Quote:
Originally Posted by Trapped
Did Lee get some things right about caring for the saints in some of his ministry books? Of course. But it's undeniable that the known undercurrent within the local churches is the lack of love.
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Lee got some things right. But to me that's like sitting blindfolded on your front lawn with a shotgun, blazing away. Eventually you may hit a duck. But in the meantime you'll also cause some damage.
I've told this before - I was a troubled youth who became a troubled adult. Then I was told, it's so simple, so easy! Just call "O Lord" on the proper ground of oneness, and all the floodgates of blessing and healing will follow. Just be one with the speaking, give yourself to the Lord for the propagation of the High Peak Truth. The "it's so simple and easy" mantra turned into a lot of "Just do this" and "Just do that" but anyway I was game. I was on the front row of every meeting, louder than the rest.
But after years of 24/7 immersion, I couldn't deny that I was still a troubled adult. I scheduled time with an elder, poured out my frustration. He wasn't interested. One by one I went to each elder, hoping for an ear, some acknowledgement of our common humanity. The closest I got was when one of them looked at me without expression and said, "We all have problems."
One by one I got a perfunctory brushoff. At the time, I was still "sold out" and "wrecked" for the LC and I soldiered on. But it was disconcerting that the "glorious church life" was an empty facade. They were interested in a kind of external meeting-life performance, but not very much in me as a human. The church mattered, the ministry mattered, etc, but there was little indication from those leaders that they cared for me. (But in retrospect how could they care? They'd been given no tools. In fact the few innate tools they possessed had been taken away)
They were each clearly uncomfortable at my speaking, as if bothered that I came to them at all, as if pouring out my trouble exposed their impotence. By confessing my sins, I'd broken an unwritten code, to always be positive and to maintain pretense at all costs. Thus the brusque one-liners in reply to my embarrassed self-exposure. Conversation over. Get back to the meeting and call, "Oh Lord".