THE PRACTICE HANDBOOK FOR THE DISTRICT SERVING ONES
SERIES TWO
THE GOD-ORDAINED WAY AND VARIOUS KINDS OF MEETINGS
Message One
Practicing the Priesthood of the Gospel in the Vital Groups
Rom. 15:16 That I might be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, a laboring priest of the gospel of God, in order that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, having been sanctified in the Holy Spirit.
John 15:16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and I set you that you should go forth and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you.
OUR NEW TESTAMENT SERVICE IN THE CHURCH
HAVING TO BE A KIND OF PRIESTHOOD OF THE GOSPEL
The Lord has definitely and clearly shown us in these days that our New Testament service in the church must be a kind of priesthood of the gospel. In the Bible there are two stages. The first stage is the Old Testament, and the second stage is the New Testament. Whatever is there in the Old Testament is a type of the better things to come (Heb. 7:19, 22; 8:6; 9:23). The better things to come are in the New Testament stage. If we look into the Old Testament service, the main thing that we find is the priesthood. The entire service of God’s people in the Old Testament was a priesthood. A priesthood denotes a body of priests built up together. There was no individual service, for all the priests served as a body. The high priest and the other priests were burdened and charged to carry out a certain part of their unique service. In the English language the word priesthood denotes two things. In 1 Peter 2:5 and 9 it means a body of priests, and in Hebrews 7:12 it refers to the priestly service. A group of priests were there to carry out the priestly service. All those who were engaged in the priestly service mainly offered sacrifices to God every day. In Numbers 28 and 29 the children of Israel were charged by God to offer daily the continual burnt offerings morning and evening. It was called the continual offering because it never ceased morning and evening.
OFFERING PERSONS
Today we are the New Testament priests. What should we offer? As the New Testament priests of the gospel, we must offer living sacrifices; we have to offer persons. Our service should concentrate on living persons. This is why we are called the New Testament priests of the gospel (Rom. 15:16).
Paul is a pattern (1 Tim. 1:16), a model, of all the New Testament saints in that he handled people all the time. He preached the gospel to the unsaved to beget them, fed them to enable them to grow, and built them up (1 Cor. 4:15; Gal. 4:19; Col. 1:27-29). Whatever he did became a kind of offering to God. New Testament priests should daily offer living persons to the Lord. On the one hand, the Lord added people to the church daily (Acts 2:47). On the other hand, the church should offer people to the Lord daily.
In the Old Testament all the small responsibilities were carried out by the Levitical service, not the priests. When we come to the New Testament there is no difference between the priests and the Levitical service. Those who vacuum and clean must be priests as well. We perform the Levitical services in preparation for offering something to God. During the Old Testament time there was surely the need of some service to clean the altar, prepare the wood, and so forth. These sundry duties were a preparation for the offering of the sacrifices. If the altar is clean, neat, and properly kept, yet without any sacrifice on it, God could never be satisfied. There must be some sacrifice burning on the altar. Therefore, the total service of the priesthood, including the Levitical service, is to offer sacrifices to God. The service of vacuuming, cleaning, and arranging could never be considered as food to satisfy God. We must offer something as God’s food to satisfy Him. What we have been doing in the sundry things could not be counted as the priesthood. I would rather see many of us bringing living sacrifices to God than maintaining a large, clean hall with only a few saints meeting.
We must go to contact people. Do not hope that others will bring forth children for us to adopt. In John 15:16 the Lord said, “I set you that you should go forth and bear fruit.” We must go to gain some new ones. Then these new ones will become our folks. We must go and take care of them. In this way we will surely have some living sacrifices to offer to God.
One way to reach people for the gospel is to go out in teams of three. We should not expect to get into every door. If out of twenty doors one is opened to us, this is very good. Each team should not expect to bring one hundred to the Lord in one year. If within one and a half months each one of us could gain one who is properly baptized and taken care of, that would be wonderful. If a church has about two hundred meeting together and each one gains three or four a year, this is a threefold increase. We should not expect quick results. To take the quick way does not work for the long run. We must go the slow way. When we come together as a team, we must put our opinions on the cross and go on together. Then the Lord’s blessing will be with us.
