(Three volumes, sold as a set only)
The Church and the Work: Assembly Life, Rethinking the Work, and Church Affairs
The purpose of God is to establish Christ – and not just the personal Christ but also the corporate Christ, which is the Church: "as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is the Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:12 Darby). The Church and the Work is a three-volume set of Watchman Nee's revelatory wisdom on the building up of the body of Christ. Every born-again believer belongs to the body of Christ, but how many of us know what that means for our lives spiritually, let alone practically?
"In any place where the Gospel has been proclaimed and people have believed on the Lord, they are the church in that place, and they are our brethren. In the days of the apostles the question of belonging or not belonging to a church was simple in the extreme; but things are not so simple in our days, for the question has been complicated by many so-called churches that exclude those who should be in the church, and include those who should be outside. What sort of a person can be rightly considered a constituent of the church? What is the minimum requirement we can insist upon for admission to church fellowship? Unless the qualifications for church membership are clearly defined, there will always be the danger of excluding from the church those who truly belong to it and including those who do not."
Watchman Nee, The Church and the Work, Volume 2: Rethinking the Work
Volume 1 - Assembly Life
This first of three volumes is a collection of teachings on practical matters of "body" life within the Church, believing that the Body of Christ is both spiritual and practical. Various topics include authority, fellowship, ministry, meetings and boundaries of the local assembly.
Volume 2 - Rethinking the Work
A first-time edition of Nee's original Chinese publication by the same name, topics include apostles, false apostles, and ministry based on Acts, chapters 13 through the end of the book. A slightly revised version of this volume was published in the US in 1962 under the title, The Normal Christian Church Life.
Volume 3 - Church Affairs
This volume is an expansion of Rethinking the Work which came ten years later. Not a correction to, but a more detailed teaching given to young workers as to how to conduct themselves when being sent out to establish churches everywhere. The teachings are basic but important and come from the first twelve chapters of Acts rather than the latter part of the book as in Volume 2.
May the Head of the Church find Himself expressed corporately among His people!
