Originally Posted by Freedom

Why did some cultural things get a free pass, but not others?

Originally Posted by Ohio

I have seen this apply to so many areas of LSM. They frequently violated the principles laid down for others to follow, but it was OK because it was Lee, who alone can "see things we could not."

Originally Posted by Freedom

If members want to take WL's words for things, then it might do them well to ask LC leaders why one of the "Seven Feasts" identifies a certain nationality (International Chinese Speaking Conference), and even corresponds to the Chinese new year. All along, Americans were told that their holidays were so terrible and even some of them are 'pagan'. Why did some cultural things get a free pass, but not others?

Originally Posted by JJ

I always understood WL's exhortation to drop culture as being based on Colosians 3:10-11, where in the new man Christ is all and in all, and there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man. So, in this context Christ is our culture, not WL's culture is our culture.

Originally Posted by Freedom

WL got a free pass, because no one ever questioned his intentions. When WL said that culture needed to be dropped, this is exactly what everyone did. There was probably a basic assumption that he had already do so if he was encouraging others to do it.

Originally Posted by aron

Contrast that to WL, who didn't recognize (his) culture, and thus it became the proverbial elephant in the room. Invisible, unnoticed and unremarked, but crushing everything.

Somehow he thought he'd gotten past culture, and convinced us of that, but it therefore had us in a death-grip. Literally. It killed the church life dead.

The way that you can really see what culture did to the LC was those places where it butted up against the Bible. Culture won, every time, hands down. No contest. Elsewhere, we pretended that we had no culture but 'heavenly culture' and no mandate except scripture. But the tentacles of culture actually permeated everything.

Originally Posted by Freedom

Our culture is central to who we are. We cannot function socially without understanding how to function as part of our culture. The Bible does not tell us that we need to ‘drop’ our culture. It only tells us that in Christ, individual cultures don’t matter and are not recognized.

Originally Posted by NewManLiving

But the real issue here is LSM's emphasis on their definition of oneness. For all their High Truth and inner-life speaking, in practice they are extremely outward-centric people. Very systematic in their philosophy and adherence to LSM formula. Instead of becoming God in life and nature they become more akin to bobble heads; Absorbing vast amounts of knowledge in the hopes that this will "dispense" God into them.

Originally Posted by aron

I think you hit the nail on the head here. It's like someone growing up in a dysfunctional home, and they go out and mirror that dysfunction in the world, always hating what happened and never realizing that they were unconsciously spreading the very thing they run away from. They don't call Satan the subtle one for nothing.

To me, the poison pill of the LC was always this: they believed that everyone else was wrong, and they were right. It was built into all their "truths", that they recovered the light. So they were immune to correction, to reproof, to adjustments, to pointing out their own errors. How can someone in darkness correct someone who is in the light? Impossible.

Once you bite firmly on that hook, it is very hard to wriggle free. Many of us were outside the program physically for years, yet we were still firmly convinced the program was right.

Originally Posted by Freedom

On numerous occasions, WL accused workers of being 'territorial' or 'regional'.

Originally Posted by Freedom

WL's response to western imperialism was that of reacting to a perceived threat, not actually reacting to the fundamental problems of the ideology of imperialism.

Originally Posted by Terry

I will start off by saying of all the brothers Watchman Nee disciple, why is it Witness Lee found himself on his own? I think in part he wasn't willing to have peers.

All the territorial talk was scripted to make himself unrivaled from any brother. In defense of the territorial accusations, what do you expect?

Originally Posted by Freedom

With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that WL set out on a course that he spoke against. It wasn't long before he had followers and churches in multiple countries and the territorial mentality set in. Is it not true that the LC has been plagued by this mentality? On numerous occasions, WL accused workers of being 'territorial' or 'regional'. In some cases it was probably true, in other cases it wasn't. Probably many of LC leaders are guilty as charged, but who was the real instigator of all of this? Who was it that headed this campaign?

Originally Posted by aron

This comment is very much in line with my recent points, that just as 19th century Western imperialism brought both gunboats and soldiers to China, as well as the gospel of Jesus Christ, so Witness Lee returned the favor in the 20th: this is Eastern imperialism that we're seeing here.

Yes they do own men. The Church owns the people, and the ministry owns the church. Period. Point-blank. They can pussy-foot around it, but in cases like what Ohio outlined above, the issue raises itself in all its blatant ugliness. Who owns the saints? Titus and the GLA, or the Blendeds and Anaheim? Elsewhere in Africa the Brasilian Dong Yu Lan is prying ownership of the territory and its Christian flock. Eventually these competing imperialist strains explode in a colonial war, with unwitting locals being sucked in just as they were 150 years ago when European powers divided the continent.

