[OBW]

This whole "ministry church" issue is quite novel to me since I left in the middle of 1987, and if there was any such thing then it was masked enough that I did not notice it as I was phasing out.

It seems that the idea that a church, or even group of churches might like to have some "editorial control" over what is taught is not entirely ridiculous. But the extreme narrowness of source for the LCM is definitely beyond what seems reasonable. They have effectively rejected all writings of all Christian sources other than the Bible, Lee, and some Nee. And after they finish interpreting the Bible, I'm not sure how much of that is left. (After you supposedly glean only the best from all others and then reject everything else they wrote, it is hard to say that you are standing on the shoulders of the people that you are effectively dismissing as deficient.)

But what stands out to me more than anything about this is that the way that they are "ministry churches" is the very thing that establishes the denomination that they claim not to be. When a central office sends out a schedule of what will be taught each week, even dictating the song (now typically only one song, not two or more) that will be sung, then the denomination is established. Some have declared that the Lord's table is still just a local meeting that is free to be observed as the members will. But the time allotted for that has in many cases been shortened (by edict) so that another ministry station ("MS") meeting can occur. In fact, if you look at the meetings of any particular church that remains loyal to the LSM, how many meetings each week are under the rule of the LSM and how many are local?

Maybe the local assembly has the right to choose to sing more songs, but simply don't because they trust their Anaheim leaders. And maybe they don't have to give over as many meetings to the MS model.

But what happens if a particular church should actually start to ignore one of the MS times and just have their own meeting. Or sing a couple more songs and have less time for the pre-packaged MS meeting. What would happen to the leadership of that assembly?

I'm sure that the canned answer would be that they are free to do just that, but that none have cared to do other than the "suggested" formats. That makes it virtually impossible to truly determine the truth. If none will act differently (probably because they are so steeped in a theology in which oneness is about looking identical), then we will never know if they could actually get by without consequence. They will just declare that none want to even if the truth is that none dare to.