Search
The most difficult aspect of a small group meeting is its content. In the big meetings the main emphasis is on one speaker. Consequently, if the speaker is rich, the content of the big meetings is also rich, but in a small group meeting there may be few, if any, capable speakers. Instead, those who come together often consider themselves to be ordinary. Hence, the content of the small group meetings is not as rich as a big meeting. If we want to see a “spiritual giant,” we have to go to a meeting with at least one hundred thousand people, because only such a person could gather such a large audience and maintain the atmosphere of such a meeting. In reality, there are not many spiritual giants. Not everyone can be a spiritual giant, just as not everyone can be the president of a country. In the human realm, not everyone can be the principal of a school or even a teacher. Out of ten teachers, it is not easy to find one who can teach really well. In the spiritual realm many of us are saved, but we are all ordinary. Among tens of thousands of Christians, there are some who are eloquent, but those who love the Lord, pursue the Lord, and come to the small group meetings are not coming to listen to eloquent speaking. Most of them are coming to enjoy the riches of Christ and to touch spiritual reality. A church cannot be built up by relying on spiritual giants. In general, we just need ordinary brothers and sisters who are willing to function.
According to the Bible, three thousand people were saved on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41). Later, five thousand were saved (4:4), and they all were filled with the Holy Spirit, meeting from house to house. How many spiritual giants were among those few thousand? Acts 7:2-53 records a long message by Stephen, and there is a record of Philip the evangelist being caught away (8:5, 26-40). However, the Bible does not include the content of any of Philip’s gospel messages. In Acts there is also a record of Barnabas (4:36; 11:22-24), but again there is no record of the content of his preaching. There are lengthy records of the messages of only Peter, Stephen, and Paul. Philip and Barnabas are the only other names of significance recorded in Acts. If there were other outstanding ones among the eight thousand, their names surely would have been included by Luke, the author of Acts. This shows that the believers were all more or less on the same level.
What the Bible does not record is often more meaningful than what it does record. When Barnabas and Paul went out to preach (13:1-3), Barnabas did not preach. Whenever there was an occasion to preach, Paul spoke. In the Bible there are prophets and teachers, but these prophets and teachers are not necessarily spiritual giants. If Barnabas had been an outstanding preacher, Luke would have recorded this fact. Even the preaching of Timothy was probably average. Of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, none were written by Barnabas or Timothy. Only Paul was a real spiritual giant. Of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, he wrote fourteen of them. This indicates that the church must be built up with saints who are not spiritual giants.
The strength or weakness of a local church does not depend on spiritual giants but on ordinary brothers and sisters. The Bible likens the church to God’s cultivated land, God’s farm (1 Cor. 3:9). A field planted with wheat will be full of golden stalks of grain at harvest time, all of which are about the same height; the field will look as if it has been trimmed with no stalks being exceptionally tall and no stalks being exceptionally short. The church is God’s crop with stalks of grain at the same height being the normal condition. Extraordinarily tall stalks are abnormal. Regrettably, this is not our view. Rather, we are always looking for outstanding ones in a church. If there are no outstanding ones in a certain church, we do not consider that church to be promising.
However, our history tells us that every local church with some outstanding ones eventually has problems, whereas local churches that have only ordinary believers go on steadily. Churches that depend on spiritual giants may be in a good condition for a short time, like the blossoming of the night-blooming flower. This condition does not last very long, because spiritual giants wane in strength. Moses said that the days of our years are seventy years, or eighty years if we are strong (Psa. 90:10). Even if a man lives to be eighty, the days of his life are mere handbreadths (39:5). After a spiritual giant passes away, often there is nothing left, but in contrast, ordinary believers go on generation after generation. Ordinary believers produce only ordinary believers, but they go on for generations. Paul was a spiritual giant, but he passed away. In the last two thousand years, many who love the Bible would have liked to listen to Paul’s preaching, but he has passed away. There is not another Paul on the earth, but there are many ordinary believers. The Lord saves ordinary believers, and He will use them to build the church. We must change our concept. God has no desire to rely on spiritual giants to build the church.
