[Oregon]

Having read through this thread I appreciate the open warmness of all who have posted. My experience in the “Local Churches” has deeply affected my life as I am sure it has yours also. I heartedly embraced the matter of one church in every city from my first days in the local church in 1970. I also, sadly to say, was one of the young boisterous condemners of denominational Christianity. But as the these years have passed, with all the turmoil many of us have passed through, my views have been altered somewhat.

I still believe in one church in every city though……simply because when I open the Word of God and read the record of the early saints in the New Testament, to me, it is still very evident that in the minds of the early saints and the apostles all the believers dwelling in a certain place were “the church” in that particular location. The dividing up of the fellowship of the body on different grounds was strongly condemned by the Apostle Paul. The Word is the Word. What any of us have passed through over the years does not alter it.

The fact that the “Local Churches” have departed from what is revealed in the record of the New Testament does not change the truth of the Word itself. I think most of us would agree that “The Ministry” and how you relate to it….has become the real ground of oneness in the local churches. I still have the desire to gather with other believers in my locality and be nourished with them in the Word and in the Lord’s presence and to practice the assembling together that the Word speaks of.