It is best that a group meeting be started with a small number of persons. To start with too many persons makes it difficult to get thoroughly, intimately, and lovingly acquainted. However, with only two to five members it will be difficult to practice the proper function of the group, which needs to visit sinners and gain them for the Lord. It is better to have seven or eight in a group. After a period of time everyone will be acquainted with one another. Before this time we should not go out to work. We should first form ourselves into an acting, working, moving group by getting acquainted, built up, and trained. Then we can begin to function by visiting people for the preaching of the gospel. In this way new ones can be gained gradually, one by one. If the group gains people little by little, it will not be difficult to follow up on and care for the new ones.
In order to carry this out, we need to be diligent. This will involve much work and will require that we all work together. Seven can gain one more and become eight. Then eight can work together to gain another new one. It is easy for eight to care for one new one and thus become nine. Gradually, after working for six months, the group may have fifteen or sixteen. By that time everyone will be acquainted and trained. The group can then divide into two groups. After becoming two groups, everyone will be able to work because they have already become acquainted and have had practice and training. Every group will begin not with new beginners but with trained persons. These will be the foundation for the next generation, and that generation will be ready to go on. We should spend the first five or six months in the groups to get ourselves built up. After this we can double our number in the next half year. This will double the number in the groups. After this number doubles two more times, we will have at least a onefold increase of the whole church. Perhaps our progress will be slower than this, but we anticipate that this way will be successful if everyone will labor.
After forming new groups and going to gain new persons, we need to consider when and how to introduce the new ones to the church meetings. It may be better to wait for a number of weeks before bringing a new one to the church meetings. However, after one is baptized, what will we do with him on the Lord’s Day? If we meet with only the new ones, we will neglect the church meeting. If we form groups and take care of the new ones without going to the church meetings, the church will suffer. However, if we do not bring the new ones to the church meeting on the Lord’s Day but go ourselves, we will neglect the new ones. Hence, this problem is difficult to solve. However, for the Caucasian new ones it may be better to have a separate meeting on the Lord’s Day besides the regular church meeting.
We should not pay much attention to the former way of meeting, but we must still attend the church meeting on the Lord’s Day and the meeting for prayer. Besides these, we still have other week nights and the Lord’s Day afternoon and evening for the group way of meeting and serving. In this way the practice of the group meetings will not affect the church meetings. We should respect the church meetings, and we should continue to attend them.
After the groups gain a number of new ones, the churches should agree to let the groups meet separately for the Lord’s table meeting on the Lord’s Day. One or two groups can come together on the Lord’s Day to have the Lord’s table with the new ones. In this way we can bring the new ones into the church life. After half a year these new ones can spontaneously come with us to the church meetings. Then when they come into the church meetings they will not be surprised, because they will have already come into the proper meeting life. In order to have the Lord’s table in the group meetings, we need to teach the new ones concerning the Lord’s table.
It may be better not to bring the new ones to the church meeting until we have had the Lord’s table with them in the group meetings. At the time a group is ready to divide into two, we may bring the new ones to the church meeting. At that time they will be the same as we are. They may attend both the church meetings and the group meetings, or they may have the capacity to attend only the group meetings. In such cases, we can advise them to sometimes attend the church meetings to get more help. This is the flexible way.
In addition to having the Lord’s table in the group meetings with the new ones, we must also teach the new ones concerning other matters, such as how to function and how to prophesy. After they are built up, they can come to the church meetings. Then they will be able to exercise a positive influence in the meetings.
Since we still need to attend the church meeting on the Lord’s Day morning, it is better to arrange to have the Lord’s table with the new ones in the afternoon or the evening on the Lord’s Day. Furthermore, we may baptize the new ones mainly on the Lord’s Day. For this it may be better to meet with the new ones in the church meeting hall, where there is a baptistry. Thus, every hall can be used twice on the Lord’s Day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon or evening. To meet and be baptized on the Lord’s Day in the meeting hall will be more proper in the eyes of many of the new ones. They may be disappointed if the Lord’s Day meeting is not in a proper place or if it is moved from place to place.
We need to pray and consider all the points of our fellowship in this message. What we are practicing may cause us some complications; it will not be simple, because we will have the church meetings and the group meetings going on at the same time. Eventually, we hope that after a few years the entire church will be practicing the group meetings.