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Originally Posted by John
As to how I experienced such a church that was a kind of utopia for me, I will relate it in a brief story: After I had been out of the Local Church for some period of time, I was invited to attend meetings being held in homes. It was frequented by mostly former Local Church members. My wife and I were favorably impressed and began to attend regularly on Sunday mornings.
Here’s how it was: We didn’t have a set form of meeting; we didn’t have an assigned speaker; we didn’t have any particular things we had to do. It embodied some of what I remembered having been told by Witness Lee about full participation by all the members but was never allowed to fully experience in Lee’s Recovery. We, in our small gathering, didn’t even mind periods of silence, if that was what happened.
When Jane and I hosted the meetings at our house, we often didn’t set up chairs. We usually began by eating and drinking (physical food and drink) and talking in small groups. At some point, we often gravitated to a room around whatever fellowship had materialized. We would continue meeting as a whole group, being free to leave it, as sometimes happened in order to attend to the needs of a member. We might or might not sing a song aloud; we might or might not pray aloud, etc. We did not lean on songs as crutches, as often happens. You know, now it’s the Lord’s Table meeting, so we sing songs until we’re hoarse.
My experience in those “no-human-leader” meetings was great; we depended on the One Leader, and He proved Himself to us. I learned that we could trust Him to lead the meetings. After experiencing a few of these meetings, I asked someone what they did about leadership. The very fact that I had to ask the question should help you to understand that no one stood out in that way. He replied something to this effect: “We decided at the outset that we would not have any recognized leaders. We determined to let the Holy Spirit have His way in our meetings.”
There you go; that’s it; end of story. A few Christians simply decided to fully recognize the authority of God during their meetings, which is quite scriptural but probably not often practiced; and, it was the best experience of my Christian life. I can’t help but think that God was well-pleased also.
As to outside the meetings, I can only say that no one took to themselves or was appointed to any position of leadership. The church managed to get along with just us regular brothers and sisters, along with our Elder Brother.
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Thanks for sharing.
Just a few things that were on my mind as I was reading that:
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A few Christians simply decided to fully recognize the authority of God during their meetings, which is quite scriptural but probably not often practiced
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I feel that most Christian assemblies fully recognize the authority of God during services and whatnot, or at least those in my experience have. I'm not sure if what you meant by that was not having an appointed speaker/leader or something else.
Another thing that I noticed was that you mentioned an Elder Brother. What do you mean by this? Was he just on the old side or was this a title representing something? Am I missing the point entirely on this (I very well could be)? It was just interesting that you singled out this Elder Brother from the rest if everyone was supposed to be on the same level.
One last note, I have said that having appointed teachers is definitely scriptural. All the apostles were teachers. I'm pretty sure they taught and raised up many other teachers to spread the Gospel. If nothing else, I think that having a leader/speaker appointed just provides more structure to meetings. Not that I feel that that is 100% necessary, but it just helps facilitate things better, especially among larger groups. Now in the case of a small home setting, like the one you mentioned, then I can see how not having one would still be fine. In this case, the meeting feels more like a weekly Bible study than a Sunday service (usually considered different things in my experience), but I suppose there's nothing inherently wrong with that.
On the whole though, it seems as though your attraction to this group kind of stems from your LRC experience and wanting something similar in style to what you had there. Small settings, meeting in homes, everyone able to participate, and so on. Again, there is nothing wrong with these things and I say again these are all things that would go on in a typical weekly Bible study in the churches that I attend.
God reveals Himself to us in many ways and I'm not going to glorify one more than the other, but I think that at times, having a pastor speak, being someone that has gone through intensive study of the Bible, its history, its original text, and having this be his calling from God, is more beneficial than having everyone else, who does not have such training and thus at times will lack certain insight, speak to each other. But again, both have their place and both are encouraged, and perhaps that is why most churches that I see have both practices in place.