Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
I can understand the aversion in many posters to submitting and obeying any Christian leader. But I also see the dangers of substituting one extreme for another. Neither is healthy, and both go against the instructions of the scripture.
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We like to go to extremes in our theoretical positions but in practice it's more difficult. Most organizations of any size have a natural leadership that emerges and a church is no different except...leaders in the church need to be servants and are vetted according to a different criteria.
Most mature Christians appreciate quality (not perfect) leadership in a church setting and work together with them for the common good. But they also know they can leave the church at anytime if the leaders' teachings or actions violate their conscience or the Scripture as they understand it.
In the LC setting this was not the case because you could not really comfortably leave the church and go elsewhere because elsewhere was Babylon which God hated. So you were stuck with poor leadership that was arrogant on the regional or national or global level and mostly weak at the local level. IMHO if there was strong healthy well vetted local leadership in the LC system it would not be what it has become today - LSM or Titus Chu or Dong Yu Lan focused church systems i.e. looking to an extra-local center, ministry and man for direction, content, etc.