Weekly Pursuit—Week of April 18, 2021

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Reconsidering Our Ways

Verses:

Hag. 1:4-5 Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled-up houses, while this house lies waste? Now therefore thus says Jehovah of hosts, Consider your ways.

Ministry Portion:

We need to take Haggai’s word and consider our ways (Hag. 1:5, 7). We—especially the elders and the co-workers—need to reconsider our church life and our work. We need to consider what has been the result of our living day by day. We cannot allow ourselves to continue in our present way.

In the new localities…the rate of increase was high initially. However, I found out that when the number attending the meetings in a locality reached one hundred, the rate of increase slowed considerably because the brothers there did not know how to go on. In the beginning they practiced the group meetings spontaneously, because the number was small. But gradually they grew out of the practice of the groups into the practice of having big meetings. The increase in those localities was reduced because they had only the big meetings without the proper group meetings.

We should not repeat vain prayers but should tell the Lord exactly what we want Him to do for His recovery. Realizing our situation, our environment, and the condition of our work, we should pray, “Lord, we do not have the wisdom. We do not know how to go on. We have come nearly to a standstill. With all the different races among us, how should we go on? We do not have the way. But one thing we do know: it is very difficult for us to gain [people], and it is even more difficult for us to retain them. We would like to know how to face the situation.”

Therefore, we must reconsider our way. We cannot go on contentedly, remaining the same for another year. In the recovery today there is a real warfare, a real need. The way that we have seen is right. The problem is that within ourselves we are not clear concerning the practice. To speak of grouping the saints together is easy, but to find the proper way to form the groups and to carry them on is difficult. Thus, we need to pray for this. I hope that all the saints would bear a burden to pray for this. This is a great need among us today. (Fellowship concerning the Urgent Need of the Vital Groups, ch. 1)