The LCS Factor

[SpeakersCorner]

Originally Posted by Matt

My main point is that the "ground of locality" is heretical as a doctrine.

Matt,

Well, the story about Sparks and Lee is interesting but certainly far from proving some kind of heresy concerning the ground of locality. Hate to say it, but if your idolatry proclamation is based on this ... whew! Ever hear the story about the foolish man building his house upon the sand?


SC

[Matt Anderson]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

Matt,

Well, the story about Sparks and Lee is interesting but certainly far from proving some kind of heresy concerning the ground of locality. Hate to say it, but if your idolatry proclamation is based on this ... whew! Ever hear the story about the foolish man building his house upon the sand?


SC

It does not have to be proven that the "ground of locality" is heretical in order to demonstrate that this "concept" (i.e. ground of locality) was lifted too high and that many, many people began to bow down to this conception even when it brought them into conflict in their consciences with the Lord.

SC, let me ask you a question. Is the LC type congregation in your locality unique in anyway from other gatherings of believers in your locality? If so, what is it's uniqueness?

Yes, I did hear about that story about the foolish man building upon sand. I think I've thought about it in regards to Lee and his desire to build God's House on the "ground of locality"! Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.

The "Rock" is Jesus the Messiah. This is the only firm foundation. All else is shifting sand...

Matt

[SpeakersCorner]

Originally Posted by Matt

SC, let me ask you a question. Is the LC type congregation in your locality unique in anyway from other gatherings of believers in your locality? If so, what is it's uniqueness?

Matt,

You're tossing me softballs here. Is our group unique? What makes it so? Yeah, it's unique. It's unique because we don't have a name. Do you have any idea how much grief that has caused us over the years? That one fact is a huge separator from everyone else, trust me. Every single time I'm forced to identify "my church," I have to decide whether to go into paragraph mode or simply tell them, "The church in __" and hope it ends there.

All the churches who truly take no name have this "problem." So they're all unique, LSM churches, non-LSM, whatever.

My beef with the LSM on this point is that they in fact have made the "Church in __" their names. Case in point: Raleigh, NC where they became "The Local Church in Raleigh" or some such thing.

Anyway, I assure you that if your congregation would drop its name, you would instantly find out how much this makes you unique.


SC

[Nell]

There's another phenom in this "ground of locality" thing that has always puzzled me. There was a time when The Church in Minneapolis, for example, actually met in Hopkins, MN. I'm sure most of you can come up with examples of this. I've heard the explanation for it, but it never made sense to me. Why not "The Church in Hopkins"?

This is Gerrymandering--Local Church style. It's also a de facto admission that the "ground of locality", as a doctrine, is flawed. Doctrinally speaking, you meet with the church in your city. Either the city limits signs mean something or they don't. The doctrine says the signs mean something. The practice says they don't. The practice says you meet where it's convenient, or you meet in the city where you found the best real estate deal.

The "ground of locality" and "practical expression" are just words. Not even the Local Churches can or are willing to practice the doctrine to the letter.

Nell

[djohnson(XLCmember)]

Or how about the meeting hall being in one city and all the members living in the suburbs. Or a church in one city and a guy from that city being an elder in another church in another city.

[djohnson(XLCmember)]

SC if you don't have name for your church who to people write checks to for offerings? And which organization gives them a charitable donation receipt for their tax write off? And what name is used to buy real estate and to sue over real estate? Or are all those places left blank on the checks, receipts, contracts, court documents, etc?

[SpeakersCorner]

Originally Posted by djohnson

SC if you don't have name for your church who to people write checks to for offerings? And which organization gives them a charitable donation receipt for their tax write off? And what name is used to buy real estate and to sue over real estate? Or are all those places left blank on the checks, receipts, contracts, court documents, etc?

DJ, Nell,

The churches of the NT have no names ... and yet they do. This is the same thing. On the one hand, they're just the local churches of that city. On the other, they are "The church in ___." The world demands a name and sees through that lens. So to them, "The Church in ___" is a name. But to we who buy into this no-name thing, it isn't a name, plain and simple.

I'm not fighting for this issue. If you want to say we name ourselves, go for it. I do know that the stance we have taken is awkward among other Christians in so many ways. They aren't comfortable with it.

As with many doctrinal quibbles, you can point out a lot of hypocrisy, misapplication, etc. with this principle. What you can't do, however, is find anything in the Bible that supports denominating (naming) churches. So you lose this argument every time.


SC

[bookworm]

Originally Posted by Nell

There's another phenom in this "ground of locality" thing that has always puzzled me. There was a time when The Church in Minneapolis, for example, actually met in Hopkins, MN. I'm sure most of you can come up with examples of this. I've heard the explanation for it, but it never made sense to me. Why not "The Church in Hopkins"?

This is Gerrymandering--Local Church style. It's also a de facto admission that the "ground of locality", as a doctrine, is flawed. Doctrinally speaking, you meet with the church in your city. Either the city limits signs mean something or they don't. The doctrine says the signs mean something. The practice says they don't. The practice says you meet where it's convenient, or you meet in the city where you found the best real estate deal.

The "ground of locality" and "practical expression" are just words. Not even the Local Churches can or are willing to practice the doctrine to the letter.

Nell

All these postings about THE church in a city and the “ground of locality” remind me of a testimony a brother gave in a meeting when we were in Dallas I believe. This was many years ago and he spoke of the Church in Dallas, saying he was on the telephone with someone from the telephone company and they said to him, “What do you mean, you are THE Church in Dallas—how can you be the only church in Dallas?” This brother responded with, “Well you are the only phone company in Dallas!” Again, this was many years ago when this was the real case. Since that time of course the telephone monopoly has been broken. We praise God that there is NO monopoly on worshipping and serving the Lord as the “Holy Spirit is too big to comprehend.”

