My search for the Truth started as a young man in the Sunday school of a very conservative Christian denomination. I was always one to ask, “Why?” I was never satisfied with the pat answer, “Because we have always done it this way.” I went to a Bible college in Northern Indiana, still searching for the Truth, and still not satisfied. The Lord intervened in my life through a terrible accident in which I was confined to the hospital for thirty days. At this time, flat on my back, nineteen years old, I asked the question, “What would you have me do with my future?” Within three months, I left my safe, secure home and found myself in the US Navy. The Lord opened my eyes to see that there were in fact other Christians in the world and that they were not confined to Northern Indiana.

My wife and I were going to many denominations searching for the Truth. None of the denominations answered my heart’s deep longing for answers. One question that always was with me, “Why are there all the denominations?” I was excommunicated from my former denomination because I had married my wife who was not of that denomination. I will never forget the letter that I received stating that I was not welcome to the Lord’s Table. A search through the Word revealed absolutely no grounds to denominate the Body of Christ. At this time we were asked to join the non-denominational church we were attending. I replied, “How can I join one when I just got kicked out of one?” Hence, my search continued.

I was introduced to Witness Lee, in 1963, through a series of audiotapes heard in an apartment in Pittsburgh, PA. Although the tapes were of poor quality and the speaker spoke in broken English, my search for the Truth intensified. There was definitely something of the Truth in that speaking that echoed satisfaction deep within me. I was given two books during this time: Sit, Walk, Stand and Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. These two books once again intensified my search and kept the fire burning within. We were studying a book entitled Release of the Spirit by Watchman Nee, which really made clear to us that there was a spirit in man.

My wife and I were asked to go to a conference in Los Angeles in 1968. We had no idea what we were in for! It was there that we saw the matter of the oneness of the church composed of all believers. We were never the same after that time. We heard the ministry of Witness Lee during the next period of time in the church in Los Angeles. The informal, new beginners meetings, and the numerous conferences during those years were answering my quest for the Truth in a wonderful way.

We have been in the local church now for over thirty years. I still consider myself a seeker after the Truth in the Word. Witness Lee exhorted us many times to not take his word, but to search the Scriptures ourselves. He never would allow himself to be set up on a pedestal, but was a humble slave of Christ Jesus in everything. All of his fellowship and council was always with the goal of the Body of Christ and not his own glory. He led by example in so many ways. His life was truly a pattern for my life and conduct before the Lord.

Donald Klopfenstein

When I was ten years old I received the altar call invitation in a small denominational church in Alabama. At that time I had become “marked out”, preserved, for God’s purpose, although it was not clear to me what had occurred (Romans 8:29). Soon after this my family and I moved away to Arkansas, then to Oklahoma, and finally to Tennessee in 1980. I did not meet anywhere regularly after moving from Alabama.

In 1991 I started meeting with a small denominational group and again received the altar call, and this time I knew that I had received Jesus Christ into my life as my personal Savior when I was ten years old. However, after about two months, I was empty inside again. I left the denominations but I never left my pursuit of Christ. In fact, my pursuing of Christ Himself increased although it was not so clear to me what was happening. In December of 1992 I met a brother in the Lord who had recently started meeting with the local church in Nashville. He also came from a denominational background and was so excited to finally have found the local church. In February of 1993 I went with him to a Lords Day meeting and, let me tell you, I had found my home where the members’ focus was, and still is, on our wonderful Christ. My brothers and sisters in the Lord here cared for me through prayer, cherishing, nourishing, and teaching. They taught me how to exercise my human spirit to contact the all-inclusive Spirit of God in a new and living way. They taught me how to enjoy the Lord through the many experiences of my Christian life. One of the top things they taught me was how to enjoy Christ with others.

In the local churches I am brought into a real, living, organic union with God (1 Corinthians 6:17), both individually and corporately. In the corporate sense I can truly see Christ in His many different angles and vast dimensions (Ephesians 3:18). Here I can see that Christ is absolutely inexhaustible and experiencable.

