The elders must learn not to control; rather, they must learn to help the saints to grow, to promote their function, to develop their gift, and to cultivate their divine ability. Then all the saints will rise up to preach the gospel in a prevailing and effective way by knocking on people’s doors, reading The Mystery of Human Life, helping people to believe, and baptizing them. At least once a week, or perhaps two or three times a week, the saints would build up the home meetings by teaching the new believers the truth, and by edifying them and helping them to grow in life, thus establishing the local church with a view to building up the Body of Christ.
The elders should not control but encourage the saints to go to visit others. You may have had many experiences of the Lord, but those experiences may now be old. You should let the saints go out in a fresh way. Those who go out should learn to know the Body of Christ. On the one hand, the present leading ones should not control, giving the saints the full freedom. On the other hand, those who go out should learn never to be independent. You should always practice depending upon the Body. When you came into the church, you came in as a member of the Body, meeting in the church in your locality. You are not only a member of the Body of Christ universally, but you are also a member of the church in your locality. Therefore, you are subject not only to the Body but also to the church in your locality. Do not do anything independently, but do everything in dependence on your local church with thorough fellowship. The church in a locality is a local expression of the Body of Christ. You must honor and respect the church in your locality. The leading ones should give you the full freedom, yet you must learn how to depend upon the church.
To go out without sufficient, adequate fellowship with the church is independent and divisive. There is only one Body on this earth. Regardless of how much we say that we are right, as long as we are independent of the church in our locality, we are divisive. We must not neglect the Body of Christ, the church with which we are meeting. As long as we have been meeting with the church for even a short time, we must realize that it is the local expression of the unique Body of Christ and that we are members of this expression. On the one hand, all the leading ones should not control anybody, but on the other hand, everyone who really knows the Body of Christ should act, behave, and do things in a dependent way, realizing that we all are members of the same Body. Not only should the young ones depend on the older ones, but the older ones should also learn to depend upon the young ones because we are members of the same Body. If the hand in one’s physical body said, “I trust in the head, but I have nothing to do with the arm,” the arm said, “I have nothing to do with the neck,” and the neck said, “I have nothing to do with the ear,” all the members of this body would become detached. Every member in the body depends upon the circulation of the blood throughout the body. The circulation of the blood is not local or individualistic; it is universal and corporate. Independence from the Body is like cancer, a disease not of germs, but of cells which grow for their own purpose. Cancer cells can kill the whole body.
We are practicing the new way, and the new way is a way without control. Some of the more experienced ones may hesitate to say “Amen” to this way. They may consider that this way is risky and could result in division and confusion. They may desire to wait and see what will happen with the other churches who take this way. On the other hand, others, especially the young ones, may want to act independently of the church. If we go out independently from the church, after a short time we will be in division. With such an attitude, it will be dangerous for us to take the new way, risking a division that could seriously damage the Body. We all have to learn, on the one hand, not to control others, and on the other hand, to depend upon our brothers. We are not individualistic or detached members; we are attached members. We are a corporate Body, depending upon one another.
For one to consider that, since he brought the Lord’s recovery to a certain place, he has the right to control the church there, is foolish. The elders of the churches must learn not to control. In the past twenty-five years the Lord through this ministry has raised up over six hundred churches in Central America, South America, North America, Africa, Europe, and Australasia. If I would have controlled the churches, this never could have happened. Today there are so many churches to testify that the way of no control is effective.
On the other hand, everyone must learn to be dependent, trusting the elders and the church where we meet. We should ask the elders to help us and go to them to thoroughly fellowship everything regardless of what attitude they would have and regardless of what they would say. As members of the Body, we should depend on the Body. Then we will have peace, we will have the enjoyment, and the Lord’s blessing will be with us. Division and confusion exhaust the members of the Body, but if we practice fellowship and dependence on the Body, we will have a unanimous oneness in a condition of peace. May the Lord keep us in the genuine oneness and teach us to live such a oneness in His recovery.