The Meetings and Spiritual Exercise of the Local Church

Additional Quotes about the Local Church by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee

Concerning the practice of the local church meetings, Witness Lee states:

We do believe that all the churches in the Lord’s recovery practice meeting in a way that is open to all the saints to pray, to give a word of exhortation, and to speak something for the Lord. We must encourage the new ones to pray in the meeting and to speak something for the Lord. We should encourage them to function in the church. All the churches desire to see the attendants in their meeting function because that strengthens, enriches, and uplifts the meeting.

(Witness Lee, Instruction, 25)

Watchman Nee addresses on the importance and mutuality of the local church meetings:

There is only one verse in the New Testament which speaks of the importance of Christians meeting together; it is Hebrews 10:25: “Not abandoning our own assembling together, as the custom with some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more as you see the day drawing near.” This verse shows that the object of such assembling is to exhort “one another.” This is obviously…all the members bearing equal responsibility to exhort one another. A church meeting has the stamp of “one another” upon it.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 174-175)

Watchman Nee comments on the meetings of the local church:

In 1 Corinthians 14, where a church meeting is in view, apostles have been left out of account altogether! There is no place for them in the meetings of a local church! When the members of a church assemble and the spiritual gifts are in use, prophecy and other gifts are exercised, but there is no mention of apostles for the simple reason that apostles are appointed no place in the meetings of the local church; they are appointed to the work. When the local church meets, it is the gifts that are brought into use; office has no place here, not even that of an apostle. But this does not preclude a visiting apostle from speaking at all in a church meeting. This is illustrated by the fact that Paul took part in the Troas meeting. But the point to be noted is that Paul was only passing through Troas, so his speaking there was merely a temporary arrangement in order that the local saints might benefit by his spiritual gifts and knowledge of the Lord; it was not a permanent institution.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 179)

Witness Lee speaks of the authority in the local church meetings:

Today, for the Lord’s recovery in the local churches, we still need these two ministries. I am so grateful to the Lord that here in the churches, we have seen the priesthood and the kingship. The brothers and sisters know how to contact the Lord and to have a living fellowship with the Lord day by day. This is why we have the morning watch with all the pray-reading—it is simply to contact the Lord, to have a living fellowship with the Lord, and even to be saturated, permeated, and possessed by the Lord that we may really be one with Him in spirit. And it is by this that we all have come to recognize the authority of God, the headship of Christ. No human hand is ruling over us. There is no human control, but we do have the divine authority among us. The brothers and sisters are moving and acting under the headship of Christ. If you were to ask me who are the ones who take care of the churches, I would say I just do not know how to answer. What I mean is that we do not have the maneuvering of any human hand, but we do have a government, a divine government, a government under the headship of Christ. This is the kingship.

When someone asks how we have our meetings, how we start our meetings, and who takes the lead in our meetings, it is really difficult for me to answer. For the building up of the house of the Lord, we have the ministry of the priesthood as well as the ministry of the kingship.

(Witness Lee, Recovery of God’s House, 39-40)

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Meetings

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