House Church Talk - Re: The Local Church (goodwordusa@att.net)

[Thomas Shou]

Hi Dan, 
 
Good to hear from you bro and the great news of some LC brothers coming around! That certainly must be the work of the Holy Spirit! Were they "leading brothers"? or just some lay LC saints? Also Dan, did they talk about any practical measures about how to be less sectarian/LC/W Lee-centered and more in fellowship with the wonderful Body of Christ in their area beyond the narrow LC. Any update on how the LC in Columbus or elsewhere in general is becoming more open to the Body and the Spirit...I actually heard that they are becoming more open to the gifts of the Spirit now and are growing in my area in Nor Cal.....

Ok bro Jim,
 my quick 2 cents on the LC ("Local Church") movemt, since I grew up there in the Bay Area.....The so-called LC movement began with the vision and ministry of a more well-known Chinese evangelist/church founder named Watchman Nee in the early 20's, where he started to meet simply with other believers locally in the homes and then later saw the matter of preserving the unity in the Body of Christ thru raising up local churches city by city (as evidenced thru the NT) vs. the rampant denominational division he saw brought in by the West missionaries at that time -- tearing part the indigenous Chinese church. His simple reasoning was that if God wanted the church to be divided and walled off by denominationalism, we should not feel bad and reach over the wall somtimes and try to work with other churches, but build the wall as high as possible, BUT if God desires unity in His Body, we should do everything possible to tear down every last wall that divides up His Body, whereever we are.
 (my paraphrase) He was deifnitely a radical for his time and heavily influenced by the Brethen as well....anyways
later the Spirit really blessed his vision and work, and hundreds of local churches were raised all across China by the time of his death in the 60's. At their heyday, many big denoms even folded and joined this first "LC movement", then known as "Little Flock" movement because of the little flock brethen hymnbooks they were using. They never took a name, but that title stuck.
 
Before he died, as the story goes, he entrusted his ministry to his trusted and closest protege Witness Lee who then continued the LC legacy in Taiwan and then the States in the early 60s, when my parents came into the group. By then, Witness Lee ("Bro Lee") had become the undisputed leader of the movement, who founded LCs all across the States, as he took more authority upon himself and even demanded absolute obedience to his ministry called Living Stream Ministry (www.lsm.org)  He started to criticize the rest of Christianity for not seeing the "light" (proper "ground") about meeting as The LC in each city (which meant meeting under the auth of himself & the LSM).And became increasingly proud and exclusive as the present-day "Oracle" of God. Essentially, the inclusive LC light of Watchman Nee that ALL local believers constitute the local church in any given locality degenerated into the Exclusive LC light promoted/practiced by Lee and his circle as only those local believers
 meeting WITH US, on the right "ground" constituted the true LC in that locality! In other words, the ground of local unity literally became the ground/that narrow piece of dirt that the actual LC hall was sitting on! Some might tell you otherwise, but their practice revealed that an exclusive, sectarian spirit has already crept in -- and they alone were the "true Israel"....In the mid-eighties, a huge split tore apart the movemt, leaving those pro-Lee left....
 
Since the death of "Bro Lee" in recent years, I heard no single leader has replaced his reign and now it's "brother we" -- a group of brothers in leadership, which is already a healthy sign of moving from a dictatorship to an oligarchy...and let's pray that in these last days the LORD might do a NEW and fresh work of His Spirit among them and esp. the leadership to restore His unique Headship in their midsts and embrace and learn from the rest of the Body they have been estranged from so long.....
Keep us informed Dan and any others.....
 
May we all learn valuable lessons from our past that will help us to uphold His headship in His Body whereever we are!
 
Thomas
 
PS. Jim, there may be a LC in Billings....? they call themselves the "The church in Billings (fill in city name).

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 10:33:14 +0000
From: goodwordusa at att.net
Subject: Re: House Church Talk -  The Local Church
To: House Church Talk 
Message-ID: <200309251031.h8PAV0Hu017885 at friendlyweb.net>

Dan Beaty wrote: 
> Some HC friends in our area met with us and some of the brothers of the
> "Local Church" movement last evening. It was very encouraging as they spoke
> very openly with us about their desire to be less sectarian and more in
> fellowship with the greater body of Christ.

Glad to hear the good report, Dan.

I may have missed something on this somewhere, but what is the"local church" 
movement? Being way up here in Montana, I have not heard of this.

Jim

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