Ministry Churches

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Freedom

Based on what happened in 2005 with the “One Publication”, I realized that the blendeds just put into writing an unspoken policy that most everyone followed with the exception of the GL area.

I believe what the blendeds resurrected with "One Publication", Witness Lee initially spoke in the mid-1980's as a subtle shot directed at Bill Freeman. Much like the former Soviet republic's "Pravda", Witness Lee wanted there to be only one source of ministry publication received by the Local Churches. As Witness often said of himself, he's done the research, he has all the facts. No one needs to read writings of other ministers because he (Witness Lee) has gleaned all there is to glean from their writings.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Terry

I believe what the blendeds resurrected with "One Publication", Witness Lee initially spoke in the mid-1980's as a subtle shot directed at Bill Freeman. Much like the former Soviet republic's "Pravda", Witness Lee wanted there to be only one source of ministry publication received by the Local Churches. As Witness often said of himself, he's done the research, he has all the facts. No one needs to read writings of other ministers because he (Witness Lee) has gleaned all there is to glean from their writings.

Since I spent my whole life in the LCM, the use of a single ministry never struck me as odd. I firmly believed that Lee had “gleaned” all there is from other ministries. The fact that I was involved in a group of “ministry churches” was of little concern to me. In fact, I think I kind of liked it in a way, because I felt I could go to any LC and know what to expect. It’s the same thing with going to any restaurant franchise, you know exactly what to expect, you know what will be on the menu.

What eventually became the biggest point of concern to me, was not the general use of Lee’s ministry, but the fact that Lee was a “paper pope”. LC leaders have gone far beyond just using Lee’s ministry as the singular ministry that everyone appreciates. They now actually consult his ministry for direction and to make and justify decisions. One example that comes to mind is the FTT extension center in Boston. The justification the brothers gave for starting it is because it was Brother Lee’s “burden” to have something like that in Boston. Well, the problem is that saints have to donate and support such an endeavor and the only justification for it is “brother Lee wanted…” In my mind, it’s just completely absurd. If Lee was still alive, I could maybe understand it. Given the fact that he’s dead, why are they still trying to do what he wanted?!?!?!?? You would think they would at least have the common sense to make reasonable decisions without saying “Brother Lee wanted…” or “if Brother Lee were here he would….”

I noticed this same phenomenon at a local level, and that’s where it really affected me the most. It got to the point where most everything being done activity-wise (gospel preaching, campus work, etc.) became a matter of consulting Lee’s ministry for direction and to determine what to do. For example if we were going to do something related to the gospel, we would read Lee’s ministry on how to preach the gospel the “correct” way. Same thing with the campus work or anything else. When saints were apathetic towards the “church life”, the brothers would try to get them in vital groups. Every action that was taken was rationalized according to something Lee said. That is what really got to me after a while. Like I said, I could understand everyone having a deep, common appreciation for Lee’s ministry. My problem was that it was used as the basis to address any situation or activity in the present, it became really weird. Lee was neither alive, nor was there any reason to completely ignore the actual situation by reading some ministry excerpt.

Another issue that arose out of all of this was that most of Lee’s ministry that currently serves as the LCM “paper pope” is straight out of the “New Way” portion of his ministry. LC leadership is constantly busy implementing and re-implementing things like shepherding, door-knocking, vital groups, home meetings, PSRP, etc. It’s a never ending process. History shows exactly how much of an enormous failure the New Way actually was. In spite of this, when something fails, leadership will attempt to implement it with a different spin. The truth of the matter is, LC leadership cannot drop their obsession with Lee, nor can they envision a LC environment that doesn’t involve following his ministry to a ‘T’. The possibility of Lee’s ministry being wrong in any way is altogether out of the question. When it comes to practices, the failures are always blamed on the members. When it comes to Lee’s teachings, they are viewed as something that will meet everyone’s needs at the exact same time. It’s hard to understand what keeps people going so long in that environment.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Freedom

The truth of the matter is, LC leadership cannot drop their obsession with Lee, nor can they envision a LC environment that doesn’t involve following his ministry to a ‘T’. The possibility of Lee’s ministry being wrong in any way is altogether out of the question

In my opinion, the better the ministry the more it tends to produce leaders. By this measure Lee's is near the bottom because all it produces is followers. As a matter of fact, Lee's ministry is geared to not produce leaders, but rather to punish anyone who tries to take things to the next level. This places Lee's ministry as possibly one of the worst of all time. All it can produce in the end is stagnation.