Originally Posted by aron

Yes they do own men. The Church owns the people, and the ministry owns the church. Period. Point-blank. They can pussy-foot around it, but in cases like what Ohio outlined above, the issue raises itself in all its blatant ugliness. Who owns the saints? Titus and the GLA, or the Blendeds and Anaheim?

Originally Posted by Ohio

What kind of debt do I owe to Anaheim and Cleveland since both were at one time helpful to my faith?

Originally Posted by Ohio

The quarantines in the GLA had as their bottom line the question, "Whose fruit are we? or, Who do we belong to, Cleveland or Anaheim?" That is no joke. I was told repeatedly that TC "raised us up," and thus we must stand with Cleveland because we are TC's fruit. Others made it clear that we all are "WL's fruit," thus we belong to "the" ministry, and we must stand with the Blended brothers.

Some brothers from the GLA had gone to Nigeria to minister. It began as a personal connection with a friend of a family in Cincinnati. One brother, unrelated to the situation but loyal to LSM, asked TC if the Blendeds knew about this new work begun in Africa. Apparently TC said "yes," but there was some confusion surrounding the details. Within no time we had two colonial powers fighting over the rights to a small handful of believers in Africa, on the other side of the world. How disgusting is that? Not only were we divided in the US, but now that little community in Africa was also divided. The websites concernedbrothers.com and afaithfulword.org soon lit up cyber space with opposing versions of "the truth."

So the question boiled down to this, "who owns those African saints?" But isn't this whole battle pretty pathetic? Have not both sides forgotten that we are the Lord's, and His alone? Can any ministry own another man? What kind of debt do I owe to Anaheim and Cleveland since both were at one time helpful to my faith? Does their ministry really come with such an unwritten price tag? If not, then why do both sides attempt to fill their people with such guilt about owing them?

Originally Posted by Freedom

The view is that the more 'territory' they gain, the better. This was seen when there was the Titus quarantine. I remember hearing some fuss from the blendeds about who some of the churches in Africa 'belonged' to. The same thing was true with South America and DYL, again the concern was territory or what churches belonged to whom.

Originally Posted by Terry

Localities I have met with in California and in Washington state, just to set a goal to increase by 5, though conservative is ambitious.
The nature of the recovery is in contrast to the western mind. Say a new brother has a burden to serve his community, that would be labeled as being "individualistic", "ambitious", etc. Though not bad words, but in the LC culture it's considered bad character traits to have.
Another may have questions about the logic surrounding their core doctrines of the ground and of deputy authority. May even point out how scripture contradicts it. The LC culture has a reaction to questions. Maybe for a new one, the first or second time there's patience. Eventually any form of questions will be discouraged.

Originally Posted by micah6v8

The LSM church that I am at recently announced a goal to increase the number of saints to [X] by Year [Y]. The goal was ambitious.

Originally Posted by micah6v8

The LSM church that I am at recently announced a goal to increase the number of saints to [X] by Year [Y]. The goal was ambitious.

Originally Posted by NewManLiving

Of course they would need some type of vetting process to weed out anything but good material. But cynicism aside, this does not fit their recruitment paradigm, at least not from a USA perspective. They do not waste their time on the needy, they prefer those with big brains leading to above average financial success. This type of person is very useful and can keep the cash flow coming into the business without bringing along any baggage. How I hope they can prove me wrong! But I would have to see it to believe it. So far their "gospel" has nothing to do with God's desire that all men be saved. How unlike our Savior who loves unconditionally, especially those that are not "good material"

Originally Posted by micah6v8

The LSM church that I am at recently announced a goal to increase the number of saints to [X] by Year [Y]. The goal was ambitious.

Originally Posted by Freedom

Recently, I have been seeing Facebook posts about LSM sending FTTA trainees to Germany to contact Syrian refugees. LCers are told that this is the Lord's latest 'move' (and they also claim that the Lord is ready to 'recover' Stuttgart from what happened 30 years ago). I laugh when I read this kind of stuff because it is clear how ridiculous it all is. If the Lord were really doing something through their work, they would be able to tell of more than these detailed LC-style stories involving how they met a person or two who is 'open' to the ministry. People are not flocking to the LC in the masses like they expect.

Originally Posted by JJ

1) a strange and overblown focus on recruiting young people in and getting them to go to conferences and training in Anaheim versus preaching the gospel to all, feeding, shepherding, and discipling the saved with the Word and Spirit of God in love.

2) An overly large, high, and unstable institutional structure housing struggling people on a high place that is shaking and collapsing.

