Acts 2:46-47 And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they partook of their food with exultation and simplicity of heart, praising God and having grace with all the people. And the Lord added together day by day those who were being saved.
A Vital Group Being a Group of Normal Christians
Who Will Bring the Recovery into Another Age
A vital group is a group of normal Christians. Today most Christians are abnormal, including a number of us in the recovery. My burden in endeavoring to carry out the vital groups is to change the generation. We need to come out of the deadness of Sardis (Rev. 3:1-2), the lukewarmness of Laodicea (vv. 14-16), and the barrenness of the degenerating believers (John 15:2a). I want to bring the recovery into another age with a new generation, a new people. (The Training and the Practice of the Vital Groups, msg. 5)
The Start of the Vital Groups
By Fellowshipping with Your Companion
through Desperate Prayers for the Lord’s Blessing
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. (The Training and the Practice of the Vital Groups, msg. 3)
A Vital Group Coming into Being Only by A Saint Who is Desperate
and Absolute for the Increase of the Lord’s Recovery
A vital group can come into being only by a saint who is desperate and absolute for the increase of the Lord’s recovery. A vital group begins with one person. It does not begin with nine or ten persons; it begins with one vital saint. We all need to tell the Lord, “Lord, I want to be that saint, a saint who is desperate and absolute for the increase of the Lord’s recovery.”
To be vital we need to begin by taking this matter as life or death. If we take anything as life or death, we are vital in that thing. We need to be desperate and absolute for the increase of the Lord’s recovery; then we will be vital.
Definitely and Absolutely Fulfilling
the First Four Basic Requirements
There are four basic requirements that we must take care of in order to become vital and to be sustained in our vitality. We must be definite and absolute to fulfill these requirements.
The first requirement is for the intimate and thorough fellowship that we may be blended together. The basis of our blending, the foundation of our blending, is our fellowship, and our fellowship must be intimate and thorough.
We need to have an intimate and thorough fellowship in Christ as the element and sphere by exercising our spirit with much and thorough prayer, concerning our status, spiritual condition, and present situation in and with the Lord. Such fellowship is the flowing, the current, of the oneness.
The second point is that we need to have a thorough confession of our sins, transgressions, defects, wrongdoings, etc. We need to confess the sin of individualism and individuality. We also need to confess our sinful nature, its defilements, its attachment to the contamination of the world, and its oldness, asking for the Lord’s cleansing with His precious blood.
We also need to make a thorough consecration of ourselves and of all that we have and do to the Lord…Also, we need to pray unceasingly that we may be brought into the infilling and outpouring of the essential and economical Spirit. The secret to being filled with the Spirit inwardly and outwardly is our prayer. We need to be desperate in our prayer.
Picking Up the Burden and
Taking Action to Contact Others, either Sinners or Christians
After we become vital and are grouped together in the vital groups, we need to do something. First, we need to pick up a burden, and then we need to take action to contact people. After we pick up such a burden, we need to take definite action to go and contact others, either sinners or Christians. In our contacting of people, we should not expect to have a quick result. Rather, we should set a definite goal with a strong determination to gain at least one remaining fruit yearly, with inexhaustible patience and unceasing intercession.
To gain the proper increase through the practice of the vital groups, we need to see and practice the way of fruit-bearing revealed in John 15. As the living branches of Christ, the true vine, we should bear remaining fruit once a year. Fruit-bearing is our destiny, and to bear remaining fruit every year must be our definite goal with a strong determination.
The Multiplication of the Vital Groups
You should also lead your contact to make thorough confessions to the Lord and also help him to pay the price at any cost as you have done. By this way a small group that is vital, living, and active in the Lord’s interest will spontaneously come into existence. When the number of such a vital group increases to ten or more, you should split it into two groups and charge every member to practice the vitalization along the same track as you have been doing all the time. (1993 Blending Conference Messages Concerning the Lord’s Recovery and Our Present Need, msg. 7)
