Deification

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by aron

To be fair to the "leading brothers", they are too busy "running the church" to care for the saints. Right? Like Jethro, in Exodus 18, telling Moses to get subordinates to deal with issues of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. Even the NT has this pattern: Jesus broke the mob into companies of 50 (Luke 9:14), and had subordinates deliver the bread and fish to the groups. The brothers in Acts 6 got deacons to wait on tables. And so forth; if the LC "brothers" wanted to delegate shepherding to others, being too busy with "church affairs", this is easily understandable, and defensible.

But underneath it lies danger, and the real culture of the LC reveals itself. A culture of indifference. Instead of the shepherd leaving the 99 and finding the lost sheep, you have the so-called shepherds busy with the 99 and indifferent to the lost sheep. If you suffer they don't want to hear about it.

I wouldn't say their too busy. The culture has become one of indifference. One of partiality. Running the church is often setting meeting times and going to meetings. When I was college age, I recall going to many college age meetings on Friday nights. Most of the elders were present at the meetings. Was it necessary for all to be there? Could easily be out visiting brothers and sisters at their home.
Maybe their concept of shepherding is speaking a word in the meeting and leaving the active shepherding to the small potatoes?
I recall an account that happened in the early 90's. There were two brothers dealing with being divorced brothers. One was a small potato brother and suffered without any shepherding. The other was an deacon or elder brother who was shepherded by fellow elders and deacons in their locality. It's really sad when the LC culture becomes one of indifference and partiality.