«　WEEK 7　DAY 5　»

　　Acts 2:46-47 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, Praising God and having grace with all the people. And the Lord added together day by day those who were being saved.

　　The functioning of the Body is mutual. Mutuality is the characteristic of the Body…. Every Christian should have a part in the meeting and render supply to other members. This kind of supply is the ministry of the members and the function of the members. It is also the fellowship of life. No member should cut himself off from this fellowship. If you stop this fellowship, life will stop flowing, and you will become a burden to the Body…. In the physical body no member can cease functioning without there being a loss to the whole body. This is also true in the Body of Christ. (The Mystery of Christ, pp 28-29)

　　

　　“And on the first day of the week, when we gathered together to break bread….” (Acts 20:7) The meeting we who are redeemed by the Lord should firstly have is the bread-breaking meeting. [Bread-breaking is to eat the Lord's supper, to remember the Lord who died for us.] Other meetings are for us to receive something. Only the bread-breaking meeting is for the Lord to receive something. (The Crucial Points in the Bible, Vol. 3, pp 628-629)

　　The bread breaking meeting is not for anything other than remembering the Lord with the remembrance of the Lord as its center for the Lord's enjoyment. Everything in this meeting, whether hymn singing, prayer, Bible reading, or words of inspiration, should take the Lord as the center, speaking either concerning His person and work, His love and virtues, His living or suffering on the earth, or His honor or glory in heaven, that others may consider or realize these things in order to remember the Lord Himself. In such a meeting, we should think of the Lord in our hearts and behold the Lord in our spirit that we would be inspired concerning the Lord. Then we will express our inspiration through songs, prayers, reading of the Bible, or words, that the feeling of the entire meeting would be directed to the Lord and that all would remember the Lord.

　　The meeting for the breaking of bread is a meeting for the believers' worship. According to the procedure in God's salvation, we first receive the Lord and then draw near to the Father. Thus, in this meeting for worship, we should first remember the Lord and then worship the Father. The center of the section of remembering the Lord is the remembrance of the Lord, and the center of the section of worshipping the Father is the worship of the Father, where all the prayers, hymns, and words should be directed toward the Father.

　　“Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up” (1 Cor. 14:26). The meeting mentioned here is for the exercise of spiritual gifts and for mutual building up. In this kind of meeting, there is not a special person doing a specific thing, but everyone is exercising the spiritual gifts; one has a psalm, one has a teaching, one has a revelation, one does this, and another does that. Each one may participate with the goal of building up and edifying others. (Life Lessons, Vol. 2, pp 102-103, 110, 97-98)

　　According to our experience and observation, the best way to build the church is to prophesy, that is, to speak for Christ and to speak forth Christ, ministering and dispensing Christ into people.

　　First Corinthians 14:31 says, "For you can all prophesy one by one." This verse is one of the clearest verses in the entire Bible. It says that all the believers have the capacity to prophesy. Capacity denotes ability by birth…. We, members of the Body of Christ, all can prophesy one by one…. In the meetings all the members can prophesy (1 Cor. 14:24, 31). (The Practice of Prophesying, pp 6-7)