The Ground Of The Church

[Hope]

Originally Posted by Terry

Don, your words are raising eyebrows. However where are you going with the comment "THE LSM IS NOT ABOUT THE MODEL OF ONE CHURCH ONE CITY"?

Here's my take, a locality can strive to live the model of "One Church One City". If a given locality doesn't recieve LSM publications, there is no desire for LSM to recognize that given locality as a local church. My point is LSM is about LSM. For LSM to function as a business entity, LSM requires the financial support of churches that recieve LSM as their ministry publication.
Local churches can have the Lord's Table and have a Lord's Day service without needing LSM. There is always the Bible.

Terry

Hello Terry,

Some in the LSM were all about the business. Philip Lee was in it for the money and saw it as a business.

Benson Phillips sees the LSM as the move of God on the earth today. And he has been called to head it up. He also likes to build meeting halls and head up projects.

Others see the LSM as their opportunity to be something or be a part of a larger entity.

The leadership has no passion around the practice of the church life, Body Life, assembly life or any of the terms used to describe believers being built up together and Christ being expressed through the many functions of the various members of the one Body of Christ. They stopped speaking of these matters around the time of the move to Anaheim. Of course many of the saints who had been together contnued to have this desire but they were eventually buried or excluded by the LSM cadre and their faithful followers.

It is too true that they are divisive and thus any teaching they embrace will and can be used to divide including the teaching regarding the church in the city.

By the way, what am I saying that is raising eyebrows?

Hope, Don Rutledge

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Hope

By the way, what am I saying that is raising eyebrows?

"Of course I did not go to Cleveland. But I did lose my relationship with most of the brothers in Texas and all the brothers in the Ohio area for nearly 15 years. But all is forgiven. It was forgiven then as well as now. Based on what those brothers held in their conscience they were between a rock and hard place."

Testimonies such as yours is touching and heart warming. It is good to learn reports of relationships forgiven in the past as it is present time. Too often negative reports are given of office improprieties or of "the rebellious ones". Why not more positive reports?

Terry

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Hope

By the way, what am I saying that is raising eyebrows?

Hope, I really, really appreciate your being here. I just wanted to say that.


Let me say that when you say LSM has no interest in the one city one church model I am taken aback because I think that the teaching is still one means they use to control people.

First the claim to be the unique ministry to the local churches, then they claim that believers can only be in the local churches, add to this the implicit claim that they get to decide which local churches are genuine local churches, then they have the means of complete control.

So the one-church-one-city teaching is just another tool in their toolbox to control people. It's not the only one, but it's still an important one. Though it seems their global church ("The Baaady") model is becoming and even more important means of control for them.

What say you?

[Hope]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Hope, I really, really appreciate your being here. I just wanted to say that.


Let me say that when you say LSM has no interest in the one city one church model I am taken aback because I think that the teaching is still one means they use to control people.

First the claim to be the unique ministry to the local churches, then they claim that believers can only be in the local churches, add to this the implicit claim that they get to decide which local churches are genuine local churches, then they have the means of complete control.

So the one-church-one-city teaching is just another tool in their toolbox to control people. It's not the only one, but it's still an important one. Though it seems their global church ("The Baaady") model is becoming and even more important means of control for them.

What say you?

Igzy,

The way you put it makes sense. But the BBs would never think "control." WL could never bring himself to accept the thought that there could be any kind of hierarchy or control over any church or saint. I spoke with him directly a few times about this and it also came up in a few elder-co/worker meetings. He always had a reaction like "how could this ever be." I heard him declare more than once, "We never practice control or hierarchy." I believe he sincerely believed that he never exercised control. From our vantage point on the hillside we can only shake our heads at his delusion. I believe it is the same with the BBs.

Now when you come to the matter of oneness and deputy authority it is another matter. Take your line of reasoning of eldership and one church, one city and you can easily see control.

On the other hand, the concept of one church, one city was a big item before the LSM. After the creation of the LSM and the centralization under Max Rapoport, the talk of the local ground was only selectively used. Mostly it was spoken against when some elders were taking it on the chin for not lining up with the latest flow.

In Raleigh, NC the LSMers left the city for a while because they could not take over the original church in Raleigh. But they came back a few years later and "retook the ground of the church." What a joke!! Since the original church in Raleigh would not submit to the control of Anaheim they lost their franchise. Now we have the real local church in Raleigh. Are you laughing yet? I am not laughing I am crying. What a farce.

I heard a few years back that the BBs have reduced the local churches to a mere procedure.

Thus, I must concede your point. The teaching of one church, one city, one set of elders etc is a tool for control.

Hope, Don Rutledge

PS For a while the LSM believers were the local church in Cary, NC, a suburb of Raleigh. Then one day with LSM sponsorship and a weekend conference for retaking the ground they became the local church in Raleigh. I cannot make this stuff up. Foolish, Foolishness, Ridiculous!!! How could something so stupid take place. It was not children playing in the sandbox. Would that it were.

Take one local man who was obsessed with self importance and ambition, mix in racial loyalty by 10-12 from Taiwan, add in the fleshly desire to be a part of a movement and to feel special about yourself and you get this Frankenstein monster child which brings shame to us all.

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by Hope

WL could never bring himself to accept the thought that there could be any kind of hierarchy or control over any church or saint. I spoke with him directly a few times about this and it also came up in a few elder-co/worker meetings. He always had a reaction like "how could this ever be." I heard him declare more than once, "We never practice control or hierarchy." I believe he sincerely believed that he never exercised control. From our vantage point on the hillside we can only shake our heads at his delusion. I believe it is the same with the BBs.

As I've said before, Lee never understood his role in creating the current Local Church denomination. Every step of its construction was based as surely as he knew how on a verse or an interpretation of a verse. But just because a decree comes from Jerusalem and out of the Bible doesn't mean it's not religion...

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Hope

Igzy,
The way you put it makes sense. But the BBs would never think "control." WL could never bring himself to accept the thought that there could be any kind of hierarchy or control over any church or saint. I spoke with him directly a few times about this and it also came up in a few elder-co/worker meetings. He always had a reaction like "how could this ever be." I heard him declare more than once, "We never practice control or hierarchy." I believe he sincerely believed that he never exercised control. From our vantage point on the hillside we can only shake our heads at his delusion. I believe it is the same with the BBs.

I think it must have occurred to some of them, if not Lee, that they are exercising control. I think what they have is what they would cleverly consider plausible deniability.

There was a poster on the other board, who shall remain unnamed, who continually and with a straight face made the argument that the Blendeds didn't control anyone because, looky, people have left the LC, therefore they were not controlled.

This kind of "thinking" is what you are dealing with with these people.