*Lurkers Only*: Now's Your Chance

[countmeworthy]

WOW!! What an awesome testimony Igzy !!! Thanks for sharing and giving LCrs people such hope. I have known this and have TRIED to explain what you did but you did it so simplistic ! I tend to get all spiritual. hee hee
but truly that is how I live.

So happy you got married and have a beautiful family and many good friends. I've never been married but I am very blessed and content.

I hope many people will read your testimony and be so encouraged by it !
God bless you and your family and loved ones Igzy!
Until we meet ITA to the Glory and Praise of Almighty God!

Love ya!
Carol

Originally Posted by Igzy

Guys, I wasn't an LC kid. But I did join the LC when I was 19. I left in my late 20s. I didn't get married until I was 44. Now I have a beautiful family and many good friends. It just takes time to get normalized. But it can happen. I'm living proof.

But don't make the mistake of just running and trying to bury the past. That won't work. You can exist that way, but you can't really live. The strongholds have to be smashed, and they are spiritual in nature.

What got me through, eventually, was God. That's the odd thing about all this. The LC is supposed to be all about God. But if it was, why do the people who leave seem to need to start from scratch to get to know the Lord? The answer is they didn't know him in the LC, not really anyway. They just had a religion, a very insidious, mind-controlling religion.

As I've said before, you have to learn to pray. You have to genuinely get to know God and rely on him. That's what eventually breaks down the mental strongholds and sets you free. As they say, the best way out is through. And the best way through is prayer.

Relationships turn out to be pretty simple, too. Just love people. Don't think about yourself first. Treat people with genuine appreciation as God does. Learn how to let them shine. You'll then begin to notice that people actually like you and like being around you. But you'll also realize it isn't about you, and never was. It's just that a little of the glory rubs off on you as you serve people God's way.

So, surprise!, it turns out that obeying the first two commandments is very powerful and key. Love God and love people. It's no more complicated than that. Then you'll begin to enjoy that the kingdom of God is everywhere, because you are bringing it with you.

[OBW]

Like Igzy, I came into the LRC early — just before turning 18. Got married there at age 24, and left at age 32. Out now for over 27 years (yes, I am approaching 59). Have been in a couple of different Bible churches the whole time since. I like them both.

Despite the apparent quick change to something mainstream in Christianity, it was not simple. I fought the LRC tapes running in my head for many years. First it was the music, choir, solos, etc. 10 years later, I noticed that so much of it was gone, but I still hung onto some things as being superior. But now after many more years, I am realizing that the things of the LRC that were worth anything are mostly just acceptable alternatives and in no way superior. And there is so much baggage with it that it is not worth worrying about.

I now play guitar in the band some of the time (yes, they let an old geezer play) yet mostly attend a "traditional" service because a very close relative is now attending with us and prefers the older hymns. I like both and can even see how they could be integrated.

As for any so-called "truth," the truth is in Christ and we, like those in the LRC, believe in the same Christ. All those special truths just aren't true.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by OBW

I like both and can even see how they could be integrated.

I'm not musically talented, but I do enjoy contemporary and old hymns and have seen each integrated into worship services. Who's to say one hymn is not God-inspired over another? To the brothers and sisters who wrote the hymns, they were God-inspired.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by OBW

Despite the apparent quick change to something mainstream in Christianity, it was not simple. I fought the LRC tapes running in my head for many years. First it was the music, choir, solos, etc. 10 years later, I noticed that so much of it was gone, but I still hung onto some things as being superior. But now after many more years, I am realizing that the things of the LRC that were worth anything are mostly just acceptable alternatives and in no way superior. And there is so much baggage with it that it is not worth worrying about.

I have tried to expose myself to what is out there in mainstream Christianity outside the LC, and it didn't take me long to realize that it is not at all like they make it out to be. In the LC I hear generalization made about Christianity all the time, and when I look at how things really are, I realize those generalization are not true at all. I have tried to familiarize myself with some of the Christian music out there. I fail to see how it would be something to be despised. I can state with certainty that I find some Christian music much more beneficial than hymns with 15 verses of LC doctrines.

I know non-traditional music was a big issue when Anaheim and the Great Lakes regions split. I guess people were getting tired of the same old, same old. Wasn't there also a much earlier instance of this attitude with LSM telling Howard Higashi no more writing songs??? As Terry said, what makes LSM dictated hymns better than anything else? I guess my point is that just by looking outside the LC at what else is out there, I have realized that things were not as I imagined them, but much better.

Is their anywhere specific for helping those whove been in it through recovering? I've had to rummage around through the subforums for stories but the same difficulties and themes abound.

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Is their anywhere specific for helping those whove been in it through recovering? I've had to rummage around through the subforums for stories but the same difficulties and themes abound.

Could you be just a little more specific?

And WELCOME to the forum, please consider taking a couple of minutes and register by sending an email request along with your desired UserName to LocalChurchDiscussions@Gmail.Com

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Is their anywhere specific for helping those whove been in it through recovering? I've had to rummage around through the subforums for stories but the same difficulties and themes abound.

