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Scripture Reading: Heb. 10:24-25
According to our experience and learning and based upon the clear revelation in the New Testament, the proper group meetings should consist of two sections. The first section should include fellowship, intercession, mutual care, and shepherding, and the second section should carry out the perfecting of the saints through teaching. In the first section of the group meeting, the attendants should fellowship concerning each person’s present spiritual condition and practical environment. This fellowship should not be by only one or two persons. All the attendants should make their situations known to the others in each meeting. If a brother has become spiritually weak and is bothered by something, he should come to the group meeting and open himself to the other brothers and sisters. To open in this way is to be honest and faithful and to confront the enemy’s attack. In the group meetings we should fellowship about the things that concern our present situation. If we have no problems or needs of our own but know of the needs of others, we may fellowship something about their up-to-date situation. This may spontaneously burden some of the saints to pray for that situation.
The group meeting is eighty percent of the church life, and the church life is a life in the Body. In our physical body it is impossible for a problem in one member to be hidden from all the other members. The circulation of life in our body carries the feeling in one member to all the members. Thus, we should not hide our problems from the other members in the church life. However, in the past we have often tried to hide our troubles from each other. We might have spoken about the world situation but purposely concealed our own situation from the saints. This kind of practice has annulled the proper church life. When we acted in this way, we did not function as members of the organic Body of Christ. Rather, we behaved as members of a civic club. For the practice of the group meetings, we must first overcome this to have a real, genuine, practical, and thorough fellowship concerning each person’s current spiritual condition and practical situation. A proper group meeting does not depend on singing and praying in a formal, religious way. It depends on this kind of fellowship.
After fellowshipping about each other’s situations, the attendants in the meeting will spontaneously be stirred up to intercede, to pray, for one another. This prayer will not be formal or like a theatrical performance but will be sincere and practical. After the fellowship and prayer the attendants in the group meeting should extend their loving concern for one another in the exercise of a definite and practical care. After becoming aware of a brother’s practical situation, some saints in the meeting may consider whether the brother is in need of financial help or some other practical care. Then, after caring for a brother in this way, some may go to visit him. This is the practice of the practical shepherding.
I would say that this principle regarding the practice of the group meetings is “scientific.” As such, it cannot be changed. Everything in this universe is governed by a God-ordained law, a spontaneous principle. In order for the church to be fully built up, we must have proper group meetings, and for the group meetings in the practical church life, there is the need of fellowship, intercession, care, and shepherding. In this way, every member of the church, regardless of how large that church may be, will be taken care of. The way to care for every member of the church is by the proper group meetings.
Based on Hebrews 10:24-25, I believe that in the apostles’ time the church practiced the group meetings in this way. These verses say, “Let us consider one another so as to incite one another to love and good works, not abandoning our own assembling together, as the custom with some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more as you see the day drawing near.” In these verses there are three crucial words: consider, incite, and exhorting. Verse 24 charges us to consider one another. The word consider is very meaningful. To consider one another implies to remember, to have a sincere, loving concern for one another. It implies that the saints are in our heart. This verse goes on to say that we should incite one another to love and good works. Good works here refers to giving something to others freely or doing something freely for others. To give a financial gift or to care for a sick brother is a good work. There is the need for many such good works in the Body. We need to incite one another to love and to this kind of good work. Verse 25 also says that we are to exhort one another. Considering one another, inciting one another, and exhorting one another cannot be accomplished in the big meetings. They can be carried out only in the small group meetings.
The fellowship, intercession, care, and shepherding in the first section of the group meeting are the beginning and the base of the group meetings. Without such a base, we cannot have effective group meetings. However, these items in the first section of the group meeting cannot fulfill the purpose of the group meeting or reach its goal. The purpose and goal of the group meetings is the perfecting of the saints through teaching in mutuality.
