[kumbaya]

Originally Posted by leastofthese

Hey Kumbaya,

Others on this forum will probably have a better answer for you. I can only speak to my experience.

There are really two ways to answer this question.

1. No, they do not openly discourage people from reading/posting on this site. I doubt the site is blocked on LSM church networks, and no one will be monitoring your web searches.

2. Yes, I was told by multiple people, across multiple localities, including church elder and full timers NOT to read stuff on the internet. They all called it poison. It made such an impression on me (as it was so clearly communicated) that I decided to heed their warning during my time at the church. My time with the church was intentionally dedicated to understanding and following their flow - which I did with fidelity until it was blatantly obvious that Witness Lee and the LSM are a farce. One member aptly calls it a "personality cult".

It is kind of like the point about being forced to buy HWMR. They didn't need to force me to purchase - I forked over my own money without anyone asking me to. BUT it was understood that in order to participate, fellowship, "prophesy", and interact with other members - you had to get a booklet. And everyone would say (publicly) how great and how much they "enjoyed" reading the books. Poorly written, devoid of Gods spirit, theologically questionable, and overall just an unenjoyable read. But in public, you say how great it was. That is how the game is played.

I am fortunate that I left the LSM churches without wounds (unlike many others on this site). My experience there was actually very pleasant. I knew all the right people and all the right people liked me. I was good material. I guess that is why some people stay, they are made to feel important, special, smart, spiritually mature, bigger and better than those in "poor degraded Christianity" (especially those nasty catholics ). I think what attracted people to me was Christ's Spirit within - a perfectly flawed believer made whole through the blood of Jesus. Just a regular dude, comfortable in his own skin, and willing to be the same person when talking to an elder or the janitor.

The Lord led my steps. May he continue to heal you and lead you closer to his grace, mercy, and truth.

Thank you so much for that response! I was told the same thing growing up and even when I wasn’t meeting for most of my 20’s, I still didn’t look up any criticism online because I truely had this fear that Satan would “get me” and I’d be “poisoned.”

It’s taken me a while to accept that while we should have a healthy fear of the Lord, we shouldn’t fear criticism from others. If anything, you should be able to question and examine criticism (especially with eternal matters right?) to see if there is any truth at all so you can know you’re constantly realigning yourself with the Lord. I might not have this right but there’s the doctrine of the fallacy of man that reminds us that none of us is incapable of sin. Shouldn’t there be a path or avenue to allow accountability within leadership for a group of believers?

I don’t see that at all in the LC. All the submission/authority practices seem extremely off base with what the Bible says. The verses they use don’t really explain (at least to me) how they justify their practices.

But back to the topic, I appreciate you sharing your experience about enjoying the church life. I actually really like a lot of the people in the locality I grew up in. Sometimes I wish my brain didn’t work the way it did and I could not overthink so much. It’s a blessing and a curse sometimes. Things would certainly be a lot easier if I would just “go with the flow.”

But- I wouldn’t be happy not having my own journey.

I understand that feeling of being liked and knowing the right people. As much as I’m a problem for some people in my locality, I feel like (at least I sense) that people stil like me. I feel pretty strongly that if that local church was just an independent non-denominational Bible-based church then I would go there! I feel like you also can see the bigger picture though. It’s off, it’s tainted. Somewhere, somehow- either from the beginning or years later- it became unhealthy.

This part is hard for me to write about but I feel like it’s important to recognize. It’s just very personal and still painful for me but I have to be able to speak my truth without feeling like I’m bringing shame to my family or being disrespectful to my dad. I could write a novel on the complexity of our relationship but the part of it that relates here is me knowing his background and how he was just a perfect “fit” or “bait” for the LC.

