The church is making a turn in its practice from corporate meetings involving all the saints to meetings in small groups. Corporate meetings involving all the saints are suitable in a small locality with about one hundred saints, because they can meet the needs of the saints. But when the number in the meetings increases, the needs of the saints who are at different levels will be overlooked in meetings that involve all the saints. Even though human beings tend to be gregarious, we live in households as the basic unit; we do not live in groups. The strength of a country and the stability of its society depend on the household as its basic unit. If the household unit is destroyed, a society becomes corrupted and the country is weakened.
The principle is the same with the church. In the church the household is the basic unit. On the day of Pentecost three thousand people were saved (Acts 2:41). These new believers gathered in the temple and broke bread and prayed from house to house (vv. 42, 46). They needed to gather together so that the apostles could teach them. However, this was not enough; there was still the need for the believers to break bread and have mutual fellowship and prayer in their homes, that is, from house to house. By the end of chapter 5 the small gatherings in the homes were not only for the breaking of bread and prayer but also for announcing the gospel of Jesus as the Christ (v. 42). They announced the Lord Jesus as the gospel from house to house. Chapter 20 reveals that during Paul’s three years in Ephesus, he declared the counsel of God to the Ephesians publicly and also entreated and admonished them from house to house (vv. 18-20, 31).
Based on these verses, after a local church increases, it must take the household unit as its base. We have neglected this for the past twenty years and have suffered a great loss. On the one hand, we have preached the gospel, baptized people, and led many to salvation, but on the other hand, not many of these have remained. The root cause is that we neglected the matter of the household as a unit. Church history and world history show that the existence of any large group is based on small units within the group. Therefore, the church in Taipei must have a great turn from corporate meetings involving all the saints to small groups. Other than having a need for an administrative government, the small group should function according to all the other aspects of a local church.
Whether a local church is strong or weak depends on how the church takes care of teaching, shepherding, caring for, and supporting the saints. If a local church takes care of these four matters, it will be healthy. How can the elders take care of these four items in a large local church? For example, thirty elders would not be able to take care of these four matters in the church in Taipei, where there are three thousand people who meet regularly. At most, the elders could gather the saints into meetings and give them messages. But this only takes care of teaching, and even this teaching cannot be thorough. The elders would be unable to shepherd, care for, and support all the saints. Because we did not take care of these matters in the past, all the ones saved through us either died or were adopted by others. If we want our children to grow up in the homes, there should be shepherding, care, and support at home.
We are raising up the small groups so that we can make up the lack in shepherding, care, and support. The co-workers and elders in Taipei must realize that the building up of the church is entirely dependent on the small groups. In the small groups there should be teaching, shepherding, care, and support. This does not mean that there is absolutely no administration or management in the small groups, but the need for this is not great. The life pulse of a small group is in teaching, shepherding, care, and support. We can no longer follow our old ways; in other words, we have changed our administrative system. However, this does not mean that we do not need elders; neither does it mean that every home should be regarded as a church. It is wrong to say that every home is a church.
Someone said that as long as there are a few believers meeting in a home, that home is a church. He spoke this based on Paul’s word in the Epistles concerning the church in a person’s house (cf. Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2). But this is a mistaken view. The believers in Jerusalem met from house to house, but Acts 8:1 refers to “the church which was in Jerusalem.” According to the original Greek, church here is singular, implying one church in one locality. There were many home meetings in Jerusalem, but they were one church.
According to the record in Acts, there was only one group of elders in the church in Jerusalem. Hence, Barnabas and Paul handed the material offering to the elders in the church in Jerusalem (11:30). In chapter 15 when a problem arose in the churches, Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem to see the elders and the apostles (v. 2). This proves that a large church with thousands of believers meeting in numerous homes is still one church. In this way, the oneness of the Body of Christ in each locality is kept.