[SpeakersCorner]

Sunshine, I understand the point you’re making and I was aware that Nell placed the word “church” in quotes. My reaction comes from the fact that, whether or not you agree with Lee’s teaching on the church, you cannot run from the fact that the church is the final revelation in the Bible, the bride coming down from heaven.

I came to this thread because someone alerted me that it was here discussing Titus Chu. I have a personal story about Titus Chu. He came to my home in 1982 when I was living a “back to the land” existence on 15 acres on a gravel road in a house I cobbled together with duct tape and binder twine (well, in a manner of speaking. I did write some articles for Mother Earth News back then). He stayed overnight with us, held my then five-week-old baby girl in his arms, and walked with me on my country property. He came because he had heard we had a gathering of six people in our home. We invited some likeminded saints from as far as three hours away and had a conference around my dining room table, a table I had built out of salvaged yellow poplar flooring with original nails holes intact. (I mention these boards because they symbolized our little flock in many ways: salvaged, flawed, repurposed as a platform for serving and enjoying food.) And our little gathering became something bigger than a Bible study.

Through the years I’ve paid many a price to uphold whatever testimony we had. Defining “the church” has been an ongoing process in my life. Even today, now at age 70 meeting with 35 saints in a building we did much of the finish work on, I am trying to see what the church really is. It’s very mysterious to me but also very precious.

So I posted here to defend Titus Chu. He has been pilloried, excommunicated, reviled, slandered but that man, now in his upper 80s, continues to labor to “build the church.” In many ways he has been a model to me in trying to do the same.