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Originally Posted by Ohio
Bad conclusion.
I just don't understand the regular pot shots at that other poster?
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I don't follow your "bad conclusion" comment.
As for the "pot shots" comment, I read through all of the posts in one sitting. At the end, this one comment I recalled reading stuck in my mind. I was not considering who wrote it. I had to look back to figure out what you were talking about.
It was something that a person like me who is steeped in reading law (tax law) and parsing through verbiage tends toward. That is, to take note of the legalities and let the simply rule. Sort of like when someone sues because someone calls them a bad name.
Sometimes the problem is that the "bad name" is only relevant within a context that the law does not properly delve into. (And in the Harvest Hills lawsuit, a judge finally ruled that it was not their business unless there was proof that it has malicious and capricious — something never assert, and possibly acknowledged as not true.)
I cannot remember the context. On one occasion, I think before one of the trainings, I attended a meeting of the church in Anaheim wherever it was that they were meeting at the time that the Ball road property had been purchased, but no work done. At that time, despite the multitude of obvious references to the LSM, and the fact that the CiA clearly could never use such a large building, it was already clearly also the coming residence of the CiA.
Yes, we create a corporation and register it under sec 503(c) or other related provision as a nonprofit. And in this case, the corporation was a ministry. And legally that corporation can hire anyone it wants to do anything it wants (as long as the actions wanted are legal). But that is in the legal realm. In the spiritual realm — in the realm of the people of God — that distinction is only so meaningful when there is something wrong with the spiritual realm. Ministry, whether the simple acts of a preacher, evangelist, missionary, etc., or more concerted efforts of organizations like Focus on the Family or Living Stream Ministry, are part of the workings of the church as a whole, and of assemblies in particular. If they are not, then they are somehow outside of the fellowship of believers coming along to simply dump stuff on us for a "profit" (or to make a living at "no profit").
That is legal. But within the household of God, it is not right. It is not righteous. And you can probably point to numerous organizations that do not entirely maintain the kind of transparency that you might think is required. But we point derisively at the "ministers" that thumbed their noses at their governing bodies when they were found in sin (Jimmy Swaggert is a good example) and note that others did the righteous thing and stepped aside. There are are all kinds of shades in between.
That is what I am saying. LSM is church even though not a church. Focus on the Family is church. These are seen by insiders and outsiders as part of the whole of the Christian mission which is about the church which is the people, not the organizations or the buildings.
There was much to consider in ZNP's post. I did not need to jump on teh bandwagon for that. I noted, in my typically wordy way, that we do ourselves a disservice to think that we can divorce church and LSM just because there are documents. It may be legally so, but it is not spiritually so. The LSM is an integral part of the existence of "Local Churches" — at least it was at that time.