I know what you mean. There is a tendency for us to turn most threads into one of a few pet topics not matter what the intended topic is. Even when the original topic remains, it is too often modified by the background noise.

And I am often among those making the noise.

As for a place for working through recovery from the "Recovery," I don't know specifically. There is virtually nowhere else that is covering these things at all. The old Berean forum (not the current one, but the archived original) has some things, but even that has limitations.

It is almost as if the real healing is from finding a new place and new brothers and sisters in Christ and let being with them in worship, study, prayer, etc., and even irrelevant activities that people do and wrestling with the bible without Lee-colored glasses and learn how the real Christian life is designed to be. It isn't about meetings, or meeting forms, or having one single piece of unleavened bread cooked from a special recipe then broken into pieces at the Table meeting, or high-sounding jargon and catch-phrases. It is about believing in Christ and living that life here on the earth in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

And music style is not relevant. How many people speak in a meeting is not relevant. Whether the dirt your church is built upon is the right dirt. Or the name (heaven forbid!) is formatted correctly.

The tapes (and the worried feelings) are generally not supported by the Bible. They are only supported by the rhetoric that comes from the MOTA and his minions.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by OBW

It is almost as if the real healing is from finding a new place and new brothers and sisters in Christ and being with them in worship, study, prayer, etc., and even irrelevant activities that people do and wrestling with the bible without Lee-colored glasses and learn how the real Christian life is designed to be.

Amen to that. I would add pray a lot.

I used to think the LC was unique, and that the treatments for it would be unique as well. But, aside from some specifics, the LC is just another in a long and regrettable legacy of abusive Christian groups. If you Google for spiritual abuse online, you will see the same characteristics popping up: lording authority, isolation, claims of special mission, condescending attitudes, special language, oh and of course, claiming to house the unique apostle of the age. None of this junk is unique at all. It's just some more stuff from the devil's toolbox.

Like twisted sexuality, abusive Christian groups practice twisted spirituality. They take something good and pervert it into something it wasn't meant to be. It still feels good in some ways, but you know in other ways it isn't right. Still you begin to prefer it because, well, who knows why?

But OBW is right on. The way through is to establish healthy, non-dysfunctional Christian relationships, which are not based on the idea that some group has rights to you, but still allow you to experience Christian community, and start relearning the Christian life. Trust me, there are healthy communities out there that respect boundaries. The LC considered boundaries a form of rebellion, a manipulative tactic practiced by the other abusive groups it resembles.

[countmeworthy]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Amen to that. I would add pray a lot.

I used to think the LC was unique, and that the treatments for it would be unique as well. But, aside from some specifics, the LC is just another in a long and regrettable legacy of abusive Christian groups. If you Google for spiritual abuse online, you will see the same characteristics popping up: lording authority, isolation, claims of special mission, condescending attitudes, special language, oh and of course, claiming to house the unique apostle of the age. None of this junk is unique at all. It's just some more stuff from the devil's toolbox.

Like twisted sexuality, abusive Christian groups practice twisted spirituality. They take something good and pervert it into something it wasn't meant to be. It still feels good in some ways, but you know in other ways it isn't right. Still you begin to prefer it because, well, who knows why?

But OBW is right on. The way through is to establish healthy, non-dysfunctional Christian relationships, which are not based on the idea that some group has rights to you, but still allow you to experience Christian community, and start relearning the Christian life. Trust me, there are healthy communities out there that respect boundaries. The LC considered boundaries a form of rebellion, a manipulative tactic practiced by the other abusive groups it resembles.

I double ditto that !!! One of the first things I discovered about myself is after I started meeting other believers was that the corrupted LC mentality sneaked in on me and suddenly I felt like I 'knew' a lot more than everyone else ! Purging that mindset took a lot of work. While going to 'church' and getting involved in fellowship groups, I also attended a few LC meetings since there is an LC here in this town I live in. But after attending a few meetings, as nice and genuine people were, I could not stand the HWMRs and the little bells that were rung after someone's 'prophesy' or whatever they call it now.

It was just awful!!! The Presence of God was not there. God may love the individuals but The anointing on the LC departed a long time ago.
The good memories of the early days for me, will remain in me just as the memories of growing up Catholic remain in me. But that was then. This is now and I am looking forward to a Glorious future with Christ and His Beloved.

[rayliotta]

Originally Posted by Freedom

I know non-traditional music was a big issue when Anaheim and the Great Lakes regions split. I guess people were getting tired of the same old, same old. Wasn't there also a much earlier instance of this attitude with LSM telling Howard Higashi no more writing songs??? As Terry said, what makes LSM dictated hymns better than anything else? I guess my point is that just by looking outside the LC at what else is out there, I have realized that things were not as I imagined them, but much better.

I remember when "the brothers" put the kibosh on the Chicago song tapes around the late 90's. I think they were deemed "worldly."

Those silly denominations, and their silly factions!

Oh wait, they're not a denomination! And, they don't have factions!