[Trapped]

Originally Posted by jigsaw44

Intro- I am currently part of the local churches (east coast), and upon joining for a little while now (not too new and not a long term member) I seem to have a lot of questions I wouldn't feel comfortable asking upfront just by the nature of it. (the word "but" is used an unnecessary amount of times but im done typing/adjusting and just want to post.

1. What exactly is the hierarchy of the local churches? On these forums I see these terms of Coworker, blended brothers, elders, (whats next after elders and so on) etc. What exactly are these titles and their function, and how would you know if someone is in one of these positions? It seems pretty subtle when it comes to knowing who is who and what is what. I feel like I have no idea how this system is organized and it feels like it is something that is not explained for a long while for some reason or another.

Welcome jigsaw44!

I only have a short window to say something but will try to follow up with some more thoughts on the rest of your post in the coming days. But regarding your point #1......

The brothers in the leadership of the local churches adamantly claim that "there is no hierarchy" in the local churches. But, as you may or may not have discovered, there can be a fair amount of contradictory thoughts/teachings in the local church. I say that because while stamping their foot and proclaiming "no hierarchy", the leadership simultaneously holds iron-grip fast to the concept of "deputy authority" in the church.

What is "God's deputy authority" you might ask? In the church, what it distills down to is that it's brothers in the lead who must be submitted to whether they are right or wrong. Who are the ones telling us that God's deputy authorities must be submitted to whether right or wrong? Why, those very same deputy authorities.

I'll provide a sample quote from an article posted to a recent public relations site they created within the past year:

"The apostles charged the believers to submit to all deputy authorities, without regard to whether they were good or bad (Rom. 13:1; Titus 3:1; 1 Pet. 2:13). Believers are likewise charged to honor the elders in the church (1 Tim. 5:17) and be subject to them (1 Pet. 5:5).

What if a deputy authority is wrong? If a deputy authority is wrong, we should still submit (Dan. 3:19-21; Acts 16:20-25), though we cannot obey if the authority insists that we act contrary to God (Dan. 3:16-18; Acts 5:29)."

One tripping hazard with these kind of quotes is that they are chock-filled with verse references, giving the impression that everything they are saying, stating, and claiming is what the Bible says.

But it's just not. What the co-workers have done in the article (I'll get to "the co-workers" in a sec) is mix verses about submitting to SECULAR authorities "whether good or bad", and then pretending like the Bible commands that same "whether good or bad" stance regarding apostles, elders, etc.....in the church. But the Bible NEVER says to submit to someone in the church "whether they are good or bad". Ever. The system of "authority" (if you want to call it that) in the church is completely turned upside down from the world. And Jesus Himself says it in Matthew 20:25-28:

25 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.
26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,
27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—
28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

So just with your first question, you've uncovered a known abusive teaching used in cults and abusive churches. It's a big one, and it tells us reams about what's going on in the local church. And what it's telling us is not good.

It basically provides the perfect petri dish of an environment for sin, unrighteousness, and all manner of evil to be covered up and hidden and never dealt with, because the members have been trained to believe they have to submit no matter what. The second you hear anyone saying "we have the authority" is actually the very moment that they have lost their authority, because they have strayed from the thing that really has the authority - the word of God.

There's more I could say, but that's an initial toe-dip into the cesspool of hierarchy and authority in the local church.

The frustrating thing is, if everyone behaves themselves, a given local church can seem like quite a nice place. Most members have direct access, free fellowship, good relationships with the elders in that locality, and you don't bump up against this strange "deputy authority" that much. It's when 1) someone sins and the eldership is expected to step in and they confusingly develop lead feet and you're expected to not have a problem with their unwillingness to do the right thing, or 2) the co-workers (who are "above" the elders) blow into town and the elders suddenly become simpering backbone-less non-elders who bow to whatever unbiblical stuff the co-workers may be commanding them to do, that you bump up against it. And this stuff happens. Oh boy, does it ever.

So in this "we are not a hierarchy", here is a rough idea of the hierarchy as I posted elsewhere on this site:

1. Witness Lee (in the grave)
2. Co-workers in the Lord's recovery - cover the whole world
>>a. Senior co-workers
>>b. Junior co-workers
3. North America co-workers - includes some regional co-workers, deals only with N.A.
4. Regional co-workers - cover various regions in the U.S., some of whom are North America co-workers, some of whom are not but are elders.
5. Elders in each locality.
6. Responsible brothers in each locality (includes both elders as well as the brothers under them, say, who head up various services in the church, or various district meetings, or handle the HWMR sharing, etc).
7. All the other brothers.
8. All sisters, no matter the age, maturity, responsibility, weightiness, expertise, etc.

8 is a little tongue in cheek, but not really far off from reality as I have observed it, and as you may have noticed.

#nohierarchy

As you rightly observed, they are shifty about identifying who is who. Elders in each locality are openly known, but above that is mired in clouds of smoke. I think it's commonly understood that "the blended brothers" includes AT LEAST the brothers who share the messages at the LSM live trainings given every summer and winter. "The blended brothers" are either all the co-workers, or a subset of the co-workers.

One other wrinkle while I'll only touch upon, is that the majority of the board members of LSM, if not all of them, are also co-workers. And so any decision made by "the co-workers" is by default also a decision made by all the top brass at LSM. What this does is put LSM as #1 in place of Witness Lee, for all practicality these days. A publishing house is the top leader of a network of churches. It's just weird.

I recollect the same as Sons to Glory!. I believe "the co-workers" came about as a term initially to describe the brothers who were around Witness Lee when he was alive. They were "co-working" with Witness Lee, and so they became "the co-workers". Even their terminology has to do with relationship to Witness Lee. If you look through the Bible, though, the Greek for co-worker is used in a much broader sense and in a few cases includes couples and sisters.

But the reason for shiftiness (and I'll stop on this point), is so they can't be held accountable. In the Bible, the apostles were named, openly identified themselves as such, and openly known. And the saints in the church were charged to watch out for wolves and false prophets, and were told to test them and were commended for identifying false apostles, etc. Well......it's kind of hard to test and discern and hold people to a standard if they won't even identify who they are.....right?

On that same PR site I mentioned earlier, the co-workers claim to be apostles, and then call it "unbiblical" to ask for a list of the co-workers. It actually couldn't be more biblical, given that the apostles are listed out one by one in the Bible itself.

It's all just a contradictory, unscriptural mess that they've propagated. I personally think 95% of the problems in the local church stem from the upper echelons of the leadership.

Anyway. You got me going. Sorry for the long post. Hope this is helpful as a start.

Trapped