CONSIDERING ONE ANOTHER SO AS TO INCITE ONE ANOTHER TO LOVE AND GOOD WORKS (2)
Paul says that we should consider one another so as to incite one another to love and good works, not abandoning our own assembling together. Today our vital group meeting is our own assembling together. For the Hebrew believers at Paul’s time to abandon their own assembling together would have been to return to the Jewish way of meeting and to abandon their assembling together as Christians. Paul exhorted them not to abandon their own assembling together as Christians. Hebrews 10:25 says that in the group meetings we should exhort one another, and so much the more as we see the day drawing near.
The first thing we have to do in the vital group meetings is to have a thorough fellowship together so that we can know the members of our group in an intimate way. The more thorough our fellowship is, the better. Do we know the occupations of the saints in our vital group and where each one works? Do we know the first and last names of every member of our vital group with their proper pronunciation? By considering these questions, we can see that our fellowship has not been thorough. To love one another involves a lot. We need to endeavor to know one another intimately in the Lord. If someone is absent from our vital group meeting, we should immediately ask where he or she is. We say that our group should be blended, but our blending has not been completed, because we do not know each other thoroughly. When you take action together in serving the Lord, you will see that this is very important. Week after week we have been meeting together, yet we still do not really know one another.
We should know each other’s situation and condition in an up-to-date way. Then we will realize there is the need of practical care. If we realize that a sister is sick, we can fellowship about how to render the proper and practical care to her. We can fellowship about who would be burdened to go or about who could and should go. In the larger prayer meetings of the church, we pray in a general way, but the prayer for one another in the groups is specific with a view to the practical care and shepherding. We may pray for a few minutes, and then we can arrange for some person or persons to visit our sister. This is the shepherding. Later, the one who visits should let the group know the situation of this sister. This is what is implied when we say that the group meetings are eighty percent of the church life.
The new ones whom we bring to our group meetings will not merely be taught by us outwardly. They will observe our practice. This is similar to the children in a family learning things by observing the way the family lives and acts. The new ones will follow the pattern that they see and hear in our vital groups. This is why we must learn how to fellowship with one another and how to get ourselves released. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 3, “Fellowship Concerning the Urgent Need of the Vital Groups”, ch. 17, pp. 512-513)
The church in Zamboanga 