The secret of success is to go slowly. Do not expect to gain a big number. After going out for two or three weeks, a number of persons will be saved and baptized. These will become our children to feed and raise up in the home meetings. Eventually, we should gather them together into a small group meeting. The small group meetings are mainly for perfecting the saints. In the first few weeks we may need to go out twice a week, but after a few weeks once a week is enough. This is the way for us as New Testament priests to gain the living sacrifices to offer to God. (CWWL, 1989, vol. 4, “Talks Concerning the Church Services,” ch. 6)
A SIMPLE WAY TO BEAR REMAINING FRUIT
I would like to present a simple way to bear fruit. First, you should make a vow to the Lord. You can pray, “Lord, as one of Your branches, I realize that I must bear fruit according to Your charge in John 15. If I cannot get one sinner saved within a year, this is a shame. Lord, every week I will spend two or three hours to contact people for their salvation.” This is the principle. This does not mean that you have to spend two or three hours at one time in one day. You may spend some time in the morning to consider how to contact and save your unsaved relatives. You may spend twenty-five minutes to pray and make a record of these relatives. These twenty-five minutes should be reckoned as part of your two to three hours of labor in the gospel every week. In the evening you may write a letter to one of your relatives to find out how he is doing, opening the door for you to have further contact with him. The time spent in writing this letter is also a part of your gospel labor. Let us suppose that you have five unsaved cousins. If you labored three hours a week on these cousins in a concentrated way for one year, surely at least one of them would be brought to the Lord.
Practicing Contacting People
I would beg you elders to learn to have a start in this. You yourselves have to do it. Do not expect others to do it. You yourselves do this one thing. Practice personally contacting people every week. Contact them individually. You can contact your relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues, classmates, etc. You need to plan and schedule your time so that you contact two or three individuals every week. You should pray, “Lord, I do not want to contact them in a natural way. I do not want to have natural talk when I meet with them. Lord, show me the vital way, the living way, to bring them to You.” If you pray such a prayer, the Lord will show you. Today there is the need of some faithful doers in the practice of fruit-bearing.
We need to practice contacting people. We may contact someone without any success or result. Then we can go to the Lord to repent and open to Him for His adjustment. He will impress us to go back to them in a certain way. When we follow the Lord to contact people according to His way, they will be saved. As we go out to contact people one by one, we will find out the proper way from the Lord. We will also find out the right persons to visit. We will learn not to waste our time. We have found that just to knock on doors in a general way can be a waste of time. We must look to the Lord to get a proper candidate for our labor. Then we need to work on him in a proper way. This is the successful way to labor in the gospel. The ones on whom we labor should be those with whom we are acquainted, either directly or indirectly. In this way the time we spend will be worthwhile.
Whether or not this can be worked out depends upon our endeavoring. We cannot just make an announcement in the meeting, encouraging others to go. We ourselves have to go. We should start by ourselves and then get a companion to labor with us. After half a year we can bring forth four new ones who will labor in the same way that we are. For the future of the church in our locality, this is needed. We have wasted too much of our time. We must make a budget to be very economical in the way that we spend our time. We need to redeem our time by praying for our acquaintances and relatives, writing them letters, and sending them booklets. Then we can make appointments to go see them. As we labor, we need to learn with an honest and sincere heart. We need to learn how to talk to people and how to gain them within a short period of time. If we endeavor like this, we can bring at least two persons to the Lord yearly as remaining fruit. We may baptize more than five, but out of the five, two will remain in the church.
Practicing Visiting People One by One Personally and Directly
Keep this in mind—you must practice this yourself. I beg you to forget about having preachers and preaching meetings. That does not work so well. Just practice visiting people one by one personally and directly. Then after a short time, maybe two or three weeks, other saints will follow you to be your companions. Then you will have a start of the practice of fruit-bearing in your locality. You must spend your time on the right persons in the right way. In order to gain a valuable result, you must labor.
I would especially like to talk to the elders among us who are full time. Among the saints, you have to be the examples, the living ones who get three to five people saved every six months. Then you can labor so that one or two of them will remain in the church life. It is not pleasant to see our co-workers serving the Lord full time and yet not bringing anyone to the Lord within a year. We must labor in the gospel definitely. We have to bring forth some children by ourselves. We should be able to point to some who are our spiritual children. We have to study how to contact people ourselves. We still have much to learn in contacting people. Just to copy what others do does not work. The Lord will show us. If we are definite and desperate to gain people, we will find a way.
