A History of the Lord’s Recovery in the U. S.(1)

A History of the Lord’s Recovery in the U. S.

1.  The Beginning of the Church Life
In 1962 the church life in the Lord’s recovery had already begun, but accelerated markedly with the arrival of brother Witness Lee who was fully charged and burdened by the Lord to minister the word of God in this country.  He testified that he came with a “particular commission to bring the Lord’s recovery to the top Christian country”.  The response to his ministry in the United States was immediate and many left secure jobs and moved long distances to partake of the church life in Los Angeles.

2.  The Catalyst for Coming to the U.S.
Although Brother Lee testified that he was commissioned by the Lord to come to the U. S., there were serious issues between him and churches in the Far East that were a catalyst for his coming here.  In the late fifties he had created a major problem to the church in Taipei through business failures involving investments from the saints, and his oldest son, Timothy, and he lost a lot of money.  This brought a financial crisis to the church in Taipei.  All the donations from the church members were used to pay the debt incurred, and still a large amount of money was owed.  Due to the desperate situation, Brother Lee coerced the elders to sell a piece of land belonging to the church in order to pay the debt. Because of that action many coworkers and church members were especially unhappy with the debacle.  That piece of land had been bought by the church to build a training center and a new meeting place.  Brother Lee knew that what he did was wrong and left for the West Coast of the United States in 1960.

After Brother Lee left Taiwan, the church coworkers formed two sides.  One side was Brother Lee’s strong followers, while the other group had questions about some of his activities.  Those two groups had a strong difference of opinion, which greatly affected the church life and made the work of the church difficult to carry out.  Eventually, some of the coworkers who were followers of Brother Lee asked him to come back to Taiwan to resolve differences.  In the summer of 1965, Brother Lee came back to Taipei.  He decided to get rid of those coworkers who disagreed with him.  Consequently, there were thousands of people who left the church.  At that time almost 30% of the regular members left, a most serious situation being that about 80-90% of the young members who were college students left the church.  Brother Lee’s action in 1965 has been referred to as a “cleansing massacre” to get the church to line up with him only.  Others feel that it was a necessary move.  At any rate Brother Lee came back to the U. S. and the saints in Taipei were left to pick up the pieces and begin to rebuild.

In other matters in the Far East, toward the end of the 1950’s co-workers in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia had serious differences with Brother Lee because of the absolute authority he exercised, which was hard for them to take.  Everything was dictated by him, and he would not take any input from others.  It was a “my way or the highway attitude”, according to one brother.
In addition some of the affluent church members were very unhappy about his handling of the financial matters.  This was due to the fact that a lot of the money had been contributed by them, and Brother Lee handled the finances according to his own thought.  The co-workers did not feel they could trust him anymore and because of the differences they had with him they split up.

As Brother Lee left Taiwan in 1960 for the U. S., the church work there was in serious disarray. Also the Philippines work was split off. The Philippines was very important to Brother Lee and several well-to-do church members supported the church there financially over the years. Manila, however, decided to sever relationships with Brother Lee totally in 1960.

(Concerning the Philippines and finances, Brother Lee was nearly arrested at the Manila airport for trying to smuggle a gold bar out of the country. He received a warning only, because of his good reputation in the country.)

3.  Brother Lee Admits to Mistakes
Even though it is not common to point to Brother Lee’s mistakes, he himself did so, saying, “I have made many mistakes; even some big mistakes” (Eph. L. S., p. 279, 1978).  When he came to the West Coast, Brother Lee knew about some mistakes he made in the Far East. To repeat, when Brother Lee left Taiwan to go to the U.S. in 1960, it was not really that he went there to open up a new land for the Lord’s recovery.  Rather, it was because of his own personal failure in Taiwan that he escaped to the U.S.  Originally, his stay in the U. S. was due to his strained relationships in Taipei and in other Far East churches.

4.  Brothers’ Request in L. A. and Problems in Taipei
In 1962 Brother Lee set up another business for Timothy, at the Seattle World’s Fair.  When the Fair was over Brother Lee desired to go back to Taipei but with the problems he had there and with the developments that were taking place in Los Angeles, he did not go back. The brothers in Los Angeles had asked him to give them a conference and out of those meetings they begged him to move to Los Angeles.  He did take up residence in
L. A., since he really could not go back to Taipei.

