The Church in the City

“Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.” — 1 Corinthians 12:27 (ASV)

By 1928 Nee's work was centred in Shanghai, China's great coastal city of trade, printing presses and travellers. From there he published magazines and teaching that went where he couldn't, and a network of gatherings spread across the country.

Outsiders called them the “Little Flock” or “Assembly Hall.” The believers themselves didn't want a name at all. They wanted to be simply the church in their town, the way the New Testament speaks of “the church of God which is at Corinth.” Nee taught that all true believers in a city belong to one church, even if they meet in many places. The irony is obvious: a movement started partly to get rid of labels ended up with labels of its own.

Some of what Nee built was genuinely freeing. He rejected a strict split between clergy and ordinary Christians. In his gatherings, ordinary believers prayed, spoke, preached, cared for each other and carried responsibility. Leaders were there to equip, not to do all the ministry. A body where only one part moves, he said in effect, is a sick body.

He also wanted the Chinese churches to stand on their own feet: led by Chinese believers, supported by Chinese money, sending out their own workers. He was grateful for missionaries, but he believed that a church whose budget depends on a distant sponsor will end up obeying that sponsor. Nobody in the 1920s could see how much this would matter later, when foreign missionaries were forced out and public churches came under heavy pressure.

In 1930 Margaret Barber died. Some accounts say Nee received a large part of her library. Her influence went on through him.

In 1933 Nee travelled abroad and had contact with Brethren groups in Britain. For a while there was fellowship. But the relationship with the Exclusive Brethren broke down over whether he could share communion with Christians outside their circle. Nee refused to cut himself off from believers he saw as genuine members of Christ. For him the Lord's table said one thing above all: “we, who are many, are one bread, one body.”

The table did something else in his gatherings, too. Because the Lord himself was at the centre, nobody could make the meeting revolve around a preacher, not even a preacher as gifted as Nee. Rich and poor, educated and uneducated, leaders and brand-new believers all came the same way, as people who had received grace.

Here the biography is honest in both directions. Nee's protest against division was real and good. But his own movement later faced the same temptation he had just walked away from. A group that refuses denominational names and claims to stand on the one true ground in a city can quietly start treating other faithful Christians as second-class. Every renewal movement is in danger of becoming the thing it protested against.

Paul's answer to the Corinthians who were splitting into fan clubs (“I am of Paul; and I of Apollos”) was a question: “Is Christ divided?” Christians can disagree seriously and still treat one another as brothers and sisters.

Do you see other churches, or other youth groups, as competition? It is easy to. Nee's best instinct is a good test: if Christ has received someone, who are we to push them away?

One thing to do this week: pray by name for a church in your town that isn't yours. If you can, go with a friend to theirs once, and look for what Christ is doing there.