[MIKE]

This morning, actually back in January of 2005 we gave a series of messages on our commitment as a local church and we would like to share more upon that today based upon our current situation. But before we get into that there are some things that we have been encountering over the past few years that have been a hindrance and frustration to us, and we would like to fellowship with you this morning regarding these matters. Before we can do this we must talk about some current events and circumstances that are hindering our progress also related to this commitment.

 

We shall share why we have chosen to discontinue the LSM, this Living Stream Ministry trainings, participation here in Columbus. As many of you know in the last year and a half we have based upon some things we have been hearing. We firstly discontinued the video trainings here. Then we just recently this last time made a decision that we would not send anybody to Anaheim for that training. We prepared a letter on April 23, 2006 to the church. But we only gave it to those interested parties who wanted to know why we were not continuing with the LSM-sponsored trainings or events. And I would like to read that letter this morning in its entirety so you all can hear it. This letter is dated April 23, 2006.

 

Dear Saints in Columbus,

At this time the elders of the church in Columbus have decided not to hold the video training of the Living Stream Ministry (LSM). We also will not register any local saints to attend the live training in Anaheim.  We are using this form of communication to avoid having any spoken fellowship from being passed on inaccurately or in the form of gossip.  This letter is intended for the saints meeting as the church in Columbus only. 

 

We have come to this decision based upon our observation of the fruit of LSM events as seen in some of our local saints over the past few years.  Some of the saints attending the trainings (live or remote), watching videos coming out from LSM-sponsored events, have been affected in their relationship with the church in Columbus in the following ways:

 

 

 

 

 

Based upon the aforementioned observations and the reaction of many saints who are troubled by this conduct and their own personal experience with hearing questionings and unhealthy criticisms conveyed through these LSM forums, we feel before the Lord that we must take this action. The Lord has far too much to do here in Columbus for our saints to be subjected to further distraction, disaffection and disabling due to participation in these events.  The speaking in LSM-sponsored trainings and conferences have also brought in disrespect for other faithful ministers of Christ Jesus who have the right and responsibility to minister and publish their work as the Lord leads them. 

 

We also want to make it known that we are not against any local church or any brother in the Lord.  All the churches, co-workers, and saints are the Lord’s.   Our desire is to faithfully shepherd the saints in Columbus and watch over them as the apostle Paul charged the elder’s in Ephesus, as seen in Acts 20:28-30.

 

May the Lord have mercy on us as we continue to pursue Him.

 

Your servants in Christ Jesus,

Signed,

Bill Gilbert        John Myer       Mike Puskas                 Joseph Chang     Lih Chyun Wang

 

[BILL]

I believe about six of these letters were passed out by some ones who were concerned. And I’m reading this because I want to be accurate because of who I am. I just want to be clear. Since that letter was prepared, further developments require the fellowship this morning. A group is gathering to hold the LSM video training locally, despite being aware of the earlier letter that the leading brothers, Mike had just read. Moreover there is a strong recruiting effort for participating in this training and other LSM-sponsored events. Especially during the break time here, when we have breaks during the meeting.

 

[JOSEPH]

We have a brother who has opened and resolved the problems with elders and has not been participating in the fellowship of the church for over six months, has taken part in this recruiting effort.

 

[BILL]

Certain individuals involved in this group were influenced by them have been calling saints in other localities with negative speaking concerning the church’s activities and the churches in this area, which has adversely affected those saints that were contacted.

 

[LIH-CHYUN]

Amen. And this group has received visitors with a hostile agenda against churches around the Great Lakes, including the church here. These visitors have held secretive, exclusive meeting, not in fellowship with the leadership here. In June 10th & 9th there was a group of brothers not from this area, called through the group of Chinese-speaking which has problem with us called for secretive meetings. And through these meetings they have sown discord according to their agenda.

 

[BILL]

This has not been our practice and I would hope it wouldn’t continue to be our practice. So we have a word for those participating in this activity. Since it is clear that you object to the direction of the church and its leadership here, we strongly encourage you to join yourselves to a local church where you can be at peace, with its local leadership. Otherwise you will continue to cause, you’ll be the cause of parties and division here in the church. I suggest this because of what happened throughout my life in the church life. If we don’t agree with the brothers, we try our best to agree with the brothers. If not, we have to follow our conscience. I would strongly suggest joining yourself, if you don’t agree with us, to a place where you can be at peace in your conscience and follow the Lord and be under those brothers. To the saints who desire to positively move on with the direction of the church here, we want you to be aware of and avoid being recruited into this activity and its negative effects.