Contacting Them Directly and Continually over a Long Period of Time
You need to contact people directly and individually, laboring in the gospel two to three hours every week. You should find out who is available for you to contact and then contact them directly and continually over a long period of time. You will gain one of them. If you take this way of directly contacting people one by one, I can assure you that you will bring two people into the church every year. You should make a decision and tell the Lord that you will spend two to three hours every week in the gospel. Then ask the Lord to lead you to contact people one by one. You should not stop going to the church meetings. You should still live your regular church life. You do not need to promote what you are doing. You just need to go and do it. Then gradually, some will see what you are doing, and they will join you.
Gaining People for the Lord’s Kingdom
We have tried many ways in the last six years, and they may work, but they do not work satisfactorily. Only the way of contacting people directly brings a satisfactory result. We need to plan how to contact our acquaintances. We have to keep working on one of them directly, individually, and continuously. To get someone saved and established takes about six months, and to bring them into the church will take another six months. We may think that to bring one or two a year into the church life is too slow. But this slow way is actually the quick way. If twenty are meeting together in a locality, and five of them bring two people into the church life, that is a fifty percent increase. I can assure you that this can be worked out. Any other way will waste our time.
As branches of the Lord, we should give Him three hours a week for the gospel. Then we can pray, “Lord, lead me, teach me, and give me the wisdom in planning, in scheduling my time, in making appointments, and in talking to people.” Then we should practice this directly and definitely. Surely, we will gain people for the Lord’s kingdom.
Laboring to Build Up a Living Example
We have to change our concept concerning having a preacher with a preaching meeting. We ourselves need to labor directly to bring one or two into the church life yearly. This should be a goal in our labor. We love the church, but we may not have brought one person into the church in the past five years. We must have a definite beginning. We must practice contacting people to bring definite fruit into the church. We also need to practice the church life in group meetings and in larger prophesying meetings. This is really needed. But we need the adequate number as a base for our practice of the church life. The elders need to work two to three hours in the gospel every week to bring one or two remaining fruit into the church within a year. If the elders do this, others will rise up to follow. We should not give any announcement about this or promote it. We have been doing this for years, with little result. Promotion does not work. We need to labor ourselves to build up a living example.
We must have a plan for reaching people. We should make a list of all our acquaintances and study their situation. Then we can work on them according to our study. This is the way to gain the proper persons. We should not leave our bearing of fruit to fortune. It is not a matter of fortune but a matter of labor. We all have acquaintances for whom we can pray. We need to consider them and pray for them. We need to study their situation and decide when the best time would be for us to visit them. Farmers do not labor in a loose way. They study the situation of their land, their crops, and the weather, and they labor accordingly so that they can reap a proper harvest. We need to be the same way in our labor to gain people. We must have a plan and a schedule to labor on people two to three hours every week. We need to learn how to gain people.
I would ask the elders if they are happy about the increase in their locality. We must make a strong decision to labor in a personal way for the increase of the church. We should schedule our time for the weekly preaching of the gospel. For the Lord’s recovery we all need a turn from barrenness to fruitfulness. We need the new ones. We need “new blood,” newly saved ones. All the local churches must pay attention to this. If our number remains the same year after year, the saints may eventually lose interest in serving. Instead of being busy in the church life, they may become busy in a negative way. Mothers with young children are consumed with taking care of them. They do not have much time for other things. The only rescue for us is to change our way so that we can gain the increase. This is the only remedy.
If we cannot gain a thirty percent increase in a year, we should consider that as a failure. A twenty percent increase is good, but not that good. If twenty out of one hundred saints take this way, they can bring in at least thirty yearly. We do not need the whole church to work in this way. But it is altogether reasonable, logical, and possible that one-fifth of the saints will work in this way. Then we can gain a thirty percent increase yearly. This increase will stir up the interest of the whole church.
