Finally, I have some feelings to share with the brothers and sisters. First, it is not enough to merely divide big district meetings into smaller ones; there must also be the Spirit. To have merely the principle but not the Spirit is to have dead regulation. The principle of the district meetings is according to the truth; nevertheless, we must have the Spirit while carrying out the truth. Otherwise, our practice will be merely according to dead letter and doctrine. The truth is like the rails of a train track, and the Spirit is the power that moves the train. Thus, the deep sense within me is that the brothers and sisters need to look to the Lord and be willing to rise up to receive a strong burden from the Lord to open their homes to become spiritual homes.
Today a brother may go to a small locality where there is no church, and he may pray, “O Lord, I am here, and I need to meet and serve.” Then he will have the burden to find some saints or lead some sinners to the Lord. After he has found a group of people, they will begin to pray together. In this way they will have the Spirit and be burning within. As a result they will rise up to follow the way of the truth by meeting together and raising up a local church in that place. In the same principle, there may be a brother whose home is far away from a district meeting; moreover, although he loves the Lord, he is limited in the meeting and does not have much opportunity to function. Because the district meeting is going to be divided into smaller meetings, he may pray, “Lord, I would like my home to become a base, or place, to provide the brothers and sisters with more opportunity to serve You.” This is the one thing we are asking the brothers and sisters to do. For this, we need to go before the Lord to pray and ask the Lord to put such a fervent burden in every brother and sister. We need many homes as bases to meet God’s need. In these many homes, or bases, the brothers and sisters must inwardly have a fervent burden for the truth to be worked out in an unhindered way.
Second, not every home needs to be opened to become the base of a smaller meeting, nor is every saint able to be a responsible one in a small meeting. We hope that every brother and sister and not only the responsible ones in the current district meetings will have the desire to tell the Lord, “Lord, our meeting should be subdivided into smaller meetings so that I may have the opportunity to serve You. I may not become a responsible one, and my house may not become the base for a small meeting; nevertheless, I would like to put my shoulders to the task.”
Third, a small district meeting should include no more than two hundred people. Perhaps only fifty will meet regularly; these fifty should then bear the burden to take care of the rest by repeatedly visiting them, seeking them out, recovering them, and stirring them up. If this is the case, I believe that it will bring in a great blessing. Gradually, although the ratio of those who attend the meetings may not be high and the spiritual content may not be deep, the atmosphere of the meetings will be strong. In this way we can arrive at the point where at least seventy to eighty percent of the saints attend the meetings. If the Lord has mercy on us, from now on we will practice in this way: There will be six or seven strong message meetings every Lord’s Day at the main stations for the ministry of the word. All the saints will gather at these six or seven locations to receive the ministry of the word; then on the weekdays they will be in the smaller district meetings fellowshipping and sharing concerning the help that they received from the ministry of the word, as well as what they have experienced of Christ in their daily life.
Fourth, I hope that the elders and responsible ones in the various districts will try their best to render the brothers and sisters spiritual supply so that such a supply would replace regulation. If there are strict regulations but not an adequate supply, the districts will be like a person who has only skin and bones but no flesh; such a person is ugly and unseemly. We need to have much spiritual supply. Often spiritual supply needs to substitute outward administration. I have no intention to rebuke the elders concerning their administration, but I feel that the ratio of spiritual supply to administration is not so proper. From now on, the elders of the whole church and the responsible ones for the various districts need to pursue spiritual growth and provide the brothers and sisters with more spiritual supply, trying their best to replace administration, according to principle, with spiritual supply. In this way the Lord’s blessing will surely increase. The more blessing there is, the more the church will grow; the more the church grows, the more district meetings there will be and the more the brothers and sisters will be brought into function.
We do not want a great deal of administration; rather, we would like to give the brothers and sisters more freedom. This freedom is for functioning, not for the indulgence of the flesh. This requires the brothers and sisters to learn the serious lesson of being broken through the cross. Our natural man, our flesh, and our self need to be broken by the Lord. All of us love the Lord and the church, but if our natural disposition, our flesh, and our self have not been broken by the Lord, we will bring in many problems. In the end, although we may desire to do certain things, we will end up doing the opposite. Many times, we would like to help the church and the brothers and sisters; however, in the end what we do stumbles others, and things do not turn out as we desire.
As those who love Him, may we learn to be those who are spiritually rich, those who minister to the church and the saints, and may we learn not to cause the saints to suffer loss or the church to be damaged. This requires that we strongly receive the lesson of the cross. In our being we should have no intention to be the head or to be better than others; rather, we should desire only that the brothers and sisters receive supply through us and that the church be built up so that the Lord’s testimony will become brighter and stronger, and more people will be saved. This is what we should all desire and learn to fulfill. If this is the case, I believe that the Lord’s blessing among us will be rich and abounding. May the Lord be gracious to us.