Christians on Campus – Hiding Who They Are
The Deception of the “Christian on Campus” College Recruitment Process
The Lord’s Recovery Christian cult of Witness Lee mainly recruits new members through college campuses, or at least that was their main avenue of recruitment when I left them in 2019. The college campus clubs usually go by the name “Christians on Campus,” but they also go by a bevy of other vaguely deceptive names that, on their face, disconnect the clubs from the Recovery and Witness Lee.
Christians on Campus is hiding who they are. These Recovery members are putting on a show. They’re pretending to be just another group of Christians who are as normal as any other Christian group or club.
Christians on Campus – A Deceptive Name
Christians on Campus. Christian Students. Christians/Christian Students at <Insert University Name Here>. Mine was called Christian Student Fellowship, at UCA in Conway, Arkansas.
The vagueness and generality of the college club names are intentional. The disconnect from the Lord’s Recovery churches is on purpose.
At least initially, Recovery members who run the club are hiding that they are the recruiting arm of the Lord’s Recovery (although I doubt they would use the word “recruiting”). They’re also hiding that they believe in the doctrines, practices, and speciality of Witness Lee. Neither the name “Christians on Campus” nor any of the other generic Christian names they come up with reveals their true identity.
With these hidden beliefs as the pretext, the Recovery’s club names themselves are deceptive. I believe these club names are meant to draw in seeking, genuine, and even vulnerable Christians who are none the wiser. Witness Lee taught that recruiting freshmen students was a good idea given that the Recovery could exploit the students’ vulnerabilities:
On the one hand, the freshmen in college are eager to leave home; on the other hand, as they live in the dormitories at school, they are often lonely and homesick. This provides an excellent opportunity to invite them into our homes.
Witness Lee, The Spirit and the Body, Chapter 11, Section 5 (Emboldened Emphasis My Own)
Granted, people inviting homesick freshman students into their homes is not inherently evil by itself. If people invite homesick freshman students into their homes to share the gospel of Jesus Christ or to just be generally kind, I posit that generally sounds like a decent, kind act. But what’s the Recovery’s intent behind this methodology? Is it basic human decency? Or is it a means to an end?
Recovery members involved with the clubs are not being kind just to be kind. Christian students are a mark, a potential new recruit, so inviting those students into their homes is not for kindness’ sake. Recovery members are opening their homes for a purpose: they hope students will buy into their beliefs and practices, and they hope they’ll stick around.
The club names hide Christians on Campus’s true identity — the club is the recruiting arm of Lord’s Recovery cult of Witness Lee. Based on the Recovery’s clear exploitation of a Christian freshman’s loneliness and desire to grow in his or her Christian faith in a community, the disconnected club names are just the bait to their trap. The club names and the clubs’ hidden beliefs and practices help the recruiters to avoid the heretical stigmas that come with the Recovery and Witness Lee.
When I was in the club and helping to recruit new members, we were told that the club had nothing to do with the Recovery church, that we were in a completely separate Christian group. That counterfeit separation, I believe, is the purpose for the vague and disconnected naming convention of these clubs.
If you’re a part of the Lord’s Recovery of Witness Lee (which is not “just another Christian group”), why are you hiding it? If it’s so great, why pretend to have nothing different from non-Recovery Christians? I believe, when you pair the club names with the other hidden beliefs and practices of Christians on Campus, it’s self-evident that the name is mainly, if hopefully not purely, a means of deception.
Christians on Campus – Hiding Their Practices
Christians on Campus purposefully hides its “Christian” practices. This varies from club to club, but when I was in the Recovery, it was becoming more and more common to find that Christians on Campus clubs were gradually introducing their practices over time rather than dealing with the possibility of scaring off incoming recruits. The practices themselves are arguably not inherently evil (I won’t make my in-depth case for the problems with them here). The Recovery’s practices are meaninglessly strange, odd, and group-think-based (and for me and plenty of others, mind-numbing) rituals. It’s no wonder that the Recovery’s campus clubs feel the need to hide them.
If you just joined Christians on Campus via “freshman connect” or “welcome week,” here’s a list of practices you might not have seen yet as a new recruit. Again, the gradual introduction of these practices varies, so you may have heard some of these right away or not at all as a new recruit, based on how your club’s leaders have directed their current members to behave:
- Members will say “Amen!” in a specific tone and manner at every pause in a prayer.
