I can't be the only one...

[ABrotherinFaith]

I am a current "member" of the of the church with no name, a.k.a. The Local Church a.k.a. The Recovery. Anyone else out there lurking? If so, how has this site affected you? Do you find a lot of the criticisms of the church as it was a decade or so ago (or further back) to be relevant today? Has anything/anyone changed?

I'm a second generation church kid whose parents came into the church in the early 70s in southern California. I grew up steeped in the ministry. As is the case with about 97% of my generation that I know in the church, I didn't take it too seriously. I went to camps and conferences here and there. I even went to a training in the early 90s (I quickly tired of the meetings and headed for the beach). In university I drifted away just in time to not really care/understand that my dad had been kicked out and accused of not being one with the ministry (around '96). Didn't meet anywhere or read the Word much for about 12 years. Traveled for almost 6 years. Came back to the States in 2005 left again and didn't come back until mid 2006, just after some kind of storm. I never really cared much for what was going on until I began reading the Word and certain things I heard started to ring hollow. The more I read and the more I spoke to Christians the more some things in the meetings didn't add up. By 2008 I was firmly back in the States and married. Married life kept my mind off the things that bothered me. I was more focused on work and my wife. As time went on, things started to bother me again. I think it was in about 2010, maybe 2011. I began to hear the Psalms traduced. There was no critical thinking, just a wave of acceptance. That really didn't seem right. The James was spoken ill of. Then I happened to voice a different opinion in a meeting and received a call the next day. Was that the right place to voice my concern? Did I do it correctly, with meekness? Wasn't I a little bit harsh? I apologized and changed my small group meeting. Since then, I have continued to read the Bible at the expense of the HWMR. There's really no need to read it as people pretty much get up and read from it verbatim when they prophecy...There are two things which still really bother me: denigrating certain books of the Bible and denigrating brothers and sisters, dare I say saints, outside the Recovery. All the other (smaller to me right now) problems stem from these two. If the Bible is seen as a book that doesn't know as much as us, and other believers are seen in the same way, all sorts of doors open up and reading the Bible becomes a free for all.

I am sure there is some level of congruity from locality to locality as far as adherence to the ministry, but there must be some places/people who don't wholly buy into the economy...There is a distinct difference between people of my dad's generation in the church and those younger, say in college of just out. For the latter, the Ministry is almost equal to the Bible. At least that's the sense I get. There are still some older brothers and sisters who are die hard supporters, but there are also more than a few who have quietly gone back to the Bible as their primary source. As dar as people I grew up with, there are only about 3 or 4 who still meet out of more than 20.

What's it like elsewhere?

A brother in faith