God doesn't need followers, he needs leaders. Rick Warren has a great ministry. I always feel challenged to lead when I hear or read it. I never feel like it's about him.

Lee had some good things. But they were so mixed with garbage that his ministry can't be taken directly without risking being affected by the negative. Add that he insisted that nothing he taught was erroneous and even that it was an error not to embrace everything he taught or to mix in anything else, he should be avoided. Only an expert could safely traverse Lee's ministry without getting infected with the junk.

As I've said, the bits and pieces of Lee's ministry that God wants to become popular will do so. But it will happen indirectly. Lee as a whole is DOA and will remain that way. It's sad, but he did it to himself. I'm not sure what is sadder, the way Lee destroyed his own legacy, or the way his followers sit around wasting their lives waiting for his comeback.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Igzy

In my opinion, the better the ministry the more it tends to produce leaders. By this measure Lee's is near the bottom because all it produces is followers. As a matter of fact, Lee's ministry is geared to not produce leaders, but rather to punish anyone who tries to take things to the next level. This places Lee's ministry as possibly one of the worst of all time. All it can produce in the end is stagnation.

Things were not always this way. In the early days scores of leaders flourished in the LC's. The spread of the LC's was never thru Lee directly, but thru the numerous gifted brothers, most of them now long gone, who were affiliated with the movement.

It was a combination of things, such as the lust for power and the love of the glory of men, which has drug the program into stagnation and obscurity. Who wants to be a "Witness Lee tape recorder?" Lee's heart grew smaller over the years, and in the end was not big enough to allow anything more than teams of cheerleaders. How sad!

I watched Titus Chu follow the same course. He would take full credit for "raising up" numerous gifted brothers like Nigel Tomes, John Myer, Phil Comfort, Chuck Debelek, and even "Toledo" Tom McNaughton, but due to Lee's same love of power and recognition, held these brothers in subjection "under his thumb" until they basically "had enough of it" and left.

These are not true leaders, but insecure men who are threatened by peers. They refused to be "moderated" by others whom God had placed at their side. They talked about there being "no hierarchy" in the body of Christ, but that presupposed that all brothers would submit to them unreservedly.

Today there are NO remaining leaders in the LC's or at LSM. No one knows how to follow the Lord and serve Him. No one has a real ministry. All they can do is read Lee's books, promote another dead teaching and failed practice, demand their loyal adherents to rally around, and then repeat the cycle at the next "feast."

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Igzy

God doesn't need followers, he needs leaders.

You aren't saying that the message of Jesus is intended to turn every follower into one of the 11 are you? Or that everything that about leadership is ultimately for every one of us? This is not what I read in the Bible. There is leadership and there are followers. If there are no followers, there is no need for leaders. So declaring there is no need for followers seems rather empty.

And being a follower rather than a leader should not be a deficient position.

Seems that maybe the errant leadership of Lee with the resulting deficient leadership of the BBs is causing us to either reject all leadership (and not be part of any regular assembly of more than 2 or 3 people) or think that we should all be leaders. The former seems to mostly neglect assembling while the latter either over states the status of each of us, or ignores the variety of gifts in the body.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by OBW

You aren't saying that the message of Jesus is intended to turn every follower into one of the 11 are you? Or that everything that about leadership is ultimately for every one of us? This is not what I read in the Bible. There is leadership and there are followers. If there are no followers, there is no need for leaders. So declaring there is no need for followers seems rather empty.

Leadership is by degree. We obviously won't become apostles like the initial ones, but doesn't every family need a leader? He who leads a Bible study at work may still be a follower of church pastors and elders.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by OBW

You aren't saying that the message of Jesus is intended to turn every follower into one of the 11 are you? Or that everything that about leadership is ultimately for every one of us?