5.  Brother Lee Repents
Don Hardy felt that the reason Witness Lee had such impact in the U. S. in the sixties was because he had deeply repented of his wrongdoings and was a cleansed vessel to begin his rich ministry of the word in this country.  Paul Ma testified to the brothers that Brother Lee spent many hours of prayerful repenting while traveling with him in the early sixties in the U. S.  He was seen in the corner of a motel room praying “Lord, have mercy”, “Lord have mercy”, over and over for a long period of time.

6.  Witness Lee’s Main Burden
Brother Lee’s main spiritual burden in the U.S. was to reveal Christ as the life-giving Spirit with all His unsearchable riches. This burden began to be discharged in the first conference meetings held in the United States in 1962 in the home of Jim and Betty Reetzke.  The All-Inclusive Christ came out of that conference. His focus during the early years was on the experience of Christ as life for the building up of the church.

7.  Concern for Weakness in Brother Lee
In 1966 Samuel Chang revealed to a young prospective elder, Don Hardy, his serious concern for Brother Lee and a weakness in his character related to his son, Timothy, and all his seven children.  Don was exhorted to keep the matter covered much in prayer.  Samuel’s concern was well-founded given the record of the extent Brother Lee would go for his son, Timothy, at the expense of others and the church.  His word to Don portended for far more serious developments in the future with Timothy Lee and another son, Philip, who were made heads of businesses for Brother Lee, involving the saints.
What provoked Samuel Chang to speak to Don Hardy as he did was that the meeting place of the church in Los Angeles was being used by Brother Lee to store the stock of unsold expensive suits and shirts left over from his World’s Fair business with Timothy.  This was a source of irritation and concern to Samuel.

7.7.  Revival in Los Angeles
In 1969 a revival occurred in the church in Los Angeles that brought in a steady stream of new ones from L. A. and from all around the country, the number of church members growing to over 1000 saints.

8.  Migrations
In 1970 migrations went out to Seattle, Chicago, and Atlanta.

9.  More Migrations
In 1972 migrations went out to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Phoenix.

10.  A Spirit of Migration
In 1973 migrations went out to Minneapolis and Milwaukee. There was a spirit of migration in the recovery and the air was filled with much anticipation and hope as all the churches were “standing on the ground of oneness in the Lord” in their locality and for “the Lord’s recovery of the city and the earth”.  Conferences were held frequently around the country by Brother Lee, with only one essential message being given to the saints:  to eat and drink Christ for the building up of the church.  Life and building was the great theme in the local churches, and eating was “the way”.

11.  Reading Material and Impact
Reading material in the sixties and early seventies were the books, booklets and magazine that came from the Stream Publishers, such as The Glorious Church, Release of the Spirit, and Sit, Walk, Stand by Watchman Nee and The All-Inclusive Christ, God’s Economy, Vision of God’s Building, and Christ vs Religion by Witness Lee, which had great impact on those who read them.  The Stream magazine came out quarterly with rich, nourishing spiritual food for the saints to enjoy and to attract the seeking ones. The Generation was published by younger people for a seeking generation of young people across the country.

12.  Daystar Venture
In 1972 a luxury motor home business called Daystar was launched by Brother Lee for his son, Timothy, and also for the saints in the local churches to invest in. The business was presented as a way to pay for migrations and meeting halls and further the Lord’s purpose (while at the same time benefiting his profligate son immensely who was made the president of Daystar). The venture needed huge monetary investments from the saints.

12.5  Timothy Lee Life-Style
Timothy indulged himself in sinful living and boasted of having a woman in every major city in the world (and he was a married man at that).  On the Daystar project he was known to have had a prostitute stay with him at the living quarters near the plant in Taipei. Brothers were appalled, to say the least.  No action was taken by his father.

13.  Training Fees Used to Payoff Daystar Debt
In 1974 the Daystar business failed. The business plan had been poorly conceived; the motor home was too heavy; the interior was very expensive to build; and the gas crisis of 1973 was the final nail in the coffin to cause the business to fail and file for bankruptcy.  Many saints lost money, some forfeiting their life-savings and many becoming disillusioned to the point of leaving the church. Brother Lee found himself in a financial crisis because some of the saints wanted to sue him and the corporation. To help himself he asked Max Rappoport to make a request of the elders to ask the saints in their localities to waive Brother Lee’s debt to them. Many of them did so.  Max did so.  Ones who were quite angry and wanted their money back, typically, got paid. Philip Lee, another of Brother Lee’s sons, also helped out in the crisis by proposing that fees be charged to the saints who attended the two LSM semi-annual trainings, which some suspect were initially begun for the sake of raising money to pay off Daystar debt. Charging “donation” fees began to be practiced to the dismay of elders close to Brother Lee, who did not agree that money should be procured from the saints who came to the trainings to hear the word of God. But there was nothing they could do.  These funds were collected by LSM, not the church, and were indeed used to pay off Daystar debts, whether or not that was the primary reason to begin the trainings.

