Beginning
The church in Boston was re-established and took the ground on November 9th, 2008. Along with many other services that were resumed at the beginning of the church life, the book sale service was semi-active and was mainly responsible for selling the Bible, Hymnal, the Holy Word for Morning Revival, gospel calendars and the semi-annual training outlines. The initial book sale service group was coordinated mainly by two brothers, and the coordination took place bi-weekly on the phone. From November 2008 through December 2013 the church in Boston met in rented facilities, so the “bookroom” was portable with minimal display, and the service was carried out mainly after the Lord’s Table meeting on the Lord’s Day.
Meeting Hall
In December of 2013, the church in Boston started to meet at the meeting hall on 1299 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston. The facility also functions as the training center and housing for the Full-time training in Anaheim – extension Boston. Additionally, the facility also contained a Living Stream Ministry bookstore that provided the saints and the trainees with the ministry publications.
From January 2014 to December 2018 this service group was comprised of serving saints who were volunteers for the LSM bookstore. This included XB trainees, thus the total number of participating saints varied from term to term, averaging around eight serving ones at a time. The service group met bi-monthly in the home of one of the serving ones for a love feast and coordination. During this time, we prayed, got into the ministry, and had fellowship regarding practical matters.
Present Practice
At the end of last year of 2018, through fellowship with the LSM serving ones and the responsible brothers in the church in Boston, the LSM bookstore in Boston stopped operating. Since then, the book sale service become more active and strengthened. Many burdened ones were added to the service, weekly coordination among the three serving brothers is held on the phone, and monthly coordination time with all ten serving saints is held at the hall.
During the coordination time with the serving brothers who take the lead in this service, we value the following: 1) to pray for ourselves, for the serving ones, and for all the saints with an ever-increasing appetite for the ministry; 2) to consider on an ongoing basis what books to recommend to the saints that match the Lord’s present speaking to the churches and our locality; and 3) to create incentives for the saints, especially our young people and college students, to get into the ministry.
For all the serving saints, we have a reading schedule to get into one chapter a week of a specific ministry book. We encourage one another to share his or her enjoyment from the reading in a GroupMe group chat. When we come together for our monthly coordination time, we will share our enlightenment and enjoyment from the reading. Our payment method is using Square.
Lessons Learned
The main lesson the serving brothers are still learning is having frequent and definite prayer times together. As we pray to the Lord to receive His burden, that burden will give us the direction from the Lord. All the saints on this service are learning the importance of being served before we can serve others. Without first being served by the Lord through being in His ministry, we cannot properly serve and ask the saints to be in the ministry.