Quote:
Originally Posted by Zezima
What was it like for the first round of believers?
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I got saved in the Jesus Movement, then came into the LC after the first round, so you'll get my perspective from both experiences. In the Jesus Movement, the saying was that "Jesus is the Way". Everything was very simple, and open. No rules, no restrictions. Jesus is the Way. See Acts 24:14 for a reference.
Then, in the Local Church, there was a line from a song, "It may be with us you find a Better Way." Somehow the LC members had discovered a Better Way than Jesus: it was called "Christ and the Church".
Eating drinking breathing Jesus, this was the Better Way. (see the song, "We love the Church Life", esp stanza 3). We found a new door - our human spirit: "Ayyye can exerciiiize myyyy huuuman
Spirit!!!" Now, along with this New and Better Way, came constant put-downs of others. "Not many Christians know this" and "not many Christians can see that". All the holidays were time for scorn - Stockings! Easter Bunnies! We all would laugh. So there was joy, but superiority soon followed.
Simultaneously, and little by little we were convinced that everything else was just darkened, there was no where else to go. We were "wrecked, ruined." Like an abusive relationship, by the time you figure out it isn't the paradise you'd first imagined, by the time the first idyllic dreams are dried up and withered away, you're also convinced that there's nothing else. Nobody else would 'love' you, only the abuser. So you stay. Or, you leave, and then come back, convinced that this is all there is.