[Unsure]

Directory v0.4. Made this while somewhat sleep deprived, listening to emo J-Rock, and in the middle of a mild panic attack while also trying to take aron and ICA's advice. This will be messy.

Feel free to copy and edit the actual text of the post as opposed to simply commenting. The brothers and sisters on this website who lived through these events are probably more qualified to speak and summarize them than myself, who only experienced times after the Titus Chu quarantine. I would make a cleaner and nicer looking directory, but I want to get at least some response to feedback out in a timely manner.

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This post seeks to be a starting point for newcomers to the forum. It contains a set of reading material general and comprehensive in nature to introduce them to the Local Church and to give them a window into understanding the problems and baggage that the group carries with it.

What is this website?
This website, Local Church Discussions, is a community for individuals who associated with the Local Church at some point in their lives, whether they be member, former member, or family and/or friend of a member. Its focus is discussion on where the Local Church went wrong in its journey to preach the "highest gospel" and the abuses of leadership that continue to plague the church to this day.

What is the Local Church?

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

The local churches (also known as the Local Church) are a Christian movement founded in China whose beliefs and practice are based on the teachings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. Members of the group condemn denominationalism and believe that Christian believers should have no identifying name or basis for gathering other than the name of city or municipality in which a given assembly is located. Members emphasize what they refer to as "the subjective experience of Christ," as well as Bible interpretation concerning Christ and the church.

Originally Posted by John Myer, A Future and a Hope

The Local Church of Witness Lee is a splinter sect of the Closed Brethren, modified by Asian culture and peculiarly developed because of its isolation from the rest of the Body of Christ.

Where did it come from?

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

The development of the local churches can be traced to the conversion of Watchman Nee*in Fuzhou, China. At an early age, Nee committed his life to Christian ministry. Mostly self-educated, he began to publish his interpretation of the Christian faith and of church practice after moving to Shanghau*in 1927.

...

In 1958, Witness Lee traveled to the United States for the first time and moved to Los Angeles in 1962. By 1969, there were local churches in California, New York, and Texas.

Resources:
A History of the Lord's Recovery in the US
This is a timeline of the major events in the history of the Lord's Recovery starting from Witness Lee's arrival in America until his death in 1997.

History of the Local Church
An unfinished book by Don Rutledge (username Hope). The two chapters finished provide a picture of the early church in the USA - both its happy beginnings and the emerging problems that would go to shape the Local Church into what it is today.

What do they believe?

Man fell when his soul took control and chose the Tree of Knowledge. This allowed Satan to enter man and corrupt man's flesh, bringing sin and death with him. Thus Satan exists in man's nature as sin and death.*

Christ was sent as a man as a propitiation for man's sin and to undo the work of the Devil. Through His death he condemned Satan, release His life-giving Spirit, and produced the church, which is to reign spiritually in this age.

One is saved solely by believing in Jesus Christ as the Savior, and is thus saved forever.

A believer receives the Spirit in his own spirit, which conveys the element of the life of God and the death and resurrection of Christ, and should now live before God by His Spirit in their spirit.*

Although a believer is saved eternally, if one does not overcome in this life--- "grow in the Lord'', "bear fruit to God''--- one will be punished during the Millenium as a sort of remedial school. After the Millenium all believers will enter the New Jerusalem.

Resources:
Comments on Local Church Doctrines
A quick overview of the theological beliefs of the Local Church, as well as common practices and expectations in the church.

What's wrong with it? - Doctrine

Summary of LC beliefs:*
1. What the group is doing is God‘s only meaningful work on the earth.*
2. The rest of the Christians are blind outsiders who need to be proselytized or recruited.
3. They have an understanding about the Trinity that others do not have, and only they can explain it.
4. A unique corporate cause is the most important thing. There is no place for the uniqueness of the individual member.
5. There is only one man (Witness Lee) with the proper understanding and interpretation of the Bible who knows God‘s way for the group.*

Supporting Evidence from the Ministry
They hold a unique view of the Trinity that leans heavily towards modalism

• "The Son is called the Father; so the Son must be the Father. We must realize this fact. There are some who say that He is called the Father, but He is not really the Father. But how could He be called the Father and yet not be the Father?... In the place where no man can approach Him (I Tim. 6:16), God is the Father. When He comes forth to manifest Himself, He is the Son. So, a Son is given, yet His name is called 'The everlasting Father.' This very Son who has been given to us is the very Father."