No, and I think that was clear from the context. The LCM is all about following--following Lee from the top down. There are no true leaders. True leaders would have pushed for reform long ago. My comments were in regard to the LCM. We are all to follow sometimes and to lead sometimes (Eph 5:21). In the LCM they only follow, but even then it's the wrong kind of following. This is all the fruit of Lee's ministry.

Note, there were some true leaders who pushed for reform, but they were all kicked out. Now only the blind followers are left. These followers need to become leaders in some sense. That was my point.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

... about 10-12 years ago, "it" all hit the fan. I was badly beaten up by my leader in a fit of rage. LSM was breathing out threatenings toward TC and the GLA. A close friend was brutally shamed by TC, leaving the full-time work completely. Then I read Thread of Gold and Speaking the Truth in Love. My eyes opened to the abuse I'd witnessed for 30 years...

I wanted to bring Ohio's comment over here, and try to re-visit a statement I'd made recently, about how to communicate with people sucked fully into this mind-set. (It may deserve its own thread but I've started enough already).

My question was, How to show love to people in a system that doesn't know love? Love is patient, love is kind, love doesn't boast, doesn't show favoritism, it doesn't seek its own things but seeks the things of others. We were in a system in which you got 'love' according to your place in the program. The leech cried, "give, give", and people themselves were expendable. This is a system that only seeks its own things, and doesn't care about the things of others. So, how to respond in love?

Now, back to this thread: the point was made earlier that in the LC, Jesus Christ really only has utility to draw people to the church, and the church's usefulness is only to get people oriented to the ministry. These are indeed ministry churches. Any doubt about this was resolved with the "One Trumpet" edict. The LC is here for the one ministry, period. It was thereby formalized, what any discerning person would have known for the past 30 years by hard experience.

So, how to respond in love? Ohio had spoken of the prophet sent by God, speaking words of truth to the collective body of faith. I tried to hone in on that by saying we need to speak words of revelation - our God is a God of unfolding revelation. It pleases Him to reveal His Son in us and to us (Gal 1:16), and then through us. And I argue that this revelation occurs within the larger conversation occurring within the universal body of the Christian faith. And this revelation is unfolding.

WN and WL rejected that larger conversation, even though they claimed to "closely follow" it. They merely looked back, took what was useful for own their ministry, and discarded the rest. But they arguably discarded the most crucial thing: openness to God's present speaking in the flock. I was so conditioned reflexively to orient toward the ministry of WL, and so closed to anything else, that for years post-LC I couldn't hear anything in Christian meetings because my "ministry filter" was tuned up so high. All I could hear in my head was, "that's not God's economy, that's not God's economy, that's not God's economy" over and over again. It took a long time to begin to listen for God's speaking, when I was talking to people, or reading, or listening to messages. But eventually I got it and I knew it was God; it was the same Spirit that I confessed the name of Jesus Christ to, all those years ago. The unfolding revelation had returned!

So to conclude, I repeat my earlier comments, that we're not here to slag anyone, but to speak words of life to one another. It's happening in Christianity. Yes there's tons of detritus and junk, but believe it or not, people are being inspired, and they are listening to the ancient guides, and to what God is speaking. To me it might be a word from a psalm, to you it might be a word from an epistle, to another something from a prophet. God is speaking, and His revelation of Jesus Christ now unfolds among us. God's word is entirely dynamic. It's not at all static. It lives and operates, it moves and acts. And I believe that today it can be heard operating within the sound of "many waters" (Rev 14:2, 1:15, cf Ezek 43:2). A nearly countless multitude on earth is hearing and responding to the voice from the throne in heaven. This is truly the sound out of heaven.

The abuse that Ohio received and witnessed, and so many others have testified to, flows from a lack of basic and essential revelation. And by cutting themselves off from the life-flow of fellowship in the Body of Christ, the Lee-ites and LC'ers have resorted to ever-more marginal revelations to feed on.

