Witness Lee, Founder of Living Stream Ministries - Research Paper Example

? Number] Research Paper on Witness Lee Witness Lee was a Chinese Christian priest often regarded as a modern day prophet. Born in 1905 to a Baptist family, Lee has made great contributions to the Local Churches movement. He is also the found of Living Stream Ministry. In 1925 he became born again Christian getting highly inspired from the preaching of Peace Dang Wang. He then joined the Chinese Christian worker Watchman Nee and later moved across Chine and to different countries of the world to extend his ministry (Piepkorn, 78). Lee was an influential preacher of Christianity and used to emphasize upon the experiences of the life of the Christ as he believes that the followers could carry out the goals of God through proper understanding about oneness of Body of Christ. He established the Living Stream Ministry in 1965. It was located in Anaheim California. The minister worked for the publication and spread of the works and books of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee (Huei Liu, p182). Lee carried efforts for the establishment of local churches in Western hemisphere and South East Asia. As part of local church movement several churches were also founded in Russian and eastern European countries. Lee believes that the local churches are the Lord’s Recovery. He also divulged the living stream minister version of Bible that is called as “The Recovery Version”. It is based upon the belief that God moves to establish a thing for the first time and when it is destroyed by Satan God moves second time to recover the loss made by Satan (Nee, p89). According to Lee, the creation of the universe is also based upon this cycle as it is written in Genesis that God created heaven and earth that became empty and water and then during the six days of creation God worked for the recovery of earth and heaven. The Jewish temple built by Solomon was destroyed and Jews recovered it after returning to Jerusalem. He teaches that the churches were built in the 1st century and destroyed during the dark ages and now they are being recovered in the age of reformation. He founded the living stream ministry also to affirm that the local churches are evidences of recovery of Christ. The preaching of Lee are based upon the thought that Lord Recovery is simply the recovery of Christ that is often viewed as recovery of genuine oneness and proper church life however; these two things are also actually the recovery of the Christ that is everything for the believers. He taught that the believers of Christ have to remain determent upon their beliefs in oneness of God. There are two aspects of Lord Churches; local and universal that express the body of Christ in the locality. The universal aspect of churches is explained in Matthew 15 and Epistles whereas the local aspect of church has been presented by Lord in Matthew 18, apostles, the Epistles and Revelation (Piepkorn, 78). Lee insists upon the importance of Churches in the lives of the believers that they could understand the oneness of Lord by apostle addresses in Church’s meetings where they have to declare that we are the church. The local churches should be visited by the genuine Christ’s believers rather calling them Baptist, Catholic or Methodist that is against the oneness of belief in Christ and churches. Lee also threw the light upon the importance of following Lord Commands while understanding the functionality of the economy. He frequently used the phrase God’s economy to present that thought that economy is a subject of Bible because the economy is like household of God and he has defined the laws to run the economy on his lines in order to gain the corporate expression of Him (Bays, p312). He spent considerable portion of his life travelling and spreading the message of the Local Churches and their importance. He also worked to establish the “New way” so that he could eliminate the odd thinking about the local churches. He decided that the new way is based upon four major pillars. At first the meetings are arranged at homes while following the same pattern that is set by the initial churches. The believers are supposed to go to the world to proclaim through door knocking. In order to minister Christ as life it is important to learn lessons from Christ life and apply them to the daily lives of the common people. The saints are also required to get complete and perfect training so that they could become able to function properly in the churches (Patterson, p80). These found rules have been set forth to attain the objective of spreading Local Churches across the world and making the minds of people open towards these churches. Lee believes that people must be made well aware and informed about the importance establishing the local churches and meetings in these churches to strengthen the concept of one lord. He insists that the churches must practice the biblical oneness and there is need of redesigning the working people and elders associated with the work so that they could understand and properly practice oneness of Christ in the churches (Huei Liu, p182). During the mid1980s, it was observed by some religious scholars that the churches are not actually practicing the oneness of God. Lee responded to this matter with very strict and criticising tone. He declared that people deviating from the oneness of god are actually rebelling from their actual beliefs send they are required to quarantines so that they could be made very clear and pure in their thoughts and practice. As a result of these efforts his name was became known across the globe and he successes to spread the concept of local churches all over the world (Lee, p85). Witness Lee is among the precious people that are born in centuries and people could not found ever any other person that could be matched with their skills, capabilities and contributions. The living stream ministry established by witness lee has been regarded as an extreme and successful offshoot of the work and efforts exerted by Watchman Nee in China that were taken forward by Witness Lee not only in China but across the entire world. He made Los Angeles as the head quarter for his movement and motivated people to think about the actual soul behind the churches and the importance to continue the faith in oneness of God (Bays, p312). The understanding of bible could not be attained until and unless it is analysed by using the thought of recover. He used the language for his effort that was also used in the commentary of the recovery version and from his point of view it is important to understand that recovery refers the process and struggle through which the churches could be recovered from the catholic apostasy from all over the world. Lee and his ministry devoted all of their time and efforts to take part in the recovery movement during which efforts are made to make people believing upon oneness of god while thy regularly use to visit the churches (Lee, p85). The living stream ministry established by the Lee acted as a useful mean to find support for accomplishing the goal of spreading the message about the oneness of God. However, it is also an important fact about the living stream ministry that some people criticize their criticism over the other churches and claim that it is based upon the authoritative control that has washed the brain of the followers while compelling them to act in certain manner. Also, his recovery version is difficult to investigate by the common person so know about is reliability and credibility. Lee clarifies in the recovery commentary that Satan has been created by God that is a sin. Satan used to inject him into the flesh of the fall the life of Satan is always identical on the basis of his attitude towards sin and commitment of sinful activities. He applied the concept of recovery to the sin as well and explained that sin existed before the time when law was given to the man kind. At that time sin was manifested to man and God charged him on the account of the person (Patterson, p80). Hence, it is unveiled that Witness Lee has made remarkable and unforgettable contributions to the preaching of Christianity and spread of local churches across the world. He truly deserves to be called as the prophet of the modern day because he has exerted all his efforts to address the needs, concerns and question of the present day people related with Christianity and oneness of God. Lee has written several notable and worthy books to provide further clarification of the related issues and have played very important role in creating awareness among the masses regarding the important role of churches in the lives of the believers and the thought that the believers must understand the oneness of churches in order to understand the oneness of Christ and the churches of the present times are also required to strictly follow this principle to guide people towards developing firm concept about oneness of the God. Work Cited Piepkorn, Arthur C. Profiles in Belief. Vol. II, III & IV San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1979: 78, 79. Bays, Daniel H., ed. Christianity in China from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996: 311–312 Nee, Watchman. The Normal Christian Church Life, pg. 86, 89 Patterson, George N. Christianity in Communist China. Waco, Texas: World Books, 1969: 79–80 Huei Liu (Trans Ming-Deh Fu), "Because There is Living Water Coming From (God), Divine Grace and Love Have Filled the World", Entrepreneur, AC Magazine (AC Media), 1999 Witness Lee, A Brief Presentation of the Lord’s Recovery, Chapter 2 Read More