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Old 03-04-2012, 12:04 PM   #4
ToGodAlone
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 95
Default Re: I love the local church

I too welcome you to the forum and encourage you to register.

I just wanted to address one of your points regarding all members prophesying. You said

Quote:
I wish all churches (non-local churches) would stop the one man speaking and let every member function.
This is something that I believe is a misconception of non LRC churches by those who have spent a considerable amount of time in the LRC context. I have been a member of several churches (all non LRC) in my short lifetime, and all of these churches did use the pastoral/elder/whatever else system and thus had the "one man speaking" every week. However, what I think some people fail to recognize (or perhaps are not even aware of) is that although there is a speaker every week, there are smaller group contexts in which every person has the opportunity to share (ie prophesy). And everyone is encouraged to attend these small groups so there is in fact no true "suppression" of each individual member's ability to speak about God's Word.

That being said, the reason for having the pastor speak every week is so that everyone has the opportunity to hear the Word preached by one who has been trained in Biblical study and who would therefore have a deeper insight into the Word of God than those who didn't have such extensive study. This actually happens in the LRC context as well, although it probably isn't as obvious. Are not the main speakers at trainings and conferences, and even those that "lead" or "facilitate" the Lord's day meetings those who have attended the FTT, the LRC version of seminary? Going back to the reason for the pastoral system, the Bible says that there are those who have been gifted with the ability to speak or teach and for some, their calling is into full time ministry as a pastor. The main function of the pastor is not only just to speak, but to help guide (or shepard, going along with the connotation of pastor) the members of the church. They are not necessarily above any other member of the church (although they probably have more administrative power, it is far from absolute), but rather are serving as any other member would in their own way. Not everyone is called to such things.

I guess in summary of this long rant, there is no reason to stop using this system because it is more beneficial for the church as a whole to have someone (or people) to guide them. In the case of churches who do not use this system, what happens? It pops up anyway. WL was essentially the head pastor and all the FTT graduates are the elders/pastors in today's LRC. What do they do? They guide everyone so that they conform to the ministry. You say something that conflicts with the ministry, you can bet that they'll be the first to let you know. In my opinion, the difference between a pastor (though they are far from perfect, like anyone else, let's consider the normal case where they're not corrupt ) and a FTT graduate is that the pastor helps the church conform to the Bible and the Gospel message and the FTT graduate helps conform the church to the LRC interpretation of the Bible. I realize what I have said will probably spark discussion about denominations and whatnot, but this is not my point.
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