The Meetings and Spiritual Exercise of the Local Church

Spiritual Exercise of the Local Church

Watchman Nee and Witness Lee both realized that for the adequate growth and development of the Body of Christ, the believers must learn to participate and function in the local church meetings. Based on this realization, they began to minister on a number of spiritual practices to help the believers to contact the Lord and experience Him in their daily living. The believers were then able to bring their enjoyment of the Lord to the meetings to share with others for their benefit and for the Lord’s glory and satisfaction. Their fellowship makes it clear that is normal and necessary for every believer to function in the local church meetings. As we cultivate a proper daily life and a healthy spiritual exercise—that is, walking according to the spirit and enjoying the Lord’s grace—we are able to function in the meetings for the building up of the church.

In the following passage, Witness Lee remarks on the need for the believers in the local churches to be filled with Christ so that they can function to express Him in the meetings:

Our functioning in the meetings is the issue of our eating Christ. The leading ones in the churches may be very anxious about all the saints functioning in the meetings. They may even tell the saints to raise their hands and promise that they will function in the meetings. This is the wrong way to help the saints function. If we charge people to function and ask them to promise us to function, eventually they still will not function. They do not function, because they have nothing with which to function. Asking the saints to function is like saying, “Promise me that in the next meeting you will spend two hundred dollars.” In the next meeting they cannot do this, because they have only a nickel. How could they spend two hundred dollars? The leading brothers in the local churches do not need to charge the saints to do anything. Just feed them. If you feed the saints throughout the week and help them to eat Christ, they will be filled with the riches of Christ. Then everyone will come to the meeting with a thousand dollars. The church life is not a matter of endeavoring to function but a matter of eating. Why is the church meeting poor? Because all the attendants are starved to death. We all have to help one another to eat.

(Witness Lee, Flesh and the Spirit, 52-53)

Here, Witness Lee gives examples of several spiritual exercises that believers in the local churches can practice as a means of “eating,” or enjoying Christ:

Paul in Ephesians 6 said that the Spirit today is the word. The Bible must become the word as the Spirit. This means your Bible must be one with the Spirit. Your Bible is the Spirit, and the Spirit is your Bible. How can we get this? There is no other way except by calling on the Lord, by touching the Lord daily and moment by moment. If we are all such persons living in the presence of the Lord by calling on Him, by praying to Him unceasingly day after day and hour after hour, we will be the reality of the fulfillment of the typology in 1 and 2 Kings.

This is my strong burden I would fellowship with the elders. Every local church needs this. Do not invent many formalities. You yourself should practice calling on the Lord. You yourself should practice pray-reading the word as the Spirit. You need to practice the unceasing prayer. You need to practice never quenching the Spirit, but rather, fanning the Spirit all the time into flame. You need to practice not despising any prophesying.

(Witness Lee, Living a Life, 32-33)

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Meetings

Lord’s Table

Prayer

Prophesying

Small Group

Gospel

Children’s

OT Type

Spiritual Exercise

Reading

Praying

Singing

Speaking

Thanksgiving

Praising

Serving

Calling

Pray-Reading

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