PROMOTING THE GOSPEL IN THE HOME BY PREACHING FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE
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.”
Before 1958 every move we took in leading the church was according to the Bible. We had home meetings based on the expression from house to house in Acts 5:42 and 2:46. In Shanghai and in Chefoo we met in the homes, but we did not meet in groups. Later, when we came to Taiwan, the number of saints increased rapidly, and it was not enough to divide into homes; we also had to have groups. The practice of meeting in groups is based on the record in Luke 9 where the Lord fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. In that chapter the Lord said, “Make them recline in groups of about fifty each” (v. 14). The Greek word for group refers to a small unit or company.
When the church in Taipei first began to practice meeting in groups, there were not many saints in each group; there were only about twenty. Then later, the numbers gradually increased until a group had as many as one hundred saints. After much practice and observation, we needed to reduce the numbers in our groups. According to the Bible, twelve people can be considered a group, because the first group of early disciples was the twelve apostles…The groups should not be formed according to the spiritual level of the saints but according to their residential location. The principle of meeting from house to house is to split up into groups. As soon as we are in groups, it is easy to shepherd, teach, and care for others in a detailed way. This is the basic unit for our future development.
Acts speaks of preaching the gospel from house to house. When the early disciples preached the gospel, they did not preach only in the temple but also in the homes. Every brother and sister opened his or her home for the preaching of the gospel, and they invited their relatives, friends, and neighbors. Every household preached the gospel. If we cannot preach the gospel every week, we should do it at least every other week or once a month.
At this point we must commend the sisters, because the gospel in the homes is built on the sisters for the following reasons. The brothers are busier during the day because they go out to work; their hearts are not necessarily concerned with the homes. The sisters are the stronger ones in the church in the matter of loving the Lord. The Bible records two instances of sisters anointing the Lord with fragrant ointment; one is in Luke 7:36-39, and the other is in Matthew 26:6-13. The brothers were rational, cold, and calculating, so they thought that the fragrant ointment could be sold for much money, which could be given to the poor. Hence, the gospel in the homes should not be committed to the brothers. We must let the sisters take care of it. We must motivate the sisters. Furthermore, people are more likely to refuse an invitation from the brothers, but they will feel somewhat embarrassed to refuse an invitation from the sisters. Hence, we must emphasize the function of the sisters in promoting the preaching of the gospel in the homes until every home is open for the gospel. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 4, “Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service”, ch. 11, pp. 174-175)
The church in Zamboanga 