Furthermore, the way to set up the home meetings is to annul organization, hierarchy, and the clerical system. In our meetings there should not be anyone claiming to have a position over others. We all are nobodies and are all the same in the meeting. No one has any rank. There is no hierarchy, and no one is special or belongs to a special class. In setting up the home meetings we must recover the God-ordained way of meeting from house to house (Acts 2:46; 5:42).
We must also afford opportunities for each member to function in the meeting (1 Cor. 14:26). We must set up the home meetings in such a way that every attendant, even a young child, has an equal opportunity to function. Even a young girl can call a hymn or a young boy can start the singing.
Then we must learn how to promote and develop, that is, to cultivate, the organic gifts of each member of the Body of Christ (Rom. 12:4-5; Eph. 4:16). All the attendants in the meeting have a gift because they are the members of Christ. Each one’s gift comes out of the divine life which he possesses. We have God’s life within us, and this life produces something organic. As an infant begins to grow, his organic function begins to be cultivated within him. Eventually he can speak, walk, and do many things. This illustrates the development of the organic gift within us. As regenerated Christians we must let the divine life develop within us, and this development produces the gift of life, the organic gift. However, the practice of Christianity kills the organic function. Christians are encouraged to sit dumbly in the meetings and are not able to function. The way of Christianity is a killing and binding way. Those in this way do not have the adequate opportunity to function.
In the proper Christian meetings we should afford everyone a sufficient time and opportunity to exercise his gifts. Even a young boy of six years of age can say, “Praise the Lord,” “Lord Jesus, I love You,” or “God is good for food.” In every home meeting, we must help all the attendants to develop their organic gifts. This requires that we be a proper pattern, an example, for them to follow. Therefore, we ourselves must forsake the old way and annul anything of organization in the meetings. From the time we first set up a meeting, we must always make it clear that everyone has to function and learn to exercise his spirit. It is remarkable that little children learn language not by being taught but by living among and listening to other speakers. The ability to learn language is born into us. In the same way, every man is born with a human spirit and can call on the name of the Lord. Therefore, we must have the confidence that even the little ones in the meetings can function. In setting up the home meetings we have no intention to organize something to build up a facade to attract people. We must simply help the new ones to meet in their homes to worship God and the Lord Jesus.
In the home meetings we must also meet by the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:1-3) and with the word of God (1 Cor. 12:8; 14:6). These are the first two basic factors for the Christian meetings. Eventually, we should impress the new believers not with anything of the deformed and degraded Christianity but with the God-ordained way. We must make a definite and thorough decision not to bring anything of the old way into the home meetings. Once we bring natural and religious things into the meeting, the new ones will be impressed with these things. Then it will be hard to drop them. Be very careful in setting up meetings in the new ones’ homes. Simply go there to help them to have a home meeting, and impress them with the God-ordained way to practice the New Testament economy.