I am very burdened for the church in Anaheim concerning the practice of the group meetings. In 1984 when I went to Taiwan, the first thing I touched was the group meetings. In my ministry regarding this matter I said that we can forget the heavens and the earth, but we must not forsake the group meetings. I also told all the churches that the church life depends eighty percent upon the group meetings.
The group meetings as a part of the God-ordained way are clearly unveiled in the New Testament. The church came into existence on the day of Pentecost. According to Acts 2:46, the newly saved believers immediately began to meet in their homes. Acts 2:46 uses the phrase from house to house. According to the Greek, this phrase means that the believers met by houses, taking the house as the basic unit for their meeting. This implies that wherever there was a home of a believer, there was a meeting. The number of homes was the same as the number of the believers’ meetings. Thus, the New Testament indicates that each one of us should have a meeting in our home. Of course, these home meetings should not be just with our own family; they should also include others. Paul’s Epistles indicate that in some localities the church met in a home (Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2).
The New Testament also shows us that in addition to having the group meetings in homes, the entire church should also come together in one place (1 Cor. 14:23). These two kinds of meetings—the group meetings in the homes and the meetings in which the whole church comes together in one place—are like the two wings of an airplane. With only one wing on one side, an airplane cannot fly. The group meetings in the homes are one “wing,” and the coming together of the whole church is the other. However, we need to see that the group meetings are more basic. Without the group meetings it is difficult to have the increase of the church. Without the members brought in through the group meetings, we could not have the coming together of the whole church. Although the church in Anaheim has been in existence since 1974, the number in the English-speaking meeting on the Lord’s Day is approximately one hundred fifty. This number is too small. The lack of increase among us is due mainly to the shortage of the group meetings in the saints’ homes.
Over a period of more than seven years I gave a number of messages on the practice of the group meetings (see The Exercise and Practice of the God-ordained Way, Messages Twenty-three through Thirty, and The Practice of the Group Meetings, published by Living Stream Ministry). In these messages I gave the word from the Bible to convey the vision and the revelation concerning this matter. I also gave detailed instructions on how to carry out the group meetings. During this period of time I did not do anything directly to begin the practice of the group meetings because I fully expected that a number of the saints would rise up and do this. I had the assurance that the elders, the co-workers, and the seeking saints would take the points of my speaking and come together to practice and learn the way to carry out the group meetings. All these saints are very capable; if they would do it, surely they would have a success. Although I have been waiting to see this in Anaheim since April 1989, according to the present situation, nearly no one has risen up to practice the group meetings in the new way. Some of the saints do have a kind of group meeting, but those meetings are carried out in the old way. Those meetings do serve a certain purpose, but I must say that that way is not prevailing. That is not the way shown in the Bible. Our desperate need today is to practice the new group meetings in the new way. Without this it is very difficult for us to go on by gaining the increase.
To practice the God-ordained way we need the group meetings. I am happy that a good number of saints have remained faithful to the Lord’s recovery over the past eight years of my ministry on the God-ordained way. However, the churches need “new blood,” that is, new members. The only way to gain the new members for the church is through group meetings.
I realize that many of the saints have the desire to practice the group meetings in the new way, but they have not done so because they feel that they do not know how to do it. However, I would say that they do not know how to do it because they do not do it. If they would do it, they would know how to do it. It is a fact that we know how to do things by doing them. If we do not touch a certain thing, we will not know it. When we get into that thing, we know it. There are many common and ordinary things that we do not know how to do simply because we never did those things. If we would do them, we would learn by doing.