sense that between the two or three of you there are some problems. There is no need for you to tell them; they can sense that you have problems. That reduces your impact. But if you are really one, the unbelievers can sense this also. They may say to themselves, “How marvelous that these three people are one. In my whole life I have never seen such a thing.” That is the impact. With such oneness and impact, surely the unbelievers will make the decision within themselves that they would like to join themselves to you. Perhaps they will not understand clearly what you preach to them, but after you leave, they may say to one another, “These people are sincere. They speak what they believe, and they speak what they are.” After the day of Pentecost the believers did not deliberately practice communism. To do so would have been a shame to them. However, they had everything in common (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32) in order to show the entire universe, including the demons, the angels, the Lord, and Satan, that they were truly one. Spontaneously, the impact was there (5:12-14).
We need to adjust our way in baptizing the new ones. After getting a new one saved, you should not baptize him immediately. Furthermore, if possible you should avoid baptizing him in a bathtub. To baptize people in a bathtub is neither stately nor dignified. I admit that this is different from what I taught in the past. I told you from the beginning that I am like one who is experimenting in a laboratory. I am studying in order to learn the proper way to practice the God-ordained way. Based on our former practice in Taipei, we learned that our way of baptizing people quickly should be reconsidered. There we baptized so many people that we could not take care of them adequately. It is not normal for a mother to have fifteen children in the same delivery. In Taipei we attempted to baptize as many people as we could in the shortest amount of time. Eventually, we baptized thirty-eight thousand people, but we might have lost thirty-five thousand of these because they were not taken care of as they should have been. We found out that this kind of practice was ineffective. If seven hundred saints had baptized only three thousand people in a period of eighteen months, surely they could have cared adequately for each new one.
After praying in seeking the Lord’s leading to form your group, you need to pray much concerning whom you should visit for the gospel. I believe that the Holy Spirit will lead you to take care of your closest friends and relatives first. You need to pray also concerning who among the three or five companions in your group should go with you to contact your friends and relatives. The Lord will lead you.
When you go out to contact people for the first time, you should not speak to them much concerning the Lord. If you speak too much concerning the Lord or the Bible, they may think that you are too religious. They may not like to be as religious as you are. During the first few times of contact, you should become acquainted with them and make friends with them. After two or three times the Spirit may lead you by giving you the feeling that they have accepted you. Then you can open to them something concerning the Lord. Even at that time you should not ask them too quickly to pray. Wait until the next time. Proceed slowly, step by step. If after forming a group you could get one person saved within one month, how marvelous that would be.
