I.　Vital groups are the lifeline of the God-ordained way:

A.　Our situation is very desperate today because we still have not carried out the vital groups.

B.　The group meetings should constitute eighty percent of our church life.

C.　The Lord is for His spreading, and His spreading is in the homes.

D.　Our barrenness is due mainly to the lack of the group meetings.

II.　Our attitude towards the vital groups:

A.　We will only know how to practice the vital groups by doing it:

1.　We must not say that the vital groups are impossible.

2.　Some become disappointed because they do not see results immediately.

B.　We fail because we do not labor:

1.　If we do not labor consistently, we will not see proper results.

2.　Do not do a work in which you are expecting to be fortunate.

3.　The way to labor is to labor in any way and at any cost.

4.　Our labor should be a labor of love—1 Thes. 1:3.

5.　Our labor in the Lord will never be in vain—1 Cor. 15:58.

C.　We need to be desperate:

1.　Merchants labor because they are desperate.

2.　The going on of the vital groups to gain the increase should be a life-or- death matter with us.

3.　We should be desperate for the Lord's interests on this earth today; this is our destiny.

III.　What are vital groups?

A.　Vital groups are groups of overcomers:

1.　Zion is the high peak, the center, the uplifting, the strengthening, the enriching, and the reality of the church, the holy city.

2.　If there are no overcomers in the local church, that church is like Jerusalem without Zion.

3.　We have to make a resolution to be the overcomers—Judg. 5:15.

4.　We also have to answer the Lord's call to be the overcomers—Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21.

B.　Vital groups are also groups of normal Christians:

1.　Normal Christians are those who come out of:

a.　The deadness of Sardis—Rev. 3:1-2.

b.　The lukewarmness of Laodicea—vv.14-16.

c.　The barrenness of the degenerating believers—John. 15:2a.

2.　Normal Christians beget, bring forth, normal Christians.

IV.　How to become vital:

A.　The normal Christians, the vital group people, should be those who live, act, walk, and have their being according to the spirit:

1.　We should not quench the Spirit—1 Thes. 5:19.

2.　We should fan our spirit into flame—2 Tim. 1:6-7.

B.　Those who are such persons will speak Christ all the time:

1.　We will speak God's salvation—Acts 8:4.

2.　We will speak God's grace—Col. 4:6.

3.　We will bubble over with the Lord—Acts 4:31.

C.　A vital person, an overcomer, is also a praying person:

1.　We must have the real burden for the real prayer—James 5:17.

2.　Such prayers must be desperate prayers—Luke 11:8.

3.　We need to pray at every time in spirit and watch unto this in all perseverance—Eph. 6:18.

V.　Practical steps in implementing the vital group meetings:

A.　The leading ones have to take the lead to practice them—1 Pet. 5:3.

B.　They must also promote them and persuade others in their church to do the same—1 Tim. 3:2.

C.　They should have trainings to perfect the saints to become skillful in them—Eph. 4:12.

D.　They should encourage the saints to invite people to their homes and be invited to others' homes—Acts 2:46.

E.　They should not adjust or replace the saints, but should encourage, help, and stimulate the saints—Acts 20:19, 31; 2 Tim. 2:24-25.

F.　They should care only for fruit and not for the appearance of the meetings—John. 15:8.

G.　They should come regularly to pray, by fasting if possible—Acts 6:4; 13:3.

VI.　We should not excuse ourselves, but should have an aggressive, bold, and daring spirit to carry out the Lord's commission—"The secret to my work is that I do not know what difficulty is. I only know to give myself to work. I do not care for the result; I only care to labor diligently. You can say that my secret is simply to work. I do not care about the circumstances; I only care to work. For the past sixty years you can see the result of such work. As long as we work, there will be the result" (The Ministry, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 14-15).