I can guarantee all of you here that the best way to be a proper elder is to fellowship every day. Perhaps you may say that you do not have much to fellowship about. It is precisely because of this that you need to come together for fellowship. Suppose you would simply come together to talk, then pray, then talk again, about your problems, my problems, your condition before God, and my condition before God. After you have talked through everything about yourselves as the elders, you would talk about the condition of the brothers and sisters, the condition of the church, the number of sinners in your place, and the way to preach the gospel. If the elders would fellowship this way, something will surely come out of this kind of fellowship.

The worse thing that can happen is for these five elders to meet together but once a week, while on other occasions they merely shake hands, nod their heads, exchange greetings, and talk about the weather. Whenever there is a meeting, they would come together. After the meeting, they would say good-by to one another. Everything is done merely to maintain outward harmony. Actually, they hide everything and close themselves to the others. Even their prayers issue merely from their throats. If this is the case with the elders, they will not receive guidance a single time from the beginning of the year to the end; they will not have any burden or any light.

In order for the elders to have the light, the guidance, the wisdom, and the dealings, they must be together daily. Whenever they can, they must come together without too much regard for time. Perhaps they need to fellowship from seven in the evening until midnight, and perhaps they need to come together again for fellowship the next day. If you can fellowship in this manner for a whole month without any results—I will put it crudely—you can then come to cut off my head! Surely the burden will come, and the guidance, the light, the wisdom, the power, and the authority will all come. By that time if you suggest at the meeting that we should preach the gospel, everyone would respond. This is quite amazing. If you have not fellowshipped this way, and you propose, "Well, we have not preached the gospel for three years already. We really need to preach the gospel." While you are making the proposal, others may be dozing off; there will be no response. This is a lifeless proposal; it is not a living proposal, because you as an elder are not quickened within. While you are making the proposal, you are pouring cold water on the others; there is no way for you to warm the others up. Suppose the elders are first enlivened by the fellowship and are burning within, and they feel that in two weeks they should preach the gospel. When they speak to the brothers, the word will become living; there will be authority in the word, and the Holy Spirit will put His seal upon it. When others listen to it, they will feel the power and authority of the Holy Spirit in the word. This is not negotiation or a decision, but a fellowship.

More than ten years ago when we were serving the Lord in northern China, every Monday from 8 a.m. until 2 or 3 p.m., for six or seven hours, over ten of the elders and leading brothers and sisters would always come together for fellowship. We fellowshipped about the brothers and sisters, the matters related to the church, the Lord's table meeting the night before, or the gospel meeting on the Lord's Day. That was not superficial fellowship, but serious fellowship. Sometimes the sisters would mention the names of quite a number of sisters, stating their condition. They might mention that a certain sister had much progress and much function, that she might even have some gifts. However, she seemed to lack something, and there seemed to be the need for someone to come in to fill up that lack. Some would bring out some problems, and some would bring out some lacks. The extent of fellowship was quite broad, and hence the time quite long. It was through that kind of fellowship that the church in that place became alive, and the responsible ones became transparent.