- Saying or shouting “Oh, Lord Jesus!” in a specific tone and manner, often done together, or even unexpectedly at any given moment.
- Praying in short sentences or phrases, all in a specific tone that starts monotoned and builds as time passes, allowing pauses for “Amens” to occur.
- Shouting song lyrics over the top of people singing them and after people sing them, again, in a specific tone and manner.
- What they call “pray-reading,” which is a mixture of their form of praying while reading minute portions of Scripture in chunks with different emphases on different words. For example, if they’re “pray-reading” John 3:16, some might say, “Oh, for God! Oh, oh for God! For God! For God! Oh, for God gave! Oh!” And this practice also uses the same aforementioned Recovery-specific tone and manner.
Are any of these practices wrong? Possibly and arguably not. I personally believe them to be wrong, but I won’t get into my case against them here.
Some food for thought on these practices: Is anyone who uses these Recovery practices able to name the purpose of the robotized demeanor outside of “that’s just how we do it”? When you pull the thread of “why,” it certainly doesn’t end with Scripture. I’d be shocked for anyone who seekingly pulls that thread to find it ending with spiritual liberty.
Regardless of whether these Recovery practices are right or wrong, they are likely at least shockingly odd to the outsider, which obviously poses a problem for recruiting outsiders. So what’s the Recovery’s solution? Mostly, hiding it at first.
When I was in the Recovery and a part of the club, families would host meetings called “home meetings” or “truth meetings,” which were specifically used to recruit the new students. These families, all Recovery members, often lived in homes intentionally purchased close to the college campus for the sake of the club. Recovery members would cook food for the potential recruits and for the returning students. Some non-college Recovery members were asked not to attend these meetings at all. Those who did attend were briefed on omitting their “Amens” and changing how they acted, how they practiced their beliefs.
Notice all of the Recovery members volunteering their time to make this club work. Yet at the same time, club leadership claims the club is completely disconnected and separate from the church.
Why hide how you practice your beliefs? The intention here is purely deception, although I’m sure they would never call it that because I’m willing to guess that most of them haven’t considered that’s what they’re doing. I’d like to think that if they ever considered it, Recovery members (who I think are probably well-intentioned; I know I was) would see how clearly this is deception in reality and practice.
To current members, some food for thought: are you hiding your practices from outsiders for fear of scaring them off? Have you rationalized that it is good to pretend to live your Christian life a certain way that you don’t actually do in order to draw people in? Why?
Witness Lee taught on executing this gradual deception about the Lord’s Day meeting, the most intense and most honest kind of Recovery meeting, in which members will really let go and dive into their practices without much care for who’s there:
We should not bring a [high school/junior high school] student to the Lord’s Day meeting immediately after he is saved; rather, we should labor on him gradually until he becomes solid.
Witness Lee; Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 5: Concerning Various Aspects of Church Service; Chapter 2, Section 2
There was even a Recovery conference called “College Reunion,” in which members discussed successful recruiting methodologies for the clubs, at least that was the case when I attended one. Outside of basic marketing strategies, that conference taught members how to be much more gradual in their introduction of Recovery doctrines and practices, justifying deception (without saying the word “deception”) as a means to recruit (if I recall, without saying the word “recruit”; I don’t recall that being Recovery jargon).
One methodology for recruitment included praying like the outsiders at first. Again, this is just Recovery members hiding what they practice, making you think they practice their faith one way when they really do it another. It’s all agenda-based, with misguided rationalizations of “oneness” being the ultimate goal. They aren’t praying like outsiders for oneness’ sake. They’re praying like outsiders because the reason they pray in the manner they do is meaningless, inexplicable, and undoubtedly strange. They don’t want to scare people off. The members have no intention of changing how they pray long-term.
One of the more telling memories I have of the College Reunion Recovery conference was a how-to around one-on-one meetings with freshmen. We were encouraged to start getting into just the Bible with freshmen, to pray like them, and to eventually attempt to read Witness Lee’s writings with them. If any of the students didn’t show interest in Witness Lee’s writings, we were told to move on!
If Recovery members believe in practicing their Christian faith in a specific way and love doing that, why hide it? Why are they hiding from new recruits what they’re signing up for? Why are they pretending to live their lives a certain way when it’s not how they actually live out their Christianity? What’s there to hide if it’s so good?
