Publication Work in The Lord's Recovery aka The One Publication

[Freedom]

I was born and raised in the LC, and as such, I got to experience some of the disconnect in discussion first hand. For example, my family was completely anti-Christmas, even to an extreme. So much so that on days where there were holiday related activities, we were pulled from school. As a kid, I obviously had no idea what was going on, other than the stark realization that I was different than everyone else. Moreover the whole attitude felt punitive. Us kids didn't even know what Christmas was, yet we kids got 'punished' for it in the sense of the social isolation. I've since moved on from the resentment, since what happened is over and done. The reason I bring this up ,however, is to illustrate just what happens when things are imposed as has been discussed.

Getting back to the subject of LSM publications, I believe that there is anecdotal value to this type of discussion. When WL started out, I think that people were drawn to him because he was perceived to be a gifted Bible teacher. Thus his ministry and publications had some sort of expository value to people who felt it helped them to know the Bible better. Somewhere along the way, a view developed that WL's ministry encompassed THE truth that everyone needed to be 'constituted' with. This was certainly my view of his ministry, and the view that was continually instilled in me. Notice that I'm not saying that his ministry didn't have any potential benefit. It's just the fact that the entire approach was wrong. Along with anyone else, if we were going to be encouraged to read WL's ministry, it should have been with a personal goal to be able to know and understand the Bible better. That was never the goal. The goal was to be 'constituted' with his ministry.

The end result is members, even young members, who can recite spiritual jargon but really have no clue what they are talking about. Maybe a lot of it is just harmless, I'm not out to judge, but I do see it all the time on places like Facebook. The more concerning issue, however, is what happens when all these people run into problems that they're not ready to deal with, problems that reciting spiritual jargon can't solve. Again, I'm not saying that WL's ministry itself is the dead end, it's how it is being utilized and promoted. It is my belief that the current LC approach to WL's ministry has ruined any positive benefit it might have had for the larger Christian community.