[UntoHim]

Humor me for a sec here. Let’s say the early, scripture writing apostles (Peter, John, Paul et al) were all dropped in the middle of 2008 Anaheim California. As soon as they were able to get over the shock and wonder of all our modern day advances (fast Chariots, fast food and such) they would probably seek out some Christians to break bread with. They may very well ask “where does the church in Anaheim meet”? Now if they happen to run into a Local Churcher they would no doubt point them to the meeting hall over their on Ball Road.

My guess would be that after the apostles got done questioning why every book, audio tape and video had the name of this Witness Lee fellow on it, they would ask how it could be that a city of hundreds of thousands people has just this one gathering place for all the Christians. They would wonder how such a large city located within a “Christian” country could only have so few meeting together as the church in Anaheim.

Then the apostles may catch one of those fancy, fast Chariots and take it down the street to another gathering place of Christians, and who da thuk it…these Christians are meeting in the name of Christ too, they are reading the bible, preaching and worshipping and praising too. Well, what do ya know! They would then say “we knew there must be more Christians in the church in Anaheim then just those few meeting there on Ball Road!”

You see folks, either Witness Lee and his followers are right about there being only one church in Anaheim, or they are wrong. To use the modern day vernacular…you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Now these very same apostles may have some rather poignant questions for the various groups as to why they teach what they teach, and why they worship in the way they worship (just as they did for the LCers) but I would highly doubt that they would declare that any one group is “THE church in Anaheim”, not even the one with the sign outside that says “The church in Anaheim”.

As to early Watchman Nee, I would like to think that he would react in a similar way. I don't know for a fact and neither does anybody else out there. I know one thing, I bet he would be disgusted, appalled and maybe even repulsed by that charade over there on Ball Road (and even more so by the monstrosity of the headquarters there on La Palma that purports to carry on his ministry) No, brother Watchman, this is not your grandfather's Local Church no more, so sorry.