My Experiences of the Local Church - Joy Hillary

[Admin]

04-05-2011, 08:42 PM
countmeworthy
Member

Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: in Spirit & in Truth
Posts: 559
Re: My Experiences of the Local Church - Joy Hillary NZ
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Another question:
Once a person receives a 'free' NT Recovery version, which I'm sure is the very small print version, do they get a call or visit from someone in the LSM?Mormons especially are notorious for this. Get a free 'bible' from them and next thing you know, someone's at your door. But almost every ministry does this even if you don't get a free 'bible'. Sometimes ministries offer free 'CDs' of the teachings of the pastor and of course, they get the name, adddress and phone # of the person. Even if they don't get a call or visit, they will get a list of all that ministries' products.

Carol

[Admin]

04-06-2011, 08:40 AM
Unregistered
Guest.

I beleive if I rembember correctly there is a card given out to get the free Bible which asks for your contact info and if you want to be contacted. One thing that always bothered me was the time that I was in a meeting to discuss BFA. They were giving us directions on how to distribute the Bibles. They very clearly and specifically reiterated that you do not tell the people that you are from a specific church. If the question is asked you are to say that it is a seperate organization called Bibles For America, that it is not a church, that it is not associated with the local church or RC. This bothered me because it was a lie.

[Admin]

04-08-2011, 05:19 PM
aron
Member

Originally Posted by Unregistered
I was in a meeting to discuss BFA... They very clearly and specifically reiterated that you do not tell the people that you are from a specific church. If the question is asked you are to say that it is a seperate organization called Bibles For America, that it is not a church, that it is not associated with the local church or RC. This bothered me because it was a lie.

Another thing which bothered me about the various moves of the ministry of Lee, is this: when I came into the "local church" of Lee I was clearly told "no names except Jesus Christ".... "Only the name of Jesus" was a kind of mantra. Any other name was a distraction and a falling away. So of course every kind of christian organization or association you could imagine was open to our reproof, because every organization "had a name".

I've been gone some years now, and they seem to have sprouted names, and subsidiary organizations, like wildfire in my absence. "The Lord's Move to Europe"; "Bibles for America"; "Defense and Confirmation Project"; "Contending for The Faith"; plus all the various "publishing arms" and media centers supporting the Living Stream Ministry. Each one has a name, a separate organizational structure, with a bank account and hierarchy and 403(c) non-profit number that you can write checks to for your tax-deductable donation.

All these names and organizations, and this was one of the shibboleths back in the day... it's like Animal Farm, where the sheep used to bleat "Four legs good, two legs bad!!"; and now bleat "Four legs good, two legs better!!"

[Admin]

04-08-2011, 05:28 PM
aron
Member

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim

We were encouraged to give out BfA New Testaments and discussing scriptures in them but never pushing local church membership in Birmingham AL.

"We were encouraged..." that's a loaded term. How about just saying "we were pressured", or "we were brow-beaten" instead?

It's like the word "fellowship". When is fellowship ever a two-way street with Rome (sorry, I mean Anaheim)? You get your "fellowship" from them, which is really a directive. In my local church we wanted to give a conference on a topic, and a brother came from Anaheim, and had "fellowship" with our elder, and instead we ended up re-hashing the latest training in Anaheim.

[Admin]

Yesterday, 09:01 PM
Unregistered
Guest

Re: My Experiences of the Local Church - Joy Hillary NZ
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I am a Sister who is just leaving the Church in Wellington after being there for eight months. I find some of the things that Joy Hillary has been experiencing to be very strange, even for the Local Church. For example, her being pressured to leave her studies - we did a unit studying marriage at the Wellington Sisters' House, and Witness Lee wrote that nobody should even think about getting married until they had at least a masters' degree. While I think this is a bit extreme, I certainly think he makes some very good points. When talking about this with a Sister from Hamilton, she agreed, saying she thought a bachelor's degree was enough, but that if you are ignorant and uneducated, who are you to go out and preach the gospel? So I find that point to be very strange.

