I encountered the denomination known as the Local Churches (a.k.a. The Lord’s Recovery) through one of their affiliated campus groups known as Christians on Campus. Their campus groups, from what I’ve learned, also sometimes go by the name “Christian Students on Campus” and “Christians at [University Name].”
When I first joined their group, I found them to be very warm and welcoming to me and other newcomers. There was often much food available, which is always an effective way to attract college students, and they seemed very attractive with their presentation and how they were not affiliated with any denomination. As has been mentioned here, they would present themselves as a non-affiliated group that just consisted of students from multiple backgrounds and whatnot. I became very attached to the group. I was very active and attended just about every meeting I could along with small-group meetings and many one-on-one meetings with the “full-timers” who were from one of the Local Churches. During my time at a university in the UT system (Texas), I began to notice some disturbing trends that, in hindsight, were significant red flags that I brushed off as inconsequential at the time.
Despite university rules dictating that students should be leading the campus groups, organizing events, and leading the meetings, it was actually the “full-timers” that did all such things. These “full-timers” are members of the Local Churches who are, in every case I’ve seen, paid by their church to dedicate themselves full-time to their ministries on campus. Officially, they were “guest speakers,” but in reality they were the de facto leaders of the campus clubs. Any official decisions regarding club activities and events had to be screened through them, and the vast majority of bible studies were planned and led by them. As a former vice-president and later president of their clubs, I can confirm that club officers were not, in effect, officers of the club. Rather, they were more like a public relations team. They were the face of the club, and this was made clear by statements from the full-timers. Young students wanted to meet with other young students, and our job as older members and officers was to give as much attention as we could to the younger ones so that they could feel more welcome. Now, this is perfectly fine and surely within the duties of club officers, but we had often had no significant say in what the club actually did or the lessons that were taught. This was all taken care of by the full-timers. Apart from what I’ve mentioned, our duties as club officers was also to deal with “official” matters required by our university, namely attending special meetings where we were trained on club ethics regarding alcohol, hazing, and harassment. I recall having a conversation with one of the full-timers from the church who worked with the club, stating that I saw them as the club leader. They got upset at the notion, which confused me. Ironically, I actually did not mind being just the face while they took care of things. I rather looked up to the full-timers and did not see why it was so wrong to acknowledge that they were the ones leading this club. Still, it was clear that they did not want me declaring such things to the other students. A red flag for sure.
As for their deceptive practice of declaring that they are not affiliated with any denomination, I can testify to this being blatantly false. During my sophomore year or so, I was invited to a particular regional gathering of the Local Churches where they discussed the “business” side of things. All of the campus groups affiliated with the Local Churches would come together to discuss things such as club membership numbers, effective tactics and strategies used by other campus groups, and particularly how many of the college students that they were able to bring into their affiliated churches. They had lists of “college-aged saints” that were passed around so that the full-timers from each locality could confirm the numbers and report to the higher ups. Interestingly enough, I discovered that these specific numbers were less than what I saw on campus, and this was because they only counted college students as “college-aged saints” in their city if they were attending the Sunday morning service at their affiliated church. I myself, despite going to all the college-related events and bible studies and serving faithfully, was not counted as a “college-aged saint.” This concerned me deeply, and when I expressed my concern, a sister who had grown up in the Local Churches, whose name was on the list, turned to me and said “what’s the big deal?” When I turned to my mentor to ask why I was not on the list despite my service to the club, I was told that it was because I was attending another church that was not affiliated with the Local Churches. This pained me deeply, and I subsequently decided to stop meeting with that other church so that I could be fully accepted by my club’s denomination. This was one of the red flags I regrettably ignored.
In my later years I became a club officer. One particular year we began to initiate an “internship” during the summer where our goal was to reach out to the incoming freshmen who were attending orientation. The university had made it clear that they did not want clubs to be actively recruiting on campus during these times. They did not want any sort of solicitation with these vulnerable young people. Despite this, the full-timer in charge of our club was determined to find loopholes and reach out to these freshman in the hopes of bolstering our club membership before the other Christian groups could contact them. We had discovered that the incoming freshmen were allowed to wander about during their lunchtime, and it was during these times that we would wait in the common areas where all the food courts were and seek them out for conversation in the hopes of eventually inviting them to our club. I expressed my discomfort with this on multiple occasions, but I was told that we weren’t there to bring them into our club, but rather just preach the gospel to them which isn’t against the law. Despite this obvious lie, I went along with deep reservations. We were not simply trying to preach the gospel to them, which would technically be allowed by the university, but rather we were trying to gain them for our club, which is not allowed by the university. In subsequent years, we discovered that University officials were distressed by our efforts of solicitation, and there were apparently one or two other Christian groups doing the same. As such, they no longer allowed the incoming freshmen to eat on their own and instead required them to have group lunches with their orientation leaders. The full-timer in charge of our group was not deterred by this, and in response he simply tasked us with joining the incoming freshmen. Since it was a public space, he said, they could not technically stop us from simply conversing with others. Once again I expressed discomfort at his attempts to dance on the line between proper and improper conduct, but my objections did little to change the situation. Once more I was told that this was not against the law, and I am disappointed in myself for having ignored these red flags.
