We also need to bring the believers under our care to the group meetings. When we bring them to the group meetings, spontaneously they will participate in the fellowship, interceding, and mutual care with the saints. In these group meetings, we can incite one another to love and good works, exhorting one another (Heb. 10:24-25). In Hebrews 10:25 Paul said that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. This means that we should not forsake our own meetings. The group meetings are our meetings. They are very intimate.
Among all the meetings in the church life, no other meeting is as intimate, as practical, and as all-inclusive as the group meeting. It includes fellowship, interceding, mutual care, and shepherding. If a local church grows to about two hundred saints, five elders cannot shepherd all the saints. It is impossible for them to do this. The practical shepherding in the church life is taken care of by the group meetings. In the group meetings, the saints know one another, and they can help one another mutually. This mutual help is a kind of shepherding.
In Christianity, group meetings are very rare. Some hold the concept that the big congregation can be divided into groups, making every group a worshipping group of believers. But when they come together, they come together with the understanding that they need to worship God in a traditional and religious way. In their traditional worship, they are accustomed to a pastor directing the meeting. Thus, when they come together in a group, no one knows what to do. Among us we do not like to use the word “service” for our meetings, but we may come to the group meetings with the concept that we should have a traditional service. When we have a group meeting in a traditional way without the Spirit and without life, everyone will be disappointed.
We should not have our group meeting in the way of a traditional worship service. I would like to illustrate what I mean by this. The elders might announce that a certain night is a night for all of us to have group meetings. A brother may say to his wife, “Don’t forget that tonight at 7:30 there is a group meeting. You better prepare the meal a little earlier so that I can go.” Because the wife cannot go to the meeting with him, this brother goes by himself to the group meeting with his Bible and hymnal. He arrives a little early at the home in which the meeting is to be held. The brother then sits there and waits for someone else to come. A sister may then come. Because this brother does not know the sister that well, they do not talk to one another, and they wait for someone else to come. Another brother then comes in. Now it is 7:35, and the three of them are still waiting for the meeting to begin.
Eventually, one of the elders comes in at 7:40. Then the elder gets bothered because so few of the saints are there and the meeting has not started yet. As one of the elders, he feels that he must do something, so he asks the saints to start the meeting by singing a hymn. By that time another elder comes in. The first elder feels good that one of his helpers is there. After singing the hymn, the first elder looks at the second elder, signaling to him that he should pray. After the second elder prays, he looks at the first elder, indicating that he should speak something. But the first elder looks back at the second elder, indicating to him that he needs to speak. Eventually, the first elder says to the saints, “Tonight we are on the Truth Lessons. Last week we were on lesson four. Tonight let us go on to lesson five.” We may consider that this is a group meeting, but this is Christian service and Christian worship in a traditional, inorganic way.
When we first proposed to have the group meetings, nearly all the churches had the group meetings in a traditional way. The group meetings were carried out as a traditional, Christian service. In this traditional way of having a group meeting, the saints do not release what is on their hearts. Instead, they practice a Christian service according to a program. First there is a hymn, then singing, then prayer, and finally the lesson. What is on our heart is never released. Therefore, we just perform in the meeting. What we do is not genuine, and we become performers, the players in a drama. After such a meeting, everyone feels that we merely had a service. This kind of meeting just tires people out. The saints may not even want to return to such a meeting because there is very little enjoyment and hardly anything genuine there.
Now let us consider the proper way to have a group meeting. On the day of the group meeting, a brother in that meeting begins his day with the Lord in the morning. Throughout the day he practices to be one with the Lord, to live in the Lord’s presence, by calling on His name and by singing. When he returns home, he may even sing a little bit during dinner and after dinner. He may sing in a wrong way with the wrong melody, but the more he sings the happier he is. Then after dinner he tells his wife that he is going to the meeting. He goes to the meeting singing. While he is driving to the meeting, he is still singing, and at a certain point he stops singing to pray. Actually, the meeting has already started in the home of this brother. He did not go to the meeting to attend the meeting, but he brought the meeting into the meeting place.
This brother was the first to arrive at the meeting place, but he did not stop the meeting. He continued to pray. While he was praying, a sister came in and joined his prayer. Then a third one came in and spoke something concerning his enjoyment of the Lord. This is a real group meeting. The speaking is in a conversational way and in a spontaneous and natural way. As the saints begin to fellowship with one another, some prayers are made, and these prayers are interceding prayers. Out of this interceding prayer the care for one another is realized.
In this kind of meeting there is no set program, but things are brought out according to the needs of the saints. A young sister in the meeting may say, “I was saved only two months ago. I heard some of you talking a lot about circumcision. What is circumcision?” After this sister asks this question, everyone has the opportunity to answer it. If one brother knows more, he can answer more. If another one knows less, he can answer less. Regardless of how much someone answers the question, whatever he answers is a teaching to all the attendants. One young brother may say, “Two months ago I got to know that circumcision was practiced from the time of Abraham, and the Jews continued to practice this.” This is a short teaching from this young brother that renders some help. Then another older saint can say: “Circumcision was a type of a spiritual reality. Circumcision is to cut off the flesh. It is a type of the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ cut off, crossed out, our flesh.” Another brother can continue by saying, “Today this kind of circumcision by the cross of Christ is applied by the Spirit within us. When we are in the spirit, the Spirit of Christ applies the cross of Christ to our flesh.” In just a short time, the young sister’s question has been answered. This answer from the saints releases a very good teaching, which is received by the attendants in the meeting.
We should not appoint someone to be a leader to take the lead in the meeting. Actually, however, there is a leader in the meeting who is taking care of it. Suppose that a question is asked regarding circumcision and only one young brother says that all he knows is that this practice was exercised from the time of Abraham. If no one says anything else, this is a loss to the meeting. There must be someone taking care of this meeting “underneath.” There must be such a person in the meeting who can say that circumcision was a type of the cross of Christ, and today the cross of Christ as our circumcision can only be applied and experienced by us in the spirit. Apparently, though, this person is not the leader. Sometimes in order to teach others, he would ask a question and let the others answer. This kind of meeting is a Christian fellowship in a group meeting.
A group meeting could be closed in the following way. One sister may report that a certain brother was not in the meeting last week or this week. She may ask if anyone knows why. Then another brother may respond that he knows that the brother is ill. After this fellowship the saints can pray for this brother, and after the prayer, two brothers may agree to go visit him immediately after the meeting. Thus, we can see the care and the shepherding taking place in the group meetings.
What we are proposing to the saints for their practice is this genuine kind of group meeting. This kind of meeting is without formality. It is not a traditional worship service. Instead, it is a Christian fellowship to take care of all the practical needs of the saints—the material needs, the spiritual needs, and the needs in the knowledge of the truth and the knowledge of the experience of life. In this meeting there is much nourishment, feeding, warning, and teaching for perfecting. Spontaneously, this group of about twenty persons shepherd one another mutually. They know one another, and they grow together. After about nine or more months, this group may grow to about thirty-five because they have brought in some new ones. At that time they can consider dividing into two groups.
This is the way to have the group meetings. It is not difficult, but we have to uproot the old way and plant the new way. The group meeting is not hard to practice, but everyone has to be living. Basically speaking, the way for us Christians to meet is to be in the spirit. When we sing, pray, intercede, and care for others, we must be in the spirit. For us all to be in the spirit is the unique way to hold our Christian meeting. If we are not in the spirit, how can Hebrews 10:24-25 be fulfilled? To come together to incite one another to love and good works and to exhort one another is by our being in our spirit.