Regarding the Ground of Locality - David Canfield

[InChristAlone]

Originally Posted by awareness

The truth is that Nee's ground of the church doctrine is Cargo Cult (click) thinking and methodology.

That’s very true. I attended a conference where bro RK said that we don’t need to be spiritual. It may be dangerous. What if you become a spiritual giant? You may lose the “flow” and the “vision” of the church (i.e. WL & the blended brothers' vision). So you don’t need to be spiritual. You just need to be in the church, live the church life, have oneness with brothers and sisters, and keep on building the “Body”. And then the Lord will come and transform you... No wonder that so many LCers complain that they don’t exercise their spirit well enough. They can’t be transformed because it’s impossible to receive the “cargo” by building the ”ship”. If the person who sends the cargo doesn’t know us personally, or if we don’t have a close relationship with him, then our efforts are in vain.

From my point of view, spiritual people have a deeper and closer relationship with God. They know Christ and He knows them. They have been transformed by Christ, and they live a life filled with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." Galatians 5:22-23. So brother Awareness is right. The LC leaders don’t want their followers to develop a deep personal relationship with God. They don’t want them to be transformed. They want them to keep on building the “ship”, while waiting for the “cargo”. So the saints build and build the “ship” by buying books and DVDs, attending numerous meetings, training sessions and seminars, moving to different localities, and recruiting new followers. Surely these things can help to be transformed but they can’t replace our personal relationship with God. He can’t send us His “cargo” if we haven’t established a deep and intimate relationship with Him.

The Cargo Cult approach helps the leaders to manipulate the saints. They will never have oneness with each other. They will never have a local church in every locality. They will never attend all training sessions and all seminars that suppose to ‘perfect’ them. They are striving for unreachable. But it gives a reason for the blended brothers to blame saints that their “ship” is never big enough to receive the “cargo”. Therefore, “grassroots” need to “exercise their spirit more”, i.e. keep on building the “ship” -- never miss the church meetings; buy and read more books, attend more training sessions and seminars, and bring in more followers. But it’s a vain effort. We must have oneness with God first and the rest will be added to us, not the other way around.

To be transformed, we need to develop a closer relationship with God. We must spend time with Him every day not only to hear but also listen to His voice. The word of God (not someone's opinion about it) and a sincere prayer (not a mechanical chanting or another form of vain repetition) connect us to the Lord so that we live a transformed, joy-filled life. In other words, we must allow Christ to enter our hearts and fill us with Himself first; then will have the “ship” and the “cargo”.