[Cal]

The problem I have with seeking to discover which group or movement if any is the "true" one is that it so easily degrades from genuine seeking (if it ever was that) into wanting to believe and trying to prove, based on fallible knowledge, that one's own group or way is IT, which necessitates saying others aren't it, which is destructive.

I think ZNP's question was really rhetorical. He asked for a definition of a "true church" in anticipation that a clear one could not be given. If so, he was right so far. It hasn't been given, at least not one that is useful.

The LCM city church model is untenable for reasons given. There is no way to decide who the elders should be, there is no way to recover from corrupt elders, there is no way for people to act on their consciences and leave a corrupt organization. The LCM model empowers a handful of men to control thousands of Christians, and gives God no way, aside from striking them dead, to free people from them if they go bad.

Thus the conclusion must be that the Lord never meant to require city churches to be strictly organized under one group of specific elders. Hence the citing of house churches in the NT. Christians have the right to follow the leaders they feel the Lord is showing them to follow, and to reject leaders they feel are bad. No group of leaders has the right to expect an entire city of Christians follow them. The city church then is an abstraction, like the universal church, and within that Christians are free to follow their consciences.

If we allow others that freedom, and focus on what we have in common, the result will be not uniformity, but it will be a genuine unity. We can see that happening now. Even some in the LCM are coming this way, though some are holding out, still jealous for their self-declared status of "true."