[John]

Originally Posted by ToGodAlone

Thanks for sharing.

Just a few things that were on my mind as I was reading that:


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.

ToGodAlone,

I’m goin to preach’n

The preceding post to you related my experience only—my testimony. This post gives my opinion about the current meeting situation in many or most Christian churches. If you are ensconced in what I’ll call a “regular church” (which I am intentionally not defining), this post might not be for you (or many others). Now, I’ll go to preach’n and, hopefully, not bother too much those who are satisfied in regular church congregations. God has placed everyone in the body as it has pleased Him; and, it is, of course, not up to me to judge what the Master has done. In addition, God can move people around whenever and wherever He likes. I am simply reporting to you what I have seen and heard about Christian meetings and am comparing them to what I have seen and heard about the meetings in 1st Corinthians 14. I simply believe, as the Bible indicates, that the Spirit, not clergy, should be in control of church meetings.


1st Corinthians 14

I am confining this presentation to church meetings rather than completely address the pastoral system about which you asked initially. For most Christians, however, church meetings constitute the lion’s share of their church experience and the venue in which the pastor is most visibly in control. When I wrote that I had experienced a kind of utopia, it was the no-human-leader, free meetings as previously described that I was thinking about. As to outside these meetings, as I have written, no one was appointed to any position of leadership. And, again, I repeat: The church I experienced just consisted of regular brothers and sisters who wanted to let the Lord have His way in guiding and building His church without defaulting to a gifted brother to exercise control.

I would assume that most people in regular churches, when asked, would say that the Holy Spirit is the leader in their church meetings. In other words, our pastor prayed about what topic to present; our choir sang to us about the prayed-over topic; our pastor delivered the prayed-over sermon to us; and so forth. The problem for me is this: The pastor is in control, and there’s no room for the Spirit to speak freely through another during the meeting as described in 1st Corinthians 14. If something is revealed to another that sits by, no place is given for that person with fresh revelation to speak. Everyone knows who’s really in control; they just couch it in terms to make it somewhat palatable, meanwhile, it seems to me, either ignoring or explaining away what the Bible has to say about meeting participation by all whom the Spirit inspires.

Please note that I wrote “fully recognize the authority of God during their meetings” in my previous post. The word you should focus on is “fully.” When I write that most Christians would say that the Spirit is the leader, I don’t mean it to be taken in a bad way. Christian leaders across America exercise varying levels of control in their meetings. If questioned in detail about their practices, most churchgoers would probably have to admit that the Spirit isn’t given all the room in their meetings. What we did in our no-human-leader meetings was to back off as much as we could and give the Spirit the most room we could to operate among the members.


Local Church—no!

The same type of talk about the Spirit being in control, I presume you know, has been stated by Local Church leaders regarding their meetings. Even though participation by all was encouraged in the early days and was probably more successful in that regard than in many Christian meetings, it still fell short of what we can read about in the Bible. In other words, Witness Lee taught us about it but didn’t actually allow us to do it—fully. In those early days of the Local Church, room was made in certain meetings for speaking from the heart rather than from a “Life-study,” my favorite being the testimonies at the conclusion of the Lord’s Table meeting. Later, this was eradicated. Even so, it still wasn’t usually a giving of the whole meeting to the Lord for His purpose and seeing what He would provide. When we did this in our no-human-leader meetings, it was amazing to me how the Lord would speak a coherent, unified message to us from multiple members. It was really a body ministry.

This points to what I consider to be one of the problems with post Living Stream Ministry Local Church meetings that I have heard about or experienced. They, in effect, wind the clock back to a time when the Local Church was in its infancy in the United States. You can go to one of those and be reasonably satisfied if you don’t mind the controls, which are lesser than the controls in the Living Stream Ministry Local Churches, but controls nonetheless. A few brothers sit up front as the ones to follow; members may start songs, often along whatever line is put forward by a leader; a pre-selected brother gives a sermon for about 45 minutes; and people are free afterward to give testimonies along the line of the message with whatever little time might remain. It’s a proven formula. (We used to call it “the flow,” but even that was usually set beforehand by the leaders.) It may sound good when compared to the meetings that many Christians attend; but, it is short of what Paul wrote about to the Corinthians when he related how to have a meeting.

When Paul wrote about meetings, he was obviously writing about meetings in which the Spirit was given authority to speak through the members on an up-to-the-moment basis. It was real-time speaking, not something planned and packaged ahead of time. Think about it: Before Paul wrote, the meetings in Corinth were out of control as members were “speaking in tongues” on top of each other. What was his solution? He prescribed an “order of worship” and set up some leader trained in how to have a meeting to be in charge of the meeting so that it would be decent and in order, right? Wrong. He did not do what we see around us today. What he basically wrote to them was that they should love one another (1 Cor 13) and take turns, making room for everyone to have an opportunity to participate in speaking in accord with the Spirit. Today, in most churches, the meeting has been scripted so that others have no opportunity to speak—in effect, putting a leash on the Holy Spirit.


