Local churches (affiliation)

The local churches are a Christian group which was started in China in the 1920s and have spread globally. The basic organizing principle of the local churches is that there should be only one Christian church in each city,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> a principle that was first articulated by Watchman Nee in a 1926 exposition of the seven churches in Asia in Revelation 1:11.<ref>Template:Cite magazine Published in an English translation in Template:Cite book</ref> The local churches do not take a name, but some outsiders referred to the group as the "Little Flock" as they sang from a hymnal entitled Hymns for the Little Flock.<ref>Template:Cite magazine Published in an English translation in Template:Cite book</ref>

From early on, members of this group emphasized a personal experience of Christ and the establishment of a pattern of church practice according to the New Testament.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Though assemblies identifying as "local churches" can be found worldwide, there are no definitive statistics available on membership, partly because the largest number of members are in China. Estimates range from 500,000 to 2,000,000 members worldwide.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

History

Origins

The development of the local churches can be traced to the conversion of Watchman Nee in Fuzhou, China. Nee began to meet outside of denominations with a small group of believers in 1922.<ref>Liu 2016, p. 99.</ref> At an early age, Nee committed his life to Christian ministry and began to publish his works on the Christian faith and on church practice after moving to Shanghai in 1927.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Nee appreciated the teachings of the Plymouth Brethren, especially John Nelson Darby,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and many of Nee's teachings, including not taking a name, plural eldership, disavowal of a clergy-laity distinction, and worship centered around the Lord's Supper, mirror that source.<ref>Miller 2009, p. 10.</ref> From 1930 to 1935, there was communication internationally between the local churches and the branch of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church associated with James Taylor, Sr. The Taylor group of Exclusive Brethren saw the churches in China as a parallel work of God.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, Nee and other Chinese leaders disagreed with their prohibition of celebrating The Lord's Supper with Christians outside of their own meetings. Matters came to a head when Exclusive Brethren leaders discovered that Nee had broken bread with non-Brethren Christians, including T. Austin-Sparks in London and Thornton Stearns in Hartford, during a 1933 visit to the United Kingdom and North America. After a series of letters exchanged between leaders in New York, London, and Shanghai over a two-year period, on 31 August 1935, the Exclusive Brethren in London wrote to Shanghai terminating their fellowship.<ref>Woodbridge 2019, pp. 49-75.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Nee's seminal works expounding his view of local churches—The Assembly Life<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Concerning Our Missions<ref>Template:Cite book Republished as Template:Cite book</ref>—were written against the background of his experience with the Exclusive Brethren.<ref>Buntain 2019, pp. 60, 68</ref> Nee taught that there should only be one church in every city, that Christians should meet together simply as believers living in the same city regardless of differences in doctrine or practice. Nee believed that this would eliminate divisions between Christians and provide the broadest basis upon which all believers could meet.<ref>Lee 2005, p. 75.</ref> Both Nee and Witness Lee emphasized the New Testament's references to churches by the name of the city (for example, in Acts, the Christians in Jerusalem being referred to as "the church which was at Jerusalem" (NKJV), as well as other verses with the same convention, including 1 Corinthians 1:2; Revelation 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7 and 14). Since Nee and Lee taught that there should only be one church in each city, and that that city was the extent of a church's jurisdiction, members of the local churches usually refer to their congregations as "the church in (city name)."<ref>Nee 1939, pp. 112-113, 128-129; 1980, pp. 97-98, 111.</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref> According to Nee, this means that "the church in her locality must be inclusive, not exclusive,” that is, it “must include all the children of God in the whole spectrum of Christian faith and practice."<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref>

Though Nee took the lead among the local churches in China, it was through one of his co-workers—Witness Lee —that the local churches spread worldwide.<ref>Pitts 2014, p. E621.</ref> The two men first met in Lee's hometown of Yantai in 1932. Two years later, Lee moved to Shanghai to work with Nee. One of Lee's responsibilities there was the editing of some of Nee's publications.<ref>Liu 2016, p. 101</ref> In the following years, Nee published many works and held regular conferences and trainings for church workers. Nee, Lee and other workers established over seven hundred local churches throughout China before the Communist Revolution resulted in the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Near the end of the Communist Revolution, Nee sent Witness Lee to Taiwan to ensure that their work would survive the political turmoil.<ref>Liu 2016, 102.</ref>

Developments after 1949

The Denunciation Movement that began in 1951 after China entered the Korean War aimed at severing Christian groups in China from foreign influence, including expelling all foreign missionaries. As a side effect of the disbanding of mission churches, the local churches experienced "a spectacular rise in membership."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Denunciation Movement turned to leading Chinese Christians who would not join the Three-Self Reform Movement. Nee, who managed his family's pharmaceutical company, was imprisoned in 1952 during the Five-Anti Campaign and died in a labor camp 20 years later.<ref>Lee 2005, 87-88</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Meanwhile, the work in Taiwan led by Witness Lee had grown to more than 20,000 members in 65 churches.<ref>Miller 2009, p. 10</ref> Witness Lee visited the United States in 1958 and moved there in 1962, settling first in Los Angeles. Today, there are 250 local churches in the United States with approximately 30,000 members,<ref>Olson 2018, p. 328</ref> and local churches can be found on all six inhabited continents.<ref>Liu 2016, p. 110.</ref>

Church meetings

The local churches practice mutuality in their meetings based on verses such as 1 Corinthians 14:26 ("Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up."). Participants are encouraged to request hymns, make brief comments, or offer prayers or praises at will.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This is particularly evident in "prophesying meetings" in which members speak one after another usually based on their recent learnings and experiences from their Christian walk and/or what they have studied throughout the previous week from the Bible, usually with the help of the commentary books by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, including the periodical Holy Word for Morning Revival published by Living Stream Ministry.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Beliefs

The local churches believe that:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Template:Ordered list

Evaluation

In the first decade of the 2000s, the local churches were the subject of two extensive evaluations. These evaluations were performed against the backdrop of decades of controversy (see Local Church controversies). The first was conducted by a faculty panel at Fuller Theological Seminary. After a two-year study, the Fuller panel stated, "It is the conclusion of Fuller Theological Seminary that the teachings and practices of the local churches and its members represent the genuine, historical, biblical Christian faith in every essential aspect."<ref>Template:Citation</ref> After a six-year study, the Christian Research Institute published a 2009 special issue of their journal in December 2009 with the words "We Were Wrong" on the cover. In it Hank Hanegraaff, Elliot Miller, and Gretchen Passantino published their findings, which resulted in a complete reversal of earlier criticisms.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> This retraction was published after Ronnie Chan, a Hong Kong billionaire associated with Local Church leadership, made a substantial donation to the Christian Research Institute through his foundation, the Morningside Foundation. <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

See also

• Local Church controversies
• Living Stream Ministry
• Bibles for America
• Recovery Version of the Bible
• The Lord's Recovery

External links

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