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Originally Posted by jigsaw44
Got another question for y'all. I guess I was not done asking questions.
15. Gossip- Gossip is in every church to some extent but in the LC. It's almost feels impossible to have a 1 on 1 conversation with someone. Like there are times when a convo is general and appropriate to share with others. While other times, it's obvious or directly stated to be a personal 1 on 1 conversation, or a bro/locker room vibe convo. It's funny how an LC individual would approach you or in the middle of a conversation- reveal personal info about yourself that you know you have not told them. Knowing darn well only 1 person knew about that piece of info, and unfortunately I have to have a level of distrust for that person I initially told that piece of info. It's like their objective is to spill the beans at all cost. Like do they not have the concept of trust? Maybe this is just my personal experience and I am positive this level of distrust is not exclusive to LC but it's the most tattle tale environment I have seen in the church environment.
Are you fellas familiar with my experience? Or is this just a me thing cause they are trying to spread info on me and figure me out? If it is a common trait in the LC, why is it like this?
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I found that nearly no leader was a mature shepherd. Over time, many of the more independent thinkers eventually got "purged," only to be replaced by loyalists. I saw that way too often. No one had actual counseling training or experience. In my region, elders regularly deferred to Titus Chu for advice or counsel. Once when I needed serious counsel, the advice Titus gave me was the worst possible, perhaps valid in 19th century China, but definitely wrong for my situation. Thank God a brother stopped me from acting on it.
The local leaders would seek the Lord for church direction, but inevitably the local leader would announce, "I'll call Titus and fellowship about this." The one calling Titus thus exerted his own authority, being designated as THE local leader, the one qualified to call headquarters. This literally drove me crazy. Not that an outsider could interfere in local decision-making, nor that I personally wanted more say, but the experience of the whole church constantly changing direction based on a single phone call. Nothing was ever built up because we continually went off in new directions with every encounter with Titus. So much for local autonomy, with churches administered by an eldership of brothers.
Very few brothers understood what the word "discrete" meant. How many times I thought to myself, "I didn't need to hear all that." Often times this was done under the guise of prayer. Instead of just lifting the saints in prayer, we "needed" to know how to pray, which often included all of the gory details. Then I often lost heart to pray.
There was also something that I called, "the law of first complaint." Actually Titus complained once in passing that WL would regularly believe the first person who brought a complaint about another to him. Talk about partiality, the accused party would never even be consulted to defend himself. So Titus was regularly a victim of false accusations by power hungry rivals who brought complaints to Lee. Think about it. Here is the presumed global MOTA in Anaheim and he doesn't even have the basic human decency and discernment to investigate the facts before believing lies. It's no wonder that Titus was regularly slandered by Philip Lee and others.
But, did Titus right this wrong in his own region? Of course not. He just repeated the same bad habits he learned from Lee. Without predetermined principles to guide wise counseling, this pattern of "believing the dirt" circulating around just continues unchecked throughout the entire program.