The way to have the proper teaching in a group meeting is not by waiting for an assigned teacher to speak. Rather, the best way is to teach by asking questions. There are no assigned teachers in the group meetings; all the attendants are teachers. Although the sisters should not teach with authority by defining and deciding the meaning of doctrines concerning divine truth (1 Tim. 2:12), they can still teach in the way of exhortation. A sister can say, “Brothers and sisters, we all need to be sanctified from the world unto God by the holy Word.” Then another sister may ask what sanctification is, and a brother can give a defining word on the meaning of sanctification. He may say, “To be sanctified is to be separated from the world.” Another may say, “Sanctification is to be made holy unto God in our position.” A third one may say, “Sanctification is to be made holy unto God also in our disposition.” A fourth may say, “Formerly, we were mixed with the world, but sanctification separates us from that situation unto God. Then this sanctification continues by separating us from the negative things in our disposition. This is equivalent to transformation.” In this way every attendant in the group meeting can teach, regardless of how little he can do. Each answer to the questions raised in a group meeting becomes part of the teaching in that meeting.
The goal of the group meeting is to perfect the saints. Without teaching, it is impossible to reach this goal. In a group meeting, the best way to teach is to ask. Even if we have a burden to teach and exhort others concerning a particular matter, we should not release our burden directly. Rather, we should turn our teaching into a question. Once we ask a question, all the attendants in the meeting will have the obligation to say something, and they will all become teachers. The best way to learn something thoroughly is to teach it. Often we can learn more by teaching than by listening.
We should not think that we know everything there is to know about any teaching in the Bible. In the matter of knowing, there is no limit. Sometimes one who has been saved for only a short time will speak something that is new to the other members. The more attendants there are in a group meeting, the more knowledge there is. However, the knowledge that is within the attendants should be released. Meeting in the old, traditional way did not give the saints the way to release what was within them, but by our meeting in the new way, everything that is in the saints can be released.
The group meetings are our meetings. Therefore, all the attendants in a group meeting must take care of the meeting. In our natural being and in the traditional practice of Christianity there is not the thought that every member must care for the meetings, but in the new way this thought must be sown into us. We should not go to the meetings without a sense of obligation. If each person does not take care of the meetings, the meetings will be poor. Each person in the meeting must be both a teacher and a learner.
In order to take care of a group meeting and answer the questions asked by the new ones, we need to learn a great deal. We must know the truth, the experience of life, and the current situation of the saints and the Lord’s move. Without such learning, we are not qualified to care for the saints by answering their questions. On the one hand, to teach in the group meeting is easy. All the attendants need only to express something according to their experience. Even if one has been a Christian for only one week, he will have had some experience and will have something to say. On the other hand, it is not easy to be effective in our carrying out of the purpose and goal of the group meetings. To take care of a group meeting requires that we have much ability and a large capacity. We all have an ability, a skill, related to the group meetings. However, our ability has a capacity, a limit. The more we function according to our ability, the more our capacity will be increased. We all need much learning, and we need to be trained. We need to study the Bible and read the proper spiritual books. We also need to use our time wisely to study other positive matters, such as humanity, history, and foreign languages. This will equip us and enable us and will enlarge our capacity.
To take care of the group meetings, we need to have a large capacity that is full of ability. To be the proper Christians that God desires for the carrying out of His New Testament economy in this age requires that we mean business with Him. If we are not such capable persons, the Lord will not have the way to return, because He will not be able to build up His organic Body. However, the Lord’s sovereignty is adequate. Eventually, He will have the opportunity to carry out His New Testament economy, and the way in which He will do this is the new way that He is unveiling to us in these days. Today we are pioneering the new way, and eventually many others will take this way also.
We must learn to know the truth, and we must learn to know the genuine experience of life. We need the foundation of life, the Spirit, the apostles’ teaching, the subjective experience of the cross, and resurrection. I have no desire to pass on to the saints mere spiritual or biblical knowledge. My intention is to bring all the saints into the full realization of the experience of life. In life we must experience the cross of Christ subjectively, and we must also experience resurrection, which in reality is the pneumatic Christ. We must experience these things in our daily life. When we are about to exchange words with our spouse or with the brothers, we must first ask ourselves, “Am I doing this under the cross? Is this in resurrection?” This is the experience of life.
The first two lines of Hymns, #631 say,
If we do not live a life under the cross and in the resurrection of Christ, whatever we can do and whatever we would do will mean nothing. We need to learn many things in order to be adequately equipped. We also need to learn to serve the Lord and work for Him under the cross and in resurrection. We must learn the lesson of life in the Spirit; that is, in doing anything we need to consider how much we are under the cross and how much we are in resurrection.
