We need to go on from nourishing the new ones in the home meetings to perfecting the saints, to equipping them (Eph. 4:12). In these small group meetings, we need to teach the believers as a father (1 Thes. 2:11) so that they can carry out the practical church life for the work of the New Testament ministry—the organic building up of the Body of Christ. We can bring three or four new families together to form a group. The perfecting of the saints can take place in the small groups. Ephesians 4:11-12 says that Christ, the Head, has given some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. We may have thought that the evangelists were just for the preaching of the gospel, but Ephesians 4 tells us that they are for the perfecting of the saints. The perfecting carried out in the small groups is by the way of fellowship, prayer, and mutual care. We can fellowship with the newly baptized ones to know their condition so that we can take care of their spiritual, physical, or financial situation and pray for them. We can also take about fifteen minutes to teach them the truth. If we teach the truth to them for fifteen minutes a week, they will accumulate the proper knowledge of the truth. We also have to help them to seek after the growth in life. In these meetings are fellowship, prayer, mutual care, the teaching of the truth, and the encouragement to seek after the growth in life.
After six months of these kinds of meetings, the new ones will be equipped to carry out the practical church life. Actually, the practical church life is carried out in the small groups, not in a big congregation. The practical church life cannot be carried out with a big congregation. With the traditional church meetings in which one person speaks and the rest listen, general teaching can be released but no particular perfecting can be carried out. For people to be productive in human society, they must receive some particular training, or perfecting. In colleges, students study a particular major. Others may go to trade schools to learn a particular trade. In the past, we mainly had general teaching without particular perfecting. Nearly every Lord’s Day a message was given, but the teaching was too general. By having the small groups, however, everything will be particular. Everyone in the small group meetings will be perfected to do what the gifted persons do. They will be perfected to go to preach the gospel to gain new ones, to take care of home meetings, and to take care of small group meetings. The twenty in one group may eventually become ten groups. In this way, the saints will be perfected and the church will be increasing all the time.
We need the begetting through preaching the gospel, the nourishing of the new ones for remaining fruit, and the perfecting for the teaching, instructing, and educating of the saints. This will afford us a very practical church life that is full of life, altogether organic. Such a church will grow fast not only in numbers but also in life. If a church of one hundred saints doubles every year, this church can grow to one million within thirteen years. This is a thousand percent increase. We had little increase in the past because we did not have the proper, scriptural practice. Now we need to rise up to take this organic way. In order to take this organic way, we need more prayer and even fasting. We need to have a thorough dealing with the Lord concerning our daily walk. We must be living persons, right persons, and dealt with persons. Then the power and the life will be with us, and all the riches of Christ will be our portion. Surely we will be living, strong, and full of the uplifted Christian virtues. This will make us prevailing in our service to the Lord.
To visit people with the gospel, to have home meetings with the new ones, and to have small group meetings with them should be considered as a part of the meetings of the church. The unbelievers spend their leisure time on worldly entertainment and amusement, but the best entertainment and amusement is the church life. We have to reconsider our situation. These crucial matters for the organic building up of the Body of Christ—begetting, nourishing, and perfecting—are not just the responsibility of the elders. They are the duty of all the saints. If we would devote two three-hour sessions a week to the Lord for the purpose of begetting, nourishing the new ones, and perfecting, equipping, the saints, we will see the positive results. All of us will be able to bear two remaining fruit yearly.