If this meeting is strong before God, all the other meetings will spontaneously be uplifted. This meeting is the center of everything. If this meeting is high, all the meetings during the week will be uplifted.
Taking care of a meeting of the overseers requires a great deal of spiritual strength. You should concentrate your entire being, and the brothers who are with you should do the same. Then you can consider things item by item.
This meeting is the watchtower of the whole church. The saints are not aware of many things, but you know them first. The saints have not seen many things, but you see them first. The saints have no feeling many times, but you have some feeling first. It is in this meeting that everything is sensed first. Before the difficulties around you are apparent, you can sense them in this meeting. Therefore, many times when things happen, you have anticipated the situation and taken care of it already. As time goes on, your eyes should become keener and keener. You need to learn to use your eyes to look ahead to the things in the future. With more time your sense should become keener and keener, and you will be able to know what will happen and what will not happen.
I am not saying that there should be no prayer and no waiting on the Lord in your personal time, but I am saying that the overseers’ meeting is the time for corporate dealing, and you should prepare for this meeting in your private time. If you do not prepare in your private time, when you come to the overseers’ meeting, you will have nothing to say; when you come each time, nothing will happen. Do you see this? If there is nothing happening in the overseers’ meeting, it is an evidence, a proof, that every brother is lazy before God, that even all the responsible brothers are corporately lazy before Him. If a few responsible brothers are strong before God, their eyes will be open, they will watch and observe, and spontaneously many things will be going on with them. The High Priest bore the breastplate of the twelve tribes of Israel, and he bore it all the time. This means that he could not take it off. You should learn to bear the breastplate every day, and then you will discover something concerning God’s people every day. Not one of our overseers’ meetings has enough time. You may feel that three or four hours or five or six hours have passed by very quickly. Sometimes in the meeting of the overseers you need to cut your words short because there is no more time.
Once the meeting of the overseers is strong, it will be easy for other things in the church life to be strong, because in the meeting of the overseers you can have much consideration about all the meetings. If the gospel meeting has become weak, we need to concentrate all our strength there, and the saints need to do likewise. The meeting of the overseers is the watchtower of the church, the place to keep the watch.
You need to continue working until one day all the brothers and sisters respect the meeting of the overseers. They will know that this day or this half a day is the time the responsible brothers go before God to take care of things. I often think that the meeting of the overseers is like the prayer room of John G. Paton’s father. I often feel that in the whole world there was not another father like him. That old father may not have been aware of what happened, but his few sons all knew. His house was not very large. On one side was a room, on the other side was a kitchen, and in the middle there was a little study. When the door of this little study was shut, all the sons knew that their father had gone before God to deal with things. At such a time, no child dared to make a noise, and everyone walked softly. They could not forget the sighings they heard from inside that room even forty or fifty years afterwards. Paton himself said, “Even today I can still hear my father interceding for me in that room.” He knew that this was a serious matter. Therefore, we should also let all the saints know that the day the responsible brothers deal with things before God is a designated day. Some brothers have given their all to go before God on behalf of the church.
Thus, you will see something issue out from the church; the church will have a way. Therefore, the matter of the overseers’ meeting is upon the shoulders of you responsible brothers. Let me say again that you need to start from the center of the work in this region. Do a strong, absolute, and serious work. Afterward, you can invite the brothers from out of town.
Before God we need two different aspects. First, we need the fellowship of the brothers and sisters. After paying attention to this matter in our midst for twenty years, I think that we are gradually making progress. It was different twenty years ago. Thank God that today this situation has had a great change. Today, at least, the saints have feelings toward one another.
Second, we need to know God’s authority. Brotherly love is one thing, and being a servant before God is something else. You need to take orders. If we want to go out to work, before we go we need to hear the word before God. We need to learn these things together in these days.
We need to know that no hour is more solemn than this hour. This is the most solemn time. Learn to look to the Lord in a single way. We need to know what to do before God. We need to be confident, godly, single for service, and without any barrier between us and the Lord. We should do all things well in every aspect. Then we will have a clear pathway ahead of us.
In all other times, we may be intimate with one another. However, when we come to this meeting, it is not a matter of how well we know each other, for this is the time we truly go before God. In ordinary times we talk about brotherly love. At this time we do not talk about brotherly love. This is the time for us to go to God together to be His servants. We are before God to receive directions together to go out to work. Learn to solemnly hear God’s word before Him.
When we do not know God’s will, we need to say so, and we should ask, search, learn, and pray before God.
When our condition is right and the brothers come together, it will be a simple matter without much difficulty. It is a serious matter for us to go before God.
I also want to bring up the matter of number. If there are five, six, seven, or eight co-workers who can coordinate together, then the meeting of the overseers can have twenty to thirty people. There is no need to have more. If there are more, the meeting will be hard to handle. We need to set a number for the meeting that we can handle. If we can manage three, bring in three. If we can manage ten, bring in ten. Do not bring in more people than we can manage. Learn to know that we are before God as if we were conducting a military council. This has to be very strict.
We may let those who come to learn from out of town go back after two or three months and do their work properly.
I believe that one day all of God’s children will gradually realize that at least once a week a group of brothers go before God to deal with things on their behalf and on behalf of the whole church.