With God, it is possible

I remember reading on the forum awhile back from a poster who wrote that it was not possible to have such a free church meeting, so we shouldn’t even bother to talk about it. Well, God has a verse for the impossible things with man. I, for one, know that it is possible because I’ve experienced it. It has also been written on the forum something to the effect that fully open meetings don’t work or don’t work well (or something like that) with large gatherings. My question would be this: Has the person tried it? My follow-on encouragement might be this: If the Bible description of a meeting really doesn’t work well with your large gathering, maybe you should try meeting with a smaller group. This is just a suggestion, of course; I am not trying to override whatever the Lord has directed you to do in regard to assembling with other Christians. My point is that what’s in the Bible does work! Even in Living Stream Ministry conferences, in the early days, after all the pre-arranged things were completed, when testimony time came, they were given freely, even with hundreds or even thousands in attendance. Please note that I am not referring to these conference meetings as being led by the Spirit; I am just noting that during the testimony time, everyone was free to stand up and share something. There was no chaos or disorder; it worked just fine. By the way, testimonies at that time were not controlled and scripted like they are today; so, theoretically, anything could have been said.

If you doubt that a free meeting can work, get together with some others who are willing and give the no-human-leader meeting a try. I believe that the Lord will honor His word; I know that He did with us in our homes. Remember, no one is a leader except the Spirit; we are all just brothers and sisters in the Lord on an equal plane in the meetings of the church. There are no songs that have to be sung—except for His. There are no prayers that have to be prayed—except for His. There are no verses that have to be read—except for His. There are no messages that have to be given—except for His. There is no sequencing to follow—except for His. And, all of this comes through all the members of the body. If all Christians did this, I believe that the church at large would experience a renaissance. Imagine it: Meetings all around in which all Christians were looking to the Lord for direction, listening for Him to speak, and speaking up for Him (or singing or praying or whatever).


What else?

Okay, that is my free-flowing reaction to your post. Now, let me go back and see what else I might need to address from your post. About the Elder Brother, that has been explained somewhat by aron. Sorry, I sometimes assume that we all were in the same Witness Lee conferences and trainings. Jesus is our Elder Brother, and He is the One Who is worthy. All of the talk about leadership sometimes makes me think of the apostles who were arguing about who would get to sit on his right and left in His kingdom. I think He made it plain that none of us has any rank or privileges.

Beginning with your “One last note” paragraph and going through the end, I don’t think that I find much to agree with. I state this with one caveat. I have not fully investigated all of the biblical roles and who does what to whom when and how. It is a really large subject with many details. For example, I am not sure that I agree that “having appointed teachers is definitely scriptural.” This is just one of the details. I do know that elders were selected from among the brothers in a place and then acknowledged by Paul. I don’t recall reading that teachers were appointed. You state that it’s scriptural, so maybe you wouldn’t mind sharing chapter and verse.


Of lesson plans

You write that “having a leader/speaker appointed just provides more structure to meetings,” and I agree with this; but, that is exactly my point. The description of a regular church meeting in 1st Corinthians 14 has no such appointment or structure. You compare the free meeting I described with Bible studies with which you are familiar. The Bible study meeting, I think, is something that much of mainline Christianity has adopted because of the lack in the regular “Sunday service” you mention. The so-called Bible study was and is a step forward toward participation by all the members; but, it is usually quite scripted, at least the ones that I have attended. The mere fact that it is called a Bible study limits the type of participation that is expected. For example, if the Lord wanted to have you pray for the entire hour (or sing or whatever), would that happen? Probably not because, since it is called a Bible study, people come prepared and expecting to study the Bible.

My wife described to me a Bible study she went to in which every time that the Lord began to inspire the group to elaborate along the course of study, the leader would yank them back to the lesson plan so that they could finish the prescribed course of study before time expired. This, in effect, quenched the Spirit and made people afraid to share anything that might be considered off the mark of the lesson plan.


No guesses, please

Your guess as to why I liked the free meetings I described was completely wrong. The Local Church meetings were never like the no-human-leader meetings I described, even in the early days all the way back to 1967. Now, if you want to get all the way back to Bonnie Brae, then someone else would have to step forward, since I wasn’t there; however, since Witness Lee was there, that pretty much erases the idea of no human leader being in the meetings, although I’m told that he exhibited much more of a semblance of humility in those earliest days. Every Local Church meeting I was ever in was structured, and they became more structured over time. We humans have a tendency to look for security in structure rather than in the Lord Himself. Structure makes it easier. It means that there’s at least one less thing for which we have to depend on the Lord. In the Local Church meetings, a certain level of participation was allowed; but, all of the regular meetings were very structured, from the Sunday morning meeting to the service group meetings.