Dennis Brown

Having grown up in the northeastern part of the U.S., I was exposed to many diverse cultures. I was raised in a Protestant family in a predominately Catholic neighborhood. As a boy growing up, I always had an interest in God and a heart that was soft towards Him. Most of my friends were Catholic, but some were Jewish and others were Protestants like myself. All of us believed in God. Often I pondered this question: If there was only one God, why were there so many different kinds of believers? Even the advertisements on the city buses said, “Attend the church of your choice.”

At the age of five, I opened my heart to the Lord, and he came into my being as my Lord and Savior. Because I lacked the proper teaching and shepherding in the Word, the seed of life within lay dormant. Eventually I turned to philosophy and the counterculture of the age. But God did not stop loving me; eventually He turned me back to Himself when I was 20 years old. This was during a time when the Lord, as a result of the turmoil in our society also captured many young people.

For approximately two years I tried to walk with the Lord in the context of traditional religion. Still the matter of divisions among Christians bothered me. Eventually I became so discouraged by my own failure to fulfill the Christian standard that I told the Lord, “If this is all You have for me, I’ll go back into the world.” But God’s mercy still prevailed as He worked in me “both the willing and the working for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). In July of 1974 I took a trip to Atlanta to visit an old friend of mine who happened to be meeting with the local church there. What I witnessed for the first time was a group of Christians meeting in the genuine oneness of Christ. It answered my own deep longing and as I later discovered in John 17, Christ’s longing: “that they may be one even as We are.” Christ had brought me to a place where members of His Body were willing to drop personal differences for the sake of the testimony of Christ in that city. Finally, I was at peace because the Lord within me was at peace! There really is only one God, one Body, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Spirit (Ephesians 4). I thank the Lord for bringing me to the local church and keeping me for all these years.

Jim Dilg

I was saved when I was nineteen years old. Afterwards, I never had a strong spirit to follow the Lord. At that time I didn’t know what my human spirit was. I knew of God but I didn’t know how to contact Him. As I began to read the Bible, the Lord began putting Christians in my life to help me in the ways of the Lord. The more I contacted the Lord through His Word; something within began to get stirred up. I began to talk to God from deep within. I remember sensing this feeling growing up in a Catholic environment. Even then I felt somewhat separated; somewhere during my teenage years, I lost contact with God. As a result, I began to have a deep longing to have a profound relationship with Jesus. I didn’t want something superficial; I longed for something deeper than anything that I had experienced previously.

It wasn’t until I met my wife that the Lord answered my prayers and satisfied my longings. She became the “open door,” by which I entered into that relationship with the Lord. Through her I met brothers and sisters in Christ who were genuinely seeking and pursuing after God. The more I met with them, the more I realized how rich God was to me. Their portion of Christ was attractive to me. I wanted and enjoyed their portion. My heart found peace in their speaking. One weekend, I went to watch video messages on the book of Isaiah. It was held in a brother’s house in Nashville, Tennessee. I didn’t recall the exact words a man named Witness Lee said, but I was deeply touched. Later that night, I felt a peace that I had never felt. I found myself calling upon the name of the Lord. Hallelujah! I was liberated. This was the breakthrough my heart had been longing for those past years. Within there was joy deeper than any feeling of mind, emotion, or will. I knew I could not excuse this experience, it caused my life to change dramatically.

My wife and I have three girls and are in the local church. It’s not always a “smooth road,” but the Lord has taken care of us in every aspect of our living. I have enjoyed Him more than ever. I cannot say enough about the printed writings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. Their writings have helped me in seeking God’s heart, knowing and experiencing Christ daily, exercising my spirit (I Timothy 4:7-8) for the growth in life, matters regarding the church, being built up into the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:16), becoming His universal expression (Revelation 21:10-11), and ultimately preparing for His return (1 John 3:2) by matching Him in life and nature but not in the Godhead and becoming the bride He desires. I can only sum up my local church experience through the following chorus of a hymn that I’ve sung:

I love the church life, eating, drinking, breathing Jesus.

