It is difficult to find an adequate definition for the word cherishing, even in the dictionary. The best definition of cherishing is to make someone comfortable and happy. To cherish our children is to make them comfortable and happy. A wife may serve her husband good food, while neither her face, attitude, spirit, nor utterance is cherishing. She is nourishing, but not cherishing. As a result her husband will not feel comfortable and be happy, but hesitate to eat the food.
We must learn to go back to the newly baptized ones with a smiling face, rather than with a stern face. If we command them to come together to have a meeting and demand to know where the other members of the family are, our "nourishing" will make everyone unhappy. We need to learn to cherish people to make them happy (1 Thes. 2:7). Then we can nourish them (John 21:15). Sometimes children are naughty and refuse to eat. But some mothers are very good at cherishing them to get them to eat.
Teaching is easier than perfecting. The best way to teach and perfect the saints is to have group meetings with them. The group meetings should consist of no more than fifteen. The best number is eight to ten. In the large meetings we can only do a general work. The group meeting should not be a formal meeting. In the past when we proposed having the group meetings, most of the time the elders came in to divide the saints according to where they lived. This is altogether too formal. Some groups were good because they contained a number of experienced and gifted brothers who were leaders and teachers. However, these gifted brothers did everything, and the whole group eventually depended on them. This kind of formal group meeting is not good for fellowship, mutual care, mutual shepherding, and mutual teaching and perfecting. The group meetings should be informal. They should spontaneously and automatically come into existence through those who preach the gospel to save the sinners and who then feed and nourish them. We must each get two or three saved and baptized. After this we should care for them by cherishing and nourishing them so that they may grow. After three or four of us have two or three like this under our care, we can then group them together. Then ten to fifteen of us can come together spontaneously. We do not need to sing a hymn, offer a prayer, or read a portion of the Word in a religious way. This is a formality. Maybe one will come in singing and another comes in praising. After they sit down, the first one may start to tell what happened to him on that day and ask the other one to pray for him. Even though there are only two present, there is prayer for this brother. This is the start of the meeting. Then, the second brother may tell the other about a certain brother's sickness. Then they pray for the sick brother.
This is an illustration of the proper way for a group meeting to begin. Then while these two are praying, two other brothers may come in and begin to share something. This is fellowship. The ten or twelve eventually get to know each other thoroughly. They know each other's up-to-date situation.
Through this kind of fellowship, spontaneous intercession will follow. We do not need to wait until the church prayer meeting. We can pray and intercede at once in the group meeting. In this way we may find out that there is a financial need. Then we can take care of it. This also generates an atmosphere of shepherding. As a result, all of the new ones are taken care of by the group meetings. Following the fellowship, we should use quite a time for mutual questions and mutual answers concerning spiritual life and scriptural truth that all could be taught and perfected. In the meantime, we should also bring them to the church meetings.