The most crucial step in carrying out the God-ordained way is to have group meetings. This meeting can begin by having all of the attendants open up. This enables us to know each other and brings in fellowship. This fellowship will lead us into interceding prayer for each other. This kind of mutual prayer will usher us into practical care for one another. This is what the Apostle Paul means in Hebrews 10:24 when he said, “Let us consider one another.”
One saint may fellowship that he has been jobless for two weeks and is looking for work. Another brother may speak up and tell him that he will approach his boss to see if his company is hiring anyone at this time. This kind of care can be rendered in a group meeting. Whenever the saints gather together for a group meeting, the first thing that they should take care of is fellowship. Then intercession, care, and shepherding should follow.
During the meeting a number of questions may be raised. Each question should be answered. We must realize that we all can answer the questions. Each answer is a kind of teaching. There is no need to assign one of the attendants to be the teacher of the group meeting. Everyone is a teacher.
When we bring the new ones together to form a small group, one may be there who was recently baptized. This one may bring up the matter of what it is to be baptized. Others in the meeting who may have been baptized only two weeks earlier may have learned some truth by that time. They may reply that baptism is just to be put into the death of Christ. This is a kind of teaching. Even from the very beginning all of the new ones can learn to teach. When we teach, others can learn.
Although the new ones can teach, they cannot teach that much. So, one who is more mature among that group may want to give a concluding word. At the beginning of the meeting we should allow time for the new ones to practice learning to speak. Then, later on, we may speak for fifteen minutes. It is in this way that everyone will be a teacher. From the very beginning everyone’s talent and everyone’s gift will be manifested, developed, and perfected. As a result many teachers will be produced among us.
Following this, we should endeavor to bring them into the practice of the church life. We can charge them to go and visit people in the same way that we reached out to them. We may go out with them and bring them one by one into the same practice. Eventually, this small group becomes our practical church life. It is a miniature of the church in which we are. Actually, the church life will be carried out practically in the group meeting.
In a larger meeting of, for example, two hundred, we can only do things in a general way and give a general word of fellowship. All of the detailed items of the church life, however, should be carried out in the group meetings. The fellowship, the intercession, the mutual care, the shepherding, and the teaching will all be realized in the group meeting. Then the entire church will be brought on through the small groups. In a church of two hundred saints, there may be twenty groups of ten or twelve who can even do a more thorough work than the elders. If a church desires a continual increase, they must make use of the groups.
My main burden is that all of us need to have our own group meeting. In Hebrews 10:25 the Apostle Paul told the saints not to forsake the assembling of themselves together. We may forget everything, but we should not forget our own group meeting. All of the mothers know that they could never forget their own children. If we would take care of a group meeting in this way, the church where we are will be a great success.
In particular, the older sisters among us should pray in a definite way to become involved in their own group meeting. They can pray for this group as a whole and for each new member by name. The sisters must pray particularly for each group member a few times each day. Our prayer must lay the tracks for the locomotive to run on. So we must not pray in a general way but in a particular way.
Because we labored in a general way in the past, we do not have the adequate fruit. Today we must first concentrate our effort to bring a few new ones to be baptized. The second step is to have home meetings with them in order that they may be cherished and nourished. In a short while we can group them together to form a group meeting of two or three. As I have indicated previously, the most important thing today is to have our own group meeting. This can be considered as our own assembly (Heb. 10:25).
The group meeting is really a means for the increase. Therefore, no group meeting should remain for a long time with the same number. Every group meeting should be subdivided into two groups within one year. This is the way to increase. For example, at the beginning of the year we may have baptized two or three. We can work on them in the home meetings and gradually bring them together to form a group meeting. In this way the group meeting will grow. All of the new ones will learn to do the same things that we do. By the end of the year, this group will be ready to be divided into two groups. However, in many places those who are grouped together are not willing to be divided. In a sense they fell in love with one another and wish to remain in the old group. This is absolutely wrong. In the new way one group at the end of the year will become two groups. Then at the end of the next year, there will be four groups. This is equivalent to a one hundred percent increase yearly. Just by practicing the new way for one year, everybody will learn. Hence, everyone can be a leader. The groups themselves will produce the leaders. We all have to learn this new way and not delay any further. If within one year there is no fruit, no learning, and no new groups, we have wasted one year. Then it will be difficult to be rescued out of this situation.
The longer the groups remain together, the less they can do and the less useful they will be. Not only should we see new ones coming in regularly among us, but we should also see new group meetings year after year.