Greetings from NYC!

[aron]

Originally Posted by Lumosityfan

Initially I thought it wouldn't be that bad, just having weird rituals but overall biblically sound. However, perusing through this site and other Christian sites that discussed the matter, I realized the truth behind the Local Church movement that has cautioned me towards being involved with it in the future (things like not caring for the poor, lack of true evangelism, biblical controversies concerning their interpretation of the Bible, scandals concerning the leadership, the fact that you can't question leadership...

Related to the observations above, two striking features of the LC are: the widespread lack of personal transformation, and the stagnation in various "localities". The first is the cause - all the years of pray-reading HWMR, all the meetings, conferences, trainings and retreats and one's often little better than "the world", much less the neighbouring Baptists. The anxieties, confusions and resentments linger.

The second feature is the effect of untransformed lives, collectively writ large in their assemblies. LC members have become passive, afraid to say or do anything not explicitly pushed by Anaheim. So they sit there like dispirited lumps: repeating a line from a ministry-approved hymn, standing for the bread-breaking, listening to a ministry-oriented message, then going home.

They were told 18, 25, 42 years ago, "All you have to do is eat the Lord". It was grace-on-steroids: just sit in the right chair and listen to the right message, and nirvana would surely follow, as day follows night. Now all these years later, they're still sitting in that chair, waiting. But the fervour has, shall we say, died down a bit. Expectations have been tempered. Now they're just holding on, hoping they'll "make it"... but with so few signs at present, where is the hope for a glorious future? What happened to, " from glory to glory"?

Originally Posted by lostlampstand

As someone that aspired to go to FTT, I observed numerous trainees and graduates who have .. demonstrated little transformation of character

It's not only those in the FTT, but also the long-time "community saints" who've been fed a steady diet of judgmentalism of all else combined with pie-in-the-sky expectations for their LC experience. The goal was to be magically transformed, just by following the ministry; just saying, "amen" whenever the brother speaks, and the kingdom of heaven was thiers for the taking.

Then the years passed, and the magic feeling faded, and having been conditioned not to critically assess their situation, they sank down into ennui, and dull rote performance.