The first step in the carrying out of the God-ordained way to meet and to serve is to exercise the New Testament priesthood of the gospel by helping people to be saved and baptized. This is to beget new believers. We may help people to be saved and baptized through visiting them in their homes by knocking on their doors. However, we should not be legal about our way. Sometimes we may help them in other ways, such as inviting them to a meeting or simply speaking to them on the street. The second step in carrying out the God-ordained way is to feed the new ones by meeting with them in their homes. These new beginners may be those who have been saved and baptized among us, or they may be other new believers whom we have met. The third step is to perfect the new believers in group meetings. After feeding the new ones for a short time, we should bring them together to form a group meeting, not just for feeding but for perfecting. This meeting is the main part of the church life, and it should include fellowship, intercession, care, shepherding, teaching, perfecting, and all the other items of the church life. The fourth step in the God-ordained way is to prophesy in the larger church meetings. These four steps for carrying out the God-ordained way to meet and to serve should not merely be something we learn. They should be our daily walk. We should take this way and walk in this way.
There are many ways to have a group meeting. When the attendants of the meeting come together, they may spontaneously begin to sing and pray. Then one brother may tell the others that one of the new sisters has become ill, and the group may pray for her. There are many things about which we can fellowship in the meeting. Someone may ask about a brother’s job situation, and the group may again pray and seek the Lord’s leading in caring for him and his family. One who is exercising to care for a group meeting will be able to know when one person has been speaking for too long about a particular matter. Then he can introduce something else into the meeting. He may offer a prayer, and his prayer will change the atmosphere of the meeting and bring it into another stage.
The teaching in the group meetings should be carried out not by a particular person but by all the attendants in that meeting. During the group meeting, a brother may raise a question concerning a point from the Bible. Everyone in the group can teach the others by saying something in answer to that question. Even those who have been saved for a very short time have something to speak and can offer it in the meeting. Likewise, there are often some attendants who are able to speak something deeper in answer to the questions, and some who are able to give a concluding word. Everyone has a small portion, and when everyone presents what he has, all the portions are added together to make a good teaching. Everyone can ask a question, everyone can answer, and everyone can teach. Whatever is spoken in the group meeting is heard by all the attendants, and everyone receives the help. This is the way to teach the saints in a group meeting. If the saints attend this kind of group meeting week after week for two or three years, they will be perfected.
If we practice having group meetings, we will learn the proper way to carry them out. The best way to learn is to practice. The more we practice, the more we learn. We should not say that we do not know how to cook. We should simply buy some groceries, put them into water, and place them on a stove. Then we will learn to cook. If we would practice having group meetings for several months, we will know how to meet, and we will receive the benefit. When we have learned the proper way to have group meetings, they will become indispensable.
The group meetings comprise eighty percent of the church life if we practice them properly. However, we may not know how to have group meetings in life, in spirit, and according to everyone’s current situation and need. This is because we have been accustomed to having meetings in a traditional, formal, ritualistic way. In the old way of meeting, we could meet for some years and still not know the other attendants in the meeting. There might be no contact, care, or shepherding among the members. In a church with several hundred newly baptized believers, it would be impossible to have enough elders to care for them all. If such a church meets in the old way, the number of new ones will be impressive, but there will be little content of reality. However, if this church meets in a proper way, the several hundred members will be formed into groups of eight to fifteen persons. Each group will care for the persons in that group. The members of the group will come to know one another very well, and the entire church will be under a daily, mutual care. This mutual care is carried out in many ways in the group meetings.