In the coming messages, my burden is to share with you how to have the home meetings, how to make them rich, strong, fresh, living, so attractive, even so attracting, and able to uphold people.
Many of us are very much concerned for the home meetings because it is not so easy for the home meetings to be rich, strong, fresh, living, attractive, and able to uphold people. In the big meetings we only need two or three trained and selected ones. If you have a Billy Graham you can hold thousands of people. You may argue that you do not have such a one in your home meeting. But praise the Lord, we have thousands of small potatoes. All these have to be made useful.
How do you have a meeting in your home which is rich, strong, fresh, living, attractive, and able to uphold? Acts 5:42 says, “And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and bringing the good news of Jesus as the Christ.” The word teaching means they knew the truth. And bringing the good news of Jesus as the Christ means they were preaching. They were able to teach, and they were able to preach. In the past we have had conferences and annual trainings, both summer and winter. We have finished the entire study of the whole New Testament, and the messages have been printed. Many of you have the complete set of life-studies of the New Testament in your home on the shelves. Yet how much of the truth conveyed in those pages of the life-studies has really gotten into you? And how many truths are you able to teach others? I am a little concerned that it is not too many.
We have also stressed the growth in life very much. We need to know the truth and we need to grow in life. Yet again, how much growth have you had in the past years? According to my observation, it is not too much. In one sense, it is disappointing. Yet in another sense, it is encouraging because you are still here. You are still seeking, hungry, and thirsty.
I realize we have put out the truths, but we have helped the saints grow in life in a very loose way. In a sense, I regret, but I must tell you, I had no choice in the past, even in the coming days I still have no choice. I must spend the time to put out the Word of God. Brother Nee, like others who have gone before us, knew so much, yet not very much of what he knew is left. We only have some of the books. From this I realized that I must take the time to put out whatever the Lord has shown us in these years and get it into print.
I believe there will be a period of time for the Lord to do something to build up His church before He comes back. Because of this I anticipate a great need for the life-studies in the future. I am still burdened to put out the life-studies on the Pentateuch and the prophets of the Old Testament. I must spend at least half of my time to get these things written, spoken, and published. Then I still have the burden to take care of a few regions, for example, Taiwan. There is the need to go back again and again. I am also endeavoring to do more than what I did in the past for the churches in the U.S. From now on I would like to have more time with you and with the leading ones, charging all of us to be definite. Although we have life-studies on the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, the saints must get into them. We must get into what is taught in Matthew, what is taught in Mark, what is taught in Luke, what is taught in John, in Acts, and so forth. This needs some time.
The educational system in the human race has been practiced for thousands of years. Now the entire world follows the same kind of educational system. You have kindergarten, elementary, junior high, high school, then college and graduate school. If you teach people in mathematics in a loose way without following this educational system, when they become old, they will not know much. You must have a definite way to charge people to finish the course. Six years are required to finish elementary school, another six years to finish high school, then another four years to finish college. After they have finished this they will have received definite training. We must follow this way. So we all have to endeavor. By the small groups we have the way to do this. Suppose a school with a thousand students has no classes formed but only invites people to give good speeches all year round. The students will get something, but only in a very loose and general way. But if I were to open a school, I would not invite good speakers but rather good teachers. I would build up classrooms, form the classes, and put in the best teachers. Then they would teach the classes semester after semester. I would not need to invite a good speaker. I would have a strong school built up and all the students who graduate from my school would be very definitely educated. We must learn this way. Our classes are the small groups. We must form the small groups.
At one time in Dallas there were two particular Baptist congregations. One depended upon having a good speaker for the big congregation, while the other one depended upon classes. After some years the one which was for the big meetings, which had the big number, eventually came to a failure with a small number. But the one which paid attention to classes and which had a small number at the beginning, eventually had a number about ten times more than the other one.
Just to have general conferences to give certain messages does not work too well. We need to set up classrooms with definite teachers. But where are our classrooms? Every home is a classroom. And every brother or sister of that certain home should be the teacher. You have to set up your home as a classroom. Get yourself educated and trained as a teacher. Then along with this, a good teacher must be a grown-up person. Although a child may have the best knowledge, he could not be a good teacher. Therefore we need to grow in life. All the churches have to endeavor to educate every saint fully in the spiritual truths, and to cause them all to grow in life. Only these two things could qualify all the saints to be good for the home meetings.
We have to believe that in a home meeting of five or six at least two or three could be and should be rich in the knowledge of the truth, and rich in the growth of life. When they come together these two or three will spontaneously become the richness, the strength, the newness, the livingness, the attracting power, and the upholding power of that small group. They could be useful and their usefulness could be applied to the practical situation. However, listening to a speaker in a large congregation, in a sense, annuls their usefulness. So from now on I would advise all the churches to only have at most one big meeting every week. Do not treasure Brother Lee’s speaking; you all have to come together to practice speaking. Do not say you do not know how. Just speak. Every one of you can be an apostle, an evangelist, a teacher, and a shepherd.
I hope that you would be deeply impressed to repudiate the over-treasuring of the congregational way and to realize the need for the small groups. Then secondly, I hope that you would be deeply impressed to pick up the adequate knowledge of the truth. Try to study the New Testament and try to spend time to get into the life-studies. I like to see saints’ homes where there are life-studies in every room so that anytime, anywhere, they can get into them. But I am afraid that in your home all the life-studies are piled up on the shelves. Get into the full knowledge of the truth and then pray to the Lord, “Lord grant me mercy and grace that I would grow in You. Grace me to grow, Lord.” Pray much, seeking the growth in life. You will be enlivened. You will be a factor to enrich, to strengthen, to refresh, and to enliven the home meetings. Then the home meetings will be attractive and will be able to uphold any member.