An Outsider's Story

[ToGodAlone]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Dear brother,

The All Campus Worship events highlight one of the many contradictions in the Recovery. One would naturally think that a group of Christians who talk about "the oneness" as much as they do, would jump at the chance to participate in events such as this, where all the barriers between Christians are temporarily removed. But no! They will never join in. I was in the Recovery for 3 decades, and we never "held hands" with other congregations.

Your future with this sister depends on how tenaciously she grips the Living Stream Ministry. I do know many who kept the LSM at arm's length, and could marry or remain married to outside believers, but as others have posted, the journey is mostly uphill. LSM teaches in such a way that one's relationship with them is more important than with one's spouse. No wonder so many marriages fail.

Does she plan to attend the FTTA after graduation? If so, that is like taking her blood pressure. To a strict LSM zealot, marrying a Christian outside the Recovery is like the mixed marriages that plagued the children of Israel. Obviously, since you have visited this site and learned about the Recovery, you will never be devoted to LSM. It's kind of like Jews and Moslems getting married, it only seems to work out if both are "backsliders."

The interesting thing is that while the group never as a whole chose to attend, there were 3 members of them that also chose to attend the event. I was shocked because I honestly expected no one to be there. So I guess there's more people within the LRC here on campus that aren't as devoted to LSM teachings. Your initial statement is what bothered my girlfriend the most. For all their teachings of oneness and unity, they did not attend an event that was a perfect application of such a belief.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by ToGodAlone

Your initial statement is what bothered my girlfriend the most. For all their teachings of oneness and unity, they did not attend an event that was a perfect application of such a belief.

Not meaning to go off-topic, but just to touch on what Ohio had spoken. Before on this forum we had touched the ground of locality teaching of one church/one city. In any given city there are thousands, tens of thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands of Christians in a larger city. Most of whom had never heard of the local churches or of Witness Lee's ministry. It would be logisitically impractical for all to meet in one location. As it is, that practice is contrary how the early Christians used to meet; house to house.

My experience has been unless Jesus Christ is our sole basis for fellowship, there cannot be oneness no matter how much one speaks about it. Just look in 1 Corinthians. There are distinctions of ministries, but one Spirit. As soon as a minister or ministry becomes the basis for fellowship, division is present. We have church history as proof. Paul was clear about that. Paraphrasing, Paul was saying don't look to Cephas, don't look to Apollos, don't look to me, look to Jesus Christ.

[ToGodAlone]

Originally Posted by Terry

Not meaning to go off-topic, but just to touch on what Ohio had spoken. Before on this forum we had touched the ground of locality teaching of one church/one city. In any given city there are thousands, tens of thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands of Christians in a larger city. Most of whom had never heard of the local churches or of Witness Lee's ministry. It would be logisitically impractical for all to meet in one location. As it is, that practice is contrary how the early Christians used to meet; house to house.

My experience has been unless Jesus Christ is our sole basis for fellowship, there cannot be oneness no matter how much one speaks about it. Just look in 1 Corinthians. There are distinctions of ministries, but one Spirit. As soon as a minister or ministry becomes the basis for fellowship, division is present. We have church history as proof. Paul was clear about that. Paraphrasing, Paul was saying don't look to Cephas, don't look to Apollos, don't look to me, look to Jesus Christ.

Funny that you bring this up since I had a similar conversation with her regarding the whole one city/one church teaching. I said that it would be very impractical for, say, the whole city of Chicago to meet in one place. I tried to tell her that the Church in Corinth, for example, was probably several assemblies of believers rather than everyone meeting in a central location (though I have no proof to back that up other than logical reasoning) when she said that the one church in a city "doctrine" (my word not hers) was based on what early believers did in the Bible. We had a very circular argument ending with her just saying "well if God wanted to, there could be one city/one church." Well if God wanted to, why hasn't it been done yet? She definitely has a conflict of looking to Christ as the head of the church and LRC teachings regarding the church.