THE GROUP MEETING BEING ONE WITH THE CHURCH
You should begin to bring the newborn believers together in group meetings as soon as possible. If you do not have that many new ones, you can have a smaller group meeting, even two or three would be enough. If you baptized one last night, yet his wife has not yet been baptized, two of you may go back to his home tonight to meet with him. If his wife would join you, you could have a good group meeting with only four people. As you gain more new ones, your group meeting can be enlarged.
In principle, there are certain elements that we should have in the group meeting. We should first have fellowship, intercession, mutual care, and shepherding. Then, we should go on to be taught and perfected through the mutual teaching. To encourage or initiate the mutual teaching we may need to ask a proper question. Each one has the responsibility, and each one must be given the liberty to teach in the group meeting through the mutual asking and answering of such questions. This teaching in mutuality issues in the perfecting of the saints. Each one teaches and is also taught. Each one perfects and is also perfected.
In addition, you have to promote what the church is practicing. If the church is endeavoring to encourage all the saints to have a time of morning revival and to live a daily life in Christ’s victory, you must also promote these things in the group meeting. You must help all those in your group meeting to practice having a time of morning revival in order to live a daily life in Christ’s victory.
The benefits of a small spiritual practice like morning revival cannot be measured according to your feelings. On one hand, your time of morning revival may be better than what the Apostle Paul experienced, but on the other hand, it may be worse than one of the new believer’s. But regardless of whether it is better or worse than others’, as long as you have a time of morning revival with the Lord, that is wonderful. The real value of food cannot be measured by taste. You may appreciate a certain type of food, but I may not. However, regardless of whether you appreciate a certain type of food or not, as long as you eat it three times a day, you will be sustained.
Your experiences of morning revival may be on different levels, but regardless of the level, it is much better than not having such a time at all. On some mornings you may be in a hurry and not have ten minutes. You may only have time to pray, “Lord, I want to be revived by You. O Lord Jesus, revive me. Lord, I have to go. I am sorry that I don’t have time to stay here with You.” Sometimes I have had to do this, yet this is surely much better than nothing.
We must do our best to have a time of morning revival every day. If we do not have ten minutes, we can at least have a little time to contact the Lord. Surely every one of us, regardless of how busy we are, can find half a minute in the morning to speak to the Lord. We will surely get something. Because I have such little time, I have had a number of morning revivals like this. No matter what, we must never stop having a time of morning revival. This is the life line to all the saints.
In the group meetings, you should do whatever the church is doing. Because all the churches are in different conditions and different situations, they may be promoting different things at different times. The group meetings should always follow the leading of the church. If the church is encouraging the saints to go out to visit people for the preaching of the gospel, then you should also promote this practice in the group meeting. You may ask the saints to read John 15:16 in the meeting, and then fellowship with them concerning going out to bear fruit. If you promote this, four out of ten will go out for the gospel. Later, there will be the need to promote the home meetings in order to care for the new believers, and then the group meetings to perfect them.
(The Exercise and Practice of the God-Ordained Way, Chapter 30, by Witness Lee)
