Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
Hello Saints,
I was born and raised in the Local Church, and I am still tied to it today as a young adult. I’ve never had any overtly bad experiences in the church, but their teachings might have subtly affected me as a person. Over the years, messages have become less touching to me, as I practically hear the same thing over and over again. Meetings in general have always been rather boring to me, and I would spend most of my time doodling on the pages of my conference pamphlets. My dad says the reason why I feel this way is because I’m not active or in my spirit because I tend to stay quiet instead of speak about my enjoyment. But I never genuinely enjoyed anything from the readings, they just left me more confused and questioning the idealisms behind them. If I do ask a question, the answers were always rather vague and just reiterating what the footnotes say or what Witness Lee wrote. So how do I tell my dad and the saints who reach out to me about upcoming meetings, conferences, and reading appointments, that I just don’t want to join them anymore? I’m afraid that if I do, I will be a ”prodigal son” case that will be discussed among the leading brothers, and then I will either be isolated, or the saints will try to make even more of an effort to hook me into meetings again. Reading appointments I especially dislike, because although it consists of fewer people, I feel like they’re only spending time with me to read the word, and not because I’m actually enjoyable to hang out with.
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Welcome to the forum! Your story, as well as your predicament, is very understandable. Many people have "been there".
Lots of students and young adults have expressed feeling like they are simply a "project" or an assignment, while acutely feeling like the serving one is missing the actual person behind the "project". My appointments involved reading ministry and then immediately having to explain what I enjoyed from the 4 pages I just read that I was stifling a yawn while reading. I did not feel very seen.
Notice how when you try to identify problems, what happens is that YOU somehow became the problem? The boring meetings, the dry content, the confusing explanations, and the vague answers aren't the problem - somehow YOU are the problem for not speaking about your enjoyment.....even though you were literally trying to explain the very problem that it is NOT an enjoyable place to be stuck in!
I guess I would ask you what it is that you want exactly. You mentioned being afraid that you will be isolated. If you don't want to join the meetings, by default this will mean "isolation" from them since you are not with them anymore. Are you okay with this? Or are you looking to retain ongoing relationships and interactions with them outside of local church related things?
If you know you will be more isolated from them by not wanting to join meetings and are okay with it.....honestly, the more time goes by the more I am all for honesty with less regard for how it affects them. What I mean is this - we all know they won't like hearing that you don't want to join anymore, we all know they will discuss and fellowship and pray behind the scenes for you to be "recovered" or "drawn back", but......those are their issues based on their false beliefs about the superiority of "the ministry" and many other things, rather than real issues to contend seriously with. Their feelings will be genuine, but they are genuine feelings grounded in false information. So you can care for the person without being restricted by the lies.....does that make sense?
If you are miserable, say you are miserable. If you don't want to go to the meetings, say you just cannot go to the meetings anymore. If you have specific problems with things - say it. If you feel like the meetings are just the same old stuff repeated over and over again, say so. If you think Witness Lee's ministry is boring and confusing, say so. Acknowledge that it may be hard for them to hear, but you just can't pretend anymore and you just need a break and to be allowed to be left alone during the break. Believe me, I FULLY understand the feeling like you can't say what you want to say, but it really does no one any favors to pretend. It is a detriment to you to not be able to express how you feel, and it is a disservice to the saints trapped in the local church to not hear the real problems, even if they disregard those problems. They need to hear the problems so they can be accountable for them.
If you are worried about what they will say in response to something you say, bring that worry up here and I or we can help you with how to respond to their response. Just know this - your feelings, your misery, your lack of enjoyment, and your boredom
mean that you are seeing things for what they are in the local church, and you can be confident in your perception. Witness Lee's ministry IS a system of error, and the ministry is so unbelievably wrong in comparison to the Bible a shocking amount of the time. Chances are if you are honest about things, you will be blamed somehow (as you already described). This is a well-worn tactic of unhealthy/aberrant groups, so just see it for what it is. A lie. It's just a lie. It's how the ministry teaches them to respond and it's how the speaking brothers speak about anyone who has problems with the local church. It's how they have been trained to "handle" problems.....by accusing the people who see the problems. A possible response might be something like, "I'm sorry you feel that way, but I have thought about this a lot and I'm confident in what I'm doing," and let their genuine feelings about the false information they believe be their responsibility and not yours.
If you don't want to take the direct route, let us know and we'll see if we can help with something a little less direct.
Trapped