Quote:
Originally Posted by GraceofChrist
1°) The practices: praises come not often spontaneously, but saints are taught to praise in a certain manner. Pray-reading, which sounds so dead to my ears, is not a bad practice: it’s a very good thing to pray the Word of God. But the way it is done in the Local Church (broken sentences repeated and emphasize again and again) is just dead, because it’s done in a legalistic way. The reading of the Bible (at least in my locality) is very rare during the meeting, and it seems it can’t be done without footnotes. Another disturbing belief is to call on the name of the Lord. Yes, saints have always call on the name of the Lord.
2°)The attitude toward the other denominations, always so proud. The most pernicious thing is that they will never say that they think, Christians in other denominations are unsaved. But they always act like if they are superior. One sentence can prove this; sometimes, at the prayer meeting, I heard: "There is no saint in that city". There is no saint? Nobody is saved is that city? No, this means: "This is no Local Church."
3°) The importance of Witness Lee and the Ministry: actually, the main problem, and it comprises all the other matters. The church is now centralized on a ministry and his leader. If you’re not following them, maybe they won’t excommuniate you (they did it for a few saints) but there is like a bareer between you and the church. In order to avoid division, Witness Lee decided to be the unique author of the books that Local Church should read. This is a very dangerous way. The Local Churches are not recognizable because they are following Christ, but because they are following the Living Stream Ministry. Criticize Witness Lee’s writings is like criticizing God’s Word. They are placing Witness Lee as an infallible man; you must accept everything (I heard in a conference that all the footnotes of the Recovery Version are right; if you don’t agree, you have to pray, and the Lord will show you it’s true…). Paul said to the Thessalonians: "Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all". And John: "do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God". In the Recovery, you have no possibility to test, because there is one possibility for you to stay: accept everything from the Ministry. This is an important sin: idolatry. Now Witness lee is dead, but the problem is the same. In the eyes of the ministry, his writings are definitive and there is nothing to add…I sometimes had the feeling that the name of Watchman Nee was sometimes used as a pretext to justify that Lee’s writings were the continuation (and the amelioration?) of Nee’s ones.
More personal problems came at light as well: some questions, that I tried to answer honestly: do you want to marry a zealous sister of the Recovery, who does everything as the Ministry says?
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GraceofChrist,
much of what you said I relate to.
1. Practices:
Pray reading is good, but it can also become a form.
Calling on the name of the Lord. Something my wife and I do, but keep in mind you only need to call on Him once to get His person.
Footnotes have their place. I find the value as a reference, but invariably in LSM fellowship footnotes become preeminent. Can't read verses without reading footnotes and in some books (1 John for example) footnotes text overshadow the verses.
2. Attitude towards other Christians:
what I heard this past month is an assumption all non-LSM Christians are in denominations. Not so. Often what I heard in the locality where I reside, "here in the local churches, we see so much. Christianity sees very little". It's an attitude of putting down non-LSM Christianity while lifting up the ministry LSM publishes. It was this attitude I found to be a turnoff. As I mentioned before on this forum, my wife misses the fellowship. However she was present for the Table meeting and with the children when the attitude towards non-LSM Christianity came out in the prophesying meeting. Even in homes there's an atttude non-LSM Christians is a Sunday morning venture while in the LSM fellowship it's 24/7. Just too much to bear.
3. Witness Lee and the Ministry:
In years since Witness Lee has died, the ministry is stressed but from audio recordings of messages I have listened to Blended brothers have backtracked in respect to Witness Lee being infallible. Still rare is the locality where one can speak apart from Holy Word for Morning revival. Still it's LSM publication which many see LSM churches as a ministry church and not a local church. These assemblies existence is to promote the ministry and not to build up the church as an assembly of the locality.
Earlier this year there was a city-wide prayer in Austin, Texas I believe Igzy or Aron posted on. It would be highly unlikely if the Church in Austin participated. The city wide prayer would not benefit LSM as it would the Christians in Austin coming together for a city wide prayer.
In the years since Witness Lee has died, older brothers who know better do not want to touch anything that adversely affected the recovery while Witness Lee was still alive. Rather anyone who brings up such issues is likened to "opposer", "rebel", and "attacking the ministry". Not hardly!
You posed the question,
"do you want to marry a zealous sister of the Recovery, who does everything as the Ministry says?"
As one who was raised in the local churches, I always thought that's what I was supposed to do. Over a several month period of intense prayer, the Lord led me to a sister who was not "a zealous sister of the Recovery". In many ways in itself that was a type of salvation.
As for zealous sister of the Recovery, who does everything as the Ministry says, I cannot agree with that statement. There are brothers and sisters alike in the recovery who are simply uneducated in the history of the Recovery. There will be sisters who do believe every word that comes from the blended brothers. There are also sisters, in being Christ focused, their absence become conspicous. All the while remaining silent. Why is that? Have sisters tired of the brother's political games that has cost them dear relationships over the years?