Quote:
Originally Posted by Nell
I don’t think I’ve ever heard an acknowledgment that the rest of the world existed in any other context but “poor, degraded, Christianity.” I would be curious to know if they will open their coffers to help, even their own, financially as surely there is unemployment among those in the churches. In fact, this could be a litmus test to see if they truly have compassion on others.
Nell
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I have two stories about this topic. Regarding two different brothers in one particular locality. The first brother came in from the world and was more or less very much seeking God. His name is Eric. He got baptized with us, he would stand up and prophecy, and he came to home meetings from time to time. We all knew him, knew his name, and he was a pretty nice guy who was fairly social and easy to get along with. Well he ran into some trouble with his roommate who ended up kicking him out and he was living in his work van. It was really rough on him. In his past he made some large mistakes and he did a little bit of jail time. He told me in great detail what those mistakes were, and how they happened. He was a foster child and he had been abused in the foster care system. His mistakes were not in cold blood but he paid his debt to society for them. I knew this guy personally, he rode in my car several times, I was with him in prayer meetings, and he was just always around the church for that year or so he met with us
Well his roommate was abusing his son, not Eric's son, but the rommate's son. And Eric basically beat him up for it. And the roommate kicked him out. That's how Eric became homeless. Anyway, Eric's fault was that he was too open about his past and it scared some people in this locality. I have been through a lot in my life, like a LOT, so for me to hear his stories was not incredbly shocking. And I believed him. I can usually tell when someone's lying. Eric has a good heart, but he has been thrown into a lot of messed up scenarios in his life. Anyway, Eric's mistake was that he was reaching out and yearning for shepherding and he needed a counselor to talk to and dump his problems onto. All he knew to do was to give it all up to the church. But it backfired because when he went homeless the church just turned their back on him
At one point I was in a prayer meeting with some elder brothers, right before a gospel preaching with Bibles for America. Well Eric called one of the brothers on the phone during this meeting and asked for help so he wouldn't be homeless anymore. The brother essentially just passed the buck onto someone else and recommended Eric to call a brother from a close by locality who may have had a room open for him. This seemed ok, but when this older brother got off the phone he goes "we are not a salvation Army" and laughed it off. I was really upset about that and it still sticks with me to this day
Eric was calling around to all the saints and asking for help and everyone just ignored him and let him continue to be homeless. And they went on with the church meetings and praising God and calling on the Lord joyfully like nothing at all had happened. They didn't seem to care at all about Eric's problems. They only liked him when he was sitting at their table and when he would come to meetings. But when he needed real help they just ignored him and acted like he never existed. When Eric was fresh and new and getting baptized everyone was shouting and praising God, and everyone said "AMEN" with extra emphasis when Eric would stand up to prophesy. But the moment he ran into trouble and had a need everyone turned their back on him. As far as I know no one helped him financially at all. It's possible someone helped him behind the scenes, but as far as I know nobody did anything for him
The second story is in the same locality. A brother who is disabled but couldn't get help from the state went to the elders and leading brothers to ask for financial help. They basically just deflected him back to the world and told him to keep trying to get help in the world. He had been applying for disability for over a decade and kept getting rejected. He had been trying to work several jobs and go to school and he kept having mental breakdowns until he just totally stopped trying because he didn't want to have anymore breakdowns. The brothers essentially just told him to keep trying and said they wouldn't help him. And yet LSM has millions of dollars to buy land for their full timers, trainees, and to purchase million dollar plots of land to bury their elite members