The church is universal, and it is also expressed locally in city after city. Regardless of how small or large a city is, there can be only one church in a city. For instance, a church was raised up in a small village in Kansas. There are only about thirty people living in this village, but twelve brothers and sisters were raised up to stand on the ground of locality and meet in the Lord’s name.
However, there are also large cities such as Taipei with a population of about two or three million, New York with about ten million, and Tokyo with more than ten million. Even in large cities there should still be only one church. The Bible gives Jerusalem as a pattern. Two thousand years ago Jerusalem was a large city with a population of more than one million. On the day of Pentecost three thousand people were saved, and later another five thousand were saved (Acts 2:41; 4:4). There were more than ten thousand believers in Jerusalem, but there was only one church, not many churches. The saints there met from house to house, breaking bread, praying, preaching the gospel, and continuing in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles. There were thousands who practiced the way of meeting “from house to house” (2:46). Every household was a small meeting, not a church. We know this because Acts 8:1 speaks of “the church which was in Jerusalem.” This verse uses the singular form of the word church, not the plural form. There was only one church in Jerusalem. Even though the saints were scattered in thousands of homes, there was only one church.
The church in Taipei is an example. There are at least three hundred and sixty small groups in Taipei, but these groups are not three hundred and sixty churches; they are one church. Although the saints are gathered in many places, there is only one church with one eldership and one administration.
Meetings are crucial to the church as the house of the living God. We have many meetings in the local churches. The life pulse of the church is in the meetings. Not going to the meetings is equivalent to cutting off our life supply. When a person stops attending the meetings, his church life comes to a halt. This can be compared to a person who is never at home. As far as he is concerned, his home does not exist. Therefore, the church life is a meeting life, and we should never stop meeting.
We need to take care of many needs for our human existence. These needs include food, clothing, housing, and transportation. We should also take care of our marriage and family, including begetting and raising children, and we must take care of education. With these responsibilities how should we take care of our meetings? At present, we have five kinds of meetings. There is the ministry meeting, bread-breaking meeting, prayer meeting, small group meeting, and truth meeting.
The ministry meeting is to minister the word through the release of messages for the edification of the saints. This meeting is held on Lord’s Day morning in the different halls so that the saints can meet in their respective halls. The young saints should attend this meeting even if they are very busy. The Lord’s Day is the first day of the week, and we should set this day aside to meet.
Even though the young saints need to sleep less during their final exams, they must enjoy the word that ministers life on the Lord’s Day and also break bread to remember the Lord and worship the Father. Since the students must study hard, they do not need to attend the other meetings, such as the prayer meeting and the truth meeting. However, they should do their best to attend a meeting on campus during the week. This will enable them to keep in touch with one another. They should come together in the small group meetings to set one another on fire, just as a hot piece of coal must be placed beside cold pieces of coal. This is the way to exhort and encourage one another according to Hebrews 10:25: “Not abandoning our own assembling together...but exhorting one another.” I hope that the young people will earnestly practice this.