As we are learning to minister the word for the building up of the Body, we must coordinate with one another in one accord, having the consciousness of the Body, that is, realising that we need others and others need us, even having the spirit of a learner and the spirit of needing help.
Lord Jesus, we love You and we love the Body! We need You, Lord, and we need the Body! Thank You for placing us in the Body as members of one another. May we see our need for the Body. May we realise that we depend on the Lord and we depend on the Body. Grant us to have the consciousness of the Body and a spirit of coordination. Amen, Lord, save us from being independent and individualistic in our ministering of the word! May we learn to enter into coordination and exercise our spirit to be one with You and with the saints in the Body! Amen!
Thank the Lord that He has placed us, each one of us, in the Body, where we can function as members in our measure.
On the one hand, each one of us has a burden from the Lord regarding what He wants us to do and say; on the other hand, our burden and serving is in the Body, not on our own.
When the Lord impresses us with something, when He shows us what He wants to do and calls us to be one with Him in His work, we simply drop everything else and allow His revelation to become our burden.
We may hear the Lord’s speaking concerning the need to move to a certain locality to strengthen the Lord’s testimony there, and in our fellowship with Him and with the Body, we may go there, having a burden for the Lord’s move there.
We may be touched by the Lord concerning the need to care for the young people, realising their worth in God’s hand and seeing that the Lord wants to gain them as His overcomers, and this burden presses upon us so that, in coordination with the saints, we give our all for this.
We may be burdened by the Lord for those on the campus, and we may learn to coordinate with the saints in the Body, in one accord, to take care of the students for the Lord’s move.
The burden the Lord gives us is not merely for us individually to carry it out but for us to enter into the coordination and fellowship of the Body, and together with the saints, we may carry it out, depending on the Lord and also on the fellow members of the Body.
Having a Consciousness of the Body and a Spirit of Coordination in our Serving the Lord in Ministering the Word
As believers in Christ who have seen something of God’s economy, are impressed with God’s intention, and are infused with God’s revelation which becomes our burden, we must coordinate with one another in one according our serving the Lord in ministering the Word (Acts 1:14; 2:46).
We do not serve God in an individual way or independently from the other members of the Body. The greatest indication that we see the Body is that we cannot be independent.
What does it mean for us to have a consciousness of the Body of Christ?
We see this in a simple verse such as 1 Corinthians 1:1 where we read, Paul, a called apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Sosthenes the brother.
We know about Paul, for he wrote this epistle, but who is Sosthenes? He is a dear brother, mentioned only once in the entire Bible. Paul didn’t just say, Paul to the church in Corinth, but he mentioned this dear brother; he had a consciousness of the Body and a spirit of coordination.
Most likely, none of the verses in 1 Corinthians was composed or written by Sosthenes but by Paul; however, Paul was in coordination with this brother when he wrote this Epistle.
He indicated that it was not just him but him and this dear brother. At the end of Romans 16 we read that Tertius wrote the epistle, and he greets the saints in the Lord.
He wrote the Epistle, most likely at the dictation of Paul, but both Paul and Tertius had a consciousness of the Body and a spirit of coordination.
We need to learn to have a consciousness of the Body and a spirit of coordination in our serving the Lord in ministering the word.
When we start serving the Lord, we may fellowship very much with the saints, being in fear and trembling before the Lord and very much needing the saints in prayer and fellowship, in coordination.
But then, as we serve the Lord in functioning in a certain way, we may no longer think we need the fellowship but rather, we may think we know what to do so we just do it.
We may be quite capable, so we have no feeling for coordination in our spirit. Oh Lord Jesus!
Christianity is filled with such cases, and the pitiful history in Christianity is riddled with people who start very well by depending on the Lord and on the Body, and then they no longer depend on the Lord or on the Body but rather build up their own little empire, ministry, and Christian group.
After they die or when something happens to them, their entire group is dispersed, and many are disillusioned. Oh Lord Jesus!
May we not repeat the history in Christianity in the church life today.