Originally Posted by HERn

What did you see in the recovery? It's ok if you can't answer, I won't ask again.

Originally Posted by JJ

A dream. Yes, I know that sounds strange. But the rest of the dream correlated with my Christian life experience plus what I was seeing in the recovery at the time, and also helped me take the step in faith to leave. I'm glad I did.

Originally Posted by HERn

Hi JJ, just wondering what caused you to realize the recovery was collapsing?

Originally Posted by JJ

When the "trashing" of fellow Christians comes again and again, week after week from "the Ministry" (there's some in every HWFMR) and LC leaders (there's some in spoken messages every week at the FTTA and at conferences). And leaders at all levels won't consistently refute it, the saints don't stand a chance. I tried for ten years in my local church to get this addressed, and never got very far, other than an admission that it was happening and it shouldn't.

Originally Posted by JJ

When the "trashing" of fellow Christians comes again and again, week after week from "the Ministry" (there's some in every HWFMR) and LC leaders (there's some in spoken messages every week at the FTTA and at conferences). And leaders at all levels won't consistently refute it, the saints don't stand a chance. I tried for ten years in my local church to get this addressed, and never got very far, other than an admission that it was happening and it shouldn't. At some point my wife and I realized we were being Don Quixotes in a losing battle. But, the Lord showed me that the recovery was collapsing, and I needed to get out to work in the ambulance station that serves the injured people, with myself as the first patient.

Originally Posted by Terry

From the localities I have met with, I see shared responsibility. Those that speak it, those than remain silent, and the elders for sanctioning such speaking. The last locality I met with I brought it to the elder's attention. he didn't have any problem with "criticism of fallen Christianity".

Originally Posted by HERn

I remember participating in the criticism of fallen Christianity.

Originally Posted by Terry

That's normal. It's not uncommon in a LC prophesying meeting to put down others (generally or specifically) in order to present the illusion the LC is so much better with more to offer than any other church or ministry.

Originally Posted by Freedom

I once heard an elder sharing and he proceeded to attack Greg Laurie, Rick Warren and Billy Graham all at once, saying how they preach the "low gospel".

Originally Posted by Intothewind

I never saw Chinese new year celebrated...but the locality I grew up in had 1.5 Chinese families. It was predominantly white in my youth with a rising Latino percentage over time.

Originally Posted by Ohio

I like the lighted displays, especially those neighbors who take it seriously, and add new stuff every year. I wish the displays would stay on until the end of winter cause here in the gloomy midwest "dark ages" we need all the cheer we can get.

Titus Chu used to schedule the GLA elders and deacons service conference every year on Super Bowl weekend.

Originally Posted by Terry

On the matter of celebrating or not celebrating Christmas or other matters, those that do the criticizing are speaking ONLY for themselves. Raised in the local churches and meeting as an adult I know those criticisms are only for the minority. I had been in many lc homes where there may not be a Christmas lights or a Christmas tree, the children did receive gifts.

On the subject of other matters, a certain elder may condemn other churches that acknowledge Super Bowl Sunday. All the while come the Super Bowl game households within the same locality host a Super Bowl party.

Originally Posted by Freedom

I once heard an elder sharing and he proceeded to attack Greg Laurie, Rick Warren and Billy Graham all at once, saying how they preach the "low gospel".

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi guys. I just suddenly want to rant a little here.

I have been involved with LC for a few years - I have a love-hate relationship with them. I love many of the brothers and sisters there, however their spiritual pride totally puts me off. Like many have said - while they mock others for them being "too busy serving the Lord" without knowing what He wants, they themselves actually place their own service/ministry higher than Christ Himself. They put their so-called vision higher than God Himself. They mock at other believers and it hurts me - because when they hurts other members who don't meet with them, they are also hurting Christ Himself(take the example of "Saul Saul why do you persecute me"). I actually broke down many times of this.

What have led me to rant here is again at this time of Christmas, I see many of them attacking people who celebrate this holiday. Too many times. It annoys me. I know many who do and not do out of sincere hearts. But they do it out of love and respect for one another. However some words and attitudes used by the LC-ers are full of pride and ego which I cannot stand anymore. If I could I would love to scream out loud. For me they have left their first love- they had good intentions. They did help many to revive their love for the Lord. But eventually they are drifted away by placing their ministry and view higher than Christ and the universal Body of His.

Originally Posted by Ohio

I bought into this hypocrisy for decades until the day I finally realized that the only holidays we in the LC could safely celebrate were Thanksgiving and Chinese New Year.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi guys. I just suddenly want to rant a little here.

What have led me to rant here is again at this time of Christmas, I see many of them attacking people who celebrate this holiday. Too many times. It annoys me.