Quote:
Originally Posted by Freedom
I was unaware that there are actually instances of multiple LSM-affiliated LC's meeting in the same city. The sheer hypocrisy of it is shocking, but then again it makes sense. Affiliate oneself with the LSM and suddenly the standards change.
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The standard is very obvious based on the actions -- sell books. If you will buy the books from LSM you are approved, if not you aren't. The doctrine of "Ground of the Church" is designed to give LSM a monopoly and sell books. Groups are vilified, not because of their stand with the Bible but for whether or not they will buy books.
As long as the pretense that this is about some "hidden truth" that they alone have the vision of that is fine. But if push comes to shove it is all about your stance with LSM.
I learned this in the FTT in Taipei. A small group of 4 trainees (3 Americans and one local) were given the assignment to evangelize a graduate school for engineering students in Taipei (i.e. the "best building material"). At the time we had been very successful at baptizing people (one brother in our group had baptized over 400 and the local saint from Taipei had also baptized quite a few) but there was little to no abiding fruit. Our job was to change that. We did. Over the Spring semester we gained 18 brothers who we evangelized, brought into a quasi small group meeting / English class, from there to a small group meeting of the nearby meeting hall and then into the church.
One might think they would be very excited to learn what we did. We were debriefed and it became clear they simply wanted to demonstrate that our use of LSM materials was the secret. The problem was that it wasn't. The brother who had baptized over 400 would evangelize at night and direct those he talked to (and perhaps baptized) to our "English class". I was not there at night because I had to work to support myself. The next day, in the afternoon, I ran this "English class" which used many Bible stories and examples. I created all of my curriculum, did not use any LSM materials, and the class had lots of discussion. At the end of the meeting a sister would show up and she would take those interested in going to the home meeting (which included dinner). There they could discuss in a smaller setting anything. The elder and his wife were also in that meeting. The reason this worked is that the evangelizing brother would always have my English class filled with over 40 and then there would always be five or six at the least who wished to continue the discussion.
But instead LSM created some kind of booklets for new beginners -- truth lessons or outlines or something. It was a total scam. That was when I learned that the real goal behind the FTTT and push for small group meetings was to sell more books.