Because we don’t have the consciousness that we need others and that others need us for our coordination in the Body, few among us may have the spirit of a learner and the spirit of needing help (Matt. 5:3). Oh Lord!
Paul was not like that; he needed the Body both to rescue him and to lower him through the wall of the city so that he may escape his persecutors, and he also needed the Body as he wrote the Epistles.
We need to learn to serve in coordination with the saints, learning to fellowship about all things.
May the Lord save us from serving Him in formality; when it is our turn to serve, we go and serve, and when it is not our turn, we just sit and wait, watching others serve. Oh Lord!
May we be saved from just doing our part without needing anyone else. We may not argue or criticise others, but we may not have a spirit of dependence on the saints.
The greatest indication that we believers in Christ see the Body of Christ is that we cannot be independent. We just can’t.
Instead of being independent, we realise that we need the saints, for we have a consciousness of the Body. May we open to the Lord concerning this and tell Him,
Lord Jesus, cause us to see that we are members in the Body of Christ who depend on the fellow members of the Body and on Christ as the Head. We need You, Lord, and we need the Body. Save us from serving the Lord and living the Christian life in an independent and individualistic way. May we see the Body. May we no longer be independent. Grant us to have a consciousness of the Body and a spirit of coordination. Oh Lord, how much we need You as our life and life supply! How much we need the fellowship and coordination in the Body for our service in the Body! We give ourselves to You. We give ourselves to depend on You and depend on the Body. Grant us to have the spirit of a learner. May we have the spirit of needing help. Save us from thinking that we know how to do this and that, so we no longer need the Body. May there be much interdependence in spirit as we serve the Lord and live the Christian life. Oh Lord Jesus, save us from any formality and degradation in our service to You as we minister the word!
We Need the Fellowship and Coordination in the Body as we Serve the Lord and Minister the Word
We all have to admit that we lack the fellowship of the Body. We may come together with the saints to fellowship and coordinate about this or that particular matter, about some meetings, conferences, or events; however, we may not have a thorough fellowship.
We may speak of the practical matters; we may assign certain saints to do this or that, and we all do our best to serve.
Or we may have some saints from another locality visit us and we enjoy the Lord with them in the meeting, but after the meeting, each one goes their own way, without having fellowship with the visiting saints. Oh Lord!
We need the Lord to break through in us in the matter of the need of fellowship and coordination in the Body as we serve the Lord, minister the word, and live the Christian life.
We need to have the spirit of needing help; we need the Lord’s help to go on, we need the saints’ help in our Christian life, and we need the help of the Body in our service to the Lord.
The greatest form of pride is not needing fellowship; when we do things for the Lord or in the church life without having the need for fellowship, that is pride.
We may not even realise this, but we may do so many things without having the consciousness of the Body, without depending on the Lord or on the fellowship in the Body.
This is why our service in the Body may either stop or we may lose the taste for service, for we don’t depend on the Body.
May the Lord save us from having a mechanical coordination, where we only attend the meeting and do the things that we need to do, without opening to the Lord in the fellowship and coordination. Oh Lord Jesus!
We need the fellowship and coordination in the Body. We should have the feeling that we cannot do anything without others, that we truly need one another (Romans 12:4-5; Ephesians 4:11-12, 16).
This, however, does not come naturally, and even if we have this sense for a while, we need to continually maintain it.
The only way we can have such a feeling and sense of the need for fellowship and coordination in the Body is by growing in life, allowing the Lord to break us, and denying the self, letting the cross operate in us.
True fellowship and coordination is only through the cross and by the Spirit.
We may cooperate with the saints in our service to God, and this does not require the cross and the Spirit; however, to have true coordination and fellowship in spirit, the cross needs to operate in us and the Spirit has to saturate us (Matt. 16:24; Gal. 5:24).
The greatest indication that we see the Body is that we cannot be independent.
We may go to work or to school, we may do all kinds of things around the house, and we may be involved in the service in the church or just opening our home to the saints; in all these things, we have the feeling that we need the Body.