To hear what God is speaking today, it is not easy to discern, but it's eminently worth pursuing. If we pursue God's revelation within the larger fellowship of which we're a part, we'll have something profitable to speak to the LC, as to all the rest. We'll truly be able to minister in season and out of season. Because God is speaking. The Spirit is indeed speaking to the churches, all of them, and blessed are those who have ears to hear.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

I wanted to bring Ohio's comment over here, and try to re-visit a statement I'd made recently, about how to communicate with people sucked fully into this mind-set. (It may deserve its own thread but I've started enough already).

aron, I will start a new thread a little later regarding communicating with and showing love to those in the LCM, because that is something that I certainly would also like to discuss as well.

Originally Posted by aron

WN and WL rejected that larger conversation, even though they claimed to "closely follow" it. They merely looked back, took what was useful for own their ministry, and discarded the rest. But they arguably discarded the most crucial thing: openness to God's present speaking in the flock. I was so conditioned reflexively to orient toward the ministry of WL, and so closed to anything else, that for years post-LC I couldn't hear anything in Christian meetings because my "ministry filter" was tuned up so high. All I could hear in my head was, "that's not God's economy, that's not God's economy, that's not God's economy" over and over again. It took a long time to begin to listen for God's speaking, when I was talking to people, or reading, or listening to messages. But eventually I got it and I knew it was God; it was the same Spirit that I confessed the name of Jesus Christ to, all those years ago. The unfolding revelation had returned!

So to conclude, I repeat my earlier comments, that we're not here to slag anyone, but to speak words of life to one another. It's happening in Christianity. Yes there's tons of detritus and junk, but believe it or not, people are being inspired, and they are listening to the ancient guides, and to what God is speaking. To me it might be a word from a psalm, to you it might be a word from an epistle, to another something from a prophet. God is speaking, and His revelation of Jesus Christ now unfolds among us. God's word is entirely dynamic. It's not at all static. It lives and operates, it moves and acts. And I believe that today it can be heard operating within the sound of "many waters" (Rev 14:2, 1:15, cf Ezek 43:2). A nearly countless multitude on earth is hearing and responding to the voice from the throne in heaven. This is truly the sound out of heaven.

The abuse that Ohio received and witnessed, and so many others have testified to, flows from a lack of basic and essential revelation. And by cutting themselves off from the life-flow of fellowship in the Body of Christ, the Lee-ites and LC'ers have resorted to ever-more marginal revelations to feed on.

To hear what God is speaking today, it is not easy to discern, but it's eminently worth pursuing. If we pursue God's revelation within the larger fellowship of which we're a part, we'll have something profitable to speak to the LC, as to all the rest. We'll truly be able to minister in season and out of season. Because God is speaking. The Spirit is indeed speaking to the churches, all of them, and blessed are those who have ears to hear.

While Lee was alive, his ministry was dynamic, and it might have been possible for them to be in line with something that God was speaking. After he died, his ministry became static. Obviously, the blendeds completely reject this notion. They have even gone so far as to label their speaking as the “up-to-date” speaking, giving LCers the notion that their regurgitation of Lee’s speaking is something that God is currently speaking. In my mind, this is where the real danger lies in the local churches being “ministry churches”. They believe that they have “seen it all”. Simply put, they believe that Lee’s static ministry encompasses God’s present speaking, and thus they have closed the door to ministries that may really be God’s present speaking.

There are many in the LCM who are hurting. I’ve seen them left and right. I was like that too. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I did everything right according to Lee’s ministry, yet I was left in a state of failure and despair. Lee’s ministry is full of empty promises like: “If you do X, you will experience Y”. Things never seemed to work that way. Moreover, I was around those trying to re-implement practices of the “New Way” which were destined to fail. When I considered that my discouragement was related to this “ministry of the age” which I was so zealous about, I knew something had to be wrong. Had I continued down that path of trying to follow the ministry “absolutely”, who knows what state I would be in. To me, the issue is not just a matter of people using a single ministry. Other churches do that too. The real issue is when a ministry that cannot meet everyone’s needs is labeled as “the ministry of the age”, it can lead to some really tragic situations. Members are destined to become depressed, discouraged, disillusioned, angry, spiteful, etc. LCM history itself attest to that. I have to wonder, what is the real fruit of Lee’s “ministry of the age”?