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

It is the responsibility of every saved man to serve the Lord according to his capacity and in his own sphere. God did not appoint elders to do the work on behalf of their brethren. After the appointment of elders, as before, it is still the brethren’s duty and privilege to serve the Lord. Elders are also called bishops (Acts 20:28; Titus 1:5, 7). The term “elder” relates to their person; the term “bishop” to their work. Bishop means overseer, and an overseer is not one who works instead of others, but one who supervises others as they work. God intended that every Christian should be a “Christian worker,” and He appointed some to take the oversight of the work so that it might be carried on efficiently. It was never His thought that the majority of the believers should devote themselves exclusively to secular affairs and leave the church matters to a group of spiritual specialists. This point cannot be overemphasized. Elders are not a group of men who contract to do the church work on behalf of its members; they are only the ones who superintend affairs. It is their business to encourage the backward and restrain the forward ones, never doing the work instead of them, but simply directing them in the doing of it.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 46-47)

All the brothers and sisters should take care of spiritual matters; they are the priests. The elders should not do everything for them; the elders only “oversee.”

(Watchman Nee, Orthodoxy, 43)

If there are fifty saints in a local church, we need to look to the Lord that all of them will be occupied with some practical service to the Lord. Fifteen saints could go out to gain people by knocking on their doors. Another fifteen may take care of the home meetings. Perhaps the ones who go out to preach the gospel could transfer the care of their new ones to the ones who are burdened for home meetings. Another fifteen saints could pick up the burden to take care of the small group meetings. Within a short time, maybe just three or four months, all fifty saints could be occupied with some practical service to the Lord, taking care of new ones and young ones. If each saint could take care of one newly baptized one for one year, think how much this new one would grow!

(Witness Lee, Eldership (1), 129)

In a local church, God has established the elders as representatives of His authority. But this does not mean that they are everything. The elders should not monopolize anything; they are merely the overseers in the church. They stand on the side to guide the saints on, to stop improper activities, and to encourage proper activities so that the whole Body can be activated.

(Watchman Nee, Mystery of Christ, 62-63)

Are there then no specific responsible ones and no specific positions in a local church? There are. Please look at the church in Ephesus. They had elders and deacons. Although they did not have Ephesian apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers, they had Ephesian elders and deacons. Every church should have elders and deacons raised up to bear the responsibility of that local church. What do the deacons and elders really do? The deacons only handle the business affairs in the church, while the elders only oversee in a day to day way the condition of the believers’ life. During the gathering of the believers, however, the way to speak the word, read the word, sing the hymns, witness, and exercise the spiritual gifts is all according to the leading of the Holy Spirit, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 14. The eldership and deaconry are offices carried out at other times. During the meeting, the matter of the exercise of the gifts is unrelated to the authority of elders and deacons. The responsible ones in a local church are called elders and deacons in the Bible. However, the elders and deacons are not appointed for the meetings.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 1, Vol. 17, 206-207)

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