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Part 2
September 1987
On the following Tuesday, Sept. 29th, Godfred left for a business trip to Europe. On the next day, Wednesday, Sept. 30th, I received a telephone call from a sister who had a prominent position in the Living Stream Ministry Office, asking if she could see me that night. I consented. That evening she sat in my living room and with tears opened her heart to me. She had served sacrificially and faithfully for many years in the LSM office, and now she said she could not tolerate anymore the gross misconduct that was being perpetrated upon some and especially upon her. I had been acquainted with this sister for many years and knew her to be faithful, upright, and trustworthy; therefore, I took her word very seriously. I was amazed that she could put up with such conduct for so long. She stated that she tolerated it only for the sake of Brother Lee and his ministry. She said that she had no other recourse but to resign. I confirmed her intention.
That conversation utterly shocked me. I deeply felt that something must be done to acquaint Brother Lee with the situation and to let him know that we would not tolerate it. I obtained Godfred’s telephone number in Europe and called him a soon as the difference in time zones permitted, telling him the things that had come to my ears. Godfred listened and said that he already knew it. I was amazed. That night I considered what could be done. That we had to go to Brother Lee I was certain.
October – November 1987
The grievous conduct reported by the sister from the LSM office had a precedent that we were well aware of. Ten years previously there had been reports of similar incidents in the LSM office confirmed by several eye-witnesses. This compounded the serious nature of the case. I felt that it was more than a local matter, since the LSM was part of the work of Brother Lee, and the ministry of the office affected churches everywhere. Therefore, I believed it to be reasonable and advisable for a few prominent co-workers who were aware of the history of the case and who were respected by Brother Lee to approach him and inform him of the matter. (Actually, the principle of a group of brothers conferring with Brother Lee about a serious problem, a crisis, in the local churches had already been practiced on March 30, 1978, when a group of brothers – four from Texas, one from Los Angeles, and Gene Gruhler and I from Anaheim –went to see him in his home.) The next day I called Godfred again in Europe and presented my thoughts to him. He agreed.
During the next few days I telephoned several brothers, co-workers whom I respected and trusted and with whom I had served for many years. They were aware of the incidents ten years previously. I informed them in a general way of the current situation and proposed to them that we go together to Brother Lee in an effort to impress him with the gravity of the case and to clear it up. It was the first week of October 1987. We felt we should pray more and consider further what to do, since at that time Brother Lee was out of the country, in Taiwan.
One of the brothers I sought to contact and confer with was Ray Graver, an elder in the church in Irving, Texas, and the manager of the LSM branch office there. I called him in Texas and proposed that I come to see him in Irving. It was thought, however, for us to meet in Irving would attract too much attention; so we settled on meeting midway in El Paso, Texas. This decision is being censured now as a plan for a secret meeting, as if that in itself is evil and a conspiracy. But I fail to see anything wrong with this. It was with a pure motive and desire and certainly was not a plot to draw him into a conspiracy to overthrow anyone’s ministry. Ray was quite willing to do this until Benson Phillips, another co-worker and elder in Irving, Texas, who was then in Taiwan, advised him against it. Had Benson been in Irving, I would have sought to speak with him also. I enjoyed a very good and close relationship with both Ray and Benson for many years.
In those days I had further fellowship with Godfred and with some of the brothers we had contacted, with whom we had intimate fellowship through the years concerning the Lord’s work. We realized that the spiritual condition of the churches throughout the United States and in other places, generally speaking, was very poor, very low. We searched for the reason. Something was radically wrong. The Lord’s blessing was not among us. Life was at a very low ebb. In a number of places there was considerable discord and dissension, and instead of a steady increase in numbers, there was a steady decrease. We began to realize then that there were practices and tendencies among us that we had never considered before. And, we ourselves as well as others were responsible, having participated in these. But we had not seen clearly or realized previously what was being done. Thus we began to come to some conclusions.
I believe that the first was that the ministry was being given a place above the churches. It was being too highly exalted and emphasized, so that it became imperative for every church now to manifest that they were “for the ministry” and to “serve the ministry”. It was no longer, as we were often told, that the ministry was for the churches and that only the churches should be built up; rather the churches now should be for the ministry, and the ministry was being built up. We felt that we should voice such a concern to brother Lee.
