We need to forget about our old way of meeting. Most of us hold the concept that the meeting should be for our enjoyment. However, the Lord gives us the enjoyment of Himself for His purpose to spread the truth and to minister life to others. Mostly we hold the concept that we come to the meeting for our enjoyment, but we neglect the fact that our enjoyment should be for others (Eph. 3:2; 1 Pet. 4:10). We should go to preach, teach, and minister Christ to others.
Some saints would say that they do not come to the church meetings because they do not have any enjoyment when they come. When we come to the meeting, we surely want to receive some grace, to enjoy something of the Lord. The meetings should minister something to the attendants. However, the purpose of the meetings is not for our enjoyment, but for the spreading of the truth and the ministering of Christ to others as life. If we would forget about our own enjoyment and take care of others’ need, I believe the Lord would afford us much enjoyment. We have to change our concept.
Our old way of meeting is like a cocoon which we need to come out of. This cocoon eventually needs to be burned and buried. Our fellowship is an attempt to draw the churches with the saints out of the old cocoon. We need the rearrangement of the meetings for the purpose of teaching the truths and ministering life to others, and the elders need to instigate the saints to rise up for this.
I propose that we use the entire Lord’s day morning for handling the truths, because people are accustomed to going to worship services at this time. We must utilize this time in the same way that the Lord Jesus took advantage of the Sabbath to preach the gospel to people. The apostles did the same thing. They did not have any intention of keeping the Sabbath or attending a synagogue, but they took advantage of people’s custom in order to preach the word. We need a general meeting to take care of the “Sunday goers.” In this meeting it is possible to teach the truth and give testimonies which attract and capture others.
Besides this, we need to set up classes but not so-called Sunday school classes. We need classes to teach the Truth Lessons. The first volume of twelve lessons has already been published. There are four levels and each level contains forty-eight lessons for a total of one hundred ninety-two lessons. These lessons cover the general view and knowledge of the entire Bible plus the general view and knowledge of Christian experiences, from being called by the Lord unto maturity, reaching conformation and glorification. All the saints in the church should get themselves registered according to their choice of the appropriate level they need. Different rooms will be needed to teach these different levels.
In addition there is the need of a gospel meeting for the unbelievers. The saints can bring their unbelieving contacts to this meeting. Many of the Sunday goers are already regenerated and a gospel meeting may not interest them or meet their need.
It could be that on the Lord’s day morning a number of different meetings take place simultaneously. If your meeting hall is too small, you can have sessions. You could hold the first session from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., the second session from 10:30 a.m. to noon, and the third session from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. You could also have an evening session. Do not build another hall for having these sessions, but do not be satisfied just to build a small hall. Some brothers recently fellowshipped with me concerning their intention to build a hall that can only take less than four hundred. I told them that I felt this was too small for their city and that they needed a building that could hold eight hundred to one thousand. We must realize that the age has changed. Do not say that you have been in your locality for twenty years and only have one hundred fifty people; therefore, a hall to hold four hundred people is sufficient. This is the old way. We are in today’s move of the Lord, not in yesterday. How do you know that after three years you will not have one thousand people meeting with you? We all need the faith to believe that in every big city after three years the church will be filled with one thousand people.
To take care of this many meetings the church needs many speakers. The leading ones, therefore, need to make everyone a speaker. Do not say that a certain brother is not qualified. Let him do it. He is qualified. I was told by the leading brothers in Taipei that so many brothers were not qualified to be elders. I told them that fifty-two of these unqualified ones were actually qualified to be elders. The care for the twenty-one halls of the church in Taipei is now in the hands of these so-called unqualified ones. I did this based upon what Paul did in Acts. In Acts 14 he went to Lystra and Derbe to preach the gospel (vv. 6-21a). Probably within the same year he came back to establish elders in the churches there (v. 23). All the elders in the churches in Lystra, Derbe, Antioch, and Iconium were “baby elders.” Even though they may have been saved less than one year, they were all qualified. Some of the new elders in the church in Taipei have been in the church life for over fifteen years. Every one of them is surely qualified.
