Sixth Grade Lessons, Block 6—The Meetings
Week 31
The Church—The Meetings (2)—Home Meetings
Reading Reference: Raising Up the Next Generation for the Church Life, lesson 18; The Home Meetings—The Unique Way for the Increase and the Building Up of the Church, chapter 1; Bearing Remaining Fruit, vol. 1, ch. 1; Acts 2:46; Heb. 10:25; Rom. 16:5a
Memory Verse: And 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. (Acts 2:46)
Suggested Songs: Hymns, #1237
Scripture Reading: Acts 2:46; Heb. 10:25; Rom. 16:5a
Points to Emphasize:
We need to be in a definite local church that we can say is our local church; those who are not in the church life are orphans without a home; the day we came into the church life, we knew that we had come home.
Home Meeting
According to the Greek expression in Acts 2:46, [the first group of believers] met from house to house. This indicates that they did not select some houses that would fit their purpose. They met from house to house. They included every house. In Chinese this phrase means “door after door.” This indicates no selection, no missing. Whether you are weak or strong, whether old or young, whether knowledgeable or unknowledgeable, as long as you are a believer, you meet in your home.
The home meetings provide the nourishing and teaching for people after they are saved and baptized. The church meeting depends upon mutuality and speaking. Acts 5:42 says, “Every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and announcing the gospel of Jesus as the Christ.”
First we can meet with our folks. We do not need to meet with others first. We can initiate our home meeting by meeting with our family members.
When we begin a home meeting, there is no need of a formal opening. When the parents begin to clean and arrange chairs after dinner, the children know that it is time to meet, so they joyfully sing, “You need Jesus, you need Jesus.” Once the children start singing, the meeting has already begun. When others arrive and hear the children singing, they will spontaneously join them, and the father and mother will also follow in the singing. It is the same with praying. Perhaps when dinner and cleaning are almost finished, the father will begin to pray, “O Lord, we thank You that we all are saved, and today we can come together to enjoy You. We thank You also for sending a brother to help us.” At this point the meeting has begun. Instead, perhaps no one sings or prays after the meal, but someone reads Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This also begins the meeting. There is no need for someone else to lead a home meeting; it is those in the home who lead the meeting themselves. This is the way to call hymns, pray, and read the Bible in the new practice.
It is not necessary to wait until 7:00 to begin, and there is no need to rely on someone else. Those in the family can start the meeting. The father may say, “Children, select a hymn,” or the children may not wait for the father but will start singing, “Since Jesus came into my heart.” We have to teach all the new ones in this way when they begin to meet after being saved, just as a mother helps her child to eat after giving birth to him. All mothers realize that they have to help children to eat and not eat for them.
In Hebrews 10:25 the apostle Paul told the saints not to forsake the assembling of themselves together. We may forget everything, but we should not forget our own group meeting. Once a person joined the home meetings, he was kept.
There are many positive things that come out of the home meetings. In the home meetings, everyone becomes a seeking one, a serving one, a preaching one, a teaching one, and one that spontaneously witnesses for the Lord.
The meeting is a kind of enjoyment; it is the proper pastime and entertainment of our lives.
The home meetings are the top way, the super way, and eventually the unique way to meet—Rom. 16:5a and footnote 1.