About the second week of October we began to fellowship with Dan Towle, an elder in the church in Fullerton and a trainer from the full-time training in Taipei, who was attempting to give direction and help to the fifty or sixty full-timers who had moved from Taipei to Orange County. To his great frustration, the full-timers were taken over by the LSM office and its management, and were charged to do construction and yard work over an extended period of time to the neglect of their gospel preaching. Dan had also heard some things concerning misconduct and irregularities related to the ministry office that greatly upset him, and he had serious concerns as we did for the Lord’s recovery. At one point he told me that he considered to resign from the work and to leave. We confirmed his feeling that the situation was indeed serious.
Godfred, Dan, and I came together a few times, joined also by Ken Unger on a couple of occasions to fellowship about the situation and what should be done. Ken Unger, who was an elder in Huntington Beach, had himself also become very concerned. We conferred about our burden to speak with Brother Lee, mentioning a number of our concerns that involved aberrations of truth and practice. When we touched the matter of the full-time training in Taipei, Dan responded by saying that if you touch the FTTT, you touch Brother Lee himself, and according to his observation of Brother Lee’s practice, Brother Lee will consider you if you become in his eyes a problem, and then he will proceed to carry out his burden without you. Godfred confirmed this by saying that he had the same realization, that Brother Lee considers anyone who criticizes him a troublemaker and will consider whether or not that one is expendable. This was indeed a most serious consideration concerning Brother Lee. But we did not care to maintain any position or standing for ourselves. We felt that for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of all the brothers and sisters, we must open our hearts to Brother Lee, no matter what it cost us.
As we spoke of our various concerns it was evident that Dan was growing increasingly uneasy. Regarding the FTTT he said, “I was one of the co-conspirators in that.” He felt that we were going too far and desired to withdraw from further fellowship.
At this point we felt that it would be useful for the brothers we had contacted to come together to fellowship and pray in preparation for going to see Brother Lee, so that we would be clear concerning the issues we would present to him. Moreover, we believed it would be best not to create any stir among the saints or other elders by doing this openly; so we sought some place where we could all meet privately. This was by no means a conspiracy, as we are being charged. At no time did we ever meet with the purpose of plotting to overthrow Brother Lee and his ministry. That is utterly ridiculous. We never had such a thought – the Lord can testify for us. A private meeting or a secret meeting does not constitute a conspiracy. A conspiracy takes form from the content of the meeting. Is it a conspiracy to pray and fellowship together in preparation for visiting Brother Lee and opening our hearts in frank fellowship? Of course not. We were very concerned for the saints and sought for an extended period to cover the grave matters from them lest they be distraught and we suffer worse consequences.
One of the brothers then expressed rather strongly that it would be better for just a few brothers, namely those from Anaheim, to confer with Brother Lee instead of the whole group of five or six. Hence, after further consideration, we dropped the whole thought of all the brothers coming together, and decided that just Godfred, Al Knoch, and myself, elders in Anaheim, would go.
By this time Godfred and I felt that we must acquaint Brother Al Knoch with the facts and our deep concerns. We did so, and amidst many tears and great grief Al, who was already very much aware of some problems in the LSM office and could readily discern other difficulties affecting us in Anaheim, agreed to accompany us to see Brother Lee. The time was early November.
Brother Lee was still in Taiwan and was not due to return until December 5th, 1987. We felt that we could not adequately or properly discuss such grave issues with him over the phone, and it was not practical for us to make a trip to Taiwan. Therefore we determined to wait for his return and seek the earliest possible opportunity to speak with him in his presence.
October – November 1987
During this time we were concerned for the saints in Anaheim and the condition of the church. We had just concluded the gospel “blitz” in Anaheim during the summer training of 1987, when over 3700 were baptized through knocking on doors. There had been a strong effort to follow up the 800 or more who were baptized in Anaheim (the remainder lived in other cities of Orange County and were being cared for by other churches). There were grand scale preparation and follow-up plans with the activity headed up by two brothers, appointed by the church, who gave themselves to the work.