 

[JOHN]

(Can you give me that music stand over there.)

I’m going to say something a little more in detail about what we are for. I’m also going to use notes so that I don’t stray. This morning we are not wanting to argue with anybody. As a matter of fact, we realize that when a person descends into level of commitment on any position, it becomes a matter of conviction, it becomes a matter of conscience and it’s just about impossible to talk them out of it. So the purpose for doing this, this morning even from my speaking this morning, is not to convince anybody of anything. It’s to let you know where we as the leadership of the church here stands. If you don’t agree, I’m not interested in talking you out of that. It’s unlikely that anybody with a committed position on anything will be talked out of it, especially in religious matters or spiritual matters.

 

In the past we’ve had a number of situations where people came into the church here, they met with us, they had a hope, they had an expectation. Some wanted us to become a charismatic church, others wanted us to become a house church. Some wanted us to align ourselves with certain gifts and doctrinal attitudes. Each time they were disappointed. Now internally for a very long time for years and years and years there’s been an expectation among those internally, right here in the church, long term. That we should be exclusively aligned with the Living Stream Ministry and I say “exclusively aligned.” We did not fulfill that expectation. Our view, now listen closely, our view is that to be polarized around one man or one man’s ministry is wrong. Please understand us. We just don’t see any way of squaring a belief like that with the Bible. There have been all kinds of efforts to do so. Whole books to come out to recommend this and efforts to use the Bible, but as the dust settles, we feel like these are all attempts to make the Bible say something that is doesn’t say. As a result, over time, some here in the church have become estranged, and a few have become quite negative.

 

Anyone that’s been around here for a little while, now I’m just going to talk to us here on Sinclair Road, anybody that’s met for awhile on Sinclair Road knows that there’s a problem. Everybody knows it, it’s not a secret, if you’ve been around just a little bit. What we’ve gotten use to is trying to pretend that there’s not a problem. In the name of not wanting to lord it over the saints or to control the saints, we’ve constantly looked the other way and things have gotten worse. Enough is enough! So we are going to make clear with everybody what they can expect from us here in the church. We’re going to outline for you what you can expect from the leadership here so you can make some decisions about whether or not you want to continue with us.

 

Now I know that I gave, actually we gave, a series of commitment messages, about a year and a half ago. During that time we spoke with a lot of generalities, I know, I gave the overview message. I gave a lot of general examples and things like that because at the time we were hoping not to offend anybody. But because of our current setting this morning, I’m going to be a bit more specific and a bit more blunt. First of all, our commitment is to the faith once delivered to all the saints, all the saints. Not an elite group. I’m sorry, please don’t take me wrongly, not to a recovery group, not to a special group. This is the faith once delivered to all the saints historically through all the ages. You can find this verse in Jude 3. This faith is not an accumulation of deeper revelations, it’s the simple truth that brought common salvation to all of us. This is what we stand on. This is what we will be committed to. It is the faith jointly held by all believers. And it’s their property and the Bible tells us that this is what we should contend for. If we fight saints, if we take issue with other believers, it is on the base of that faith that brought us common salvation. That is the first thing.

 

Now I would like to draw for you a diagram that I drew back a year and a half ago. I’m sure nobody remembers it, but I’m going to draw it. (Let’s see, if I was up with the 21st century I’d be using PowerPoint here, but we’ll use this.) Our commitment first of all is something very very common, not common like low, but commonly held by everybody, and everybody would agree on this, we are committed to a Person…God. We’re not committed to a doctrinal package, special views. We’re committed to Him and specifically I mean this: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

 

Brothers, I want you to think back for a minute to a simpler time. What is it that caught you for salvation? Was it membership in an elite group? Or was it a Person that caught you, charmed you? First of all our commitment to the Father is that we hope we could express Him. We hope that we could live Him out and look like Him. Jesus highly recommended this in Matthew chapter 5 verse 17. Where He said “let your good works shine before men so that they could see your Father and glorify Him.” So we share that hope and expectation that we will be like the Father.