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Nell

The "ground of locality" and "practical expression" are just words. Not even the Local Churches can or are willing to practice the doctrine to the letter.

Nell

I was impressed with what Watchman Nee had to say on page 96 of The Normal Christian Church Life.

"We who live in the same locality cannot but belong to the same church. This is something from which there is no escape. If I am dissatisfied with the local church, the only thing I can do is to change my locality; then automatically I can change my church. We can leave a denomination, but we can never leave a church. To leave a sect is justifiable, but to leave a church-whether on account of unspirituality, wrong doctrine, or bad organization-is utterly unjustifiable."

Is Watchman Nee's content in this book based on principle and not doctrine?

Terry

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Terry

I was impressed with what Watchman Nee had to say on page 96 of The Normal Christian Church Life.

"We who live in the same locality cannot but belong to the same church. This is something from which there is no escape. If I am dissatisfied with the local church, the only thing I can do is to change my locality; then automatically I can change my church. We can leave a denomination, but we can never leave a church. To leave a sect is justifiable, but to leave a church-whether on account of unspirituality, wrong doctrine, or bad organization-is utterly unjustifiable."

Is Watchman Nee's content in this book based on principle and not doctrine?

Terry

Terry,

It's just Watchman Nee's reasoning. It's not biblical.

[Matt Anderson]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

Anyway, I assure you that if your congregation would drop its name, you would instantly find out how much this makes you unique.

SC

You don't have to prove this to me. On a personal level I can relate to it and I understand exactly what you are talking about. I won't go into the details here, but I do understand. I've been queried in a parallel sense for many years.

But, my question isn't about whether it is difficult for you to answer the question about the name of your gathering. My question was about the uniqueness of your group? What is it's uniqueness relative to other groups in your locality?

Is your uniqueness in the fact that you don't take a name? Or is it something else? Is it because, in your mind, you "stand" on the "proper" ground?

Matt

[SpeakersCorner]

Originally Posted by Matt

But, my question isn't about whether it is difficult for you to answer the question about the name of your gathering. My question was about the uniqueness of your group? What is it's uniqueness relative to other groups in your locality?

Matt,

Oh, yeah, we're unique in many ways. Trust me. Our meetings don't have a pastor, don't have a song leader, don't have many participants, don't pass the plate, don't involve self-improvement talks, don't have much adornment of any kind. Some of our uniqueness is a bad thing: we're uniquely unattractive in many ways, sad to say. Some is a good thing. But anyone and everyone who visits us is left with the sensation, this group is different.


SC

[djohnson(XLCmember)]

SC I frankly don't care about the name thing. No awkwardness felt over here. Sorry. Fact is: you have to have a name and it has to be registered. That's just a legal fact of life. So why live in pretense about it?

Do you think someone in your church writing out a check doesn't know there's a name of an organization that has to go on the payee line? How concrete is that for you? Do you think when the IRS wants to see your church's filing for non-profit status that you can leave the name of the filing entity blank cause ya know: we don't have a name! Go ahead and do that and see what happens.

[djohnson(XLCmember)]

SC just because something is not in the bible doesn't make it intrinsically evil. Youth conferences are not in the bible. Bible conferences are not in the bible. There was one council in Jerusalem over an issue. Once resolved the council ended. Meeting halls are not in the bible. Non-profit organizations are not in the bible. Even the whole bible was not completed during the early church.

So....if you really want to get back to the NT early church age. End all conferences. Shut down all meeting halls. Use cash only transactions and give no tax receipts. Cut out about 1/3 of the NT. Resurrect the apostles. Then maybe you might begin to get an approximation of the situation. Just pretending you don't have a name is not gonna cut it. It's kindergartenesque at best.

[Shawn]

Here we go again,

From heresy to unsound doctrine and the perennial question: "What church would Paul use if he wrote a check 2000 years ago!

To address the latter, sorry but the Bible trumps the current financial system, so it cannot be said, you cannot do that because how could we write a check? It would actually be a wonderful thing for me, as I write a check addressed to the church in (city) .... and it gets cashed! Too bad, it would nice to get credit for the effort but to not have it drawn against my account.

(For some reason I think I'm having a flashback and I'm using someone elses example from a previous forum; sorry if there are any similarites.)

From heresy to unsound doctrine is not just hair splitting, as heresy is a pretty serious charge and that is what I reacted to; but I will meet you somewhere in between, not on the ground of unsound doctrine, but on the basis its just not right to declare a church in a city, unless all in that city are in agreement; its not unsound doctrine, its just not true.

Thats as much as I want to say about this, as I do not want to appear to be a defender of the local church ground, I only want to clarify deceptive statments that do not hold water.

Shawn

[blessD]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

Matt,

Oh, yeah, we're unique in many ways. Trust me. Our meetings don't have a pastor, don't have a song leader, don't have many participants, don't pass the plate, don't involve self-improvement talks, don't have much adornment of any kind...
SC

May I add a note of caution, in all kindness. This may not be your case, but just a warning. I, and many others, were proud to say these very things at one time. Boy, what lessons in humility I have learned! What really ugly, destructive things were going on in MY "Church" that didn't take a name!

I am so much happier now in a church with a name, though not denominated. A place where I find life and am constantly encouraged to stay humble in Christ. If you have the "IT" factor in your gathering, you can very easily lose "IT". Then if you lose "IT", but boasted how you have "IT", you may find yourself pretending you still have "IT". This is actually taken from a message from church last week.

Note: "IT", also known as life, peace, spirit, truth, and many other names

so, just sayin' - be careful of pride.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by blessD

If you have the "IT" factor in your gathering, you can very easily lose "IT". Then if you lose "IT", but boasted how you have "IT", you may find yourself pretending you still have "IT" ...

So well said BlessD!