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

[UntoHim]

Let’s take a little break from linear feet, imprints, genres, tape measures, book shelves and the like. I dug back and found this post by Koinonia way back in December of 2016 (where ya been bro, your insightful and spot on topic posts are greatly missed!)

There are several facets to this One Publication declaration. First and foremost, as it always is when it comes to the person and work of Witness Lee, it is a matter of control and censorship. Again, the control and censorship is exercised upon the members at the most practical level possible – that is at the meetings of the local churches, at the bi-annual trainings and various regional conferences, and at the most intimate level, the little publications meant for daily “devotional” readings for Morning Watch. Does anyone really think that the average Local Churcher is pray-reading Mary McDonough or Jessie Penn Lewis?

Then there is the matter of keeping the Living Stream coffers topped off. This poses a little bit of a dilemma for the powers that be over on La Palma Ave in Anaheim. After all, these guys are supposed to be dispensing the “Up-To-Date-Speaking” of God himself. The problem is that the only person on earth (since 1945 anyway) who did the up-to-date speaking has been dead and buried over there at Grace Gardens for over 20 years now. What to do? What to do? I know! We'll just keep reprinting the same stuff over and over and over again. Of course we'll have to spend a few shekels on different colors, booklet sizes and formats...but a publisher's gotta do what a publisher's gotta do!

Originally Posted by Koinonia

LSM is adept at repackaging the same things over and over again in various formats. But really the whole enterprise is running out of steam. A flyer has recently been circulated among LC members that is titled "Announcing the Completion of the Collected Works of Witness Lee" (scheduled: 2018). Here is a corresponding website. It is difficult for me to understand how people can get excited about this...

The LSM online bookstore is currently featuring a softbound copy of the Recovery Version of the Ezekiel (the upcoming Winter Training will begin the Crystallization-study of Ezekiel). Of course, the Recovery Version of Ezekiel has already been published in other formats for years. But diehards will buy multiple copies of the single volume, I'm sure. In recent years, LSM has also experimented with gimmicky things like pocket versions of various Life-studies ("Dwarsligger" format), in an apparent attempt at providing tired (and younger) members with new materials.

The dilemma for LSM is that they have no good ways to grow (or even maintain) book sales figures. They are mostly limited to a captive audience of current LC members. Once they really do put out the Collected Works of Witness Lee, they will have no new material--other than new editions of periodical publications like Holy Word for Morning Revival and Ministry Magazine. So, they will be stuck pushing members to buy copies of the same books to give away to other people, as well as coming up with newly packaged formats of the same existing publications. You can already see this happening.

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