 

As for the Son, we love Him. We love the Son of God and we live Him. To us to live is Christ. And then we do that by walking in the Holy Spirit which grants us all spiritual reality. So first and foremost, we are all about a Person here and historically the whole Christian church has been based on this proposition, that there’s a Person in the universe who loves us, who gave Himself for us and who expects that we would love Him in return and live Him out. I don’t think that there’s a whole lot of disagreement with that, so I’m going to move on.

 

There’s a document, commonly held among Christians, it’s called the Bible. And what the Bible is, is it’s this Person that we are committed to, His reality, captured in human language. Obviously we would be committed to that as well. We use the Bible as the rule of all faith and practice. And we are careful not to apply it upon one another, especially in negative ways. According to biased subjective interpretations. Now what do I mean by that? For instance, we’ve had a number of youth activities. The latest one was hosted here in Columbus. We wouldn’t talk about this if it hadn’t been hosted in Columbus. As a result, all kinds of things are said. Things like, that is not gold, silver or precious stone; that is wood hay and stubble. And the use of the Bible there, to pick up this verse for instance, from First Corinthians 3 and say, “Oh I know what the wood hay and stubble is, that’s an electric guitar.” Well, it does sound silly doesn’t it? It does really sound silly, because it is. It’s an irresponsible use of the Bible to intimidate people. That’s what I call a subjective biased use of the Bible, against the saints.

 

Let me give you a more proficient handling of that verse in context of First Corinthians. What would be wood, hay and stubble in First Corinthians, since we’re on the subject of the Bible? Fairly speaking, in context to First Corinthians, we find in chapter one an act of the flesh that is wood, hay and stubble, would be preferring one minister and his ministry over others, despising all others. That’s in First Corinthians chapter one. Let me give you another example that’s more fitting to wood hay and stubble. Believers suing one another in law court. How about that one? That’s First Corinthians chapter 6. That is a work of the flesh that will be burned at the judgment seat of Christ.

 

Since we are using the Bible, we should not interpret it according to bias, we should look at it in plain language. We will pay attention to the Bible, according to the meaning that needs the least stretch. What the Bible does not require, we do not require. Where it does not specifically promote or prohibit things, neither do we. We feel that the Bible should not, now listen to this, because every Sunday morning we are up giving messages, and we will continue to do so. We feel that the Bible should not be encumbered by a formal, legalized interpretation of one ministry. We are not hostage to any group of materials on this earth. We’re confined by the plain meaning of scripture. Therefore, we will feel, and continue to feel free to preach it, according to its plain meaning. Without feeling that we must match someone else’s personal interpretation or views. I say this because not too long ago, after a sharing on Sunday morning, a very nice sister approached, she wasn’t ugly, I just use this as an example. She approached me and she was genuinely confused and she said, “your view did not match the footnote.” Now it wasn’t contradictory to the footnote, it just didn’t say exactly the same thing.

 

Well saints, let me tell you something about study Bibles. The world is full of them and we get a lot of help from them. I like my study Bible. But I’d like to let you know this, and at the risk of sounding facetious, I’m going to tell you this, the Bible part is at the top of the page. That’s the authoritative canonized part, at the top of the page. I hate to have to say it like this, but it’s almost like we’ve forgotten. And we should let you know as long as we are right, by the Apostle Paul, as we are reading the book of Romans, then we will feel justified in that manner of teaching. We will not be challenged, we will not be held up to the standard of an interpretation. We receive helps, we receive resources from godly men, no doubt about it. But we cannot and will not be held hostage by it.

 

Secondarily, since we’re talking about publications, and first of all I’d like to say, this is our one publication, it’s called the Holy Bible. We feel that any ministry, and please, I’m trying to be as specific and as blunt and as honest as I can. Any ministry, ANY MINISTRY that responsibly opens the truth, and brings grace for our spiritual nourishment, and the building up of the church here, will be received. This doesn’t mean that we promote everything, obviously we can’t do that. There are thousands of Christian works and ministries in the world, we’re not going to pretend that we’re going to promote all of them, the church still has oversight. Men still care for your souls. Nor does it mean, now listen carefully, because this is probably going to go out too, I’m glad this is on tape. We are not outlawing any personal use of material, in homes, for personal use, enjoyment, or any such thing, we are not doing that. We have to say all this because the Living Stream Ministry has sought to confine the saints to the materials approved by them. Hence, the one publication document that went out, we categorically reject this policy, and have no intention of abiding by it.

