The Lost and Found of the Local Church Kids

Originally Posted by jigsaw44

jigsaw here again with another thread with the emphasis on all of those who grew up or knew anyone who grew up in the Local Churches.*
Reason/inspiration for the thread- Was talking to a brother during a conference (east coast), and among the conversation was the topic of local church friends he knew while growing up and just mass amounts of them just leaving the local churches and even forgoing their beliefs entirely or just barely being described as nominal. This conversation took at the height my "cynical/skepticism thoughts of the local churches.*
Present time- Now after seeing LC Kids being raised when visiting the homes of different brothers/sisters and witnessing all the customs and rules of the Local churches being applied in these lives (no birthdays/holidays/no tv). Im just wondering how is it like on a grand scale of many years- being raised by the Local church for the entirety of your K-12 life? I will now present my questions for anyone who can answer*
1. Growing Up- How was it like growing up, especially going to school and just interacting with the outside world? How did it feel to not be able to celebrate certain holidays such as Christmas and birthdays/ and explaining it to your friends from school? Were you allowed to have outside friends and if so was it hard to adjust your lifestyle in accordance to theirs? What about going into high school and not being able to go to prom, or constantly rejecting people who had feelings for you, and to overall enjoy the basic joys of being a teenager? How did you cope dealing with your home life restrictions/legalism while comparing it to other friends? These basic questions are just scratching the surface of*

Local church discussions Took the words out of my mouth.
The biggest discrepancy though i find also in my own experience is for kids who are sent to so called “Christian” school as some parents find it a better alternative to public school. It was even more difficult to explain to classmates, teachers, principals, counselors, *and visiting pastors to the school why not allowed to do this and that including school class birthday parties, being excluded from the schools holiday choir(which the school practices everyday for months), not able to allowed to the “fall festival,” etc. Since supposingly we share the same belief yet I totally feel like an alien. I thought Christians were all like what the LCs taught me over the years. At first though I actually questioned the contemporary music sang at chapel sounding like rock band music with drums. And others of their practices, as being worldly ie having sports parties.
I remember being got picked on even more in a so called Christian school than I was in public school. Like if I was an outer space alien who landed and enrolled in earthly school. And other kids and teachers were shocked when I mentioned I wasn't supposed to do practices they feel is normal and by no means ungodly. *
I always feel for kids who grow up in LR and I always curious how their parents answer why they have to be different than other Christian kids and adults especially if they go to a Christian school. It’s interesting as the LR seem to forbid contact with other Christian groups but find Christian schools acceptable despite how Christian school would inevitably cause kids to doubt the teachings and practices of the LR. I found it very difficult when I had to go to LC at the same time. Its almost like being in a different religion. One would think LR families would homeschool or start their own schools ie Acaciawood in more places but thats for some unknown reason thats not the case.
Ironically Lords recovery folks don’t seem to push homeschooling as much if at al as some other church’s pastors do especially in recent years. Apparently I believe the pressure to compete with others academically is so ingrained into Chinese culture which LC is centered upon is so great that this is one of the few things they are allowed to be like the world in. Especially the Asian world.

[Recovering]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Local church discussions Took the words out of my mouth.
The biggest discrepancy though i find also in my own experience is for kids who are sent to so called “Christian” school as some parents find it a better alternative to public school. It was even more difficult to explain to classmates, teachers, principals, counselors, *and visiting pastors to the school why not allowed to do this and that including school class birthday parties, being excluded from the schools holiday choir(which the school practices everyday for months), not able to allowed to the “fall festival,” etc. Since supposingly we share the same belief yet I totally feel like an alien. I thought Christians were all like what the LCs taught me over the years. At first though I actually questioned the contemporary music sang at chapel sounding like rock band music with drums. And others of their practices, as being worldly ie having sports parties.
I remember being got picked on even more in a so called Christian school than I was in public school. Like if I was an outer space alien who landed and enrolled in earthly school. And other kids and teachers were shocked when I mentioned I wasn't supposed to do practices they feel is normal and by no means ungodly. *
I always feel for kids who grow up in LR and I always curious how their parents answer why they have to be different than other Christian kids and adults especially if they go to a Christian school. It’s interesting as the LR seem to forbid contact with other Christian groups but find Christian schools acceptable despite how Christian school would inevitably cause kids to doubt the teachings and practices of the LR. I found it very difficult when I had to go to LC at the same time. Its almost like being in a different religion. One would think LR families would homeschool or start their own schools ie Acaciawood in more places but thats for some unknown reason thats not the case.
Ironically Lords recovery folks don’t seem to push homeschooling as much if at al as some other church’s pastors do especially in recent years. Apparently I believe the pressure to compete with others academically is so ingrained into Chinese culture which LC is centered upon is so great that this is one of the few things they are allowed to be like the world in. Especially the Asian world.

Dear TookTheWords, welcome to the forum. It would be great to have you sign up and join the conversation.

With Christmas around the corner and some family members still steeped in LC culture, my wife and I have been discussing this a lot lately. I attended a Christian school during elementary school, which I enjoyed overall except for the weird need to be excused from Christmas and Easter parties. Later on, it gave me an unexpected sense of empathy with JWs.

We've been trying to have some conversations with some of the "still-in" family members to gently probe the opposition to Christmas. We've found that even if you show them that Hislop was off in his assessment in "The Two Babylons" and that the book has more-or-less been discredited now, even if you point out that "celebrating the incarnation every day" really means that it's never special, the resistance often boils down to something along the lines of "well, I just don't feel the need for Christmas." In my mind that's basically an argument of cultural preference, and it ignores the impact on kids who tend to see in black-and-white and have to offer weird explanations to the their Christian classmates.

Of course we don't want to make Christmas an issue for division, but for the sake of the kids, I wish it were a little less fraught to talk about.

[PriestlyScribe]

Originally Posted by Recovering

I attended a Christian school during elementary school, which I enjoyed overall except for the weird need to be excused from Christmas and Easter parties. Later on, it gave me an unexpected sense of empathy with JWs.

I am somewhat regretful for having subjected my children to this culture clash which they faced in a non-LR Christian school. I did my best to help them counteract the pressure to think they were "better than" their classmates. To my recollection I always treated school staff as equals and that attitude may have rubbed off on my kids.



Having solidly received the Lord external to the so-called Recovery helped me to not buy into the boastful hype which was in the LR water supply.

So thankful to report that my whole family made it out of that mess with their brains intact.

Merry Christmas to all!

P.S.