Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
I have been in the Church life for 15 years. My spouse and I were looking for a group of believers who were spiritual and unreligious. We were looking for the true believers; People who really loved the Lord. We had enough of religion and doctrine. We had seen fakeness in denominations. We wanted the real place, the place where God wanted us to be. We found it in the LC but as time went on it lost its reality. We realized that we were not growing and we missed the instant speaking of God. We realized that we really couldn't keep up with all of the expectations of the elders. I experienced issues with my conscience. It seemed mixed up somehow. We were afraid that we might love our family too much so we distanced ourselves from one another. We could not communicate with each other because we were supposed to just take the cross. We could not communicate with anyone except members because we felt we knew all of the high truths and what did anyone else know? No one outside of our LC could fellowship with us because, to us they had nothing to add. We could not experience anything new of the Lord because the only thing we could look to was of Witness Lee. Now I am so joyful to see the Lord in the Bible and to hear the Lord speak to me! I do treasure the works of all past lovers of the Lord, but I need to continue and not stop there in my experience. I do love the saints, but I am enjoying so much the portions of all Christians. I feel enlightened to know that the body of Christ is so so much bigger than I had thought for so many years. I feel freedom in Jesus outside of the LC. My marriage is stronger and my family is healthy despite the superstitions that were impressed on me. I am still a Christian and meet with other believers. I have seen other's testimonies on this blog and can see their experiences in mine. It is nice to not feel alone here.
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Dear Guest,
You are definitely not alone. Many of us can understand exactly how you feel, because we too were there. I left the LC about 5 years ago, and since then, except for this forum of former members, I have never met another Christian who could remotely understand anything I had been through. I was like an alien from another planet, when it came to past church experiences.
Your comment, "
We realized that we really couldn't keep up with all of the expectations of the elders," caught my attention. This was a very real frustration for my wife and I. It was almost like the elders lacked all appreciation for all my service, and were disgusted with my inability to produce more under their leadership. This is because they had basically received the same treatment from TC, during their numerous trips to Cleveland. I often was amazed at how little the elders appreciated the numerous talents we had locally, all the while extolling the "great men of God" in Cleveland. Of course, in the early days, the same comments were made about the leadership in Anaheim. Even though we had a name that we were "local," the fact is that we were anything but local.
That said, some of the most precious brothers I have ever met were or are in the LC's. So many devoted and self-sacrificing brothers and sisters were a part of our lives. In the early days, we would say that we had no use for "systematized theology" only to realize later that we were inundated with that very thing we rejected.
Welcome to the forum. Your input is very valuable to the rest of us.