Quote:
Originally Posted by UntoHim
If you are not an expert on Witness Lee I'm not sure why you get so involved in these conversations that revolve around the person and work of Lee and the religion based upon his person and work. Anybody who was in the Local Church for more than just a few months had to become an expert on Witness Lee. It was sink or swim. Sorry, but your contention that you did not read the written messages of Witness Lee for the better part of your stay in the Local Church is simply not believable. Why would you have stayed around? Every meeting centered around his teachings. The "churchlife" was based upon his teachings and the practices that he established/approved. You are not making any sense.
ZNP, you are being argumentative and contentious for the sake of being argumentative and contentious. This is part of what I mean by "kidding ourselves".
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Well, I have shared my personal testimony repeatedly but I will walk you through it since you seem incapable of doing it on your own.
1. I worked for 18 months on the meeting hall in Irving, for much of that time it was 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. I was not supported financially other than hospitality. As a result after about 4 months I was so destitute I couldn't afford toothpaste, though the day my toothpaste did run out a family from Houston mailed me 5$. During those 18 months I stayed in 10 different hospitalities. Between the constant moving, extremely heavy work load, and being financially destitute I did not buy or read WL books.
2. I immediately moved from Irving to Odessa. At the time Odessa was a home meeting of about 25 saints in total including children. Their was no bookroom. By the time I left a few years later they were just beginning to get a book room started. If I bought any book at that time it would have been from a bookstore and therefore would have been WN, not WL.
3. I left Odessa shortly after publicly rebuking the elders in Texas. I moved to NY and almost immediately moved to NH taking a teaching job at a private boarding school. There was one other family from the LRC in Hanover, which was nearby, and we had weekly home meetings for that year. Once again I was not at a locality that had a book room so our meetings and fellowship was based on the Bible.
4. NYC wanted to send me to the FTTT so after teaching one year I went straight to NY and then to Taiwan. Because of the weight restrictions in International flight I didn't take any books other than my Bible, Hymnal and Experience of Life (the required book).
5. During the 3rd semester of the FTTT, and my first semester in the FTTT we went through the Experience of Life, sat through daily meetings not being run by WL even though he was at Hall 1, and then spent the afternoons and evenings in the gospel work. The only other WL publication we used was the booklet for preaching the gospel, a short booklet that leads to baptism.
6. From then until 1995 I stayed in Taiwan, met at Hall 19 and Hall 3. I visited Hall 1 book store a few times, thumbed through some of the new books but was never interested enough to buy them. Nor could I afford to buy the Life study sets. I did train trainees to preach the gospel in English in preparation for them to go to Russia. I did not use WL's materials for my training.
7. In 95 I returned to NY and made a very difficult transition to a new profession which required 12 hour days and 6 day weeks. By this time the saints I was with were not pleased with LSM to put it mildly. They did not use LSM publications for morning watch, we used the Bible. We didn't use their messages for the meetings either. I did not see any need to buy their books and didn't. I stayed until 98.
I find it insulting of you to accuse me of being a liar. Also, I think it is clear that for 20 years I was "absolute" for the church life and spent many years "full time". So I also find it offensive that you would question why I would be interested in this forum saying that I am merely an argumentative and contentious person.
While in Taipei I documented over 1,000 gospel events. Times in which I preached the gospel. I would think that I had similar numbers when I was in Houston at Rice, but we didn't document. Questions like "what about the Catholics" or "other denominations" came up frequently. I fellowshipped with brothers and sisters who didn't meet with us but were also involved in the gospel, particularly those in Intervarsity while in Houston, and various Bible studies while in Odessa. My response to those that said "what about other Christians that love the Lord" was that "I also love the Lord". I trained others to preach the gospel and never once taught that "we were the only place God was moving" such a concept was outrageously offensive to me then and now. To me it would be a very serious thing for any person to say it.