2016 Northeast College Training – Report

Praise the Lord for the first Northeast College Training in Amherst, Massachusetts! This year, 180 total saints (including 113 students) from 35 localities in New England and eastern Canada are gathering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus to spend a week being infused with the God’s economy as revealed in the book of Ephesians.

The brothers gave an opening word concerning the history and spirit of being trained as believers in the Lord. For this, we need to be taken to a spiritual mountain, away from all the earthly things. To be trained, we need to be in an uplifted atmosphere, sanctified from the world. We also need a spirit of a learner, which is to have an attitude that we need help!

We saw the importance of our spending time with the Lord in the mornings, and are given regular time each day to practice. To know our Lord requires us to spend time with Him and to know what’s on His heart. This is to spend time with someone we love, and it’s simple, sweet, personal, and special! Although there are no right or wrong ways to be with Him, we need to have a calm, quiet being, to pray, and to read His word while in fellowship with Him.

We also enjoyed seeing and practicing to pursue the Lord in small groups of two’s and three’s. In the Old Testament, Joshua and Caleb followed Jehovah together and were able to strengthen each others’ belief in the Lord. We all need companions to flee and pursue with, and we need to be open to the Lord to see whom He has placed us with! Our best companions may not be according to our natural preference, which requires us to be in our spirit to pray together. Moreover, our companionship is not a goal in itself, but for the enlargement of our heart to gain new ones. Our view of the twos and threes is that it’s for God’s purpose, for the building up of His house. The real impact and power of the gospel is our being built up together and will become like wildfire on our campuses! We put these principles to practice during the afternoons, during which we get together with some from our localities or campuses, learn to open up and fellowship with each other, and pray for each other.

In the evenings, we see that the mystery that was hidden in God is revealed in Ephesians! He wants to head up all things in Christ through the church, which is us! The universe is in a heap of collapse, and though we may be saved, we can still be in the heap because Satan is doing everything to keep us there. However, it is the divine life of God through which we are headed up! Life causes us to rise up out of the death situation and be attached to the Body. Practically in our experience, it can be to say “amen” to the Lord, most times in the small decisions that we make throughout our day. Only life and the operation of life will bring us out, life will cause us to grow into the sonship. All of creation is waiting for this, the revelation of the mature sons will result in a universal praise!

Throughout the week, we have been endeavoring to memorize key verses from the book of Ephesians so that the Word of God would be hidden in our heart as long-term nourishment and supply to us.

We ask you to please stand with us in prayer for the following items:

• That we’d be strengthened into our mingled spirit so that the training would be sanctified, we all would uphold and uplift the atmosphere, including every aspect of the training (tests, verse memorization, schedule) so that Lord can speak to all of us.
• Please pray that every one would be open to be trained with a spirit of a learner.
• That we would learn to spend time with the Lord in the mornings and allow Him to speak with us in a personal way.
• That the veils would be taken away so we would see freshly a revelation of God’s economy in each chapter of Ephesians.
• That we would practice and be encouraged in the two’s and three’s, that we'd learn to genuinely fellowship with one another, and to be built up in prayer. Pray that our hearts would be enlarged for one another and for our own campuses.