How is Christ building His Church?

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by JJ

As aron shared keeping eyes on Jesus instead of selves is huge! Yes, there are lots of failures, but lot’s of successes too, just not always so publicly seen.

I think this is the source of the failure for those of us under Lee's teachings.

We were taught to look around. We could not "see" the builded church. It's not any where there in Christianity. Move along folks, nothing to see. No "there, there," out there. Lee had defined for us what the church must look like, and we couldn't find it. Lee would tell us what it will look like.

I was in Taipei Hall1 during the excitement of the New Way. Lee was almost giddy seeing all those trainees in blue jackets and white shirts. So many trainees, all different colors and nationalities, yet all look the same -- LSM Blue. All so zealous for the ministry. This is it! Just spread this to all the LC's. Jesus will come back for Y2K. The whole world will be evangelized. Of course it will, "these are Brother Lee's statistics."

Somewhere the eyes of faith got stolen from us. Traded in for Lee's "vision" of the builded church. Instead of believing His word, we believed Lee's teaching. When Ingalls et. al. tried to warn us, he got shut down. We all went along with it. Like mushrooms in the cave, we were kept in the dark and fed manure. Be happy, "you are growing in life."

[Sons to Glory!]

Yes, it is in the realm of faith and not in the seen! I remember lamenting to a brother a while back about the condition of the church that we see - all the divisions, low testimony of life & love, etc. What he said stuck with me - "The church is just fine. Don't you think the Lord knew all that was going to happen and don't you think He has it all handled?!" This opened my eyes to see that it is in the realm of faith.

Man automatically wants to see some results - some big, outward manifestations. Some thing visible to point to and say, "See, He's clearly doing it there!" Then we either take credit or think we should jump in to help. This is the flesh.

[byHismercy]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

Yes, it is in the realm of faith and not in the seen! I remember lamenting to a brother a while back about the condition of the church that we see - all the divisions, low testimony of life & love, etc. What he said stuck with me - "The church is just fine. Don't you think the Lord knew all that was going to happen and don't you think He has it all handled?!" This opened my eyes to see that it is in the realm of faith.

Man automatically wants to see some results - some big, outward manifestations. Some thing visible to point to and say, "See, He's clearly doing it there!" Then we either take credit or think we should jump in to help. This is the flesh.

Stg, you just reminded me, He said, I will build my church. Our job is to believe on Him who sent Him.

[Raptor]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I think this is the source of the failure for those of us under Lee's teachings.

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world; if it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now, My kingdom is not of this realm.”

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I was in Taipei Hall1 during the excitement of the New Way. Lee was almost giddy seeing all those trainees in blue jackets and white shirts. So many trainees, all different colors and nationalities, yet all look the same -- LSM Blue. All so zealous for the ministry. This is it! Just spread this to all the LC's. Jesus will come back for Y2K. The whole world will be evangelized. Of course it will, "these are Brother Lee's statistics."

When we were children, say 3 to 7, we treasured our toys. For children, toys provid a vital function in that they allow us to map out reality, not only as it is (perceived) but as it could be (possible) and should be (desired). In this manner, toys are a representation of the larger world, just smaller and more manageable. Now, one thing I remember is that toys were not uniform. Some dolls were cloth, some were wooden, some plastic. Same thing with toy trucks, cars, boats, planes. They occasionally were not built on the same scale, or with different materials, or different details. But to us they were still useful, even though not 'ideal'. In a perfect world, all toys would seamlessly integrate, but even if they didn't we mix-and-matched. No problem.

Now, how does this relate to Christ building his church? Christianity has many variants. Some are loud and boisterous, some quiet, and still, and restrained. The variety of interpretations and expressions is impressively (or uncomfortably) vast. Reading the posters on this forum, I notice a disparity of views and experiences. And specifically, to my original comment on this thread, with Billy Graham's grandson - clearly there were behavioural instabilities beforehand, yet the star-struck Presbyterians at Coral Ridge ignored them, and paid dearly for it. The senior pastor began to repeatedly prey on the congregation, and lie about it, and cover up, and manipulate the board. Yet they are a Christian flock - God wants to use them, and wants me to receive them. Whatever their representation of Chist Jesus is, that is what it is.

