We have a kind of slogan that says, “Heaven may fade, and earth may flee, but small group meetings must never be missed.” However, based on my observation, the taste of our small group meetings is not strong enough. In the big meetings there are people who release messages to us, and once a message is given, the taste is strong. But when we gather in the homes, we are accustomed to not speaking. Thus, you do not speak, I do not speak, nor do the other brothers speak. In the end we can only look at each other, eat some dessert, and drink some water. There is not much taste to our meetings. There is a co-worker serving in the United States in the city of San Francisco whose father is in a denomination where they have also adopted the way of small group meetings. This co-worker’s father was assigned to lead a small group, and he told his son that when they came together, none of them spoke. Eventually, everyone left and felt that they did not need this kind of meeting because no one spoke.
For a small group meeting to be enjoyable and rich, we must have the Lord’s word. There are some saints among us who never speak, but if they were to open their mouths, the meeting would be enriched. The truths among us are pure, all-inclusive, and rich. We have the truths concerning the cross, resurrection, the Spirit, life, the church, the essence of the church, the testimony of the church, and the ground of the church. We may say that we are a literate family. Now we have to grasp the opportunity to exercise to speak the word of God. We have the riches, and we also have the utterance. I believe that as long as we all exercise properly, we will all be able to speak for the Lord.
Now I would like to have some fellowship with you and to make a request of you. First, I hope that all of us would change our concept to pay more attention to the small groups than to the big meetings. This does not mean that we should not have big meetings but that we should put more emphasis on the small group meetings than on the big meetings. Second, from now on all the elderly saints must renew their youth and learn to speak for the Lord. They all have the word in them and are rich inwardly. Now they simply need to learn to speak. I hope that all the elderly saints would go to the small group meetings to speak for the Lord.
Pray-reading was brought in among us in Tainan in 1965. The year after, in 1966, we began to call on the Lord in Los Angeles. Later, in 1968 we developed the practice of speaking in the meetings. This encouraged everyone. I remember one time in a meeting on the Lord’s Day morning in Los Angeles when I asked everyone, “Do you know what to say after you are saved?” Then I continued, “At least you know how to say four words. The first word is O, the second word is Lord, the third word is Amen, and the fourth word is Hallelujah. O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah.” From that day on, the words O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah became a short hymn. Whenever we sang that hymn, the meeting was enlivened.
When you come to the meeting, you may try to stand up to speak a few phrases such as, “O Lord, thank You that You are so good!” Then you may try to say something a little deeper such as, “O Lord, thank You that You are so good. You are my life.” If you had an experience, you may speak your experience. For example, perhaps you were not happy in the morning and felt that things were not going smoothly. Usually in such a case you would grumble. But that morning when you were about to grumble, you began to call inwardly, saying, “O Lord.” Then your grumbling disappeared, and your temper was gone because the Lord came in. This is a good and short experience. If ten people were meeting together, and everyone spoke briefly like this, the meeting would surely be fresh and living. This is the secret to a rich meeting.
We all can do this because none of us are newly saved. Even if we were newly saved, we still would have the essential characteristic in us of being able to speak for the Lord. However, when we speak, we should not tell long stories. Some saints either do not speak or once they begin speaking do not stop. They start with the first three generations of their ancestors and continue until everyone is bored. So remember that when speaking for the Lord, do not talk about your history. Instead, simply give a brief testimony. For example, you may say, “This morning I was not that happy, but once I thought about the Lord Jesus and called on Him, my inner being was soothed, and I began to sing. Thus, this whole day I have been very joyful.” This is a good speaking.
Moreover, it is also good to speak about our experience of salvation. For example, you may say, “Thank the Lord! I had been worshipping idols for forty-eight years. One day the brothers and sisters from the church came to knock on my door and spoke to me from The Mystery of Human Life for five minutes. Then I was enlightened. I felt that the Lord Jesus was very good, so I was baptized. In the past after telling a lie I could still live peacefully, but now if I tell a lie I feel sorrowful inwardly.” This is a very good testimony of salvation. You do not need to tell the story from your birth or describe many unrelated processes. When we give a testimony, we are often afraid that people may not understand what we are saying, so we try to say more. When we speak for the Lord, we often think that people may not understand, so we want to teach them. However, this is not needed. When we speak in the meetings, we should not speak long. We should not shut our mouths, but neither should we speak without end.
We have all heard the story about D. L. Moody. He was very powerful in the gospel. Some saints who met with him often prayed without end. One time Brother Moody was leading a meeting in which a sister was praying in this way. Finally, he felt that he had waited too long and said to everyone, “Saints, while our dear sister is still praying, let us sing.” We encounter similar situations all the time. Such situations are hard to deal with. Hence, in the meetings we have to avoid being silent while at the same time avoid speaking too long, telling stories, or giving our history. All these practices should be avoided. We should only speak the Lord Jesus and our experience of Him.
Besides speaking for the Lord, we all have to be responsible to bring people to the small group meetings. We should not bring unbelievers. Rather, we should bring those who believe. Today in Taiwan it is convenient to make phone calls to invite people. We do not need to wait until tomorrow to make a phone call. Today after the meeting we can call a saint who was not present. We may share with him the content of our fellowship. We may tell him that the brothers and sisters care for him and that we hope he can come to our small group meeting in two days. Then two days later, we may call him again to remind him in the morning in case he forgot. Then in the evening we may give him a third call, asking if he needs a ride to go to the meeting. This kind of care is very much needed.
We have to realize that nothing we do will be in vain. This is the noblest and the most valuable thing we can do. Preaching the gospel is the most glorious matter in the universe. We are bringing blessing, love, grace, and God’s salvation to people’s homes. Although we are knocking at people’s doors, troubling and bothering them, we are actually giving them grace and the best book among the human race—the Bible. What we are doing is the best.