[awareness]

Originally Posted by OBW

Having open meetings some of the time is all well and good....
....And while just loyalty to Mel is not necessarily a good way to chose your lieutenants, finding a way to shepherd a meeting along that is not overly obtrusive or seen (unless you already know it is going on) is not necessarily bad. I'm not saying that Mel didn't go too far with it. But you are treating it as if the fact that he did anything was unChristian.

I grew up with structured meetings and services. And most church services today are structured and spelled out. Most provide a Program at the door that spells it all out. The Church of Christ I attended here for a couple of years spelled out even who would say what prayer and when.

And what I learn most from these types of structured meetings is, the meaning of eternity. Cuz it seems like they last for an eternity. Such structure is literally painful for me to sit thru.

One thing that attracted me to the local church was that their meetings were not spelled out. Those meetings were the high peaks to me.

It may have been unexpected in the face of the way the LRC had gone before. But that presumes that the free-for-all of the former days was actually good. I'm not sure it really was.

Say what you want, but Spirit led meetings were sweet meetings. Much preferred by me than structured meetings, which is like eating sticks and straw to me.

Someone had to stand up in a meeting in Dallas and tell people to quit bringing the green and white pom poms to the meetings. It may have been a little annoying to people like me (who went to the high school where the green and white pom poms came from), but it was absolutely consistent with the "flow" that had been going on in Dallas (and it seems in some of the other Texas cities) for some time. So there should have been no control? There absolutely should have been some control over the chaos that came. (BTW, it was either JI or JB that cast out the pom poms.)

Pom poms? Funny. Glad I missed out on that flow.

You have a problem with Mel. And it is probably rather legitimate. But, like Lee, it doesn't make his entire existence wrong. He may not have been a good elder. He may not have been one apt to teach. That doesn't make all aspects of his attempts to reign-in some of the chaos wrong. Maybe he wasn't the best choice for elder. But he was what you had.

Praise the Lord for Mel Porter. He made it very plain and impossible to not to admit that I was in a cult and had to leave the local church. Mel, if by chance you are reading this, thank you, thank, you, thank you!!!

And by the way. Where does it say that a meeting of the church cannot be somewhat spelled-out? That negative is a declaration of Lee and the LRC. But I do not find it stated in such terms in scripture. Instead, I find something about "in order." About restraint. In fact, the liturgy of a "high church" looks more like what Paul described in 1 Cor 14 than the LRC.

Yes Paul says " Let all things be done decently and in order," But says nothing about scripted meetings.

And you know I don't defend the LRC. But I don't just bash it either. Neither should you. It is not good for your blood pressure. Or your spiritual condition. Help us in the process of providing useful feedback on the LRC. Don't just rant. (OK. Rant occasionally. Just not all the time.)

The body needs the function of all members. Yours maybe a Pollyanna function. And perchance mine is the function of the immunity system of the body.

Pollyanna's father gave her crutches for a Christmas present, so that she would learn to "be glad" that "we don't need them."

And that's where I identify with Pollyanna. God gave me the local church so that I'd be glad that I don't need it.