[ACuriousFellow]

I'm not entirely sure what's transpired, but I suppose I can answer my own question.

The churches in Cenchreae and Phoebe's house break the pattern that The Lord's Recovery obsesses over.

Cenchreae (mentioned in Romans 16:1-2) is a district of Corinth. This would be like saying that the church in New York exists at the same time as the churches in Queens and Manhattan. Paul does not care to prescribe such hard limits on the naming of the assemblies.

The church in Phoebe's house (Romans 16:5) takes this one step further. Phoebe was a deacon in the church of Cenchreae (also mentioned in the passage in Romans). So, not only is there a church based on a district rather than a city, there is also a church based on a house/household that further breaks the pattern within the very same city of Corinth!

I must insist once more that if this pattern was so crucial and important, there would be no leeway for such things, yet you insist on taking Lee's way. Further still, I will insist again, as many others have, that patterns do not make rules. Even if it is better to name ourselves so simply, it is not just or scriptural or spiritual to condemn others for not following the same pattern. At best, this is like the concept of marriage: it may be better to abstain and serve the Lord than to be married and have to give much of your time to your family, but in no way should we condemn those who get married or make them out to be lesser Christians. If we were as strict with this clearly superior pattern that was explicitly mentioned by Paul as Lee is with church naming, then we should be condemning all those who get married for not giving more of their time with the Lord.

Well... actually I've seen many young people in TLR be discouraged from getting married because the elders want them to serve full-time... so... TLR already does that to a degree. Anyways... that'll be a whole different conversation.

Anyhow, in the same way, it may be simpler and even beneficial to name ourselves according to our location (cities/districts/households) rather than denominational names, but this is not something to condemn others for so harshly as Lee has. Once more I insist, those who divide themselves because they think they are right in naming themselves after a city boundary are not more righteous than an assembly who call themselves "1st Baptist Church" yet are full of love and spirit and are willing to fellowship and work and pray and worship with other church groups.

Neverminded the fact that Lee created a denomination that divides itself based on a simple name. This group should be called the "Church of Cities" rather than The Lord's Recovery or The Local Churches. If we will say that many Baptist churches are too concerned about baptism and that many Pentecostal churches are too concerned about demonstrations of spiritual power, then we can also say that this "Church of Cities" is obsessed with labels and names based on the cities they are in.