The Meetings and Spiritual Exercise of the Local Church

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

Praying safeguards us from gossip in the local churches, as Witness Lee shares:

A local church can be severely damaged if many of the saints in that locality spend time speaking negative things about other saints and other churches. Such discussions spread gossip and death among the saints. This kind of contact between the saints is not the fellowship of spirit that Paul spoke about in Philippians 2.

…Real fellowship is by our spirit. When we exercise our spirit, we are unable to talk about worldly amusements and entertainment. When we exercise our spirit, the nature of our conversation will change because our spirit is holy (cf. 2 Cor. 6:6). If there are problems in a certain church, we may have a desire to merely talk about the situation, but our spirit within will urge us to pray. Our spirit will not allow us to gossip about others’ mistakes and failures. The only way to have the reality of horizontal fellowship is by exercising our spirit.

(Witness Lee, Tripartite Man, 152)

Watchman Nee comments on the way the new believers should function through spiritual exercises, such as praying, in the local church meetings:

When God blesses our efforts in any place to the salvation of souls, we must see to it that the saved ones understand, from the outset, that the meetings which resulted in their salvation belong to the work and not to the church, and that they are the church and must therefore have their own church meetings. They must meet in their homes or in other places to pray, study the Word, break bread, and exercise their spiritual gifts; and in such meetings their object must be mutual helpfulness and mutual edification. Each individual must bear his share of responsibility and pass on to the others what he himself has received from the Lord. The conduct of the meetings should be the burden of no one individual, but all the members should bear the burden together, and they should seek to help one another depending upon the teaching and leading of the Spirit, and depending upon His empowering too. As soon as believers are saved, they should begin to assemble themselves regularly. Such gatherings of local believers are true church meetings.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 177)

Witness Lee shares that praying is one of the ways the believers can function in the local church meetings:

If you come to the meeting and just sit there waiting for others to function, you are still under the influence of the Nicolaitans. You must be delivered, you must escape, you must break through, even if you have to shout. Today in the local church there must be neither “nico-,” nor “-laitans,” neither clergy nor laymen. All the brothers and sisters must be functioning, praying, testifying, shouting and praising brothers and sisters.

(Witness Lee, Christ v. Religion, 169)

Witness Lee encourages the local churches to meet in a way that allows all the believers to pray and speak:

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)

Witness Lee shares on fellowship he received regarding prayer in the local church meetings:

Brother Austin-Sparks would not recognize any meeting as a church meeting unless that meeting was initiated by long prayer for the leading of the Spirit. He told me that every local church should be established by the leading of the Spirit through much prayer.

(Witness Lee, Christian Life, 86)

Commenting on Acts 12:5, Watchman Nee states that the prayer of the local church exercises the authority that God has given the Body:

Acts 12:5 says, “So then Peter was kept in the prison; but prayer was being made fervently by the church to God concerning him.” Today the church should pray fervently for world events and the state of our nation. This kind of prayer involves the exercise of the authority that God has given the Body.

(Watchman Nee, Mystery of Christ, 63)

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