[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

I wanted to bring Ohio's comment over here, and try to re-visit a statement I'd made recently, about how to communicate with people sucked fully into this mind-set. (It may deserve its own thread but I've started enough already).

aron, I will start a new thread a little later regarding communicating with and showing love to those in the LCM, because that is something that I certainly would also like to discuss as well.

Originally Posted by aron

WN and WL rejected that larger conversation, even though they claimed to "closely follow" it. They merely looked back, took what was useful for own their ministry, and discarded the rest. But they arguably discarded the most crucial thing: openness to God's present speaking in the flock. I was so conditioned reflexively to orient toward the ministry of WL, and so closed to anything else, that for years post-LC I couldn't hear anything in Christian meetings because my "ministry filter" was tuned up so high. All I could hear in my head was, "that's not God's economy, that's not God's economy, that's not God's economy" over and over again. It took a long time to begin to listen for God's speaking, when I was talking to people, or reading, or listening to messages. But eventually I got it and I knew it was God; it was the same Spirit that I confessed the name of Jesus Christ to, all those years ago. The unfolding revelation had returned!

So to conclude, I repeat my earlier comments, that we're not here to slag anyone, but to speak words of life to one another. It's happening in Christianity. Yes there's tons of detritus and junk, but believe it or not, people are being inspired, and they are listening to the ancient guides, and to what God is speaking. To me it might be a word from a psalm, to you it might be a word from an epistle, to another something from a prophet. God is speaking, and His revelation of Jesus Christ now unfolds among us. God's word is entirely dynamic. It's not at all static. It lives and operates, it moves and acts. And I believe that today it can be heard operating within the sound of "many waters" (Rev 14:2, 1:15, cf Ezek 43:2). A nearly countless multitude on earth is hearing and responding to the voice from the throne in heaven. This is truly the sound out of heaven.

The abuse that Ohio received and witnessed, and so many others have testified to, flows from a lack of basic and essential revelation. And by cutting themselves off from the life-flow of fellowship in the Body of Christ, the Lee-ites and LC'ers have resorted to ever-more marginal revelations to feed on.

To hear what God is speaking today, it is not easy to discern, but it's eminently worth pursuing. If we pursue God's revelation within the larger fellowship of which we're a part, we'll have something profitable to speak to the LC, as to all the rest. We'll truly be able to minister in season and out of season. Because God is speaking. The Spirit is indeed speaking to the churches, all of them, and blessed are those who have ears to hear.

While Lee was alive, his ministry was dynamic, and it might have been possible for them to be in line with something that God was speaking. After he died, his ministry became static. Obviously, the blendeds completely reject this notion. They have even gone so far as to label their speaking as the “up-to-date” speaking, giving LCers the notion that their regurgitation of Lee’s speaking is something that God is currently speaking. In my mind, this is where the real danger lies in the local churches being “ministry churches”. They believe that they have “seen it all”. Simply put, they believe that Lee’s static ministry encompasses God’s present speaking, and thus they have closed the door to ministries that may really be God’s present speaking.

There are many in the LCM who are hurting. I’ve seen them left and right. I was like that too. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I did everything right according to Lee’s ministry, yet I was left in a state of failure and despair. Lee’s ministry is full of empty promises like: “If you do X, you will experience Y”. Things never seemed to work that way. Moreover, I was around those trying to re-implement practices of the “New Way” which were destined to fail. When I considered that my discouragement was related to this “ministry of the age” which I was so zealous about, I knew something had to be wrong. Had I continued down that path of trying to follow the ministry “absolutely”, who knows what state I would be in. To me, the issue is not just a matter of people using a single ministry. Other churches do that too. The real issue is when a ministry that cannot meet everyone’s needs is labeled as “the ministry of the age”, it can lead to some really tragic situations. Members are destined to become depressed, discouraged, disillusioned, angry, spiteful, etc. LCM history itself attest to that. I have to wonder, what is the real fruit of Lee’s “ministry of the age”?