Quote:
Originally Posted by alwayslearning
As I mentioned in a previous post, in my view, the relationship between "the work" and the church is the source of many problems in the LC system. Essentially the coworkers/fulltimers don't know their place and are not put in their place by the elders. The elders have abdicated their responsibility to shepherd the flock according to the local needs. The system allows the coworkers to run roughshod over the elders and the local churches. What happened in Rosemead in the 1980s was some push back against this kind of system.
If the elders in the local churches put "the work" in it's proper place it would be treated like any other ministry - subject to constant vetting and consideration whether it was necessary and timely for the churches in their care. The presumptuousness and assumptive behavior of "the work" towards the local churches would end and normal boundaries set up.
But as long as the idea of coworkers being apostles with authority over the elders and thus the churches exists the system will persist.
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Here is where Recovery doublespeak and hypocrisy thrive. We were continually told that we had no hierarchy like degraded Christianity, yet local elders were always to be subservient to the senior workers ... or else. Those elders, like Don Hardy in Rosemead, who attempted to operate as a truly local church, were branded and slandered by the work. New elders like Francis Ball were sent to their place, while the credibility of existing elders was slowly undermined.
As John Myer noted in his final chapter, these "local" elders may look out the meeting wall window one day and see one of the Blendeds sizing up their church's real estate.
Is this regard WL and the Blendeds were never operating as "apostles" appointing local elders, and ministering as joints of supply to the body of Christ. WL and the Blendeds never established the church in Rosemead thru the preaching of the gospel. Instead he and the Blendeds were acting like the Judaizers of old, who functioned as emissaries from remote headquarters undermining the true building work of the local church.
This became so readily apparent in the battleground cities of Toronto, Columbus, and Mansfield in the aftermath of the recent quarantines. These modern day Judaizers, whom the Apostle Paul called dogs and evil workers, operated locally in secret training sessions and funded legal operations to wrest control of all available church assets, especially her real estate. They cared nothing for the spiritual condition of the flock of God in each city. They cared nothing about bringing great shame to our Lord's precious name. They cared nothing for the laws in God's word, rather "sought relief" in the courts via man's laws. They only cared for what enhanced their "Recovery" system.