[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

The LCs are trying to grapple with a true demographic shift over the past 35 years, as their constituents keep growing less reflective of the "local" populations they've supposedly been representing.

Here's an excerpt from the recent (Feb 2019) newsletter of the Church in Sydney (Australia) affiliated with Titus Chu:

Pray for the new believers (5 brothers: Yuan-Pei Zhao, Chao Ma, Lyon Yang, Jack Zhou and Joe Zhou as well as 16 sisters: Lu Gan, Lan-Xiu Zhang, Li-Fang Ge, Kelie Wei, Li-Yuan Xu, Jean Hu, MinFang Wu, XiuQing Chen, Heidi Li, Tracy Lin, Sophie, AnJie Lin, Han Huang, Ariana Chang, Feng-Lian Li and Miao-Lian Li.) May the Lord establish them in the church life and bless their growth in life.

And to show that this demographic constituency isn't a fluke, here's from their April 2018 bulletin:

Pray for the new believers (7 brothers: Vincent Tai, YuMing Liang, Zylen Liang, Stephen, William, Yuan Liu and Yuan-Pei Zhao as well as 12 sisters: Vanessa Lu, Li Zhou, Lili Chen, Jenny Zhu, Yun-Yue Lin, Li-Qin Wu, Yun Zhu, Joies, Ariel Chen, Lu Gan, Lan-Xiu Zhang and Li-Fang Ge.) May the Lord establish them in the church life and bless their growth in life.

I don't see anything but Chinese names. Imagine if the "Church in Shenzhen" or the "Church in Guanzhou" had nothing but German names in their listed new members - might this possibly strike the casual reader as a bit odd? Especially since their raison-d'etre is localism? Or put differently, isn't this exactly what WN utterly rejected 85 or 90 years ago: non-local, non-representative, i.e. foreign, or alien-imposed Christian assemblies? Then what's happened with localism, here?

http://christiansinsydney.org/?p=2647

For those who can't pick up my drift (there are usually some) - I'm not pushing xenophobia, racism or reactionary pandering. I'm asking what's happened to the "local revival" concept of authentically native, really locally-based churches since its promotion in China nearly a century ago? It's completely gone, apparently. Vanished. Perhaps WL dropped it in the Pacific Ocean along with his other ''fallen religious concepts''. And if so, then what (if anything) got recovered in the Lord's recovery?