LESSON TEN – THE VITAL GROUPS

Acts 2:46-47 — 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.

FORMING THE VITAL GROUPS

Initiating a Thorough and Intimate Fellowship in Your Contact with Others

To have the vital groups should not be taken as a kind of movement. To be vital, to be vitalized, is an extremely personal matter. It is only possible to be vitalized if you yourself are pressed by the Lord to pursue Him desperately and absolutely in this matter. After being vitalized, you should not have a gathering of many saints to promote or to push this matter as a movement.

After being vitalized, the only thing you should do is to seek the Lord’s leading concerning whom you should contact among so many saints. You should absolutely follow the Lord’s leading and even His guidance to contact others and fellowship with them, not more than two or three at a time. You have to give your testimony of how you have been pressed by the Lord to seek Him in the matter of vitalization. You have to initiate a thorough and intimate fellowship with your contact, which will usher you and your contact into prayers of desperation, which will be honored by the Lord.

Making Thorough Confessions and Consecration

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.

Praying Unceasingly

Since you have been vitalized and have raised up such vital groups, you should pray for the church and the leading ones. As the Lord leads, you should give testimonies in the church meetings but not in the way of condemning or of promoting or pushing. Avoid the thought to change the church’s way of meeting and service. Do not initiate any movement of changes. Prayer is needed, but any thought for any radical change must be avoided. After you get vitalized, do not despise anyone, especially the leading ones, the elderly ones, and the ones who are used to rendering help to others. Do not look down on the weaker ones, the indifferent ones, and the ones who seem to be without any care for spiritual things. In conclusion, you should not expect to see that the church is altogether uniform and unified according to your view and practice. The church is not artificial by man’s doing but organic in the growth of the divine life with the growth of Christ in the believers (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “1993 Blending Conference Messages concerning the Lord’s Recovery and Our Present Need,” pp. 47-48)

Reference: CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “1993 Blending Conference Messages concerning the Lord’s Recovery and Our Present Need,” ch. 7

I THIRSTED IN THE BARREN LAND OF BABYLON

The Church—As Our Home and Rest – 1234

• I thirsted in the barren land of Babylon
  And nothing satisfying there I found;
  But to the blessed local church one day I came,
  Where springs of living water do abound.

Drinking at the springs of living water,
Happy now am I,
My heart they satisfy;
Drinking at the springs of living water,
O wonderful and bountiful supply!

• How sweet the living water from the hills of God,
  It’s flowing in and flowing out of me;
  O now I’ve found the place for which I long had sought,
  Where there is life and life abundantly.

• O brother, won’t you gather in the local church?
  A fountain here is flowing deep and wide.
  The Shepherd now would bring you to the local church,
  Where thirsty spirits can be satisfied.