FELLOWSHIPPING TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER THOROUGHLY
In the training concerning the vital groups, the first item is prayer, and the second is fellowship. We all need to realize that thus far there has been little real fellowship among us. What we have is just a kind of contact. Therefore, in every group meeting the first thing that we should practice is to fellowship. In your initial practice of the fellowship you should get acquainted with one another in every detail of your status, your spiritual condition, and your present situation in the Lord. If possible, fellowship concerning everything. When we are fellowshipping in the groups, we need to follow the inner Spirit. Furthermore, our fellowship must be living, organic, and spontaneous. We should know one another very thoroughly, in an up-to-date way.
We might have met in the same locality with certain saints for years without knowing their name or the name of their spouse. This is not real fellowship. We are merely “skating on the ice.” We never got through the ice to the bottom of the water. This time in the group meetings the fellowship should be first ice-cutting and then ice-removing. Then all of us need to dive into the current to know one another thoroughly. This is the real fellowship. The real love is here. If we do not know one another, we cannot love one another. We cannot love anything that we do not know. But the more we know one another in the proper way, the more we will love one another.
I do expect the number in the groups to double in at most one year. When the number in a group is doubled, that group should divide into two groups. Thus, in the first stage of the group meetings, everything must be worked out as a model. Otherwise, if we all are cold, even if we are able to get someone saved, that one will be the same as we are. If eight cold ones gain another eight cold ones, the coldness will be increased. Therefore, we must cut the ice, remove the ice, and throw the ice away until we get into the water and swim there and get to the bottom in knowing one another. Then when we gain the new ones, all the new ones will be the same as we are. Otherwise, the church will have no way. We need to know one another; then we can love one another. (CWWL, 199-1992, vol. 3, “Fellowship concerning the Urgent Need of the Vital Groups”, chp. 9, pp. 425-426)
The church in Zamboanga 