Christians on Campus – Hiding Their Leader
Although they claim otherwise Recovery members don’t just believe the Bible; they believe in the Bible in the context of one man (and it’s not Jesus). They believe in the Bible and Jesus in the context of Witness Lee’s interpretation and definition of both. A good summary of the Recovery in my opinion is this: The Recovery is Witness Lee’s authoritative version of Christianity as declared by himself, yet done so in the name of God.
When I was recruited, this was a major deception of the campus club. My local club had not yet fully started on my campus when I found them, so when I met with the family that was running things initially, we would meet in their home and pray in the odd Recovery way (which was weird, but I let it go, and later conformed). Why did I stay? I stayed because it seemed like we would only get into the Bible. In at least one instance, we did happen to read some material that was printed out, but it included no author name. It could’ve been material by Witness Lee, but I truly don’t remember. Regardless, we were mainly in the Bible. Nothing was apparently about or from Witness Lee.
Eventually, when I went to my first Recovery conference, I was introduced to Witness Lee. Little did I know that everything was going to become about him. Initially, this was all hidden. But from the community of the Recovery to what appeared to be a care for the Bible, I was actually (and regrettably) drawn to Witness Lee and his writings.
Depending on the club, the facts around Witness Lee’s central and indispensable role in the Recovery can be omitted from new recruits for some time. I knew people who never crossed the barrier from the club into the fuller experience of the Recovery church. Lots of these people knew very little of Witness Lee, some nothing about him at all, for multiple semesters.
Here’s a few key things Christians on Campus has been known to often initially hide about Witness Lee:
1. Witness Lee is the Minister of the Age/Wise Master Builder
Take a look here for more information on this doctrine of the Recovery. Yes, they actually believe every generation has a special man called the “Minister of the Age,” MOTA. This generation’s MOTA happened to be Witness Lee. Who’s next? Not clear.
2. Witness Lee is indispensable to the oneness of the Recovery
In 1986, hundreds of elders signed a letter addressed to Witness Lee, saying:
We also agree to follow your leading as the one who has brought us God’s New Testament economy and has led us into its practice. We agree that this leading is indispensable to our oneness and acknowledge the one trumpet in the Lord’s ministry and the one wise master builder among us.
WITNESS LEE; ELDERS’ TRAINING, BOOK 8: THE LIFE-PULSE OF THE LORD’S PRESENT MOVE; CHAPTER 10, SECTION 5 (EMBOLDENED EMPHASIS MY OWN)
Witness Lee’s response to this pledge of allegiance was confusing: he published it. In the same publication, he wrote some deceptive, manipulative doublespeak around any negative discourse that could come about as a result of this pledge. You can read more on that here for more information on this devotion to Witness Lee.
Regardless of whether or not Recovery members would overtly agree with the signed letter, the reality of the Recovery is that its “oneness” completely hangs upon Witness Lee. If you disagree with Witness Lee’s doctrines or practices, you are incapable of being one with the Recovery; you won’t last, and you won’t want to be there. It is not Christ who keeps these people one, though they will claim that’s the case. The Recovery’s unity is solely due to their devotion to Witness Lee, not solely in what they believe to be their commonality in Christ. Take Witness Lee away, and the Recovery’s unity doesn’t exist.
3. The Bible is Locked apart from Witness Lee
During my time in the Recovery, I heard this mantra time and time again: “Witness Lee’s Life-studies don’t replace the Bible. They unlock the Bible.” They believe that for a reason — Witness Lee said so. According to Witness Lee, for many the Scriptures are insufficient — these many need Witness Lee’s writings to get to the secret, rich, and locked parts of the Bible:
How can we make the small group meetings rich, strong, fresh, and living? After much investigation, I found out that, for many, to use the Bible alone is not sufficient to unlock its riches; there is the need for the Life-study messages to serve as an aid. We treasure the Bible, but the words of the Bible must be opened up before we can receive light from the Bible.
WITNESS LEE; The Living Needed for Building Up the Small Group Meetings; Chapter 6, Section 4 (EMBOLDENED EMPHASIS MY OWN)
If Recovery members really believe what they claim to believe about Witness Lee, why hide that during recruitment for their club? Why not say something like, “Have you heard of Witness Lee? He unlocked the Bible, which for many is insufficient without him! It’s closed, but we can help you open it!” If they truly have the key to the locked, secret words of God, why not gleefully open with that? If they really believe that the Bible must be “opened up” and that they have the way to open it, isn’t that exciting news? Why hide the good news of Witness Lee?
