Quote:
Originally Posted by AndPeter
The signal to noise ratio was getting to the point where the other site was unintelligible.
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Well said,
AndPeter ... and let me introduce myself ...
I have been in the GLA LC's since the mid-70's, when I jumped in head first. After my first Friday night meeting in Cleveland, I stayed the whole weekend, soon after that moved in with some saints. With my whole heart I loved "Christ and the church." Countless times over the years, I prayed the Lord would "keep me here."
Slowly over the years, however, due to endless changes in practices and excessive emphasis on doctrine, my joy eroded. Then there was the constant undercurrent of conflict with Anaheim, which began to pick up speed in the early part of this century. All that talk about "oneness" had became just that. About the time many in the GLA were seriously re-examining WN's book
TNCCL, both my wife and I had some serious conflicts with the local leadership, both of which served to drive me to examine, perhaps for the first time, the areas of LC ecclesiology and history.
In the beginning of my study, the brothers I was with used the book
TNCCL, to expose LSM/BB's flaws ... but they were not willing to go further. But many conclusions were inevitable -- WL was the source of BB teachings and practices -- how could I stop the examination with them? And ... on top of that ... it was impossible not to see so many similarities between Cleveland and Anaheim. The local leaders were only willing to see the differences, yes ... many are positive indeed, but the similarities were even more so, especially as I began to "step away" from the program and enter the greater body of Christ.
As the rumors of the "One Publication" surfaced, I just knew this matter would divide us, or should I say, this matter was being used to divide us. The Lord then gave me an intense desire to study the history of the Plymouth Brethren, and specifically their first division. I read the historical accounts of Darby exclusives, Kelly exclusives, Opens, Outsiders ... whatever I could find. This was immensely informative for me to understand how gifted Christian leaders could at the same time be so good and so bad. This is an area few understand, and a huge source of conflict in church history.
Since the web was my "major mode of transportation," I also came across the Bereans forum and many documents of former leaders in the LC's. Most notable for me, of course, was John Ingall's book
STTIL. After reading that, with my memory still intact of the history I was "taught" by the ministry ... everything was now suspect. Brothers I respected for decades seem to lose all credibility.
One area of the LC leadership that was increasingly troublesome for me was the pattern of "bullying" which I saw on all levels. Perhaps if I had come from a long line of military heritage, this would not have bothered me. Why was Apostle Paul a "nursing mother" and our leaders "abusive generals?" I had long been pained while watching many dear brothers depart after being "beat up" by Cleveland. One well-loved brother with a tender heart, who had a lasting impact on me, left the LC after being "brutalized" in Cleveland, only to later become a renowned Biblical authority and translator. Watching those events transpire, nearly all my peers departed the LC in the mid-80's.
One driving question in my mind was this, "how could something so good, become so bad?" What happened to us? What were the root causes? Why are we not blessed? Why do we almost seem cursed? One answer came to me from Hope, when he pointed out that WN's teaching of "deputy authority" was flawed. This answered so many questions for me. This could be called the "missing link." Our history is filled with the bad fruit of this errant concept, which seems to inundate all LSM thinking, yet we were taught that the source of this was M. E. Barber who "perfected" WN.
Hopefully, this new forum provides all the benefits of the old one, without the unnecessary and unceasing squabbles. One of the reasons I eventually stopped serving in the LC, was the inability to address "concerns" in that environment. I was "silenced" by new leadership appointed by Cleveland. I had to choose between staying in silence, or leaving and speaking up. The latter seemed more desirable, but the journey has been no less sad to me.