 

There is no canonized interpretation of the Bible. That silly thought got started a couple years ago. There’s no such thing. There’s a canonized Bible, but not a canonized interpretation of the Bible. So we wish to establish this morning from the ideological standpoint, just from the what-if ideological standpoint, that any publications that can render true spiritual help to us will not be dismissed out of hand and as a work of “fallen Christianity.” We will not do that. That is our stand concerning publications, the Bible and all secondary documents based upon it.

 

Now, this Person, that unique Person that we’re committed to, His reality gets into a group of people, the Bible calls that the church, the Body of Christ. So, we’re also committed to the Body of Christ. When Paul was on the road to Damascus, he saw a vision that the saints in Christ were in an inseparable spiritual bond together, so he began looking at the Christians as Christ. That’s the reason why he served the rest of his life so strongly, to him he was serving Jesus when he served the saints. Brothers we do not discriminate by saying, “Oh, he’s in the recovery, or he’s a Baptist, or he’s a Presbyterian.” Here in the church in Columbus, we don’t do that. Now we don’t have the freedom to be called Baptist, we don’t have the freedom to be called Pentecostal. But we certainly look at all the brothers in those places as being the Body of Christ. We may not feel that their organization is the Body of Christ; see that’s different too. But the people are the Body of Christ.

 

Today we hear a lot about the Body, the Body, I’d like to say something about “the Body,” because I’m afraid it’s been used so much, and by some, in efforts to correct, or to balance, or to give veiled warnings in coded talk; we’re tired of it. We’re going to talk about what the Body is. On the cross of Christ, Jesus produced the Body. Eph 2:16 says that He reconciled both into one Body, that is the two great divisions of mankind, Jew and Gentile, were reconciled into one Body.

 

Okay, so we have this great big entity, spiritual entity with Christ as the Head and His life animating the whole thing. But the problem is this, in this Body are people with all kinds of problems and views, some don’t see much, some see a lot, some practice this way, some don’t practice that way, what’s a person to do? And here’s the history of Christianity, here’s what Christians unfortunately have done. This group, having received the superior revelation, a feeling that they are better then all the rest, leave, and declare themselves to be the Body. They see this as the Body and this is oneness right here. This is oneness…this is division. This is oneness, it’s a sectarian oneness. In an effort to be pure, in an effort to be separated, and feeling of uniqueness, they do this. Typically they claim a status as the real church.

 

Now saints, this is a recycled error, down through church history. We’ve got all kinds of people doing this kind of thing. Joseph Smith did it, he founded the Mormons, He said that he was going to restore the one true church on the earth, because Christianity had failed. Charles Taze Russell did this, he established a group called the Jehovah’s Witnesses, because Christianity had failed. And it didn’t have truth. A number of closed Brethren splinter groups have done this, and they even use language very similar to “ministry of the age” and things like this. If you know about the James Taylor sect, the early part of the twentieth century, you know what I’m talking about. We can’t do this. Unfortunately what has occurred, is that there, when this goes out.

 

Okay, to keep this from coming back in, you got to tell these people, the people here are evil and bad and fallen. They’re Pharisees, they’re dead, they’re shallow, they’re corrupted, they’re polluted. So they don’t go back. So the oneness of this thing is not necessarily the oneness of Eph 4 or John 17, it’s a oneness based on books and papers and conferences and training activities, and going place and doing things and subscribing to special language. This is not our oneness. If you believe that it is, you’re entitled to that belief, but you’re going to have a hard time here, because we don’t believe that. Actually, to practice the New Testament church life, to have the reality of the one Body, to practice the way it is in the New Testament, would annul all these things. You know why? Because all kinds of different people will end up coming among you, they won’t believe the same thing. They don’t like the same people, they don’t respect the same version. Could you imagine that? This whole thing just, with all kinds of people in it. And this saints is not to say that we receive every thing among Christians. We all know there’s some kooky things out there. We don’t, we do not receive heresy, we do not receive immorality, and we cannot receive division. That is, brothers among brothers hoping to turn people against each other. We can’t; we can’t afford it. Nor can we afford to be under a ministry that teaches it and strengthens that concept in view.

 

Who is the Body of Christ this morning? In the city of Columbus, even on the whole earth, you know the Body, the Body is all the believers! It is not merely the collection of local churches, it is not the aficionados of a certain ministry!

