[Trapped]

A few comments, most of which are not directed towards your main question.

1. The idea of oneness - while it sounds good, the local church's idea of oneness is an internal, inward-facing oneness. It is not a oneness with the rest of the Body of Christ. (And yes, there is a "rest" of the Body of Christ....growing up in "the church", "the Body" is made equal to "the local church" while disregarding the millions of other Christians who are also the church). The local church is not, has no desire to be, and takes no steps to be one with those other Christians.

2. Do not go to the FTTA if you don't want to. It will cause problems for yourself, your family, the other trainees, the trainers, etc... Being there unwillingly WILL make your situation worse.

3. The Sunday meetings were what I hung on to for a long time too....also to please my parents, but eventually I couldn't deny the inward revolting at most of what I heard.

4. The teaching of the divine Trinity in the "Recovery" (p.s. there is no such thing as "the recovery".....there is no special "recovery" within the Body of Christ), is actually problematic in a number of areas. Many Christians have called on the local churches to renounce its views on the trinity, which say, for example, that the Father IS the Son. Lee actually says in one place that God is not three Persons, just one. He also uses some very irresponsible language to describe the three persons of the Godhead, and while the local church does clearly teach against modalism, Lee's language in some places is unacceptable ("successive steps") and the source of, guess what? A rift between the local church and other Christians (there's your oneness!) that could be easily corrected if the top brass would set aside their arrogance for a few minutes.

(Having said that, people have tried to explain and describe the Trinity for centuries, and we won't understand in this life all of His complexities, that's for sure.)

5. God's economy is mentioned in the Bible. However, I was blown away when I came across a post on this forum that recommended reading the first chapter of The Economy of God. Guess what? Lee provides zero.....ZERO.....backup, basis, or foundation for his presentation of God's economy. He makes a statement about what it is, and then says "a thorough reading of the Bible reveals this." And then doesn't give any further details. No verses, no excerpts, no making a connection. He makes sweeping statements with no Biblical backup whatsoever. Furthermore, the verse actually says "teachings.....which RESULT in God's economy." But Lee spins that to say we need to "teach God's economy". That shift showed me a lot.

6. Suppressing critical thinking is huge. I cannot tell you how many mental battles I have fought with myself worried that a thought I had that is not 100% in line with Lee's teaching might be from Satan, or from my self, or a source of poison, or me being deceived because I stepped out of the ark for a second, or me being in darkness. When the words of the Bible are as plain as day!!

7. Explaining to your family is difficult. Definitely keep the emphasis on the Lord and that you love the Lord and want to follow Him, and that you love your family. I know one family where even an adult child decided to leave the church and attend another church, and the parents told them they were leaving the place where God is going to accomplish His heart's desire. With the possibility of those kind of statements coming your way, you need to be firm in your convictions. But you also need to bring your convictions to the Lord to make sure they are firm in Him.