What shall we do with the locality where the center of the work is? I believe that the local church at the center of the work also needs to have these several kinds of meetings. However, if the locality where the center of the work is desires to maintain a Lord’s Day meeting, I am not personally against that. I do not know how you brothers feel. This is one issue that I wish to discuss with you. Perhaps we will reverse the situation. Formerly, we preached the gospel once a month; now once a month we preach a message to the brothers, or if there is a strong ministry of the word, perhaps we will select one day out of the week and use it specifically for preaching a message. Perhaps, we will preach the gospel every Lord’s Day morning and have the ministry of the word in the afternoon.
My personal feeling is that we do not need to immediately eliminate the message meeting in the locality where the center of the work is. I have spoken about this previously, but it was not clear. What I am saying is that our direction has to be accurate. Then we can work gradually, step by step, until the brothers and sisters see that the Lord’s Day is the day for our service, particularly the service of the gospel. The situation from locality to locality is not the same. We should not immediately endeavor to stop having the message meeting; rather, we should observe the situation and make arrangements gradually to lead the brothers into this way. At a certain point we will see that working can replace listening to the messages.
When we read the book of Acts, we must see that at that time there were not as many ministers of the word as we have now. At that time God’s children probably paid more attention to preaching the gospel than to listening to messages. However, today it seems that the basic factor of being a Christian is listening to messages rather than preaching the gospel. Therefore, I hope that we can see this way very accurately and thoroughly. We must lead the brothers in every locality into this way. We must carry it out to such an extent that all the brothers and sisters are preaching the gospel before taking care of other matters. If this way can be carried out, the number of those saved in the past will not be comparable to the number that will be saved. At the same time, there will be no need to maintain so many workers in every place, and we will also begin to see churches rising up.
I thank God that Romans 12 says that he who exhorts should attend to exhorting and he who teaches should attend to teaching, but Romans 12 does not say that he who listens to messages should attend to listening to messages. If those who listen to messages attend to listening to messages, then the church will be brought to naught. There is no such thing as attending to listening to messages. To listen to messages is not a function of the Body. We need to ask God to give us grace so that every child of God may rise up to serve and preach the gospel.
When you practice this, I hope that you will hold fast to your direction. It is your own responsibility before God as to how you will turn your way around and how much time it will take. You must take good care of the saints in order to lead them into this way, not quickly dropping one thing and quickly picking up another. There should be no such thing. You must always preach in this way and work in this way. If you come to the point where the brothers and sisters have risen up, then make the change. You must see that the Lord’s Day morning is their busiest time. It is not a time for old and young, men and women to come hand in hand to listen to a message. Rather, it is a time for everyone to come to preach the gospel.