I love the church life, taking in God’s word.

I love to hear those “O Lord, Amen, Hallelujahs!”

I love the church life feasting with the Lord.

The local church has been a real feast in the spirit. A feast that I enjoy with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

John Cortez

Since I was old enough to remember, I had a seeking in my heart to know God—Who He was and how and why He made the universe. I also wanted to know why there was such beauty in nature, but such ugliness in humanity. What I saw in newspapers and on TV overwhelmed me; often at night I would fret over the suffering and cruelty in the world. Praying to God helped me to pour out my feelings, but I never had the assurance that He heard me.

As I matured, I began to form a personal philosophy that did not include God—at least, not the God of the Bible. To me, Jesus Christ was only a historical figure, irrelevant to my problems or the chaotic situation that characterized our country in the 1960’s. I began to believe strongly in the counterculture politics of the day: that only by concerted, organized civil action could the injustices of the world be righted.

But under God’s sovereignty, my personal life fell apart, and I knew that inwardly I needed a lifeline to God, the One in whom I used to find comfort. Amazingly, one day a classmate whom I admired spoke as though she were electrified by a power of conviction in something so real that it made her radiate with joy. I desperately wanted something to believe in that was real—not just an invention of the human mind. Immediately, I opened to Jesus with a believing heart, and in a moment, I was flooded with the conviction that He was more real than anything in the universe. I rejoiced that I had discovered that Christ is Truth (John 14:6)!

I applied to and was accepted into a very liberal university. My old ideas were intact as I sought out the various political groups on campus. We met and marched and protested, but as we did, I made the painful discovery that these people, far from being pure, had the same “diseases” that infected the people we were protesting: hypocrisy, selfishness, ambition, corruption, and lust. I made up my mind to quit school, join a Christian commune, and wait for the Lord’s return…but God, in His mercy, intervened! Sitting on a bench downtown one day, I was invited by a girl my age to a free dinner hosted by some Christians. My concept was that they were probably too religious and “straight”, but right away the Lord rebuked me within for my bias. So I went, not knowing what I’d find.

Inside this old storefront was an eclectic assortment of people: young, older, straight, hippie, talkative, quiet. As my mind groped to categorize them, I felt a strange sense of calm within, as if I were home. After dinner, we began to sing songs–love songs to the Lord Jesus. My heart melted as I sang with these people whom I could tell were not faking their love for a very real, personal God. When they rose up to speak about Him, without shame or pretense, it was with the same radiancy and joy I had remembered in my high school classmate. I felt that this was what I had been seeking all my life: a people who were inwardly motivated by something pure and genuine, a people who were investing their lives not for some earthly power struggle, but for the only One who could change the condition of humanity permanently.

I have been enjoying participating in the local church for 27 years. It has been the joy and purpose of my living because after all these years, only one person, Christ, is exalted among us. I have witnessed His power to change people. And I am filled with hope that He will transform His church into a bride “without spot or wrinkle”, blameless before Him in love, ready to receive Him at His coming (Ephesians 5:27).

Anonymous

My parents found the local churches when I was 14 months old. For the first time they felt as though they were home. All the people here took care of us and treated us as family.

I was saved when I was about three years old. I just remember feeling so free and happy.

About eight years passed and my heart started to become hard toward the Lord. During the next three and a half years the Lord took me through a lot of trials and test. The Lord allowed these situations to re-soften my heart. Finally, He caused me to realize that I can do nothing on my own and that I need Him for everything in my life. My final turn was during a church conference. I don’t know how to explain it, but all of a sudden it dawned on me that I needed to just hand the Lord Jesus my whole being, my life. I felt as though a great wind of peace and satisfaction blew over my whole being. I just wanted to shout, “Praise the Lord. I’m free in Him.”

Well, it’s been fifteen years since my family and I came to the local church and I am now 16 years old. I am so thankful that the Lord brought me here. Praise the Lord, for such a King of kings!

Anonymous