Ephesians 4:11 speaks of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. It is the ordinary saints, all of whom are members of the Body of Christ (v. 12), who build the church directly. All the members of the Body hold to truth in love, and by holding to Christ, there is an increase in the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love (vv. 15-16). The gifts — the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers — do not build up the church directly. They can be considered only as “middlemen.” A local church must rely on a group of ordinary people with no particular outstanding function in order to be built up. The more ordinary the saints are, the more normal the church will be and the longer its spiritual condition will last.
Having only big meetings led by a capable speaker is not according to the Bible. The principle revealed in the Bible is that God uses gifts to save and perfect people, and then He uses the perfected saints to build the church directly. Consequently, the Bible speaks of meeting from house to house. The church must have small group meetings in the saints’ homes.
The attendants of a small group meeting are all ordinary believers. Therefore, we should not expect a meeting to have content that is so high. Generally speaking, the most healthy and energy-sustaining foods are ordinary, home-cooked meals. If we eat a feast every day, our life expectancy will not be long. Our small group meeting should not be a big feast; it should be filled with ordinary, home-cooked meals. The small group meetings can supply such meals. Today, however, the small group meetings often serve only dessert and not an ordinary meal. Eating too much dessert is not good; it is harmful to one’s health. If a person wants to be healthy, he should eat food with less grease, sugar, and salt. By taking care of these few things in his cooking, he and his entire family will be healthy. The small groups should supply home-cooked meals, but this is not easy. When we first began to promote the small groups, the testimonies that we heard were as tasty as ice cream. Many saints who had not been meeting for a long time returned, and it was very encouraging to hear their testimonies. When I heard about this, I was encouraged but also concerned that if there were no ordinary, home-cooked meals in the small group meetings, the meetings would be void of supply when there was no longer any “ice cream.”
I am speaking about this burden in order to change our concepts. I hope that all the saints would understand our real situation. We should not set our hope on big meetings; this is a dead end. The big meetings cannot keep people. Today degraded Christianity emphasizes big meetings and sets up seminaries to train preachers, but the Bible speaks of planting (1 Cor. 3:6). The church is raising up ordinary believers. We must change our concept. We do not need to prepare a big feast; instead, we need ordinary, home-cooked meals. If we are willing, many of us can prepare a home-cooked meal, because we all love the Lord and hope that the church would be built up. Therefore, I believe that we are willing to receive this leading from the Lord.
Today there are more than six hundred churches on six continents. Every church is looking at the church in Taipei because the overseas churches began through Taipei. Therefore, the church in Taipei must be built up; otherwise, it will be hard for the local churches in other places to go on. We must pay attention to building up the small group meetings according to the revelation and principle of the Bible and to nurturing the brothers and sisters in Taipei in the small groups. Every small group is like a garden. If we nurture the green and tender trees, we will surely succeed. I hope that all who love the Lord would together bear the burden for the going on of the small groups. A small group meeting is like a family with eight to ten members, all of whom can shop for food and prepare meals so that the whole family can be healthy.
In order to uplift, strengthen, and enrich the content of the small group meetings, we have to learn to use the Lord’s Word skillfully. Christians who go to the Sunday morning services also read the Bible, but there is a big difference between reading the Bible in a living way and reading it in a dead way. We may read a Bible verse in a dead way, reading only the black and white letters, or we can read the same verse in a living and rich way. This does not mean that the only purpose for reading the Bible is to bring a supply to the small group meetings. We also need to read the Bible for our personal growth. If we want the small groups to be strong, we must grow. If we do not grow, the small groups will not be strong. If no one knows how to read the Bible in a living way, how can the small groups be strong? Therefore, if we are not strong, our small group will not be strong. In order for us to be strong, we must live a normal Christian life. Our Bible reading must be living. Every day we must pray, fellowship with the Lord, walk by the Spirit, live Christ, and experience Christ as life. If we have this kind of living, we will be living not only when we come to the small group meetings but even when we are at home.
Eleven years ago we did not have the Life-study messages, so when we came to a difficult word in the Bible, we would look at reference book after reference book. This often caused our head to spin, and we still were not certain of the word’s meaning. Thank the Lord, in 1974 the Lord led us to begin the life-study trainings because of the rapid increase in numbers in the United States. After eleven years we have covered all twenty-seven books of the New Testament, consisting of about one thousand two hundred messages. Now the complete set of messages has been printed. These messages are very rich. If we are willing to use them, we will be helped very much.