They believe that God's ultimate goal is to make the church into his corporate bride, (partially) deifying the members of the "Body of Christ" in the process in order to express him.

• God’s eternal economy
  Is to make man the same as He is
  In life and nature,
  But not in the Godhead
  And to make Himself one with man
  And man one with Him
  Thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression
  That all His divine, that all His divine
  Attributes may be expressed in human virtues.

They discourage individualism and uniqueness, focusing instead on a corporate cause at the expense of the individual.

• Because each Christian is a member of the body of Christ he must accept its restraint and must learn to bear the cross. Some members are highly individualistic; such strong individualism needs to be broken. Some are quite offensively peculiar, and such peculiarity must also be broken. No Christian in the church can boast of his toughness and peculiarity. In the church, whatever is sharp, piercing, and protruding must be rubbed smooth.

They are the genuine expression of the Body of Christ, with the denominations being in varying states of degradation. They hold themselves to the "ground of oneness", viewing themselves as the one true church in each locality.

• "The Lord is not building His church in Christendom, which is composed of the apostate Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations. This prophecy is being fulfilled through the Lord's recovery, in which the building of the genuine church is being accomplished.

• The universal Body of Christ is the house of God, that is, the kingdom of God, appearing in various cities as local churches. The Bible shows us that one city should have only one church for the sake of keeping the oneness and preventing division (Acts 8:1; 13:1; Rev. 1:4, 11).

Resources:
An Open Letter to the Leadership of Living Stream Ministry and the "Local Churches"
A letter/petition signed by 70+ Christian scholars highlighting controversial statements made by Witness Lee regarding the Christian faith.

• "Living Stream Ministry and the “local churches” (also known as The Lord’s Recovery), both founded by the late Witness Lee, have been involved for decades in legal and theological controversies with noted Christian institutions and leaders. In light of this history of litigation and conflict, we the undersigned make this public appeal.

The Church in Edmonton?
An outsider's look into a typical Sunday meeting of a Local Church, and her issues with the material covered in the Prophesying Meeting. This particular meeting shows the LC Doctrine concerning the "denominations" through an outsider's eyes.

• My conclusions on this church are simple. It was a good idea that kind of went sideways. It was like a baseball player hit a home run, but the ball went a funny direction and it ended up flying backwards and into the stands where it clipped a lady's arm, bounced off the seat, and broke a guys nose. Yes I agree that there are a lot of Christians out there that follow ritual and have no concept of Christ in their heart, and that these people are making no progress towards being closer to God. That is concerning for their sake and can also give the rest of us a bad name. But I don't think think this church is the answer to this issue. At least not like this.

The Local Church of Witness Lee
Linked in pdf form is an excerpt from a 1980 book The New Cults by Walter Martin, detailing the history, structure, and practices of the Local Church of the Time. Many of the things described in this excerpt still ring true today.

• "We have seen that Witness Lee and the Local Church teach error concerning the doctrines of God, Christ, man, sin, salvation, and the church. Witness Lee is not a sound Bible teacher, and the Local Church is cultic in many ways, even though many of its members are Christians. One cannot be truly obedient to God and join or remain in the Local Church or support the teachings that we have critically analyzed here."

What's wrong with it? - Practice

Summary of LC Beliefs:
6. Their leaders are God‘s authorities and are part of an authoritarian, top-down hierarchy.
7. Their cause is more important than people, and they need to shun, ban, quarantine, or excommunicate any persons they feel are divisive or in some way detrimental to their purpose.*
8. Any members who leave the group are turning away from following God.
9. Any who leave the group and speak out are "bitter and vindictive", and need to be silenced because "they spread false information".
10. Those from the outside who use media to question the group‘s teachings and practices are persecutors who need to be stopped.

