To save sinners by contacting them where they are and to cherish and nourish the new believers in their homes are the initiation, the beginning, of the way to practice the Lord’s present recovery. After these steps, we need to go on to have group meetings with the nourished believers (Heb. 10:25). I consider the group meetings as schools. When parents have a newborn child, they nourish them until they are ready to attend kindergarten at the age of five. Before that time, we consider them as being of preschool age. To have home meetings is to take care of the preschool children. After a certain period of nourishing, they grow up and are ready to receive a spiritual education. This spiritual education takes place in the small groups. Small groups may be composed of a few new families. The number of the small groups may be about ten or twelve, but they should not be over twenty. When our small group is over twenty, it is best to divide that group into two groups. More than eighty percent of the practical church life should be carried out in these group meetings.
We need to have group meetings with the nourished believers according to what is revealed in Hebrews 10:25. I believe that Hebrews 10:25 refers to the group meetings based upon one point: “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together...but exhorting one another.” With a bigger meeting, it is almost impossible to exhort one another. Exhorting one another takes place in a smaller meeting. It is easy for a group of less than twenty saints to exhort one another. Hebrews 10:25 must be applied to the group meetings.
The group meetings have three main functions. First, they are for fellowship and prayer (Acts 2:46). In the home of Mark’s mother, Mary, a group of saints was praying for Peter, who was in prison at that time (Acts 12:12). After Peter was released, he went to the house of Mary. Acts 12 indicates that there must have been many groups in Jerusalem praying for Peter (v. 5). Second, the group meetings are for teaching, edifying, and gospel preaching (Acts 5:42). Edifying is different from building up. Edifying is mainly to educate for the purpose of building character, not for building up a building. In the small group meetings, there is much edifying work. We also may preach the gospel in the group meetings. Third, the group meetings are for perfecting the young saints to do the work of the ministry, which is the work that the gifted persons do to carry out the New Testament ministry to build up the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12). In the group meetings we have to edify the new believers to build them up in all the characteristics of the Christian life. We have to educate them, train them, perfect them, equip them, furnish them, to do all kinds of Christian services, helping them to reach the standard of each one of them prophesying, speaking for the Lord. The result of the small group meetings should be that all the attendants will be able to preach the gospel, to have home meetings and group meetings, and to prophesy, to speak for the Lord. This kind of situation can only be produced by the small groups, not by the big meetings or the home meetings.
Because we do not like to have any organization, we do not want to appoint leaders for the group meetings. We need to leave such matters open to the Holy Spirit. We should charge the saints to behave spiritually and to do their duty in bearing their responsibility. The leader of a small group will be manifested according to the Spirit, according to who is bearing the real burden and responsibility. For the church to go on in a prevailing way, there is the need of many group meetings. The more groups there are, the more spreading, increase, and improvement the church will have. Then the church service, the church burden, the church responsibility, will not be limited to the hands of a few elders, but will spread into the hands of many saints.
If we do well in practicing a group meeting, our group may need to be divided two or even four times in a year. If we are meeting with twenty in our group, we may increase to thirty-four. Then we can divide this group into two groups of seventeen. This kind of increase depends upon the gospel preaching. New children need to be begotten in order for the small groups, the schools, to have students. Gospel preaching is for begetting and home meetings are for cherishing and nourishing. Then children are produced for the schools, the group meetings. We need the middle-aged and younger saints who are still full of strength to go out to knock on people’s doors for the preaching of the gospel. Then we need to cherish and nourish the new children in the home meetings and place them in the elementary schools, the group meetings. Actually, our small group meetings include students from the “elementary” stage all the way to the “master’s degree” stage.
The fellowship in this chapter is concerning the details of the practice of the Lord’s advanced recovery. I am looking to the Lord desperately to see these three things worked out in the churches: saving sinners, home meetings, and group meetings. The groups are the units to carry out the church life.