BEING IN ONE ACCORD
All of us need to be one with the Lord in the life-pulse of His new move. For the Lord’s new move, all of the churches need to be in one accord. In the past, we lost the one accord, but we must endeavor to recover and keep it. We also must teach the same thing in all the churches in every country throughout the earth. There should be no different trumpeting or different voicing among us. We should all voice the same thing, trumpet the same thing, and teach the same thing. We need to be one in teaching (1 Cor. 4:17; 7:17; 16:1; Acts 2:42; Rom. 16:17; 1 Tim. 1:3-4; 6:3; Eph. 4:13-14).
All of the churches should also be one in practice (1 Cor. 11:16; 14:33b-34). If the churches are not the same in practice, this will damage the one accord. If we train the full-timers in the God-ordained way, and they return to churches who practice differently, this could cause problems. We will be contradicting ourselves. I hope that all the trainees who return to their churches will be so useful because we are all practicing the same way.
In the early days of the church life, the churches were the same in practice. When Paul went to Jerusalem, however, he saw something different (Acts 21:20; see James 2:10 and note 1 in the Recovery Version). Eventually, the Lord wiped out that different thing in Jerusalem. In the past we suffered much loss because of our different ways to practice the church life.
Furthermore, we should drop the thought of separate regions among us. Perhaps a brother is raised up in a certain area. When he moves to another area, there should not be any problem, but there have been problems in the past. We have to drop our way of having separate regions in the Lord’s work. It is even good for some who have been in a certain area for a long time to move to another area. In the Lord’s recovery, there should only be one work in one move with one ministry for the building up of the one Body.
MAKING THE LORD’S PRESENT MOVE CLEAR
TO ALL THE SAINTS
All of the elders and co-workers need to work hard with much prayer to make the Lord’s move today clear to all the saints. The present move of the Lord needs all of us to be given to the Lord. Our entire being and all that we have should be fully consecrated to Him. In the Lord’s move, there is the need of persons and material supply. If we help the saints realize the Lord’s present move, there will be no problem. But if the saints do not receive the adequate education to make them knowledgeable of the Lord’s present move, we may suffer some loss. This means we may be short in the financial supply. This is why we need to spend some time in our locality, perhaps one or two months, to fellowship with the saints concerning the Lord’s move today and the need in this move for the proper supply of persons and finances. We all have to consecrate ourselves with all that we have to the Lord again.
We must also help the saints concerning how they should give. They should give part of their offering to the church in their locality for the monthly local expenses. They should also give part of their offering for the support of the full-timers. This is based upon nineteen of the saints helping to support one full-timer. We have to endeavor to do this so that the Lord can carry out His desire.
(Elders' Training, Book 09: The Eldership and the God-Ordained Way (1), Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)