Resources
What's Wrong with the LC?
A thread that lists off several points that can be argued as the "top points" of contention in the LC. Listed off are: Corruption, Subjectivity, Hypocrisy, the placing of "special persons" on a pedestal, Control, contempt for "works", Pride, practice and abuse of "Deputy Authority", and contempt for Spiritual Gifts.

How Much to Throw Out?
A discussion thread centering around what aspects of the LC to throw out and what to keep. WARNING: long.

Can the Local Church Leadership Say, "We Were Wrong?"
A letter written by Jane Carole Andersen (username Thankful Jane) to representatives of afaithfulword.org asking for a fair judgement while also challenging the Christian Research Institute over the legitimacy of their article "We Were Wrong".

• "The LC leadership has a long history of unbiblical and unchristian practices that have psychologically and spiritually damaged many people. Fulfilling what they consider to be their special calling is more important to them than individuals, marriages, or families. Their mission is to spread the LC and Witness Lee‘s ministry throughout the earth in order to bring the Lord back. Their goal seems to justify for them the means they employ in their quest."

Testimonies of Former Members:
Speaking the Truth in Love
John Ingalls was a former elder in the Church in Anaheim before resigning in 1989 on account of malpractice in the LSM office and unwarranted persecution from Witness Lee(?) (Somebody phrase this better please; still reading this book)

• "Our greatest indictment, undoubtedly, is that we have been away from the Lord. Hence, our urgent need in these days is to return to the Lord Himself, to focus o Him, and to care supremely for our relationship with Him. Even more than attempting to correct abuses and unbalances we need to center on our Lord Jesus and pursue after Him. This has been the greatest lesson the Lord is seeking to teach me. To those who were caught in a religious system while He was on the earth Jesus said, “Come to Me!” That was His central call, and He voiced it again and again. He surely exposed the system and spoke scathing rebukes to its leaders, but He also gave those with an ear a door out and a very positive direction: “Come to Me!” “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). What a precious word for today! “Let us therefore go forth to Him outside the camp….” (Heb. 13:13). To come out and yet not pursue Him so that He becomes everything to us is indeed vanity. Then we simply fall into another camp, call what we may.

In the Wake of the New Way
<Insert biography statement of Steve Isitt here>A book written by Steve Isitt (username Indiana) concerning the damage done to the churches by the "New Way" - the reorganization of the Local Church into a vehicle for the ministry for the purpose of constituting the saints with the "truth".

• "To uphold the weak and those with differing views is to be according to the Lord’s heart and to answer the trumpet call. It is also to respond to the Lord’s prayer in John 17, “that they all would be one”. The Lord's move should be a move in His Body involving all the members, not forgetting any among us -- and remembering those who left.

A Future and a Hope
John Myer was a former elder in the Church in Cleveland. He was included in the Blended Brothers' quarantine of the GLA area in a power dispute with Titus Chu, and then excommunicated from that same church due to his experimentation in how to make the church more relevant. This book concerns how to move on from the Local Church and how to not repeat its mistakes.

• "There is no use in trying to resurrect the past. Regardless of what measures we take, we will not succeed in bringing back the church life of 1969 or 1972 or 1976. All we can do at present is to adopt the Apostle Paul’s example of forgetting the things that are behind, while stretching forward to the things that are before. This is a difficult concept to appreciate. Many folks with extensive past glory days unconsciously long for the reinstatement of them. At the very least, they use them as a measuring stick for whatever happens today. A Future and a Hope will not advocate returning to those good old days, but advancing to the fresh new ones.

Other materials on specific subjects:
WARNING! "Christians on Campus"
A post exposing the uglier side of the youth organization Christians on Campus, a recruiting arm of the Local Church.

• "The Bible teaches a simple gospel of a loving God who gave his only Son as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Witness Lee taught that this simple gospel is the “low gospel”. Witness Lee claimed to teach the “high gospel”. This “high gospel” is complicated with spiritual sounding words and terms strung together in a way that boggles the mind. Local Church members seem to believe themselves to be an elite group of Christians who understand this “high gospel” that others do not."