Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry
Something I've brought up before from the home meetings I've been in the past; there had been reaching out to fellowship with Christians. By inviting them to a home meeting and having no hesitation to do so. Is this fellowship reciprocal? Would there be hesitation to accept an invitation to visit a non-LC home meeting?
Members and lurkers, please give your input.
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Good morning Terry,
In answer to your immediate question: I think it's safe to say that everyone in the LC can testify that we often invited and hosted non-LC Christians at our home meetings; this was standard practice... but was it
fellowship?
Isn't fellowship supposed to be about sharing with one another; our testimonies, our burdens, our joys? Isn't it about meeting eachothers needs both physically and spiritually, about praying together and pursuing truth together? Isn't it about learning from one another, sharing perspectives and insights by actively getting into the Word together? If it is, then you have to ask yourself: Does the
LC Establishment (
The official teaching of the LC - which is what this book is addressing) allow you to regard a non-LC Christian as someone who can meet
your spiritual needs, someone from whom
you can learn more of Christ? Someone who can offer a perspective that fills in more of the picture than
you have? The answer is,
of course not.
Non-LC Christians are to be recruited; in fact - I've heard it said that more than 80% of the members of the LC came to Christ elsewhere, they were brought into the LC as believers,
not non-believers. You can't recruit them if you don't ask them in to your home meeting; home meetings were "the way".
Now, do all individual members of the LC think that they have nothing to learn from Christians? Of course not. But that doesn't mean that this isn't taught by the LC, and believed by the vast majority of it's membership. Christians are to be pitied in the LC; not learned from. They are to be recruited, not fellowshipped with.
Again, as individuals, our thoughts on the matter might be different - but it's very important to remember that this book is about the
Official Party Line, not the exceptions to the rules.
As for non LC-Christians asking us to fellowship with them; I can testify that I was invited to fellowship with other Christians. Even a number of the Hutterite Colonies (think: Amish) I visited invited me in to fellowship with them... and I went; just as I went to the Bible studies here in our home town before I left the LC. The attitude of long-time friends of ours in the LC had to this was "
why would you lower yourself to that?"