Christians on Campus – Hiding Their Beliefs
Go to a Christians on Campus website. What are some of the first things you see? I have yet to see otherwise, but in every Christians on Campus website, there’s almost nothing to indicate it’s tied to the Recovery. In fact, go to many of their social media sites, and you’ll struggle to find anything indicating they’re pro-Witness Lee/pro-Recovery. You can check our list of Christians on Campus clubs and scour these websites for yourself.
One of the more cunning deceptions the Recovery’s Christians on Campus clubs is “What We Believe.” Christians on Campus clubs will often publish a “What We Believe” or “About Us” page in their websites or in fliers they hand out on college campuses. Our club used to read it off during the first few meetings with the potential recruits. Instead of Recovery members using these publications to demonstrate honestly that their faith and how they practice it is quite different from most Christians, Christians on Campus hides what they believe under the guise of the “common faith.” The “What We Believe” the Recovery shares appears to be biblically sound.
Here are a few key beliefs they have that, if they were honest about how important these things were to their faith, they would share with new recruits, especially given its not lost upon Recovery members that there are mountains of controversy around these teachings:
1. They have the keys to the Bible.
As I discussed earlier, Recovery members believe that the Bible is insufficient on its own and that they have the keys to unlocking its light and riches through Witness Lee’s writings. Why would they not share that information? If for many the Bible was truly closed and insufficient on its own merit, how could anyone in good conscience hide this important news? Why wouldn’t this be a selling point for joining the club now rather than waiting until later?
2. There are two classes of believers, overcomers and non-overcomers. Non-overcomers are condemned with a sentence that includes 1,000 years of punishment in what they call “Outer Darkness.”
The Recovery believes that Christians who do not have a certain amount of the Spirit in them (i.e., if Christians don’t meet an unknowable standard outside of their belief in Christ), those Christians will be punished in a place called the “Outer Darkness” for 1,000 years, while the overcomers will be celebrating with God for those 1,000 years. The Recovery believes in a two-tiered salvation: 1) salvation from eternal perdition (faith-based) and 2) salvation from 1,000-year perdition (mysticism-based, which is actually work-based).
I call this doctrine the thousand-year discipline (TYD) doctrine. TYD means it’s not enough to believe in Jesus Christ in order to avoid 1,000 years of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus’ accomplishment on the cross is not enough to save you from 1,000 years of agony. You need to do more.
While I personally believe this is one of the most heretical and controlling doctrines the Recovery teaches, for the sake of the argument, let’s pretend this doctrine is true.
How could they dare to hide this one? How cold-hearted do they have to be to hide this from people?
Let’s say a Recovery member chats with a new recruit who’s a seeking Christian, but that new recruit isn’t interested in reading Witness Lee. Based on advice I covered earlier, some Recovery members will just ditch the new recruit! But if that’s the case, what if that Recovery member did not tell another Christian about his or her impending 1,000-year doom and how to be saved from it? Although I find this doctrine to be heretical, controlling, and disturbing (to say the very least), how anyone could do this to someone they claim to consider their “brother” is beyond me. If the Recovery teaching of TYD is true, hiding it is purely evil.
I hope that Recovery members don’t actually believe this doctrine and that’s the explanation for hiding it. But if they believe it and hide it from whom they claim are fellow Christians, what does that say about them?
3. One city, one church
The Recovery believes that there is only one church in every city, and they believe it to be the only right way, the only way to be one in God, at least that’s what Witness Lee taught. As discussed here, Witness Lee discussed his doctrine of there only being one church in one city:
The church, composed of all the genuine believers in Christ, as the Body of Christ (1:22-23; Col. 1:24), is universally one (Eph. 4:4), and a local church as the expression of the Body of Christ is locally one—one city, one church (Rev. 1:11).
Witness Lee; The Speciality, Generality, and Practicality of the Church Life; Chapter 1, Section 2
The quote above is actually more telling than it reads by itself. In this book, Witness Lee made a case for the unique items of the Christian faith. He then claims that there are things about the church that are unique to the Christian faith, including one church being in one city. He claims that ignoring this doctrine does not affect salvation yet that the doctrine itself is integral to the Christian faith. That’s just confusing, self-contradictory doublespeak.