Practicing the Priesthood of the Gospel according to God-ordained Way
The Lord needs some of His saints to practice the priesthood of the gospel according to His ordained way. Then the Lord will have a way. The way of revival with big speakers does not work so well. What we need today is the proper increase due to our labor. If we labor faithfully, we will see the result. We need at least twenty percent of the saints among us to labor in this way. These ones can bring a thirty percent increase to the church. This will lay a foundation for the Lord to start a solid building up of His Body. In the local churches the number of basic, promising members is short. We need solid members for the solid building. We have to look to the Lord for His mercy that this work could be started among us. (CWWL, 1989, vol. 4, “Elders’ Training, Book 10: The Eldership and the God-Ordained Way (2),” ch. 9)
Fellowshipping with Your Companion
through Desperate Prayers for the Lord’s Blessing
In this chapter we want to fellowship about how to start your vital group. First, you have to fellowship with your companion through desperate prayers for the Lord’s blessing. We have shared previously that we need to look to the Lord for some companions. If you do not have a companion, pray desperately from tomorrow to get one. Without a companion there is no way for you to start the vital group. Then you need to fellowship with your companion through desperate prayers. You should not just talk to one another. Talk means nothing. It is vanity. When you come together, it is better to turn your talk into prayer. If you talk, talk to the Lord.
Furthermore, we should not pray in a routine way. We should pray desperately, “Lord, I’m so barren; I’m not happy about this, Lord; help me get out of this.” This is genuine prayer. I do not want to pray routine prayers. If I pray, I must pray something out of my burden. In order to pray routine prayers, we do not need to exercise our spirit or to shed tears. But when we pray desperately from our spirit to discharge our prayer burden, we will weep. We must have this kind of genuine and vital prayer.
If the Lord has mercy upon us and we receive His mercy, our vital group will do well, and after six to nine months we should split our group to have a new start. This should take place again and again. We must take a way of doing things in every step by having the full assurance that the Lord is satisfied and that we also are satisfied.
We need to have desperate prayers for the Lord’s blessing. We should pray, “Lord, we are nothing, so we have nothing. But You are the all-inclusive Lord, and You are the unsearchably rich One. We need Your blessing. Without Your blessing, we are dead. Without Your blessing, we are cold, not even lukewarm. Without Your blessing, we are just fruitless. We need Your blessing.” We must pray in a desperate way, “Lord, grant us the remaining fruit that we need. We have been barren for many years.” Such a prayer of desperation causes us to have a thorough repentance.
The Bible shows us something much, much higher than this. It shows us that God has an eternal economy, His eternal plan. We are here meaning business with the Lord to be one with Him for the carrying out of His economy. This is why we need to fellowship with our companion through desperate prayers for the Lord’s blessing.
Starting from the First Step of the God-Ordained Way—
to Get Sinners Saved to Make Them the Members of the Body of Christ
In order to start our vital group, we need to start from the first step of the God-ordained way—to get sinners saved to make them the members of the Body of Christ. We are going in order to get sinners saved to make them the living, functioning members of the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is practical, present, and for today. God’s eternal economy is to get a Body for Christ, but hardly anyone on this earth is caring for this.
The Lord charged us to go to disciple the nations (Matt. 28:19). We should not excuse ourselves by saying that the nations are too evil and that the current and tide of today’s world are too strong. When we go to the Lord to give Him an account, He will not take any excuses. The Lord needs us today because of the negative situation. He needs us to go and get sinners saved to make them the members of the Body of Christ. We need to be desperate to bear new ones as remaining fruit each year. It is absolutely abnormal to be in the church life year after year without bearing fruit.
Reviewing All Your Acquaintances—Relatives, Neighbors,
Friends, Schoolmates, and Colleagues—and Making a List of Them
We also need to review all our acquaintances and make a list of them. Our acquaintances include our relatives, neighbors, friends, schoolmates, and colleagues.
Praying over the Name List and Seeking
the Lord’s Leading concerning Who Should Be the First to Take Care of
Then you need to pray over the name list and seek the Lord’s leading concerning who should be the first for you to take care of. If you would pray in this way, the Lord will lead you, and you will have the burden to contact specific people. You need to take every step of the God-ordained way by prayer. You should not do anything without adequate prayer.
Keeping Yourself Open to the Lord
for His Leading to Visit People other than Your Acquaintances
You should not limit yourself to your acquaintances. The Lord said to go to disciple the nations, to disciple everyone. So you should keep yourself open to the Lord for His new leading to visit new people other than your acquaintances.