As for her being pressured to save up and attend conferences in Anaheim - it has never happened to me on that scale, nor has it ever happened to anyone else at the Church in Wellington that I know of. However, I've only been there for eight months. However, what did happen was that when I said I didn't think I would go to the Waikanae Camp due to financial reasons, my mentor said that if money was a problem, she would pay for me to go, so I found the money for that. But when she asked if I would be going up to the Hamilton meeting later that month, I refused, saying I had to focus on my studies and couldn't afford it on top of the Waikanae Camp.

I also found it strange that she was made to burn her 21st presents - we did talk about doing things like that once or twice, but it was all objects that are actually evil and cause harm to the world - for example, poker tables in communities where gambling is a problem and has destroyed many lives. The Sisters' House also has a television and many Sisters have their own laptops. I have also never heard of communion being desecrated and I think that is very bizarre that any Christian would ever consider doing that.

However, some things do sound all too familiar. Pray-reading - this is something that's bothered me as I don't feel comfortable doing it but it's incorporated into most study sessions. I had a boyfriend outside the Local Church and the Sisters didn't approve although all they said was, "Do not be unequally yoked with non-believers." I also went to a Baptist Church on Sundays, as I had been going there since 2007. Everytime the subject was raised of me going to Local Church Sunday meetings instead of Baptist ones, I just said, "I have friends at the Baptist Church that have done a lot for me and I'm not about to sever my ties with them."

The way Joy Hillary got married also sounds familiar - one of the brothers I know well got married eighteen months ago to a sister he had known for about a year. He asked the elders' permission to court the woman he was interested in, they agreed, and they went out on a few dates before he asked permission to marry her. Six weeks after asking the elders' permission, they were married.

At the Local Church Camp, which lasted for three days, there were two brothers in charge of delivering the Sermons - one from Houston, TX and one from New Zealand. The New Zealand brother, I thought, was very good, and really friendly. However, I didn't like the brother from Houston much, as although some of what he said was good, he repeated certain things over and over again, as if he wanted to hammer them into us. At which we would shout, "Amen!" - always. One other thing that I hadn't heard before that stuck out for me, but made so much sense at the time, was that "We are his masterpiece!" - they repeated that one a few times too. However, I didn't realise they were only referring to the Local Church.

Last week, a Sister left the Church in Wellington. She was thrown out, along with two brothers. Their misdeed was speaking against the teachings of the Church - among their complaints - that the only literature available was that written by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, that the Local Church says that other churches are not doing God's work and that God's presence isn't felt in those other churches, and that Witness Lee is thought of Minister of the Age, who God speaks through, similar to the Apostle Paul. The elders asked them to take back their complaints or to leave. They refused, and have now lost their Church accomodation (although one of the brothers is staying until his course finishes in November - he is not to attend any meetings though), the others are leaving this week, along with the wives of one of them.

I am very sorry I have to leave, as I have made some wonderful friends in the Local Church and there are some very lovely people there. There are also some teachings in the Local Church that are not traditional, but correct nonetheless (e.g. not celebrating Easter or Christmas). However, I will not be staying in a Church that throws out members just because they disagree with the way some of the things are done.

[Admin]

Yesterday, 09:06 PM
Unregistered
Guest

Re: My Experiences of the Local Church - Joy Hillary NZ
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Suannehill

I don't know about anybody else but I had to PAY for those free Bible cards!

That's not the way it's supposed to be. The free bible cards should explicitly say, "Free distribution only" on them.

The way they pay for these bibles? They give out new testaments free, if you want a whole bible, you have to pay for that.

Originally Posted by Admin

Yesterday, 09:01 PM
Unregistered
Guest

Last week, a Sister left the Church in Wellington. She was thrown out, along with two brothers. Their misdeed was speaking against the teachings of the Church - among their complaints - that the only literature available was that written by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, that the Local Church says that other churches are not doing God's work and that God's presence isn't felt in those other churches, and that Witness Lee is thought of Minister of the Age, who God speaks through, similar to the Apostle Paul. The elders asked them to take back their complaints or to leave. They refused, and have now lost their Church accomodation (although one of the brothers is staying until his course finishes in November - he is not to attend any meetings though), the others are leaving this week, along with the wives of one of them.

That pretty much sums it up doesn't it? You will not refute the ridiculous nonsense of the LC leadership esp as it pertains to Lee and if you do you will be tossed out.