![]() Yet, we allowed it to continue, and when Godfred spoke, he spoke for all of us. Although we sympathized with their concerns, we could not agree with their way of handling them. Never in our history had there been a meeting like that. One sister said that "the elders were weak spiritually, psychologically, and physically," and that is why they hadn’t dealt with the problems.Įventually the meeting was brought to a close. The elders were just as much a target of their accusations as anyone else. For over two hours they went on exposing some things and accusing the elders for not having dealt with them. ![]() These saints surely felt they had cause for action. He said, "It’s a shame for us to have to stand up here and talk like this, but if we don’t do it there will never be any blessing on us, " indicating that because of a sinful situation among us, God’s blessing was not with the church. Such things never should have been spoken publicly. This ignited some other brothers, one of whom claimed to be an eye-witness, who proceeded to give detailed accounts of the misconduct in anguish and outrage, mentioning the names of involved parties. Such feeling had intensified to the bursting point.įurther reference was then made to the misconduct in the LSM office, and a brother in the meeting who was a former law enforcement officer interrupted the speaker, shouting, "Did you see it? Did you see it? And indicated that if he did not see it he should not talk about it. They felt fully exasperated by the elders for continually delaying to take public action against disorders, the judgment of which they felt was long overdue. It was said then by these saints that since the elders had not dealt with problems publicly, they could not keep quiet. Anyone who wants to hear them may stay." About a quarter of the saints rose and walked out, and the first brother who had started to speak continued. Eventually Godfred was able to calm them down and then said, "All right, anyone who does not desire to hear what these saints have to say may leave the meeting. A number of saints thought he was about to exercise control and stop the brother from speaking, so they loudly shouted, "Let him speak! Let him speak!" There was pandemonium. ![]() At this point Godfred rose to his feet and asked to say something. Then he referred to misconduct in the LSM office. He began by saying that we are not negative, we have some genuine concerns, and to have the harmony among us we all need to know the facts and deal with them. Soon one of them was on his feet, a dispositionally quiet brother who had been with us in the church life since the beginning in this country and had never caused any problem. After a little consultation we felt it would be better to just let them speak and get it over with once for all, and then we could go on in the coming meetings with a good order. But that, we knew, would cause a tumult to erupt. Meanwhile Godfred and I were conferring together in whispers as we sat on the front row. We sang a hymn or two and had some prayer as usual. I turned around and hastened down the stairs to notify Godfred and Al. Obviously, others had been alerted and they were planning to do something. There were some from Fullerton, Huntington Beach, Torrance, and elsewhere. Moreover, I saw saints from other churches entering the meeting hall whom I knew to be agitated and vocal concerning the current problems. Some of them had ceased coming to the meetings, but this morning they were all there in force. As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw all the saints who had spoken out hotly against Brother Lee and the LSM office lined up in the rows near to the front. ![]() I went upstairs to the meeting hall, the other brothers lingering behind in the Elders’ Room to attend to some matter. We were expecting to fellowship that morning regarding the last part of Ephesians chapter 1. The next Lord’s Day morning, October 9, 1988, Godfred, Al, and I met as usual in the Elders’ Room before the meeting. But it turned out to be the calm before the storm. There were no disturbances as in the previous Lord’s Day meetings. It was an uneventful meeting with a good fellowship in Ephesians 1:1-14. What Brother Lee feared regarding an explosive outbreak in the Lord’s Day morning meeting in Anaheim October 2nd did not materialize.
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