4. Like Jesus was a God-man, Christians are God-men
The Christian faith requires believing Jesus (in past, present, and future) is God Himself, that He is completely God and man, what some call the God-man. The Recovery’s version of the Christian faith includes believing that Christians are God-men:
Now in the heavens He is doing one thing, that is, working on all His redeemed and regenerated people to make them God.
Witness Lee; The High Peak of the Vision and the Reality of the Body of Christ; Chapter 4, Section 1 (Emboldened Emphasis My Own)
This is obviously quite the heretical viewpoint, which is discussed in much more depth here. Fully-believing Recovery members truly believe they are becoming God and are god-men. This idea of becoming God is articulated by Recovery members in a massive word salad of qualifiers. The doctrine is exhausting, unhelpful, and unbiblical, but Recovery members won’t tell new recruits about it unless they stick around.
Christians on Campus is Hiding Who They Are
Christians on Campus is the recruitment arm of the Recovery. They happily follow a special prophet named Witness Lee, who they believe unlocked the insufficient, locked, closed Scriptures. They practice their Christian faith in a mind-numbingly odd way. They believe in heretical, extra-biblical doctrines that are not Christian at all.
There’s room to debate what’s heresy and not heresy, what’s evil and what’s just preference, what’s spiritual freedom and what’s downright unbiblical. I attempt to make cases for a lot of that throughout thelordsrecovery.org. That debate is one thing, but hiding what you believe in order to draw in Christians, that’s another. Don’t be fooled by Christians on Campus. They’re hiding who they are.
Thumbs up brother, I just finished reading.
Thank you, Johnathan! I appreciate you reading and giving your feedback.
I was raised in the Recovery and attended one of its university clubs on the opposite side of the United States from you, yet I experienced everything you describe here. For people who are unfamiliar with how it works, I’ll explain a bit. If a Recovery local church has enough college age members who are perceived as committed-enough to the church and are willing to volunteer to help grow their campus club, these students form what Recovery members refer to as “the core”. I was one of them. These students get together weekly for coordination meetings with “full timers” (who are just people the church supports financially to serve as “campus ministers”). Every plan or idea we came up with for outreach or events had to be approved by the elders of the church, who are basically a group of men who lead each local church. Before the start of each school year the church would send people on campus to collect names and email addresses of incoming freshmen. We would host “Freshmen Connect” events and invite all of the freshmen on the list. These were usually dinners in a Recovery church couple’s home or bbq’s at local parks. Attendees were mostly “church kids” (college students who grew up in the Recovery, mostly the core students), full-timers, and a few “community saints” (usually adult church members who worked and didn’t attend the university but were there to support the club). In our coordination meetings we would discuss how we needed to tone-down our usual loudness in front of the Freshmen or “new ones”. Repetition of “amens”, shouting, “Oh, Lord Jesus!”and using “church-life terminology” was strongly discouraged. At the time I didn’t see this practice as sneaky and I felt we were well-intentioned. After all, I believed we had all these riches that other Christians lacked and desperately needed. Yes, our ways were odd but once people saw what we really had, they wouldn’t care! One semester another “core” college aged church member complained to me that she thought it was dishonest for us to change the way we acted for the new ones, and I thought she was crazy! Didn’t she know no one would want to come to our club meetings if they saw how we really acted?! Thinking about it now, I realize I was so deluded. Another time a full timer I was close to explained to me that the whole goal of shepherding new ones in the college club was to bring them into “the church life” (the term Recovery members use for the way they specifically practice church). She bemoaned how church members had wasted years shepherding one young woman (who happened to be catholic), because she never joined the church life. I asked her, wasn’t the point to shepherd people and minister Christ to them? She answered, yes, but that we needed to be careful with how we used our time and not waste it. Her words seemed so cold and that conversation made me really sad.
Wow, thank you for this! Yes, I was not heavily involved with the ‘core,” but you’re absolutely spot on with that. I forgot all about that. And coordinations!
Thank you for expanding on this. It’s clear that there’s plenty more to talk about. I too believe we were well-intentioned on toning things down and was all for it.
That testimony you shared is truly heartbreaking. It’s sad how much it ends up being purely about recruitment (although I wouldn’t doubt there’s nuance to how many feel that way). Again, thank you for this! There’s clearly more ways to talk about this, as you’ve shown here so well.
