As responsible brothers or as brothers and sisters who are co-workers, if we have any problems in life or in service, we should fellowship together and seek the Lord’s leading. I hope that we can have more fellowship concerning the Body of Christ; this kind of fellowship is good and important.
Let us fellowship locality by locality concerning the problems in our localities or concerning the problems among the co-workers and responsible brothers. We can fellowship together and be enlightened together. We should not be afraid of feeling embarrassed or ashamed when speaking of our problems. We are all weak, and we all have problems.
The church in Taipei has about seven thousand three hundred brothers and sisters and has seven districts. Apparently, this is a large number. We have two main problems. First, although we have records for seven thousand three hundred saints, we cannot locate over one thousand of them, and there are only one thousand seven hundred or one thousand eight hundred saints who attend the Lord’s day meeting in the districts. This is our poor condition.
Second, in our service there is a great shortage in the coordination; this is shameful. Although we want the saints to rise up, we do not have a way. There are close to fifty co-workers, elders, and full-time serving brothers and sisters here, but the more people we have, the more problems we have in our coordination. Outwardly, everything seems calm and peaceful among the brothers and sisters. There are no troubles, arguments, or sinful and worldly things. However, although we serve together, we cannot pray together. Everyone seems to have some knowledge concerning the flesh, but whenever a situation arises, we all have our opinions. This makes it very difficult to coordinate with one another; therefore, our service is very weak. In addition, the full-time serving ones seldom bear responsibility in the meetings; they seem to have no desire to prepare themselves to be a mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit. Thus, when the Holy Spirit comes to them, they cannot be a mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit. As a result, the meetings are very weak, lacking God’s presence because God cannot find His mouthpiece.
First, we are ashamed that few are attending the meetings. Second, our meetings should be wonderful because we have so many full-time serving ones in the coordination in our service. However, this is not our situation because the serving ones are full of the flesh. Although they dare not contend or argue outwardly, they bear grudges inwardly; thus, they cannot be the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit in the meetings. If the inward problems are not removed, the Holy Spirit will be unable to rule in us or have a way to go on among us. As a result, we cannot see the authority of the Holy Spirit and the glory of God in the meetings.
The problem with the coordination in the church in Taipei is that, although we have many responsible brothers and full-time serving ones, we do not bear the responsibility together. Rather, we bear some responsibility or we serve only after it has been arranged. The result is that everyone serves only according to his arranged portion. Consequently, the brothers and sisters all feel that they do not receive real help. In other words, the co-workers hold on tightly to their own small portion of service, and they bear only their burden and responsibility. Thus, one bears his own small portion, I bear my own small portion, and everyone bears his or her own small burden. As a result, we are short in opening our problems to one another, short in praying together before the Lord, and short in bearing the burden together. Hence, some serving ones feel very lonely, because they feel that they are serving and bearing responsibilities by themselves. There is a great lack in rendering real help to one another and laboring with one another.
Second, some brothers and sisters feel that submission to authority is obeying only what has been assigned to them. Therefore, if they encounter something that is not their responsibility or something they have not been charged to do by the leading brothers, they are unwilling to do it. As a result, our situation can be compared to that of a government office in ancient China or to an organization. For example, one Friday night a brother from another locality arrived at the meeting hall. He placed his luggage on a bench and waited there. Although some brothers in the hall, including deacons and full-time serving ones, saw this brother, no one took care of him. It was not their responsibility. Of course, someone in the church had been assigned to take care of hospitality, but because he was not present, no one took care of this brother or showed any concern. What kind of condition is this? We give people the impression that our coordination is not living. It seems that in the matter of service, we move only when we are pushed, and if we are not pushed, we would rather stand aside than be bold and move.
Therefore, it seems as if the result of learning to obey and submit to authority is that each one takes care of only his responsibility. Broken glass in the meeting hall or lights not being turned off at night are not our business; it is Brother So-and-so’s responsibility. This is the situation we see in Taipei. On the other hand, some brothers think that they are overstepping their limit and going beyond the leading brothers’ arrangement if they do what has not been assigned to them. They think that this is disobedience, not submitting to authority. It is common in many local churches for a serving one not to care about anything that has not been assigned to him, but he will hold on tightly and be very diligent with whatever has been assigned to him by the leading brothers. As a result, everyone feels lonely because there is not the real coordination. We cannot find those who bear problems and burdens together.