For Witness Lee, uniformity was the way to Christ. Ohio's post showed this, and many of us had similar observations. WL's representation included conformity and control. God's spirit would then sweep across the face of the earth, and the "ministry" vindicated, and Christ would reign. He probably genuinely believed this. Although I reject this representation today, having seen the damage, confusion, rancor and discouragement it produced, I still get it - these are still human beings seeking God. It's okay. No, really.

Originally Posted by Ohio

Somewhere the eyes of faith got stolen from us. Traded in for Lee's "vision" of the builded church. Instead of believing His word, we believed Lee's teaching. When Ingalls et. al. tried to warn us, he got shut down. We all went along with it. Like mushrooms in the cave, we were kept in the dark and fed manure. Be happy, "you are growing in life."

Today I continue to play, only now with ideas. I take for granted that God exists, and loves us, and sent His Son who is now raised to Glory and is Saviour of all, King of Kings. The LC wants believers to be "mushrooms in a cave" but there's a wider world, and other voices speaking of Christ, and we can look at them, and hold them up for public scrutiny. How does their "Christ" line up with the vision that I see in the biblical text? Not everyone looks like me. I'm okay with that. But it is also okay to ask, in what manner do we differ? How do we align? These are important questions. This forum is a venue for such discussions.

Originally Posted by aron

Part II

Tullian Tchividjian, Mark Driscoll, Todd Bentley, Jim Bakker, Watchman Nee, Jerry Falwell Jr., Ted Haggard.

Men who got too much, too soon, and when they got exposed as frauds they refused to let go, cuz you see, it was all about them.

The reason I mention Tchividjian and Bentley along with Nee and Lee is that by looking at multiple cases in Christianity, a theme emerges: that of one- and two-talented believers thinking that they're five-talented, and what happens to the flock when they convince people of this. We should be cautious, not only with who we are, but where we are, and who we're with. Receive others but don't always receive their ideas. Test all things. Prove what is good.

To reiterate, these cases are not of flawed 5-talented members, but of one- and two- talented ones, presuming a place not theirs. The fruit makes it clear.

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by aron

Now, how does this relate to Christ building his church? Christianity has many variants. Some are loud and boisterous, some quiet, and still, and restrained. The variety of interpretations and expressions is impressively (or uncomfortably) vast. Reading the posters on this forum, I notice a disparity of views and experiences. And specifically, to my original comment on this thread, with Billy Graham's grandson - clearly there were behavioural instabilities beforehand, yet the star-struck Presbyterians at Coral Ridge ignored them, and paid dearly for it. The senior pastor began to repeatedly prey on the congregation, and lie about it, and cover up, and manipulate the board. Yet they are a Christian flock - God wants to use them, and wants me to receive them. Whatever their representation of Chist Jesus is, that is what it is.

For Witness Lee, uniformity was the way to Christ. Ohio's post showed this, and many of us had similar observations. WL's representation included conformity and control. God's spirit would then sweep across the face of the earth, and the "ministry" vindicated, and Christ would reign. He probably genuinely believed this. Although I reject this representation today, having seen the damage, confusion, rancor and discouragement it produced, I still get it - these are still human beings seeking God. It's okay. No, really.

That's right! People get all kinds of ideas they think will help Christ build His church, and WL's was around some sort of cookie-cutter idea of uniformity that central command-and-control needed to impose. (And ironically, all the while, preaching about the autonomy of the local church body!)

"Thinking the same thing" is a matter of the one Spirit and can't be reproduced effectively (understatement) by a human source. I had a conversation just yesterday with one of our sharing bros about this. Here we have six brothers who rotate sharing a message on Sundays. We were talking about how one sharing bro didn't agree with another sharing bro on a particular point of scripture. But I really appreciate that this difference was okay, and didn't hinder fellowship one iota. In fact, to me it's a testimony of the oneness of the Spirit and how Christ is building His church (see Ohio, I do use that word!).