As one of the “core” students from a campus in the UT (Texas) system, I can concur with all that you’ve said, though I was one who felt it was dishonest to hide who we are and act with deception on the college campuses. It never sat well with me to hear my mentor and other Christians say “oh, we’re not part of any denomination. We’re just a bunch of Christians seeking to meet together.”
Even when I believed that The Lord’s Recovery was a good place to be, it was very upsetting to hear such double-speak.
Jacob, I’m so appreciative of you writing this, and articulating each point so clearly.
As someone who was raised in ‘the lords recovery’ and forced to spend a couple college years in Christians on Campus, it’s far too of an emotional topic for me to articulate rationally, I have too much anger, sadness and frustration wrapped into it.
My family all serves ‘full time’ or has an open home near a campus for these purposes. And the way they trick to vulnerable students (freshmen or foreign exchange students), makes my blood boil.
My desire in hoping this gets read, isn’t to undermine the ‘local churches’ or Christians on campus, but rather to make sure everyone has all resources to make informed decisions for themselves.
Thank you.
Annie, thank you for your encouragement!
It makes my blood boil about the gimmicks and trickery as well, but I think what gets to me a ton too is how I willingly and ignorantly participated in the deceiving! I thought I was doing something good by deceiving other Christians (although I never would’ve thought that’s what I was doing at the time).
I also echo your desire to strictly provide a resource! I truly hope this is mainly informative and fair, a window into what Christians on Campus is for the sake of incoming freshmen. I hope they can know for themselves what it actually is since, as pointed out in the article, that can be difficult to spot.
I completely understand your emotions wrapped up in it, but I’m glad you took the time to comment on here and share a bit of affirmation about what I wrote. Thank you, Annie 🙂
Unfortunately- this Jacob is not a believer in Christ – god ? Yes . Demons also believe in God.
To know the scriptures through revelation from God the father through Chris the son, exposes this angry young man.
CRI exonerated the church this boy spent a very short time in.
Gods gift of free will allows man to open his heart to the truth.
This boy speaks half truths.
Obviously been brainwashed by another denomination who is after his tithes.
I’m a church kid born into the cult of Witness Lee and liberated myself at 16. I have never once regretted my journey to liberation no matter how difficult the journey.
I have been personally affected by this deception. When I began to trust the leaders, I expressed some of my struggles in the faith, with doubts, etc. Then they told me to read a version of the Bible I’d never heard o The recovery Bible is where it all fell apart for me. They don’t push the Watchman Nee or Witness Lee kool-aid blatantly, But all their teachings are from them even if they don’t say it. The first day I met them, I asked them about what they hold to, what church they are affiliated with, what denomination they align to… So much information was witheld. I now see that it was intentional to keep me around because they knew I would have hightailed it out of there if they had mentioned the Recovery Movement. On-campus, they are pretty deceptive about their beliefs, but it’s pretty blatant in their home Bible studies. Like, how can you call a meeting a bible study and not even open the Bible? Instead, we would read books from Living Stream Ministries written by Watman Nee or Witness Lee. I do think they are sincere Christians… But also sincerely in error. I can’t under good conscience recommend my fellow students to seek the Lord with Christians on Campus. Pray for our brothers and sisters in the Local Church.
Hello Jacob, I have recently discovered your website about the Lord’s Recovery. I am a college student and I ended up becoming slightly involved in the Lords Recovery movement. The people seemed so warm and welcoming and I really enjoyed the Bible studies on campus. They eventually invited me to a conference event. I was so excited! I was hoping to make friends with other believers around my age, especially since I have not been to church in years. I thought maybe it would encourage me in my walk with God. I started to sense that some things were not right about it. It was like my stomach felt kind of queasy and I did not feel at peace. They started to say things like we are Jesus and they placed heavy emphasis on unity in the church. The thing is, on the way to the conference I remember asking one of the leaders in the group some questions which she seemed to ignore and change the subject. One of the ladies in the group said that Jesus is our husband and much of the music seemed to be romanticized. Don’t get me wrong, I do understand the symbolism in the Bible and the bride of Christ but this seemed a bit off to me. It also seemed like they were reading too much from man’s writing and their interpretations of the Bible. It seemed the members of this group were very concerned about the body of Christ but not about reaching those who do not have Christ, the poor, the sinners, the vulnerable. The people from the group have been trying to reach out to me but I have come up with excuses as to why I can’t make it. I have also been having vivid dreams about this group which seem to be a warning from God. My question for you is, what is your advice on how to respond to them. I believe they are caring people that have been misled. I would like to share with them how I truly feel without getting trapped in more of their teachings. I appreciate your time and the content on your site. Thank you 🙂
Yes brother, I was raised in the recovery, and I feel like I was forced to be in every single conferences, and I was forced to be in the “christian clubs” at the college campuses. I feel like I can’t be a normal person anymore. Also, I feel like I am a puppet of them. I just wanted to leave this cult without telling anyone at all. Helpless……
Hi Jacob! I really appreciate your testimony. As Christians, we should be watchful and vigilant to everything, checking and seeing if all things line up in the scriptures like the Bereans.
