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Originally Posted by Ohio
This point also had a huge bearing on me personally, and also the ones I was with. We just "knew that we knew" that we were in something "very special" to God, and that the Recovery would soon make a huge impact upon the greater body of Christ. I distinctly remember as a young man praying and waiting for the books Mindbenders and God-men to get exposed and then open the way for the Recovery to explode onto the scene. The longer I waited the more this gnawing feeling grew in my heart -- "what happened?" The hype surrounding the "new way" revived that hope, but the quarantines of the late 80's distinguished it for good.
Much of the corruption in the Recovery resulted from holding onto this kind of vain hope. If we were "that special," then any business venture (ie Daystar) would be blessed. If we were "that special," then any naysayer was opposing God himself. If we were "that special," then all our teachings would revitalize and revolutionize the entire body of Christ. If we were "that special," we would soon bring the Lord back. I really believed that.
This is why I often say that our exclusive claims and our elitist pride are the root of the problems in the Recovery. These allowed certain men to elevate WL to acting god status. In conclusion, much of our hope and faith in the Recovery was simply based on WL and LSM hype.
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mmm ok but this is kind of shortsighted. I'm sure many held this viewpoint. Even today when I go to preach the gospel with the LC brothers they have a sort of "we're doing a big work for God" kind of attitude. But actually throughout history the pure church has been hidden, attacked, damaged, marginalized, lied about, confused, etc. That is a marked distinction of satan being active against it. I would also say that Lee has correctly likened the pure church to a small vine tree, not a big tree like we see in Matthew 13, which is undoubtedly Christendom and modern Christianity which is just Babylon. Any preacher who sets out to do a big great work is probably not really in line with God. God works in hidden and small ways. The enemy likes to make things grandiose
With that said though it lends to probably some errant behavior throughout the decades in the LSM American churches. I know Lee had a very very successful run in the Philippines with churchizing and setting up local churches there, I think it was before he came to the states or the early years of his stay in the US. At certainly at times Lee was trying to mimic the success of say like Mormons and LDS who would go door to door and had a great deal of success that way. Lee wanted to copy them in the 80's with his new way blueprint. And then at some point they changed that up and adopted an even more relaxed way. I know that probably the door to door thing brought in a lot of damage for maybe indirect things, such as being exposed to damaged families. I myself was exposed to damaged people when my mother and father took me door to door preaching in Moses Lake. I'm sure I wasn't the only one
So the problem with the "big movement" type mentality is that I don't believe it's biblical for one. Every instance we see of Jesus preaching he was also avoiding the crowds and he was avoiding fame at every turn. He wasn't doing a big movement in the worldly numbers sense, but he was helping the lowly and imparting life everywhere he went
So a catch-22 and maybe just another failure of the LC and Lee to be that kind of ambitious. I remember reading Lee say that he was concerned at how small the increase numbers were, I think in his book 'The New Way' or some title like that. But anyway, it's a funny thing that happens when men get caught up in a movement type mentality. The flesh easily tends to come out and then things happen like "this is MY ministry" type of behavior because they want credit for their work. Just kind of a can of worms all around
But I don't believe the LC was ever meant to overshadow or overtake the denominations etc. Even if Lee at one point had thought that or said that. As far as God is concerned, I don't think that was ever his plan because he just never moved like that. He was always working behind the scenes in small hidden ways. Even now in the LC there's a prevailing maxim that goes something like "even in the recovery there's only a small number of overcomers." So that concept of smallness is real