Against the LC Practice of Prophesying

[Freedom]

I've been wanting to start a thread on this for a while, so here goes. I have become increasingly convinced that the format of letting or expecting everyone to speak in a meeting is not profitable, especially with larger meetings. I understand that the original intention of this was to allow those who wanted to speak the opportunity to do so, however, what it has changed into is a practice that is quite frustrating at times. I'm sure this is all old news to everyone here, so I want to post a quote of WL in the Life-Study of Matthew in regards to the practice of prophesying/speaking in the meetings:

Not everyone has the ability to speak in the meeting. I would like to say a word of comfort to those who were not born with the ability to speak well. There is no need for you to speak in the meetings. In order to make a show that everyone functions in the meetings, the elders sometimes try to make people function. The elders may say, “If you do not function, you are not in the flow. You are not up-to-date.” This kind of word frustrates those who cannot speak well from coming to the meetings. They will be afraid to come to the meetings because the elders might force them to function. An attitude has been created that it is a shame not to speak in the meetings, but that it is glorious to do so. Yes, a number of years ago I did say that we can all prophesy one by one. At that time, I was genuinely burdened to encourage everyone to speak. But since that time a misleading attitude has been created regarding functioning in the meetings. Although I do not wish to stop anyone from speaking, I want to point out that functioning in the church life is not merely a matter of speaking. The Life-Study of Matthew, Message 66

I first read the LS of Matthew a number of years ago, and I happened to notice what he said in this excerpt. I thought it sounded a little odd in the current LC context, however, I just moved on. When I read this same excerpt now, I see that WL deviated from what could be considered to be a reasonable view regarding speaking in the meetings. In a way, it is not solely the fault of "the elders" for creating the view that it's shameful not to speak in the meetings. That was mostly Lee's fault IMO. So although Lee is being a little dishonest with what he said here, it shows a better attitude than what can be found currently.

The attitude that I find now, is that although you can get away with not speaking in the meeting, it is highly frowned upon. The idea is that if you don't "flow out", you can't go on in the Lord. Because the meeting format is completely "open", if no one gets up to speak, there is no meeting. Many times I have encountered minutes of awkward silence when no one wants to stand up to say anything. Is this how meetings (especially big meetings) should really be held? In essence, because a meeting is dependent upon people getting up to speak, speaking in a meeting is not as "optional" as it seems.

Even in times where everyone wants to speak, then there are other issues that arise. In many large gatherings like conferences and trainings, each person might be given like 30 seconds to say something, and this usually means declaring a sentence from an outline. What is the value in doing that? In my mind this whole practice of allowing everyone to speak has completely lost it's value.