Currently, while I don’t want to give into any “religion”, I do want to give them the benefit of the doubt. I want to make a fair case. Likewise, with your testimony, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but not without checking first.
That being said, can you elaborate how your experience with the second section in this blog (Hiding Their Practices) matches the experience in section 37 of The Thread (The Recovery is Self-Serving)?
Thank You and Jesus is Lord!
Thank you so much for writing this! When my son moved away from home to attend college last year, I searched online for Christian fellowship near campus. Christians on Campus at xxx was among the few that I found and recommended to him because the faith statement and everything else looks orthodox. Thankfully he didn’t go there.
Recently I met a family who attend the Recovery church through a mutual friend. I got interested in what this mutual friend was saying about the Recovery’s weird practices and did a bit of searching which led me to a former Recovery member’s YouTube channel. In one episode, he talked about the deceptive ways of the Christians on Campus ministry. I want back to the Christians on Campus at xxx website and compared their faith statement with that of a local recovery church (the Church in ###, a city other than where the college resides). Guess what I found? The two faith statements are exactly the same, same wording and same scripture reference. The only difference is that the Church in ### replaces “Christians on Campus at xxx members” with “we”.
You need to add “Christians at Tech” at Texas Tech University. I left the club 2 and a half years ago, rereading this the recruitment is exactly what I experienced. I never attended the local church or conferences, but I was invited to them my last semester and had one of the other students tell me all about Witness Lee and Watchman Nee.
Fascinating. Thank you so much for taking the time and diligence to share this. My daughter is a college freshman and has been attending all these meetings. I am truly grateful that you have confirmed all her instincts and articulated everything she’s shared. The big red flags from me was not only the vague websites, but also my unanswered questions on how everything is getting funded. They don’t ask for donations yet seem to be thriving and generously open their homes. Again, thank you for your honesty. I know how difficult this must have been to share because the people in this church are really kind and mean well.
As a child, I had to go every other weekend who witnessed and questioned the insanity, sites referring to the various cult groups following Witness Lee’s teachings are wonderful.
People thinking of leaving or who have left need support.
Many kids raised in the “church” end up a mess as adults. I am amazed there has not been a documentary on the “Local Churches” but then again… maybe not since they are litigious.
It is a cult. There is no doubt. If anyone is curious about what it’s like to grow up in the local churches, watch “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets”. It’s not exact in I do not know of army type training and many kids go to public school (or did in my area) but much of it is similar. Buy the “Living Stream Ministry” books, tithing is stressed, pressure to go to conferences and camps they hold…
Some rules/messages are:
Leaving a fake name and email because I have family members in the “church”, don’t want to hurt them or get sued.
I would love to connect with you and share my experience with this group. I did not have the best experience and they ended up becoming a main part of why I quit school.
Hi Jacob, (dare I say, brother Jacob),
Full disclosure… I am a current member of the Lord’s Recovery in the northeast, and have read quite a bit of the content on your website. I am so sorry for what you and many of your commentators have experienced in “The Recovery.”
I am not in complete agreement with you, vis a vis my own experiences, but certainly not in complete disagreement either. Because I was middle aged when I and my young son started attending, we may have been “handled” differently. Also, at the time, we had a governing elder (who has since passed on) who was not in lock step with “the ministry”, God bless Him, which may have watered down some of these affects.
It is 29 and a half years later and I continue to attend. My son does not. My husband was never interested in the meetings though he did accept the Lord about 12 years ago. I do find quite a number of things troublesome, but stay because of the things I can not find elsewhere. Kind of like a restaurant who makes your very favorite dish but has a rude waiter…you endure the one for the other.
