It is not an easy matter to recover the meetings that are ordained by the Lord—the home meetings. In order to have home meetings, everyone has to be busy and diligent, and everyone needs to labor. In the home meetings there is no vocal quartet or a pastor giving a message or saying a prayer. Everything has to be done by ourselves. We may use eating as an example. Everyone needs to eat, but not every one likes to cook. Sisters cannot avoid cooking because of those around them, such as their husbands and children. Even so, a sister may still make a deal with her husband that she cooks for only six days and has one day off; otherwise, she will quit. Not only is cooking a hard and thankless chore, but washing afterward is also a burden. That is why all sorts of restaurants, Western or Chinese style, can be seen everywhere. People can eat whatever they like, and the restaurants have a booming business. This proves that man not only likes to eat but is also very lazy; he likes eating but not cooking.
This illustrates that not only the unsaved people need to gather together, but the saved ones have even more of a need. However, everyone likes to come to the meetings with the thought that others will prepare everything, and they simply can come to enjoy. The saved ones desire to have meetings, but few of them want to bear responsibility for the meetings. That is why we need to be trained to labor on the home meetings.
We need to see that it is not a small thing to practice the home meetings. If the home meetings are not properly handled, the Lord’s recovery will be over, and there will certainly be no way for us to go on. In the Lord’s recovery, whether or not the new ones can remain hinges on how well we handle the home meetings. If the home meetings are successful, people will remain, but if the home meetings are not successful, everything will be a failure. When we first came to Taiwan, we cared very much for small group meetings and not as much for the big meetings. As a result we had a great increase. However, after working for more than thirty years, the small group meetings are nearly gone, while the big meetings are all the more flourishing. The saints gradually like the big meetings and prefer to have the gifted brothers give messages. Then the church trains people to stand on the podium and give messages, specifically cultivating this kind of gift. Once we have this situation, the “car” is turned around, and we return to degradation. For this reason we need to change the system so that we may be delivered from this abnormal situation. However, this is by no means an easy task. It is like asking a family not to cook; no family can do this because everyone needs to eat. Today whether the Lord’s recovery can spread, flourish, or even survive depends on whether we succeed in the home meetings. If we fail in the home meetings, we will go back to relying on the big meetings, which is degradation.
This does not mean that we do not need big meetings at all. The New Testament mentions big meetings when the whole church comes together (1 Cor. 14:23). Paul also implies this in Acts 20:20. However, as far as human living and eating are concerned, it is true locally and abroad that home-cooked meals are the most nutritious and capable of making us live longer. If a man eats in restaurants every day, he will be sickly.
Brother Watchman Nee raised a cry again and again that we should have a meeting that is the same as the one described in 1 Corinthians 14:26. It should not be one person speaking while all the others listen, but “each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation.” You have this, and I have that; “let all things be done for building up.” Brother Nee tried to carry this out, and indeed he did it. From his writings we see that he abhorred big meetings on the Lord’s Day to the uttermost. He said that big meetings on the Lord’s Days should be abolished. In place of them, everyone should go to preach the gospel. However, even when the big meetings were dismissed, there were not many who went to preach the gospel. Therefore, he studied the Bible again and again with the hope of finding a proper way of meeting.
We have seen clearly that if the small meetings are flourishing, the Lord’s recovery will also become flourishing. Once big meetings are flourishing, the Lord’s recovery will decline. Therefore, the home meeting is a crucial matter, which is also a burden on our shoulders. May the young generation among us see this point clearly. Whether or not the Lord’s recovery has a way depends on whether the home meetings are successful.
Since 1984 I have put aside the work in America except for the two semi-annual trainings. It seems that I have stopped almost all the work there just to come back to Taiwan to change the system, to experiment, and to see if the new way can work. Although we do not have the full assurance of success, we are persuaded that this is the right way. Whether or not it will be a success depends on our willingness to labor. If we are willing to labor, it will succeed; if we are not willing to labor, there will be no hope of success. Church history in the past two thousand years is a record of many repeated failures. The Brethren failed, the Baptist Church failed, and so did the Pentecostal movement. The main reason for their failures was that most of them preferred to have big meetings and to have well-known people give messages. They did not care to have a good meeting at home, where everyone has to exercise his spirit, grow in life, know the truth, and be dealt with, restricted, led, and strengthened by the Lord in his living. People do not like to pay such a price. They prefer an easy way.
At the same time, it is not easy for the host of a family to have a home meeting. Before a person believed in the Lord, he was free to do anything at home, seven days a week. Now he has believed in the Lord, been baptized, and agreed to have a home meeting once a week. When it is time for a home meeting, he has to dress himself neatly, tidy up his house, and wait for the saints to come for the meeting. On the one hand, he gains something, while on the other hand, this home meeting is a true bondage to him. Moreover, each one in the home meeting has to open his mouth to pray, to read the Bible, and to speak. If something goes wrong, he cannot help being bothered. That is the reason why we say it is not easy and is even difficult to have home meetings. However, we have to learn how to deal with these matters.