My reservations were further compounded by our efforts to gather as many phone numbers as we could from the incoming freshmen. The full-timers said that they were too old to do such things and that it would appear less suspicious if this task was undertaken by us, the older club members who were much closer to the orientees in age. They would surely appear like solicitors, but we would appear as just young adults exchanging numbers with new friends. We would gather hundreds of numbers during our “just preaching the gospel” time in the summer throughout multiple orientation sessions (they usually had six or seven each summer), keeping records of first and last names and, if we could, what cities the orientees were from. Seeing how we were explicitly trying to keep such records on paper, I once again expressed my concern. I was told by the full-timer in charge of the group that people exchange numbers with each other all the time and that it wasn’t technically against campus rules or the law since you can’t just ban adults from exchanging numbers. At the end of the summer right before the fall semester would begin, we would contact each of these numbers in the hopes of inviting them to our table and our club events. Because of the purpose of our number-gathering (which was to usher them into our campus club), I once again expressed my concerns, but I was met with an indignant response from the full-timer in charge of our group. He expressed concern over my objections and said we’re just Christians reaching out to people to bring them into fellowship and that we shouldn’t let the university scare us from doing God’s work since they were just “of the world.” Allusions were often made to how Satan is always trying to frustrate God’s work on earth and that we shouldn’t give into him and press on even if it means we might get in trouble. Once again, I must say that I am not proud to declare that I disregarded these red flags.
Another aspect of serving on the Christians on Campus group was attending “internship trainings” which were organized by the Local Churches. Club leaders from all of the campus groups affiliated with the Local Churches, along with their respective full-timers and other interested members of the club, would attend this annual training in order to prepare for the incoming orientation season that happened every summer. Here we would hear from other groups and full-timers about the most effective tactics for recruiting students to our clubs. One particular aspect of this training was strange to me. One of the most important things we should do, according to the trainers, was to avoid talking about Witness Lee and the unique doctrines and lingo found in the Local Churches. The reason for this is because they believed many would become uncomfortable with what was said and taught in the Local Churches. As such, despite the fact that most, if not all, of the officers in all the clubs from Texas were members of the Local Churches, we were discouraged from sharing from Witness Lee’s teachings and using his vocabulary. This discouragement extended to common Local Church practices such as “calling on the Lord” and “pray-reading” which we were told would be too much for incoming students because they were not ready for such things. Rather than such things, we were told to focus on the “common faith,” which included things like “Jesus is the Son of God,” “the bible is the word of God,” “we are saved by faith in Christ alone,” “Jesus died and was raised,” and other more orthodox statements of faith. Such things, they declared, were much less likely to make new students uncomfortable than their teachings of “overcomers” and “not caring for right and wrong” and “get out of your mind and into your spirit.” These teachings were not wrong, they said, but it would be better to not make them uneasy by throwing it all at them too soon, especially if they already came from a Christian background. It simply wouldn’t do for these new ones to know that our churches get all of their teachings from a single source: a publishing company known as Living Stream Ministry. Revealing such things would surely give off the same vibes as the Watchtower of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Once more, I am ashamed to say that I disregarded these red flags.
This particular topic hits me deeper than most. I gave much of my life to this group, and I bottled up many concerns and doubts throughout the years which led to much pain later in life when I realized the truth and it all came back out. Most of these students are not evil. I daresay perhaps even most of the full-timers genuinely think they are doing the Lord’s work. Still, I know many of them are betraying their conscious by acting with such guile. Why should they be ashamed if they are doing the Lord’s work? Why should they hide who they are and what they believe if they claim Witness Lee’s ministry is so good? Why should they withhold these “high truths”? I say it somewhat mockingly now, but back then when I was for the group, I asked the same questions with a pure heart. “Why are we acting in such a way? We are better than this! We shouldn’t be afraid to show them who we are, and we shouldn’t be so sneaky with how we conduct ourselves on campuses!”
May the Lord be merciful to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light. My heart aches to recount these things and testify of them. There were many simple solutions to these things, but it seems that the issues have compounded over the years and has led to great corruption and deception. I do not know the full scale of it, but I fear it may come down with a great crash someday because they are not standing on solid ground. May the Lord be merciful to preserve the hearts of these young college students and even the “young people” who are in middle/high school. If and when this great crash occurs, I am absolutely certain many will be stumbled, and it pains me so.
May the Lord have mercy on us all.
The Curious Fellows 