I hope that I have made myself plain to you. I thought that my previous was plain, but you wrote it off as being about the same as the Bible studies you go to. I hope that this extra writing has let you know that what we were doing was not your garden-variety Bible study. Now, I have never been to your Bible studies, so I don’t really know what you normally experience. If you really think that it’s like what I’ve written about, I would suggest that you try a test: Propose to the attendees that they come to the next one with no plans whatsoever and just look to the Lord to provide everything. If someone has been “anointed” or accepted as the leader of the study, tell everyone that you would like to try having no human leader at all, that you want to depend solely on the Holy Spirit. If it is held in the home of the leader, move it so as to eliminate the assumption that the head of the house is the meeting leader by default. Read the verses in 1st Corinthians 14 and say that you’d like to have the next meeting along those lines. Then, come back here and describe to me what happened. If you’re already doing that (but it doesn’t sound to me like you are), I’m encouraged to hear that there are those in the United States who believe that what is in the Bible will work well today, that they are practicing meeting similar to what is presented in 1st Corinthians 14, and that they depending on the Spirit rather than on a human leader.


Say it ain’t so

As to your last paragraph, what to say: You think that at times having a pastor speak is more beneficial than having everyone else speak to each other. First, let me try to very briefly cover the bases: There is nothing wrong with listening to a “pastor” speak. I periodically listen to a TV pastor and appreciate it. You have written your last paragraph in such a way as to try to allow for both pastor-led Sunday meetings and participatory Bible studies in the same church environment. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that you grasped what I meant about having a Spirit-controlled meeting. You also made it plain to me that you appreciate the speaking of a pastor more than the other members of the body because of the pastor’s education (as well as his calling). By the way, you have assumed in writing that way that other members lack a biblical education. This was definitely not the case in the Local Church back in the day. Several whom I know about were graduates of bible colleges, former pastors, and former missionaries. (By the way, I know a Christian who has no formal religious education who periodically meets with formally-trained pastors and teaches them things that they don’t know about the Bible.) The knowledge of the Bible and the ability to teach do not only reside in a church’s pastor. To think such is to be in danger, in my opinion.

Putting your trust in a pastor is how we former Local Churchers got in such trouble in the first place. Yes, it is true that Witness Lee didn’t have a formal seminary education, but that doesn’t mean that we can just go and accept what some other “pastor” says carte blanche. We need to be those who check out everything in the Word of God for ourselves. In other words, for me, the title a person has is not so important, and neither is his education. That doesn’t mean that I think I know everything or would refuse to listen to someone simply because he’s a pastor who has been trained in a system. But, to me, a “pastor” is just another member of the body and has no special status as being above others or more knowledgeable than others or more able than others. Within the church body at large is all the help we need; and, yes, that includes the pastor, but he is not on a pedestal and he is not above being called to account for his teaching—and he should be called to account whenever he deviates from God’s word or assumes, based on his training, that the Bible supports what it doesn’t.


Hasta

ToGodAlone, I hope I covered everything you asked about sufficiently. This went longer than I anticipated. I hope it helps you and is not too much preach’n (since I don’t think I’m a pastor). As I wrote earlier, I am working on other projects and am not prepared to, nor do I know that I want to, dive fully into a protracted discussion of roles in the church or what constitutes a biblical meeting. I have done some writing on the topic of church, but not about roles, and only a little about meetings. I will try to finish revising it and post it sometime soon, which you may find interesting.

To all others, you are, of course, free to address my posts; just realize that I may not respond, at least at this time. I just felt inspired to do some preach’n once I got started with my answer to ToGodAlone. Oftentimes, I delete much of this kind of thing before posting as I work my way back through what I wrote initially; in this case, especially since it was fostered by my experience and accords with the Bible, as opposed to theory underwritten by “the system,” I have left it in, since it may be helpful to some who still have church questions post Local Church. In the end, we should mainly just want to get back to our first love—Jesus.

Please do not be offended by my writing. I am not saying that the Lord does not speak through your pastor; I am not saying that the Lord does not operate within the bounds of the church meetings you attend; etc. I am simply relating some of my thoughts about Christian meetings, the Bible, and what I considered to be a little bit of utopia, a utopia that is sometimes represented to be impossible or impractical, yet one that is supported by scripture.