May the Lord save us from living the church life and serving in the church as if we were in an organisation, where each one does his part when his turn comes, and then moves on. Oh Lord!
If we don’t have proper coordination and fellowship in our service, if we do not mutually rely and mutually depend on one another, we often step on others, or we may be reluctant to help or seek help.
We may either not work or do the work of others, for we do not fellowship.
When a certain matter is in our own hands, we may do it to the best of our ability but without seeking fellowship or coordinating with others, for we know what to do and we carry things out.
When others do something, however, when they serve, we may not have the spirit of being one with them or supporting them. Oh Lord! This is so foolish.
This shows that we need to grow in life, be broken by the Lord, and learn the lessons in the Lord and in the Body, so that we may be saved in these matters.
If we read chapter 12 in 1 Corinthians, we will see that each one has a gift, a ministry, and an operation, but it is God who does all things in us.
We may speak something, we may do some work of power, we may prophesy, we may speak in tongues, we may interpret tongues, but in all these things there is one Spirit who operates.
It is the Lord who placed us in the Body, and we are interrelated and interdependent in the Body. We don’t covet others’ function, nor do we despise our own function.
The Lord blends the Body, and we need to open to His blending work.
We need one another, and we do not despise others nor do we consider that we should do what they do.
Rather, having a consciousness of the Body and a spirit of coordination, we function in our measure, and when others function, we support them, we join them in their labour, and we pray for them, for together we build up the Body of Christ.
May the Lord gain the feeling of coordination in the Body that is so sweet so that the building up of the Body may be so strong.
Lord Jesus, grow in us unto maturity and have a way to break us so that we may truly depend on You and on the Body. May we see our need for the fellowship and coordination in the Body. Amen, Lord, as members of the Body, we cannot do anything without one another! Thank You, dear Lord, for placing us in the Body as members, even as You willed. Thank You for blending the Body together. May we see that there are many ministries and gifts, but only one Lord. May we see that there are many operations and works, but there is one Spirit. We open to You, Lord. We need You. We need the saints. We need the Body. May we do all things in the principle of coordination and dependence in the Body. Amen, Lord, may we see how much we need the saints in our service to the Lord. Grant us to learn the lessons in life and in the Body today so that we may be saved from our independence. May we be in the coordination of the Body, functioning in our measure and respecting what others do. Amen, Lord, gain the sweet feeling of coordination in the Body among us so that You may build up the Body in a strong way! Amen!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1957, vol. 2, “The Administration of the Church and the Ministry of the Word,” chs. 2, 3, 5, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Ministry of the Word and God’s Dispensing for God’s Economy (2026 March ITERO), week 5, “Cooperating with the Lord to Carry Out His Economy by Being His Faithful Stewards Who Minister the Word with a Burden from the Lord and Who Coordinate with One Another in One Accord” – day 4.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Oh, may my spirit flow, / Oh, may it flow! / I ask Thee, gracious Lord, / Oh, may it flow! / My trust in self o’erthrow, / Down from self’s throne I’ll go, / That living water flow / In spirit, Lord. / Oh, may my spirit flow, / Oh, may it flow! / Answer my prayer, dear Lord, / Oh, may it flow! / Not just commune with Thee, / I long to builded be, / Mingle with others free / In spirit, Lord. (Hymns #846 stanzas 5-6)
– On Christ we here would focus, / No other center make; / With Christ in sweet communion / His riches to partake. / He is our Head and content, / His Body we express; / Whate’er we do while meeting / Himself must manifest. / Built up in love together, / Not one would criticize; / To perfect one another, / We all would exercise. / Each one from self delivered, / The natural life forsakes; / In grace each trained in spirit / The Body-life partakes. (Hymns #867 stanzas 3-4)
– In our ministry and service, / From the Body, our supply; / If detached and isolated, / Out of function we will die. / ’Tis by serving in the Body / Riches of the Head we share; / ’Tis by functioning as members / Christ’s full measure we will bear. (Hymns #913 stanzas 5-6)