 

Now last but not least, this is the Body, last but not least we have the matter of the work. We’re committed to something of spiritual work because this Person whom were committed to likes to do something. The Bible describes that He has an activity, He has an operation. Okay, we here are committed to stand with that operation. When we say work, or when we say, “the work,” we don’t mean this…a legal entity with a hierarchy of people that preside over it. We don’t mean that. We do not see this parallel thing next to the Body of Christ, called “the work,” with a board of directors, and people running it, and expecting to guide all the churches. We don’t think of it that way. We cannot allow any ministry to bring us under such a concept, concerning the work, we only know of one Lord of the harvest. We only know about one Spirit who places as He wills, and one God who operates. When we say work, we mean the movement of the members of the Body of Christ. And all the avenues, all the avenues of preaching the gospel and discipling people, building up the church.

 

Now we’re aware of a number of negative remarks made about our participation in MountainTop, we’d like to make this clear here too. If you’re conscience will not allow you to participate in things, you don’t have to. Now it might make it difficult if you’re sitting in a meeting and everybody else is crazy about it, and they’re just glowing, and you’re sitting there thinking “I hate this, it’s worldly, it’s corrupting.” Okay, yeah, you’re going to have some serious hard times, but you yourself personally will not be made to do anything. Nor will you be spoken evil of if you don’t participate. Nor are we going to use all the verses in the Bible and the types in the Old Testament to suggest that you’re a religious dog. We’re not going to do that to you. We’d like for you to return the favor. I mean I think that there’s a number of us that could be really ugly if we wanted to. But let’s not do this. Everything from being accused of worshipping a golden calf, come on please…please. As for the church in Columbus, count on us to do this: we will continue to work according to the Spirit’s leading and what is allowable in the Bible, not what is according to the mandates, beliefs, policies or decisions of a publishing company in California. Nor will we be confined by precedent, in other words, has anybody ever done this before. We don’t do this. We stretch forward, we forget the things that are behind.

 

Now in closing I’d like to say this. We understand that this fellowship will more than likely end up in the hands of those who strongly disagree with our stated commitment for the church here, so I’d like to preempt the letter writing, the phone calls, the ugly emails, by saying that the leadership of the church in Columbus will no longer debate on these issues…the case is closed. Over the years we’ve seen how useless rounds of letter writing, other correspondences and alleged fellowship sessions really are.

 

You know brothers, fellowship doesn’t solve everything, sometimes what fellowship does is it clarifies when brothers have a different stand. And I think that that’s been clearly clarified and this is our clarification to you this morning. The only thing that argument does is tie up the saints positive energies, especially the elders and responsible brothers, and keep them from fulfilling the Lord’s real commitment here. We share all these things with you today so that we can go on without hassles, as Paul said, “let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the brands of Jesus.” And we hope that we could all go on in the fresh way in which the Lord, we trust, will lead us in the coming years. But we can’t do it in the current setting and with the current situation, pretending there’s not problems. Of course there’s problems and the Lord we feel had impressed upon us to stand up and say something, some of you are probably thinking “it’s about time.”

 

There was an elephant in the room for years, everybody was walking around it pretending that it wasn’t there. I hope that this could be something of a relief to those of you who don’t agree this morning, because you may not believe this, but we don’t hate you. We really want you to live a church life according to your conscience and not be so unhappy when in your in meetings with us, flipping through your Bible, making your statement that you’re not going to listen, moaning and groaning, bent over double, as though you’re having appendicitis or something like that. Listen, I wouldn’t want to be in that kind of church life. I don’t want to wish it on you either. Personally, if the shoe was on the other foot and another man was standing up here and a united leadership was standing up here and I felt I couldn’t go along with that, I would just go someplace else. Either that or I would decide, I’m going to, okay, I’m just going to just have to learn the cross.

 

But if there were many many issues, such as we have addressed this morning, that you just could not agree with and that you sincerely felt were worldly and were off, and were corrupt, then we encourage you, don’t stay and make it hard on yourself and others. Amen? We want everybody to have a quality Christian life. Not be tortured by the church. The church ought to be our greatest blessing in life, or at least one of the biggest. Remember, it’s part of our commitment here. I’ll end my fellowship right here.

 

[MIKE]

Could we have three brothers pray to end the meeting?