What I don’t like is: Witness Lee. I never liked his books or Life Studies. They always sat wrong, unlike his predecessor Watchman Nye’s, which have received world attention for the right reasons. I can not tell you specifically what I didn’t like about Witness Lee’s work as I did not intentionally read it as such. I have to say however, I was never pressured to read it. No doubt, I have experienced things resulting from his teachings. But to my local church’s credit, they rarely to never mention him.
“The Ministry” as an entity, is unsettling. After 29 years, I am still unsure what it means, though to me it is as a specter, off in the distance but ever present, waiting to pounce on what it deems in opposition or contrary. It does not worry me however. After 29 years I have never experienced any discipline despite my forthright habits and speaking.
What I can not find in other Christian venues is: a church not centered on a pastor; a place where the members and the responsible or leading ones are on the same rung; an open mike during meetings; a quiet innocuous donation box in the back of the hall. Oh and yes, no statues, no crosses, no incense or fake holiness. I like that there is no planned hymns, prayers, and sharing. A general burden is then carried by the church members, or the Holy Spirit hopefully, so that our worship as well as our edifying is God directed and not man directed. Maybe we fall short at times, but this is the aim, and is, as far as I can tell, quite unique in the Christian panoply, as it can not be planned for nor controlled.
I came to my first meeting these many years ago, invited by a coworker, with my 3 year old son in tow, and the Lord walked right into my heart. He is there. And He is here, still with me, encouraging, admonishing, edifying and accompanying.
Though the church is far from perfect, and frustrating at times, the Lord has told me I have a purpose there, to be bold for the truth, as I have nothing to lose; not income nor friendships nor respect nor salvation. That has all been taken care of outside the camp.
Be blessed my dear brother. Harbor no bitterness. Pray for those who may have harmed you thinking they were doing right. Bring a clean and untroubled wholeness to whatever assembly you find comforting and claim the oneness through Christ Jesus, in our hearts, which is the proper building of God’s design.
Looking forward to meeting you, one fine everlasting day, in eternity.
Thank you for this resource! My church community has been trying to research and understand what this club is all about for a while but there is so much hiding that it’s very difficult to see. On the outside, they look like a regular, biblically sound group! But such hiding and deception made us really suspicious. Again, thank you.
According to Lee, some Christians will get 1000 years of darkness, and some will get 1000 years of hell.
“The overcoming Christians who live in the reality of the kingdom today will reign as kings in glory in the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens in the future. Those Christians who are neither sinful nor faithful and who have neither loss nor gain today will suffer the shame of the outer darkness in the future. The end of sinful Christians is to be hurt and suffer in hell for a thousand years during the millennial kingdom (Rev. 2:11). This is not too much; it is the teaching of the Bible. They will not perish in hell for eternity, but they will be punished for a thousand years during the millennial kingdom. Since the reigning of the overcoming ones with the Lord in His glory takes place during the millennial kingdom, the punishment of the sinning ones in hell must also take place during the millennial kingdom. Since the period of reward is one thousand years, the period of punishment must also be one thousand years. This is a warning.”
(The Christian, from The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1932-1949, Volume 1, Chapter 14, page 216, published by Living Stream Ministry)
And, naturally, you have to be in The Lord’s Recovery in order to be an overcomer.
“Brothers and sisters, in conclusion I would like to say that if you would like to be a top Christian, you must be a Christian in the churches of the Lord’s recovery. You must also learn to live in the Body and not ever be individualistic. Furthermore, you must also understand that the churches in the Lord’s recovery on the entire earth are just one new man. Never be individualistic, and never be divisive; instead, be in the one Body and in the one new man.”
(One Body, One Spirit, and One New Man, From the Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, Volume 3, Chapter 10, pp. 366-367, published by Living Stream Ministry. Certain words have been typed in bold italics for emphasis.)
“We are not narrow, saying that the overcomers are only in the Lord’s recovery. There are many overcomers in Sardis and even Thyatira. This is the Lord’s sovereignty to shame His enemy. He will leave certain ones in Babylon, and in the midst of Babylon, these ones will overcome.”
(The Ministry of the Word, Volume 16, Number 12, p. 29, December 2012, published by Living Stream Ministry. Certain words have been typed in bold italics for emphasis.)