The elders also gave themselves to the labor, though I myself was much restricted by my health. But to our dismay many of those who were baptized had disappeared, many rejected any further visits, and the remaining fruit was sparse. Some discouragement set in. To compound the problem, a good number of saints had reacted against the practice of door-knocking, not openly or actively, but by simply withdrawing from the church life and the meetings. They felt that if that was the way the church was going to take, it was not for them. And indeed the meetings were filled with door-knocking testimonies, and anyone who desired to speak anything else felt he would be out of the “flow”. In this kind of atmosphere the life in the church ebbed even further from the already low state. We felt that the vision of Christ and the church that had so captured us at the beginning, over two decades ago, had grown dim or had vanished altogether. Those who were still with us in the church were either doing their best to carry out the visitation of the new ones with the methodology of the new way, or simply felt left out since they either lacked the heart or could not match the demands. All were desperately lacking the nourishing supply of the living word, of the Spirit, and of life. Therefore we were burdened to give some messages on the Lord’s Day to try to renew the vision and supply life. We spoke a number of times from Colossians and Revelation, emphasizing Christ as the tree of life. At one point one of the brothers who was taking the lead among the young people, Chris Leu, said to me, "John, you are going to be in trouble!” He indicated that Brother Lee and other leading ones would not be happy with me, because I was not speaking the same thing as Brother Lee in Taiwan concerning the new way. I told him I could not help that; I had to discharge my burden to meet the need. If for that reason I would be in trouble, then I must be in trouble. We had to care for the saints in our locality regardless of what was being spoken in Taiwan or done in other places.
This experience pointed up a fallacy among us – the prevalent concept that everyone must speak what Brother Lee was speaking and conform universally, regardless of the local need. We were aware of that but could not conscientiously follow.
During the months of October and November 1987 the elders in Anaheim met regularly with the other elders in Orange County. We expressed to them our burden our burden concerning the low condition of the churches and the need for the revival of our vision and some of the basic things of life. Others shared similar things The Thanksgiving weekend was coming up, and there was to be a young people’s conference in the mountains. This was brought up for fellowship, and the question arose concerning who should go to lead the young people.
We learned then that one of the trainers from Taiwan had already been encouraged through those serving in the LSM office to come, and in fact he was preparing to come. Most all of the brothers felt strongly and expressed clearly their disagreement with that arrangement, based upon the damage wrought by the high school training in Irving, Texas, in which this particular trainer had a prominent role. The elders asked two brothers among them to telephone this trainer in Taiwan to inform him of the brothers’ feeling that someone else should lead the young people in the coming conference. They did so immediately. It was indeed a shock to the brother in Taiwan. It also was a blow to Philip Lee, who presumed to be directing these affairs.
The elders also agreed that for the rest of the saints it would be profitable to come together on Thanksgiving weekend to share some things concerning Christ, the Spirit, life, and the church. All the elders would share the same burden. A few days before the conference was to start Philip Lee met with the full-timers and told them they had no business attending that conference; they should take care of their new ones. It was clear that Philip was absolutely unhappy with our conference. We felt rather that it was most appropriate for the full-timers to bring their new ones to the conference if they were so led. This is the kind of situation we faced.
A few days after the conference, Benson Phillips came to Anaheim from Taiwan and met with the full-timers. Philip Lee, Dan Towle, and Dan Leslie were also present (the latter two had been attempting with difficulty to lead the full-timers in service). Through Benson’s fellowship the leadership of Dan Towle and Dan Leslie with the full-timers was officially terminated, and the full-timers were left under the direction of the LSM office. This was a blow to the two Dan’s. The full-timers were left in confusion and serious questions were raised in some of them.
A few days later Benson desired to meet with some of the elders representing churches in the area. A lunch was arranged in a nearby restaurant to be followed by fellowship. Present at the meeting were Benson, Dan Towle, Dan Leslie, Ken Unger, Ned Nossaman, Dick Taylor, Frank Scavo, Godfred Otuteye, Al Knoch, and John Ingalls. During the fellowship the brothers began to question Benson concerning current events with the full-timers and the Living Stream Office and the prospects for the church’s relationship with the full-timers. The involvement of the LSM office and its management was a real concern. Benson found it very difficult to answer the brothers’ questions and was alarmed at the attitude of the brothers toward the LSM office. He remarked that the atmosphere in Orange County had changed, and he was bothered. We also were greatly bothered.
