In this message we will continue to fellowship concerning the group meeting. We all must see that the group meeting is all-inclusive. It is more than eighty percent of the church life. If a church does not have strong group meetings, it could never be that strong. A church’s condition is closely related to the group meetings. Without the group meetings, a church will stagnate and become stale. To give messages to a big congregation may help the saints somewhat, but for the church to be living, fresh, high, and rich, we must have group meetings according to the God-ordained way.
In the full-time training, I have given you many practical points concerning the first three steps of the God-ordained way. These points are the result of much experimenting in our full-time trainings and have also been confirmed by the experiences of some of the churches. However, you should not take these points in a legal way. You must be very flexible in your practice of these steps.
Our being flexible gives the Lord a way to reach all His seekers. Recently I heard a number of testimonies from new ones who had been contacted by saints practicing the new way. At least two were contacted through the telephone by saints who simply began to call numbers in the phone book. Another two had been hoping that some Christians would contact them to bring them to a church. While they were considering in this way, some saints knocked on their door. There are a number of cases like this. By all these testimonies you can see how the Holy Spirit is working today in so many wandering people.
In the United States today, there are many wandering people. Even though they may be settled outwardly, they do not have a goal, a destination, for their lives. These people are always longing for a friend that can help them. We can help them. They do not have a destination, but we do. They do not have a goal in their lives, but we can give them a goal. If we do not go out, how can we find these people? Mankind has become a pack of wolves; yet today, at the end of the age, there are many sons of peace among these wolves (Luke 10:3, 6), waiting for us to contact them. If we do not go to contact them, how can we find them? When the Lord visited Zaccheus, He said that “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10). The Lord went out with a purpose to find His lost sheep. If we intend to find the Lord’s sheep, we also must go out.
However, when we go out to visit people, we should not be too legal. Do not say, “Brother Lee told us that we must first visit our close relatives, then our neighbors, then our classmates, and so forth. Therefore, we should not contact this person because he is not a relative or a neighbor.” This is too legal. The Spirit is like the wind. We do not know which way the wind will blow, but when He blows, we must be flexible to follow Him. As long as we keep the principle that we who love the Lord should go out to visit people to bring them the gospel, we can be flexible in every way.
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