How should the small group meetings be conducted? The key is to be organic. The small group meeting should begin from your own home. Although the time of the meeting may be scheduled at 7:30, you should begin praying at home before seven o’clock. While you are on the way to the meeting, you should continue to pray and praise. When you arrive at the brother’s house, you may find that some brothers are there already. You should then begin the meeting by praising, praying, or fellowshipping. The content of the meeting should be of the following items only: the first is fellowship; the second is prayer; the third is mutual care; the fourth is the teaching of the truth; the fifth is the pursuit of life; and the sixth is the mutual encouragement and teaching, and the preaching of the gospel by going out to visit people. Every time the small group comes together, whatever it does, the content should be one of these six things. Some may arrive early. They can begin praising or praying, or interceding for the ones that are sick, or giving testimonies of healing, thus caring for one another. Perhaps some may ask about the significance of the Lord’s Table. Every attendant should speak a little. In a few minutes, the truth will be made clear. If others have not covered the matter thoroughly, you can spend a few more minutes to explain a little the meaning of the breaking of bread. This is what I mean by an organic small group. All of you need to learn to practice this.
If you are willing to do this for six months and the new ones see this kind of example week after week, spontaneously they will also become organic. In this way, after half a year, of the dozen or so new ones, at least a few will be able to “graduate,” to leave the original small group to establish their own new small groups. They will preach the gospel by visiting people accordingly. And after people are saved, they will learn to nourish them in their homes and will set up organic small groups. In this way, after a saved one learns in a small group for half a year, he can do everything. He can preach the gospel and can bring in the new ones. He can set up new small groups, and he can prophesy. Whatever you can do, he can do also. An organic small group should have this kind of perfecting. In this way, the gifts and the riches in life that are in everyone are manifested. As a result, everyone will be able to prophesy in the meetings.
To prophesy is to speak for the Lord and to speak forth the Lord. It is to supply Christ to others. This is the main work in the church meetings. The whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 14 talks about prophesying. It promotes, uplifts, recommends, and encourages prophesying. Verse 1 says, “Pursue love, and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.” In the end, verse 39 says, “Therefore, my brothers, desire earnestly to prophesy.” Once you prophesy, you excel (v. 12), and the meeting becomes rich. Verse 31 says, “For you can all prophesy one by one.” Everyone can do it. No one is unable to do it. Verse 24 says, “But if all prophesy.” This means that all should prophesy in the meetings. As a result, when an unbeliever comes, “he is convicted by all, he is judged by all; the secrets of his heart become manifest; and so falling on his face, he will worship God, reporting that God is really among you” (vv. 24b-25). Prophesying enables all to “learn and all be encouraged” (v. 31). Moreover, to prophesy is to speak to men for building up and encouragement and consolation, that the church may be built up (vv. 3-4). Hence, we all need to learn to prophesy.
In order that everyone can prophesy, there is a practical and simple way, which is to have every saint revived every morning. Every week, divide up a chapter of the Bible into six portions, and read one portion each morning, picking out two verses in it for pray-reading. Then write down the inspiration and response every day. On Saturday evening, pray-read over the inspirations that are written, and compose a paragraph from them for prophesying. Preferably, you should help the brothers and sisters to improve a little on these compositions so that the content will be concise. You should also tell them that these compositions are simply memos. During the district meetings, they should not read from them. Rather they should speak them out as in ordinary speakings. During the speaking, if they have further inspiration, they should add a few words to them. In this way, the saints will pick up the boldness in the meetings and will be able to speak for the Lord. Of course, the most difficult thing to learn in prophesying is to have the spiritual inspiration. If there is no inspiration, it will become mechanical, and the result will not be a prophesying. For this reason, the prophesying has to be living and organic. Brother Nee once said that if a speaker can never have instant utterance, his message will never be strong. A strong message requires instant utterance. In other words, there is the need for instant inspiration, plus the utterance to express it. Hence, when we speak for the Lord, we have to pay attention to the instant inspiration. With the inspiration, there is also the need for the utterance to express it.