The Local Church

My Experience with the Local Churches

I spent my early years among Quakers in Pennsylvania, but my father was a Presbyterian theology professor who was active within the Civil Rights movement. Ecumenicism and religious tolerance were the atmosphere of my upbringing. The simplicity of knowing Christ as a friend gave way to dabbling into agnosticism and Zen Buddhism during my adolescence and early adulthood. However I rediscovered that Jesus Christ was a person and a long lost friend from whom I had strayed. This rediscovery occurred in college in the early seventies, but several years of sinful living had taken its toll. Having lost my college scholarship I was thrust into the working world.

Being desirous to do Christian work I was recruited to an inner city evangelistic outreach center in New York City. I served with a team of traveling musicians. It was an interdenominational effort that gave me further exposure to all manner and styles of Christian worship throughout the East Coast of the US. On one occasion some Bible College students in Chattanooga, Tennessee invited me to hear a writer and speaker. This man had been so impressed with a book entitled The Normal Christian Church Life, concerning the ministry of all members in the church for the building up of Christ's Body. This speaker referred the audience to a certain Watchman Nee as someone worthy of reading. The speaker's name was Gary Henley. I found his book The Quiet Revolution very helpful in matters pertaining to the parts of man and the human spirit. In those days I was often hearing ministers use phrases from the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee.

When I returned from New York, I decided to purchase a book by this Watchman Nee person for my spiritual progress. From the first few pages of reading his book I recognized that the writer spoke with clarity and truthfulness that resonated with my conscience. Here was someone speaking from personal experience concerning deep and vital matters in the Christian faith. The speaking was as sharp as a laser and the light exposed my heart's motives deeply. The writer gained my highest respect from the beginning as someone completely committed to both the pure word of the Bible and to the following of Christ in absoluteness. At the same time I detected a healthy balance of practical sensibility. But some of his books were too deep and I put them aside, realizing that I lacked the maturity to understand them. Two of these hard to digest books were God's Work and The Ministry of God's Word.

Those days I found food for my spiritual hunger and realized that I was supposed to be transformed by the Lord Jesus and not remain the same (2 Corinthians 3:18). But I didn't know what this transformation was for or how to enter into it more deeply.

I had received some extremely favorable reports from two brothers whom I trusted who had visited the conferences in Boston and New York. Finally I decided that I had to go see for myself in spite of the fact that I was suffering from a bad toothache that week. The occasional swelling of pain caused me to call aloud “Jesus, Jesus” to gather endurance until the wave of discomfort passed from me. As a result of that heaven-sent toothache I discovered that calling on the Lord's name greatly strengthened me into the presence of the Lord. In that condition I ventured up from the Bronx to Queens College to attend the last meeting of a local churches conference.

What I found there was not a group of people who nodded in doctrinal agreement to my discoveries about church ground or calling on the Lord's name. Rather I was met by a tidal wave of life and the Holy Spirit. The Lord had prepared me to see what I saw that January night. I knew what Paul felt like on the road to Damascus and what John felt when he turned to see seven golden lampstands in Revelation. After a great deal of victorious singing and praising that was going on all around me like a garden of life, someone began to speak. He stood up without any introduction as a grandfather would before a fireplace for a family chat. But when He spoke it was like the noonday sun was shining down on my heart. To me, this ministry was coming from the throne of God like a river of living water. No one needed to explain anything. I knew, just as assuredly as I know that Jesus is Lord that the ministry that was coming to me was coming from the throne of God. He spoke on Revelation's description of the New Jerusalem. The speaker spoke wonderful things concerning the golden street, the river of life that flows the same way the street goes, and the tree of life growing by the way of the street and the river. All of this was showing me the rich enjoyable experience of the Triune God in the daily Christian life. He concluded with this exhortation: “Walk the golden way! Drink the water of life! Eat the tree of life!” And the entire congregation began to joyfully proclaim “Walk the golden way! Drink the water of life! Eat the tree of life!” It appeared that the majority of them knew by experience exactly what was being said. And though it was kind of different, I could grasp what was being taught. It confirmed something in my heart that I knew was exactly right but few people ever spoke to me so clearly. I was overjoyed that night.

The speaker that evening was a man named Witness Lee. And after this amazing message he said something like “Well, I've done the best I could. Now it's your turn. Try your best to say something”. This kind of humility in the presence of tremendous spiritual ministry has been the hallmark of Witness Lee for as long as I have known him. On a few occasions I reserved very hard questions for him. Once I wrote him a number of questions that I really wanted to know where he stood on a matter. The letter that he returned was very humble. He said that he had to ask for help of another brother in order to address my questions. For many years since that first night I have always felt that the local churches were blessed and that Lee and his co-workers were our serving slaves helping us through their greater experience, to remain in and continue on in this joy.

Of course I can't deny that he was a great man of God, as I have never met. I can't deny that his teaching and that of those coordinating with him is a unique combination of solid biblical truth and healthy nourishing spiritual food. After that first meeting I lingered around to get a glimpse of this gifted brother. He stood among several other brothers obviously discussing some practical issues. I never saw Christians stand and talk like that. I felt like I had just been to the party of my life. I was beaming with the joy that Satan was under our feet in this oneness. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with singing.

I have now been twenty-five years among the local churches. I have seen the local churches go down and back up and pass through many storms and turmoils. One thing that I have much confidence in and on this I would stake my life: Whatever happens among us eventually the Holy Spirit has the last word. It always seems to be just a matter of time before the speaking Spirit speaks and we all recognize what the Lord, the Head of His Body, desired to do in the local churches. As for the Christian brothers and sisters who do not meet with the local churches: I love them more because of what I have learned. And I still enjoy learning what they have seen in Christ. I believe that the local churches exist to meet a need that the Lord has. This something is a testimony that the Lord needs on this earth to fulfill a purpose that He has. Our being here and the meeting of our need are secondary to that. And He will meet this need of His one way or another. I would like to be found cooperating with Him to meet this particular need of His. He will do it all and only He will get the glory in the end.

Jacques Wilmore | Back to List

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