Changed Generation

Today in the ministry meeting I enjoyed a message on the vital group. This brings me back to the basics of the Bible in the practice of the God-ordained way. I was freshly nourished by the Lord's speaking through brother Witness Lee.

What is a vital group? 

My understanding of a vital group may be a group that is living, burning and bearing fruit. But this is too doctrinal an answer without vision. Actually, a vital group is a group of normal Christians. To be vital is not about super spirituality or a special kind of people. A vital group is simply a group of normal Christians, living a normal Christian life in a normal church life. Everything about them is just and simple normal. But the fact is, today most Christians are abnormal, including myself and many other saints who are in the church life.  

Brother Witness Lee testified that his burden in endeavoring to carry out the vital groups is to change the generation. When he went to Taiwan in 1984, he told the elders that he could not go on in the present dormant situation of the recovery. He told the elders, "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." 

After reconsidering the holy Word, brother Lee found out the way in which Christians should serve and meet. This is the God-ordained way, the way ordained by God in the Bible. This way ordained by God has four steps. 

Begetting: The first step is to preach the gospel to get sinners saved so that they can become members of Christ. This is the begetting stage to bring forth, to beget, members of Christ. When sinners repent, believe, and are regenerated, they become like newborn babes who need to be nourished by us. This is not merely soul-winning, but to beget spiritual baby.

Nourishing: The feeding stage, the nourishing stage, is to take care of the newborn baby to nourish as a nursing mother. 

Perfecting: After the feeding stage comes the teaching stage to educate them. The teaching stage takes a long time. Humanly speaking, education takes a good number of years. In India, as for my self, I took twenty years from preparatory to high school, then higher secondary, then college, and finally university. Spiritually speaking, as much as we spent time, money, and energy for secular education, much more, we need to invest our money, time, energy for a proper healthy spiritual education, to be educated in the divine truths for the Christian life and the church life. This is the teaching stage, which is called the perfecting of the saints in Ephesians 4:12. After a certain period of time, the saints become “graduates” in the church life. The length of time it takes to “graduate” differs from people according to their desire for the Lord, their endeavoring, and their capacity.

Building: After the begetting stage, the nourishing stage, and the teaching stage comes the building stage. After graduating with a college or university degree, one takes up a job or a business. This "job or business" in the church life is to build up the church of Christ, the Body of Christ, by prophesying. This is fully developed and presented in 1 Corinthians 14. 

The church is not built by one minister, one preacher, speaking all the time. All the members of the Body must grow in life and function to build up the Body in oneness and in sweet coordination. The concept of one man speaking nullifies the headship of Christ and makes the church nothing. The practice of one man speaking and the rest listening does not build up the church, the Body of Christ. Instead, it builds up a hierarchy, a kind of religious system with rank and position. This is not only improper but harmful and dangerous for the Body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul says that we should all desire to prophesy, to speak for the Lord (v. 1). Paul says that we can all prophesy (v. 31). To prophesy in 1 Corinthians 14 means to speak for the Lord and to speak forth Christ. We need various functions from the many members of the Body. 

Changed Generation: The God-ordained way of four stages: the stages of begetting, feeding, teaching, and building, practiced step by step will usher in a changed generation and when we begin to practice it step by step, we will be a changed generation. This will bring us out of the old generation to the new generation. This will get us out of the deadness, lukewarmness, and barrenness. We must get out of the oldness, the staleness. We must get out of the routine, the formality, the silence, and the prayers of the traditional way. We hate deadness, lukewarmness, and barrenness. We are struggling to fight them down. We need a change from the old way to the new way, from the old age to the new age in God’s ordained way with four steps: begetting, feeding, teaching, and building. We need a change of generation. 

A vital group is a group of normal Christians. A normal Christian always lives a holy life in the church and he lives in the Body. A normal Christian lives the normal church life and preaches the gospel in a normal way to save people into the church, into the Body. O how I need to be normalized in my Christian life and church life! There are many things that I still need to be dealt with. Thorough repentance from my abnormality and confession before God for my sins, mistakes, wrongdoings, shortcomings, defects, transgressions, trespasses, sins, and evils needed to be carried out day by day. An intimate fellowship with the Lord and with my fellow believers are needed. Then I can be perfected in my prayer life, in my reading of the Word of God, in my calling upon the Lord’s name, and in my exercising my spirit. In this way I can become vital—living, burning, and fruit-bearing. 

May the Lord grace me and my fellow believers in the local church I am in, to be vital, to be normal, to be the changed generation, practicing the God-ordained way to build up the church, and to bring the Lord back.