The Normal Christian Church Life (#7) - Chapter Six

Chapter Six: The Work and the Churches

In chapter six Watchman Nee stresses the importance of not confusing the "work" of the apostle (or the "servant of the Lord") with "the churches".

(Keep in mind that the lens through which Nee is seeing "local churches" is that of house churches.)

While God birthed the universal Church (comprised of men and women and children from all races and nations and generations) and THEN appointed apostles (I Cor. 12:28), the order was reversed in respect to the local churches. "The appointment of apostles preceded the founding of local churches... consequently it is obvious that the work of the apostles does not belong to the local churches...we must differentiate clearly between the work (of the apostles) and the churches."

Nee proceeds to develop this theme saying that when God raises up an apostolic ministry that has a particular focus, the local churches that may be planted by this apostle are not to be under the control of that apostle's ministry. Instead, that ministry must serve the local churches. "Every one of God's workmen (apostles) must have a clean-cut line of demarcation between his work and the church in the place of his labors. The work of the apostles and the work of the local church run parallel; they do not converge. When the apostles are working in any place, their work goes on side by side with the work of the church...On leaving a place, an apostle should hand over all the fruit of his work to the local church."

The new believers in an area should be instructed immediately to "take full responsibility for their private reading, prayer and witness and also for the public meetings of the church." In other words, the apostle must not be the one to prepare a place and invite the new believers to meet there but he should encourage them to assemble by themselves so that they quickly become self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating.

"Wherein lies the failure of missions today? They keep the results of their work in their own hands...instead of building them into, or handing them over, to the local churches. The result is that the mission extends and becomes quite an imposing organization, but local churches are scarcely to be found...to regard a mission as an apostolic company is not definitely unscriptural, but for missions to enlarge their own organization instead of establishing local churches is distinctly so."

The chapter ends with a reiterating of God's end, which is the Church. "All the various God-given ministries have one aim, the establishing of local churches...all His designs of grace center in that one company - His Church..."