The sixth kind of meeting is for the preaching of the gospel. This meeting is also very important. In particular, new believers should exercise to participate in this meeting.
All the brothers and sisters should bring people to hear the gospel. We should not merely come by ourselves, but we should try our best to bring people to hear the gospel. How do we bring people? We need to make a list of our relatives, friends, classmates, colleagues, and those who are close to us. From this list we should invite those who have never heard the gospel. Sometimes we may be unable to bring them directly; rather, we may need to use various means, such as inviting them for a meal or preparing a ride for them. We should not be discouraged if we need to invite them repeatedly. We know from experience that once a person has been invited, that invitation will influence him even if he does not come. The more he is invited, the greater the responding power within him will be. Then when he does come, he will be saved dynamically. Thus, we should never give up on those who decline our first invitation.
After bringing a person, we need to accompany him by sitting beside him. When we sit with him, we should do five things.
First, we should help him locate the Bible verses. When the speaker mentions a certain book, a certain chapter, or a certain verse, we should help him find it.
Second, we should help him find the hymn. If the hymn is written out, we should point it out to him; if the hymn is in the hymnal, we should look it up for him.
Third, we should explain the hymn. There may be some special terms in a gospel hymn; if the speaker does not explain them clearly, we should explain them to him.
Fourth, we should pray for him. While we sit with him and help him, we need to observe his condition and silently pray for him.
Fifth, we should help him receive the Lord. When the speaker asks everyone to indicate a willingness to receive the Lord, we should not leave him to his own discretion and let nature take its course. Rather, we should encourage him a little without being rude or forcing him to stand up. All these should be done appropriately and properly.
After the meeting, we should contact and speak with the one we brought. If it is inconvenient to speak with him, we can ask other brothers and sisters to speak with him. In speaking with him, we need to pay attention to three things.
First, we should strengthen the message that he heard. We should not discuss another subject with him. Based on the message spoken, strengthen the meaning of the message and his response to the message.
Second, we should lead him to pray. After speaking with him for a short time, we should lead him to pray. Speaking too little does not save people, and neither does speaking too much. Sometimes we miss the opportune time for prayer because of our excessive speaking. Consequently, it is difficult for people to be saved. Therefore, after speaking with our guest, we need to lead him to pray. This prayer will often result in his salvation.
Third, we should help him to leave his name and address to facilitate further contact with him.
After the gospel meeting, we should bear the responsibility to visit people.
First, we should visit according to a schedule.
Second, we should take some brothers and sisters with us. The brothers and sisters can help us to solve any problems we would be unable to solve on our own.
Third, we should continue to visit until the person we are visiting is saved, baptized, and enters into the church life. Then the church can help bear the responsibility for him. However, we often still need to be responsible to visit him for a period of time after his baptism. May we all enter into a proper practice of the bread-breaking meeting, the prayer meeting, the meeting for the exercise of gifts, the Bible-study meeting, the ministry meeting, and the gospel meeting so that the church and all the saints can be greatly blessed.