Because we saw the preceding item, we all kept one principle: the administration of the church is local, and the fellowship of the church is universal. From the Word of God we clearly saw that the church in each locality has its own administration and is independent of the other churches. Each local church has its own eldership and its own administration. The administration of the church cannot go beyond the locality; once it goes beyond the local boundary, it causes the church to lose its local nature. Thus, the churches in all the localities will not be able to live directly before Christ, the Head. The fellowship of the church should not only be local; rather, it should also be universal because it is the fellowship of the Body of Christ. A local church should have fellowship with all the other churches; otherwise, it will be a sect. Because we have spoken sufficiently regarding this matter in previous chapters, we do not need to speak more regarding it now.
We also clearly saw that churches in different localities should not have an organization for unification, because the administration of the church is local. All churches should be directly under the ruling of Christ, the Head, and should directly obey the authority of the Holy Spirit. There should be no regional centers or general headquarters acting as higher churches to rule over other churches. Although the churches should have mutual fellowship, this fellowship should be spiritual, not organizational. Therefore, from the beginning we kept this matter—the church should not have any organization for unification but should have only spiritual fellowship.
In addition, we also emphasized the universal priesthood; that is, we stressed the fact that every believer is a priest. In Judaism, the majority of the people are laymen, and only a few are priests. The Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant churches adopted the Judaic system; thus, they also have a small number of people who are clergy, including priests and pastors, and the majority of the people are laity, the common believers. With a distinction between clergy and laity, most of the members of the Body of Christ have lost their function, and many believers are not able to worship and serve God directly. This is absolutely against the Bible. Therefore, from the beginning we recovered the universal priesthood of the believers. All brothers and sisters are children of God, members of the Body of Christ, and priests to God; not only so, all can approach God and serve God directly. When we are in the bread-breaking meeting, any of the brothers, even newly baptized brothers and young ones, can give the blessing and distribute the bread and the cup if they have the leading. This is not like the denominations, where these things can be done only by pastors, and it is not like the Roman Catholic Church, where they can be performed only by so-called priests. In our midst, there is no intermediary class that monopolizes the spiritual services; instead, we can all serve God directly.
We also emphasized the Body’s coordination in service, exhorting all the saints to keep the principle of the Body by serving together in coordination instead of serving independently. In preaching the gospel, for example, there is not only one person doing the work; rather, all the brothers and sisters coordinate together to do the work. Some may give the message, some may lead the singing, some may invite people to come, some may serve as ushers, some may sit with the guests, some may converse with the new ones, some may lead the new ones to pray, and some may follow up by visiting the new ones. All these tasks are done in coordination. We kept this principle in all our services; no one monopolized the service. Even though there are a few responsible brothers, they are only taking the lead and overseeing. The entire service is in the hands of the brothers and sisters.
We also emphasized the practical church service. In all aspects of our service we did not want merely a theory; we also wanted the practice. In matters such as how to meet, how to serve in coordination, how to preach the gospel, how to give a testimony, how to speak for God, how to visit the brothers and sisters, and how to fellowship with them, we paid much attention to practically carrying these out and rendered practical guidance to the saints.
All the items mentioned above are the crucial points of the Lord’s recovery in the East. The situation among us is completely different from that of traditional Protestant churches and that of the Roman Catholic Church. In summary, we can depict the degradation and the recovery of the church with a simple chart.
In this simple chart we can see that the original church was on a straight line; then the Roman Catholic Church deviated from this line. The church was recovered to a certain extent by the Protestant Reformation, but not fully. There was a further step of recovery by the Moravian brethren in unity. Subsequently, the recovery among the Brethren brought the church back to the straight line. Later, however, the Brethren had some problems, and there was a deviation from the line again. We dare not say that all of them deviated, but some of them definitely deviated; this is difficult to show on the diagram. Today we must humbly acknowledge that the Lord’s recovery in the East has brought the church back to the straight line.