Nee's 'Ministry to the House or to the Lord'

[Indiana]

I started this thread with the upcoming conference in mind on the “ground of the church”, which is a term first used by Watchman Nee. Here in his booklet on ministry to the House he doesn’t mention the ground of the church, but he does bring attention to the most vital aspect of the church life in issuing a call for believers to spend time with the Lord and to strengthen their relationship with Him in their daily life and for the church life. This was the primary objective of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee in all their ministry - to bring believers into the experience of Christ for their service in the church and to the Lord.

Meeting on a proper ground is another aspect of the church life that is important, for it affects the Lord’s will that “they all may be one” that “the world may believe.” Both Nee and Lee noted that without adequate experience of Christ and having a right attitude of heart for receiving others it would be easy for a local church to become a sect. They could have the teaching that they stand on the ground of oneness in their locality with every believer, but, practically speaking, if their relationship is more with a ministry and a cause than with Christ, their receiving of all those God receives is undermined seriously, they limiting themselves in heart to the small, yet special, sphere of receiving only those who attach themselves to the same ministry and cause.

Nee opened in his booklet with

"Let us note at the outset that there is little apparent difference between ministry to the House of the Lord and ministry to the Lord Himself. Many of you are doing your utmost to help your brethren, and you are laboring to save sinners and administer the affairs of the church. But let me ask you: Have you been seeking to meet the need around you, or have you been seeking to serve the Lord? Is it your fellow men you have in view, or is it Him?

From the beginning of his booklet, Nee was focused on Him, as was Witness Lee in his booklet called The Ground of the Church. Both of these booklets and the ministries of Nee and Lee helped the local churches to see Christ with the church in the 60s and early 70s. Christ was clearly in view. The church ground was clearly presented. And, the church life was abundant with signs of inward and outward blessing.


Witness Lee began his booklet with

“For the church life, there are two main and basic aspects. We must be thoroughly clear about these, for without them we have no reality of the church life. The first is that Christ Himself is the life, the content, and everything in the church. It is absolutely not a matter of forms, doctrines, or certain kinds of expressions. Those who are really in the church life are those who are experiencing Christ as their very life day by day. Christ is everything to them; therefore, Christ is their life and content whenever they come together. The practice of the church life is a life of Christ and a life with Christ as everything.

“The second main aspect of the church life is that of the standing or the ground of the church…… What is the ground of the Roman Catholic Church? Without a doubt, it is Rome. The Roman Catholic Church claiming Christ as its foundation is built upon the ground of Roman Catholicism. Upon what ground is the Presbyterian Church built? It is clear that their ground is a certain system of government called the presbytery. They have laid the foundation of Christ upon the ground of the presbytery. What about the Baptists? They with Christ as their foundation are built upon the ground of baptism, baptism by immersion. Then there are the Lutherans. They have laid their foundation upon the ground of Luther and his teachings. You see, all the "churches" claim the same foundation, which is Christ; but they all stand upon different grounds. It is the different grounds that create the problem for the unity of the church, not Christ as the foundation."

BOOKLET – Ground of the Church
www.twoturmoils.com/GroundoftheChurch.pdf

Okay, thank you for this fellowship brother Lee. The Lutherans have laid their foundation "upon the ground of Luther and his teachings". How about the Local Churches today?

From the Pledge to the One Publication Proclamation, www.TwoTurmoils.com tells us how the ground for meeting in the Local Churches became Witness Lee and his ministry.


A Leader and a Ministry Becoming a Center

WATCHMAN NEE
Whenever a special leader, or a specific doctrine, or some experience, or creed, or organization, becomes a center for drawing together the believers of different places, then because the center of such a church federation is other than Christ, it follows that its sphere will be other than local. And, whenever the divinely appointed sphere of locality is displaced by a sphere of human invention, there the divine approval cannot rest. The believers within such a sphere may truly love the Lord, but they have another center apart from Him, and it is only natural that the second center becomes the controlling one. It is contrary to human nature to stress what we have in common with others; we always stress what is ours in particular. Christ is the common center of all the churches, but any company of believers that has a leader, a doctrine, an experience, a creed, or an organization as their center of fellowship, will find that that center becomes the center, and it is that center by which they determine who belongs to them and who does not. The center always determines the sphere, and the second center creates a sphere which divides those who attach themselves to it from those who do not.

Anything that becomes a center to unite believers of different places will create a sphere which includes all believers who attach themselves to that center and excludes those who do not. This dividing line will destroy the God-appointed boundary of locality, and consequently destroy the very nature of the churches of God (Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Church Life, p. 184).

A former elder, Kyle, gives his testimony

"...But slowly over time I saw how we had become more and more exclusive and were giving ourselves to a 'cause' and not to Christ. Of course, we still loved the Lord and served Him passionately, but we were in a mixture. The ministry became our focus. It was no longer the ministry for the churches but the churches for the ministry. The atmosphere became toxic, no longer could we breathe pure air, suspicion abounded. "Were we 100% for the ministry? If we were just 98% we should get out." These were basically Witness Lee's words. In the early years I was in local church, I used to overlook the things that bothered my conscience. But after so much became manifested in the late 1980s (financial corruption, immoral behavior of W Lee's son, terrible mistreatment of saints, cover-up of sin, etc.), I cried to the Lord day and night for over a year about what to do. He brought me into the LC and He had to be the one who would bring me out.

Then at a conference in Pasadena, California [1988], I received the speaking that it was time to leave. I saw that we were not the church I had thought we were. We had become another narrow-minded, exclusive, controlling, elitist, sectarian group just like many separatist groups that had gone before us (ex. "exclusive Brethren"). At that conference I witnessed Witness Lee actually spit on a book by G. H. Lang, "Local Assembly." All Lang did was expose centralization. Lee said we were an organism, not centralized. But everyone knew our practice was that we had a centralized organization. I cried all the way home after seeing the awful behavior of this so-called man of God. I felt I was cheated for so many years.

…I cherish the years in the LC, but if I had never left, I hate to think what I would have become.

The Lord is faithful and so good to us to lead us. – end of Kyle testimony

The churches under LSM direction became ministry churches, or local sects, no longer aligned well with the two booklets mentioned earlier. “If we have to advertise our ministry and use great effort to promote it….,” Nee says. What a discrepancy between the message of Nee and Lee over several decades to the churches and what we know to be their practice today.

Steve Isitt
3/19/13