The Life-study messages are a rich treasure store. When you are reading any book of the New Testament, I would advise you to read it with the Life-study messages. When you read by yourself, it is difficult to unlock the Bible. But when you consider and study a certain chapter or verse in the Bible using the Life-study messages, you will touch the essence in the Bible and receive a supply of life. We should not consider that we are replacing the Bible with the Life-study messages. Every sentence in the Life-study messages supplies the truth of the Bible and life to us. The Life-study messages do not replace the Bible but rather promote the Bible. Every line of the Life-studies is like a cooked meal from the Bible, and it is ready to eat. In the Life-studies, “soy beans” have been made into soy milk and tofu, and “wheat” has been ground into flour and steamed as bread. The Life-studies are a key to open a door to a spiritual treasury. They will save us much time that would otherwise be spent in researching the meaning of words. Using the Life-studies is the way to obtain a rich supply, and it is the most efficient use of our time. If we read the Bible with the Life-studies, we will not waste time.
I hope that it would not be too much to set aside twenty minutes every day to read the Bible with the Life-study messages. If we are willing to do this, we will discover that it makes a difference. As long as we have such a desire, we should speak to the Lord, saying, “Have mercy on me. Every day, either in the morning or in the evening, give me twenty minutes in Your Word. I want to spend time in Your Word and live before You.” If we are willing to do this every day, it will be easy to achieve this goal.
It seems that although some of us cannot get up in the morning, everyone is able to go to bed late. However, it is relatively easy to get a lazy person to rise up early. After rolling over a few times, he will get up, but getting a person to go to bed at 10:30 P.M. is as difficult as restraining a wild horse. Going to bed early is a struggle because it is easy to talk on the phone for an extra few minutes, and it is easy to read a newspaper for another twenty minutes. Then before we know it, it is late. We often say, “Lord, I really love You, but I need Your mercy. I am willing, but I do not have the strength.” But in matters such as talking on the phone and reading the newspaper, we are willing, and we have much strength. After we read the front page, we go to the second page and then to the advertisements. If we truly have a heart, we will achieve this goal as long as we are willing to make a small adjustment to our life. We should be willing to redeem the time. If we could regain the half an hour that we waste doing this and that, or if we shorten our sleeping time by half an hour in order to spend it before the Lord, we would be healthy in body, soul, and spirit.
Today we are at a strategic point. If we do not build up the small groups, the church will have no future. The spread of the church is based upon the small groups, and we are the small groups. If we all prepare a regular, home-cooked meal, the small groups will be built up. Such a home-cooked meal will be produced by spending twenty minutes reading the Bible every day. During these twenty minutes, we can read the verses that will be used in the small group meetings. Every day we should prepare material for the small group meetings. If the churches practice this, and every small group practices this, the content of the small group meetings will be rich.
The small group meetings must be freed from customs, religion, traditions, and death. The best way to begin a small group meeting is not by reading the Bible, praying, or singing hymns. The best beginning is to have no beginning. If we arrive at a small group meeting before 7:30 P.M., there is no need to act spiritual or even to begin by praying or reading the Bible. If we have a burden to pray, we can certainly pray, but we should not pray in a religious way. Prayers are needed, but we do not have to close our eyes to pray; closing our eyes just helps to eliminate distracting things. If a brother comes in, we should stand up, shake his hand, and talk with him in order to greet him and to care for him. For the sake of time, however, we should begin the meeting by 7:30 P.M. Someone may spontaneously pray or call a song. Twenty minutes after the start of the meeting, we can pray-read some verses from the Bible. Since there is no leader in any group, everyone is a leader. Both brothers and sisters can take the lead. We should also bring the Life-studies so that anyone can take the lead to begin reading.
Our reading of the Word should not be dead but living. When we have a sense of inward enjoyment, we can share three to five sentences. When we come to a sentence and receive a supply, we can offer a spontaneous prayer. When we pray, give a testimony, or share something, we should not speak too long. No one should speak for more than two minutes. Meetings like this will surely be rich. When a small group meeting starts, we can fellowship freely, care for one another, greet one another, and intercede for one another; afterward, we should pray-read the Bible with the Life-studies, and everyone can offer short prayers, testimonies, or sharings.
