Additional Quotes about the Local Church by Witness Lee and Watchman Nee

In any local church, or in any district meeting, only a broken person can manage and build. Over a long period, time will be the test. Your wisdom, your capability, your shrewdness, your cleverness will not stand the test of time. If you manage the church with your skill, tactfulness, cleverness, and methods, you may get by this year, but you will not be able to get by another year. Even if you can get by the next year, you will not get by the following year. At most you can get by up to the fourth year, but by the fifth year, you will not be able to get through. Time will be a trial, and time will also be the test. However, if a broken person is to lead and manage the church, he will withstand the test of time. As time goes on, the church he manages will have more and more the measure of reality.

(Witness Lee, Elders’ Management, 34)

When God put Moses over His flock, Israel, He first put Moses in the wilderness for forty years, with the purpose that he might learn the lesson of brokenness. In Numbers 12, even when Moses’ sister Miriam and his brother Aaron rose up to slander him, God’s word testifies for him, saying, “The man Moses was very meek, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.” During those forty years in the wilderness, Moses did not learn a set of methods concerning how to manage God’s people. He learned only one lesson, the lesson of brokenness. God had broken him. When he was forty years of age, he was indeed a very shrewd and capable person. It was as if God said, “Shrewdness will not work; capabilities will not work; the fist that killed the Egyptian will not work; the brute method that slew the Egyptian will not work.” All these must be torn down. All these must be broken. God put him in the wilderness for forty years to teach him one lesson only—the lesson of brokenness.

(Witness Lee, Elders’ Management, 33)

The lesson the elders have to learn is absolutely not methods, ways, skills, or tactfulness. The lesson for the elders is brokenness before God. A clever person is not necessarily capable of managing a church. Neither is a capable person necessarily competent to manage a church. A person who reasons well may not be competent at managing a church, and neither is a person who has resources for everything necessarily competent at managing a church. Only one kind of person can manage a church—a broken person. All the lessons that an elder has to learn are lessons of brokenness.

(Witness Lee, Elders’ Management, 33)

There is only one kind of person who can manage the church, and that is a person who is broken. It does not mean that such a person cannot reason, but he has been broken and is no longer trusting in reasoning. It does not mean that such a person does not have ways to manage things, but he has been broken and is no longer using these methods. He is capable, but after he has been broken, he no longer makes use of his skill. He has wisdom, but once he is broken, he will not use his wisdom. Only such a broken person can manage the church.

(Witness Lee, Elders’ Management, 34)

All the elders must be the servants of the churches. If anyone desires to assume authority or to have a certain rank or position, that is a shame. The most shameful thing is the seeking of rank, position, or title.

(Witness Lee, Spirit and the Body, 222)

We must deny all forms of self before we can serve the Lord. If there is any pride, selfishness, or thought of receiving respectable treatment as a condition for upholding God’s word, we are putting ourselves above God’s truth; we are saying that we are more important than His truth. This disqualifies us from His service. In our service to the Lord, we have to deny ourselves absolutely.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 3, Vol. 52, 153)

The responsibility of an elder relates to matters temporal and spiritual. They are appointed to “lead,” and also to “instruct” and “shepherd." “Let the elders who take the lead well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in word and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17). “Shepherd the flock of God among you, overseeing not under compulsion but willingly, according to God; not by seeking gain through base means but eagerly; nor as lording it over your allotments but by becoming patterns of the flock” (1 Pet. 5:2-3).

The Word of God uses the term “lead” in connection with the responsibilities of an elder. The ordering of church government, the management of business affairs, and the care of material things are all under their control. But we must remember that a scriptural church does not consist of an active and a passive group of brethren, the former controlling the latter, and the latter simply submitting to their control, or the former bearing all the burden while the latter settle down in ease to enjoy the benefit of their labors. “That the members would..care for one another” is God’s purpose for His Church (1 Cor. 12:25). Every church after God’s own heart bears the stamp of “one another” on all its life and activity. Mutuality is its outstanding characteristic. If the elders lose sight of that, then their leading the church will soon be changed to lording it over the church. Even while the elders exercise control in church affairs, they must remember that they are only fellow members with the other believers; Christ alone is the Head. They were not appointed to be lords of their brethren, but to be their examples.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 47-48)

1 Timothy 5:17

Let the elders who take the lead well be counted worthy of double honor, ²especially those who labor in word and teaching.

1 Timothy 5:17²

All elders should be able to take the lead in a local church, but some, not all, have a special capacity for teaching.

(Witness Lee, Footnotes, 986)

Main

Administration

Teaching

Bibliography

Links