[Nell]

From The Thread of Gold by Jane Carole Anderson, Chapter 24:

"10 About Calling on the Lord and Pray Reading (p. 377)
Witness Lee taught us that there were two ways to participate in God's economy: calling on the Lord and pray-reading the Word. He told us that this was how we would receive the processed Triune God and how God would complete His purpose.

10a Calling on the Lord
One of the ways to be mingled with God, or receive divine dispensing, was to call on the Lord (Lee, Christ Versus Religion, 118-119) He also taught us that to call on the Lord was to repeat out loud, "O Lord Jesus," usually numerous times in a row. I no longer believe these things and I have come to realize the diversity of meaning involved in truly calling on the name of the Lord.

There is much more meaning to the phrases, "calling on the Lord," and "calling on the name of the Lord" than the simple definition Witness Lee gave us. The most important words in these phrases in the New Testament are "the Lord" and "the name of the Lord." Witness Lee, however, majored on the "calling" part of the phrases. He explained that the root word of the Greek word for calling is kaleo (Strong, G2564), which means "to call out loud." So according to (Lee), to call on the Lord was to call out, "O Lord Jesus."
...
As I revisited each verse in the New Testament in which I could find the word epikaleomai, I realized that each one was easily and sometimes better understood with the meanings of the words entitle, invoke, or appeal, instead of the meaning "to call out loud." I also noted that none of these verses indicate that calling on the Lord causes divine dispensing to occur, or that the motivation for calling on the Lord should be to receive divine dispensing. "

Jane then cites Acts 7:59: And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." She notes that Stephen's appeal was clear "receive my spirit."

"There is no indication that he was calling to receive more of the processed Triune God or divine dispensing" as though he wanted to get as much dispensing as possible at the last minute before he died.

Again, from Jane:

"Nowhere in the Bible do I see the concept of saying, 'O Lord Jesus,' repetitively and continuously, something we were constantly admonished to do. ... Witness Lee focused on the calling part of the phrase. The focus should be on the One being called. "
...
"In our practice in the Local Church, we placed so much importance on the supposed result of our calling (receiving divine dispensing) that we ended up focused on ourselves---our breathing, our eating, our drinking, our receiving."
...
"The truth has set me free to invoke, appeal to, and call upon Him for whatever I need and to entitle Him as my Lord. I have purposed never again to use the Lord's name in a vague, empty, meaningless, and repetitive way (Matt. 6:7)"

Jane begins a deconstruct of many of Witness Lee's major teachings in Chapter 24. This section on calling and pray-reading is more comprehensive than I have quoted here.

Nell