14.  Daystar Illegalities
When the Daystar corporation was set up, a way to sell shares to the saints was not properly established and was in violation of federal SEC regulations. Terry Risenhoover, a brother in the church in Oklahoma City at the time, and the Daystar accountant, told a brother of the illegal situation. When word of this got to James Barber, the lead elder in OKC, Terry was given the choice to repent or be excommunicated. He stayed with the truth and was excommunicated. These violations of the law could have brought criminal penalties to Witness Lee and others in the failed business.  Terry thought the violations were due to a cavalier attitude in the principals that “we are above the law” and also a matter of their ignorance about certain matters. An attorney brother conferred with Terry about the illegalities.
The treasurer, Max Rappoport, was asked by Philip Lee to make major changes to the tax information to be reported to IRS.  Max was amazed at this.

14.5  Anaheim Hall Built in Violations of Law and Discretion
In the early 1970’s land was secured for the building of the Anaheim meeting hall.  Saints gave money liberally for the project and morale was high.  Workers came from localities near and far. Both skilled and unskilled labor was given freely on weekends and after regular work days.  Some even left their employment to be full-time for the construction which went on seven days a week, many workers staying late into the night until the early mornings.

It began to be noticed that an attitude was present in the decision-making that “we are above the law”.  Questionings arose when the fire code and other code regulations were being violated, and when securing necessary permits were neglected, which were all being excused and reasoned away.  Only after repeated visits by inspectors and their threats of penalties were the steps taken to repair the defects they pointed out
All decisions during the building were made by only one person, Witness Lee.  The prevalent teaching and encouragement was to suppress all opinions because opinions were of the flesh, and those expressing opinions were labeled as fleshly or negative.  Skilled workmen had real concerns about cost and labor over some of Witness Lee’s indiscretionary moves, yet they were not to express their opinion.  Work was done and then re-done with a different twist, according to the whims of Brother Lee, which the brothers would not have cost-justified.  Of course, the money was not Brother Lee’s, nor was the time given to the work, his time.

The greatest indiscretion and injustice manifested itself upon the completion of the structure.  The entire building was deeded over to Stream Publishing a business entity, later to be renamed Living Stream Ministry.  The original intention of the building was to be for the church. But only after a period of time was a smaller fraction of the property given to the “church side”.  LSM even used the church premises for a book room, even though the LSM business was located right next door with many and varied books on display and available there.  Even after the building was supposedly completed, tearing down and constant renovations continued year after year.  There seemed to be no end to the demand for free labor to make constant changes of rooms and walls.  Walls that were torn down inspectors demanded to be reinstated to their original position after it was learned that the changes violated the building code.  All this extra, hard labor had to be freely done by “volunteers”.  Meetings of the church were often interrupted by the noise of hammers and sawing of wood during these “renovations”.  The work was carried on during the church meetings because the manager of the business, Philip Lee, who was thought by many to be an unsaved person, supervised this work and seldom attended any church meetings.  The small area granted to the “church meeting side” was encroached upon over and over to add to the “business” side until there were not enough rooms for the children’s meetings.  Some classes had to be held in the homes and apartments of the teachers or in the public park if the apartments or homes weren’t large enough.  Storage rooms for unsold stacks of literature were given priority over the rooms for the children.

The Living Stream Ministry did go on to become a multi-million dollar business that many fear and some attest made Witness Lee and the Lee family very wealthy.  What Daystar and other failed businesses did not accomplish, LSM did in bringing monetary riches to the Lee family, according to brothers who were closely associated with LSM.

14.7  Philip and Alcohol
In one of the rooms illegally sealed off from inspectors that later became the tape room, Philip Lee “partied” with young people with whom he sat and drank beer. A brother from Santa Ana in later years said that it was common knowledge in the late eighties that Philip had an alcohol problem. (See # 57.5)

14. 8  Migrations Stop
By 1974, the spirit and atmosphere of migration disappeared.