Quote:
Originally Posted by TLFisher
I felt in Spokane there was more autonomy than other Washington state localities. There were several brothers from the brothers house in Spokane that came to the wedding reception of my wife and I back in September 1997. I appreciated their thoughtfulness of coming. It was at the Bellevue meeting hall.
I was surprised or not so surprised when one of them became an elder in Spokane.
In regards to Moses Lake, that locality as well as ones in the Great Lakes area make my argument why local churches are ministry churches. The denominating factor is affiliation with Living Stream Ministry.
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Yeah I can't really argue that because 1. I don't see what goes on behind closed doors and why and how they make their decisions, and 2. I would have to agree that I sense that kind of hierarchy amongst the churches on the west side of the mountains in Washington state. I sense that they are answering up to someone in Anaheim that is higher ranking than them. I just sense that fear about these brothers who call themselves elders, leaders, administration, and responsible ones. There's just this latent fear in their eyes and behavior like they're answering up to someone higher than them in position that I never felt or saw in Spokane
I would also agree that the church in Spokane felt a lot more autonomous than the churches on the West coast. Actually I've even seen something that looked like subterfuge while preaching the gospel over here. When I was preaching with the local brothers from Renton they made it a really big point to say "Bibles for America is not associated with the church in Renton." I just felt them being so adamant about that point was so odd. Like maybe that is true on paper, but the way they kept repeating it was like a guilty person keeps repeating "I am not guilty." Just kind of an odd thing that stood out strangely to me. They were saying it to just regular civilian people who would come up to the booth to get a Bible. Looking back it was just weird. I don't even really see the necessity to say that, actually despite BFA being a separate entity from LSM......we all know it's still of the LSM goal and business plan. And we all know that LSM has everything to do with the local churches. So clearly so does BFA. Which if it's to gospelize and "churchize" the entire earth then why not just say that it's all the same goal and source? But to make it an adamant point to separate those LLC's really comes across like you've got something to hide. Possibly they've been accused of building up their own ministry or authoritarian control over the gospel and the local churches. But it just seems unnecessary to me. Because they ARE affiliated with the local churches and BFA IS definitely out of the local churches. So to say they're not affiliated is just really duplicitous and pretty much lying. Sure TECHNICALLY they are not the same company, but we all know they're affiliated. That's just obvious. I just don't really get it and it always sat weird how the leading preachers kept repeating that to people
And for the record I am behind and in support of BFA, BFE, etc. I want the Bible to go out and I love my Bible with footnotes and use it just about every day. And I think it's the best tool to fulfill 1 Timothy 2:3-4