The Way to Visit, Contact, and Gain Gospel Candidates
Actually, there are many ways to visit, contact, and gain gospel candidates. Here I would like to mention some of them.
Visiting Them by Making Appointments with Them Continuously
You do not need to go out to knock on cold doors. You can visit people by making appointments with them. You must do this not only continually but also continuously, day by day.
Inviting Them to Have Dinner with Us Regularly
We also need to have a practice and a habit of inviting people to have dinner with us. We should do this regularly. Brother Eugene Gruhler Sr. was an example among us of a brother who was always taking care of people in this way. Nearly every Lord’s Day this brother’s home was prepared to receive people for lunch after the morning meeting. He would oversee the meeting and invite certain ones to come to his home afterward to eat with him.
I fellowshipped with the elders recently that they must learn one thing: to contact people. The best way to contact people is to invite them to your home for dinner. This is the most effective way to gain people. Something can be impressed into people in this way. After many years they may still receive the help and even be saved by your one contact with them in your home.
I would like us to consider what we are here for. The world means nothing to us. We are here purely for the Lord and His desire to disciple others, to save them, that they may become the members of the Body of Christ, which we are now building. According to our present situation, we do not have the new material for the building up of His Body. We may go on year after year in the church life without many people being baptized. The new ones whom we do baptize may disappear from our midst after a while. They did not survive due to the shortage of proper and adequate care. If a mother delivers a child and does not take care of it, it will not survive. We need to follow the example of the apostle Paul, who said that he cared for the new believers “as a nursing mother would cherish her own children” (1 Thes. 2:7).
Praying concerning the Spiritual Welfare
of Certain Definite Ones for Our Whole Life
We should not pray for too many people. Instead, we should pray concerning the spiritual welfare of certain definite ones for our whole life. George Müller had a list of people for whom he prayed on a regular basis. Eventually, all of them except one were saved before his death. After his death this one also was saved by the Lord.
According to history and according to the Bible, if there is no prayer for anyone, no one can be saved. You and I were saved because someone prayed for us. No doubt, God has chosen millions of people. But there is the need of human prayer to cooperate with the divine choosing. If you do not pray, God has no way to visit a particular chosen one. There is the need of prayer to match His choosing. If you just pray occasionally, that will not work. You must be burdened to pray for certain ones and continue that prayer for your whole life.
Doing It Persistently with Patience and Endurance
and Not Expecting a Quick Reaping
Whatever way you take, you should do it persistently with patience and endurance and not expecting to have a quick reaping. All the farmers know that they cannot have a quick reaping. A quick reaping means a poor reaping. The farmers have to be patient to care for their crop until the time for harvest comes. After a period of time, you will gain some new ones as remaining fruit. This will be a recompense to your persistent labor in the gospel.
Learning How to Use Biblical Verses and Tracts
We also need to learn how to use biblical verses and tracts. We have recently published some tracts entitled Our Faith, Our Gospel, Our Commission, and Our Meetings. We will do our best to put out more of these tracts for our use in the gospel. When we go to contact people, they may wonder who we are and what we believe in. We can give them the tract entitled Our Faith as a gift. This tract is concerning our belief in the Bible, God, Christ, the Spirit, and God’s redemption and salvation. We can read a paragraph with them, perhaps the paragraph concerning our belief in the Bible. After reading this paragraph, they will become clear that we are Christians who believe in the Word of God. This will help to open up the situation with the ones whom we contact. We should study the main points in these tracts with the appropriate biblical verses so that we can be equipped to gain our gospel candidates. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Training and the Practice of the Vital Groups,” msg. 3)
Discussion:
1. How to know the characteristics of gospel targets and how to arrange the time and place for gospel outreach?
2. How to preach the gospel in various situations (roadside, door-knocking, warm doors)?
3. What are the available gospel materials and how to use them?
4. How to make a name list of the gospel friends and pray for them?
5. Study how to contact the gospel friends according to their condition?
6. How to maintain the relationship with the gospel friends (via face to face, phones, or instant messengers)?
7. How to share the gospel properly?
8. How to present the truth of baptism to the gospel targets at appropriate times and encourage them to get baptized?
9. How to hold a gospel harvest meeting?