Aside from his decisions about the LC, I admire most everything about him. I know he loved me, sacrificied a lot, and did what he honestly thought was right with the best intentions. Did he make mistakes? Yes. But I have a child and I’ve probably made more than him- that’s not the issue. We also had personalities that I’ve learned will naturally clash. He did not understand me and I deal with conflict (or used to) by shutting down. Somehow we were never able to get on the same page. I was deeply affected by the pressure to perform my spirituality publically. It caused my spirit to be numbed. The culture of guilt and shame and oppression on the young people is somewhat better now in that locality but it’s still there. This created a constant feeling of shame for me where I never felt good enough- even though I knew I was smart and creative, I had terribly self esteem. I’ve had to go back and listen to audio tapes of Eugene Gruehler speaking about the “goals for the young people” to be able to understand why my dad had a certain mindset in his parenting. I believe that goal #1 was to have every young person baptized by 6th grade and goal #2 was to have them all attend the full time training. There was all sorts of misguided advice about psychology, etc....the truth is, a lot of kids didn’t get their needs met for where they were in their emotional development. I’m not saying that to criticize but to hopefully increase awareness of how important it is. Growing up one of the most important lessons you learn in emotional development is a sense of community. We had a skewed sense of that (can you tell I’ve had some counseling? Lol) having it only in the local church. Everything else was “wordly.” It was very much an “us verses them” mentality and I picked up on that at a young age. Looking back I can recognize that they just thought they were doing what was right, but I also have to be able to say that feeling “weird” and feeling like you don’t fit in with your peers bc of a spiritual difference in your family is emotionally unhealthy. Those are issues for later in life. A child needs to fit in before they can ever make the choice for themselves to feel different. Currently, I’m almost as different as they come but back then I needed to fit in badly- and I didn’t. I was constantly embarrassed and ashamed of our weirdness. It’s just one of those things that’s not a big deal at all- but to kids, it is.

What further complicates this journey is the tendency to put people on a pedestal when they’ve passed. It’s very hard sometimes for a child to try to be objective and recognize the issues that were in play during a time period and relate the affects of the issues to the issues themselves. I had a great dad and I wouldn’t change anything bc it’s been my journey and I accept that. But some things affect you negatively and some positively and I think it’s important to be objective in examining that.

I can see that my dad saw a “father figure” that he never had in someone who (an elder) was found out to be an abusive person. I can see that his natural likeability and discipline, his speaking/musical abilities, his non-stop energy and I know, genuine care about people were just perfect for the role of an elder. The church was the family my dad never had. He followed to a tee (from what I know), and I know he thought he was doing was was right. But it caused so many problems bc, I believe it was unbalanced. We’ve had issues as kids and our extended family has too. Of course, things have changed but back then it was a meeting very single night, they were told to choose between family and the church, and they wouldn’t go into a home (even extended family members homes) with a Christmas tree bc it was an “idol.” Good grief! I’m saying all that to point out that although I’m glad some things have changed drastically, that the culture is not done being oppressive and controlling. It’s lightened up but it’s still the same culture, just a smaller dose of it.

I didn’t plan on writing all that- LOfT, you got me thinking about it when you wrote about some people just fitting in. Obviously I’ve felt the same.

It’s really refreshing to accept its 100% possible for me to go on by seeing everyone doing that here. Even though I KNOW that, its an immediate programmed guilt/shame feeling when I tell myself that I'm standing for something different than how I was raised. I don't believe its a healthy environment to know God and grow in Him. Yet I don't really fit in with members of denominations either so, where does that leave us lost church kids? Deserted. I need to see believers going on after being in the LC and see that it's possible. I believe it but I don't KNOW KNOW it- if that makes sense I'll probably need to be reminded of that for a while.

I just really think this issue is so huge and it’s so important to recognize. I have a lot of concern and sadness for the environment the kids/YP are in bc I personally know the struggles they might face in life and feel for them.

I know it’s not my job to fix anything though. Maybe if any LCers are reading they can hopefully take it to heart. It's not just me, I have many friends who would agree that the young people’s work wasn’t good for them. I still fight feeling guilty for saying that bc I know there were a lot of sacrifices made by people but unfortunately- it’s still true.

Shame on LSM, that's what I can conclude from it all.