Even though there is no appointed leader in a small group, those who prepare something for the meetings are spontaneously leaders and core members. When a family prepares a meal, for example, there are always one or two who know how to cook well. Those who are able to prepare something for the meeting should bear this responsibility and also bear the responsibility to teach others. Sometimes, everyone in a small group meeting is relatively weak, while another group has some stronger ones. In this situation we should fellowship with the elders to balance the strong ones and the weaker ones in one area so that every small group meeting has a few core members.
Romans is a comprehensive book that includes the gospel, the light of the truth, and edification in life; this book is very suitable for small group meetings. However, if some in the group have already read Romans, we can choose Galatians, one of the four “heart” books. If we choose Galatians, we need to dive into it in our daily pursuit. In other words, what we enjoy daily should become the food for our small group meetings. If every small group in the church practices this, the content of the small group meetings will become richer and richer.
I will use the first message from the Life-study of Galatians for a demonstration. When we come to the portion on page 1 that says, “The books of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians form a cluster of Epistles which make up the heart of the divine revelation in the New Testament,” I would stop and explain, saying, “Brothers and sisters, here it says that four books form a cluster of Epistles. These four books are Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians.” This is to read and also to explain. Then I would continue to read, “...which make up the heart of the divine revelation in the New Testament.” Then I would say, “Brothers and sisters, we have to remember that these four books are the ‘heart’ books.” I would then continue reading: “Therefore, these books are very important. Ephesians covers the church as the Body of Christ, whereas Colossians deals with Christ as the Head of the Body. Galatians is concerned with Christ, and Philippians, with the experience of Christ. In Colossians and Ephesians we receive a clear view of the Head and the Body. In Galatians and Philippians we see Christ and the experience of Christ” (p. 1). As I read in this way, someone who is listening may have an inspiration and say, “This is really good! These few sentences clearly point out the main subjects of Ephesians and Colossians. The book of Ephesians covers the church as the Body of Christ, whereas Colossians deals with Christ as the Head of the Body.” While we are speaking in this way, we should avoid a preaching tone and simply speak with the words in the Life-study message.
The best Chinese food is from Beijing because Beijing cooks do not depend on seasonings to enhance the flavor of their food; instead, they bring out the original flavor of the food. The best way to read the Bible is to not use too much seasoning; just read the Word in a simple way. This will impress and touch people, and we will save time. If no one is touched by the contents of a section, it is all right to simply read through it. If someone is touched by the contents of a section, he may give a testimony, and another may offer a prayer.
Another principle that we should keep is for the older ones to not assume seniority by speaking too long. We should let the younger ones speak more. When a family gathers together, everyone is happy to hear the words being uttered by a three-year-old granddaughter. When she speaks, no one falls asleep, but when an old grandfather keeps talking, the atmosphere is deadened, and everyone becomes sleepy. In the same principle, time and opportunity must be given to the young ones in the small group meetings. It is a universally agreed upon principle that progress in human society depends on the next generation. The next generation always stands on the shoulders of the previous generation. In the matter of the truth, the young ones may not know as much as the older ones, but the points that they know are fresher.
We are advancing rapidly in learning and studying the truth. We have coined more than a hundred new terms, such as the essential Spirit, the economical Spirit, and many others. Today every field of learning is advancing, especially among the young people. I believe that the future of the church and the freshness and liveliness of the meetings depend on the young ones. We should give them time and opportunity. This is an unalterable principle. If the young people are given the opportunity, they will become all the more fresh and spiritually prosperous.
I hope that we would all make a vow to the Lord to practice reading the Bible every day so that when we go to the small group meetings, we can bring what we have already prepared, whether for pray-reading, for testifying, or for prayer. In such a small group we can invite our gospel friends, and many will be saved with only one or two sentences being spoken. The small groups should be all-inclusive in function. The two greatest functions of the small groups are recovering dormant ones and retaining newly saved ones. In order to achieve these two functions, the brothers and sisters must shepherd people by visiting people. If the small groups can bring people back and retain them, the church will be built up.