The elders need to give many brothers a chance to labor. Let them practice. Do not control them. The Bible never says that the church is the church of the elders. Let the church be the church of the saints (1 Cor. 14:33). If the mothers would always keep the kitchen under their strict control, none of their daughters would learn to be good cooks. The daughters need to be permitted to burn some things. Let them make some mistakes. Eventually, they will cook a delicious meal. I have been in the western world for twenty-three years and over three hundred churches have been raised up. If I had the attitude that no one was qualified, there would probably only be one church in Anaheim with three hundred fifty saints under my “pastoring.” I would be so contented with this single church under my care. Because I do not have any church “in my pocket” and because so many are qualified, there are over three hundred churches in the western world. A number of saints have said that my only fault is that I overtrust people. But it is better to overtrust. If I did not trust people, I could not do anything. Even the Lord Jesus made a purposeful “mistake” in choosing Judas to be one of His twelve disciples. But without Judas, how could the Lord have been crucified? Even this mistake was a blessing. I am so glad to see that my overtrusting has turned into blessing. The elders should not control the saints. Let the saints serve. They are all qualified.
The churches should also gather together for the Lord’s table meeting and the prayer meeting. For the Lord’s table a short message of life supply should be prepared. The elders with some helpers should select a short portion from our publications of about two or three pages. At the end of each Lord’s table, a half hour can be reserved to fellowship over this message. At the end of the prayer meeting, a half hour can also be reserved to read a selected message concerning the spiritual principles of the Lord’s service. This can also be extracted from our publications and should be about two or three pages. Then every week the saints will fellowship over a message of life supply and of the spiritual principles of the Lord’s service.
Then you must have a home meeting. I hope that every home will be a meeting place of all the saints every week. The home meetings are not mainly to help ourselves, but for us to spread the truth and preach the gospel to have the propagation, the increase. Do not expect the home meetings to be so formal, so official, so spiritual, or so high. When I was in Taipei, Sister Lee and I went to attend a home meeting scheduled for 7:30 p.m. When we arrived at 7:20 p.m., no one was there except the host, and none of the chairs were arranged. As Sister Lee and I began to arrange the chairs, I was somewhat disappointed. After 7:30, everyone gradually came in with some new ones. I discovered that the reason why no one was there initially was because they all went to bring some new ones. Eventually, they caught a good number of people and they began to meet. I was so happy to hear their prayers and their sharings. A young sister prayed a marvelous prayer that really surprised me. She had only been saved for seven months. This small group only had seven basic members, but within one year they brought in nineteen new ones. I had to acknowledge that they were living and that they were for the Lord’s interest. They do not care for the so-called normal, formal, official, or good meetings. They care for people being brought to the Lord. They care for the spreading of the truths they have received. They care for the ministering of the very life they have enjoyed. This is why the church in Taipei has baptized over five thousand people within one year.
We should not move individualistically nor even move merely in our locality, but in the Body. Many churches in the United States have been awakened to the fact that they have been too independent, especially since 1977. Many of the churches have been loving each other, but going on separately without adequate fellowship. With the raising up and supporting of the full-timers we need to enter into the experience of the Lord’s one move. The elders in particular should move in the Body as the one new man. The one new man is on the entire globe and not in any specific locality.
We move in the Body as the one new man by fellowshipping locally and universally. No place can decide anything by itself. In your place you may feel that a certain brother is not qualified to be full-time, but the Body may feel he is the best one. Do not make any decision by yourself in your locality. Try the best to fellowship. Fellowship with the other churches in your area, in the United States, and all over the world. If you have more financial supply, it should not only be for your place but for the entire Body. I believe the Lord will not just give but rain richly His abundant blessing upon His recovery. There will be a real oneness around the globe in the recovery for the expression of His Body as the one new man moving on this earth for His interest.