Correspondence » Letter of the elders of the church in Malabon to Sister Charing Garcia

May 2, 2010

Dear Sister Charing Garcia,

We thank the Lord for your many years of labor with us in Malabon, and appreciate your continuous zeal and fervor to preach the gospel. We certainly believe that in this regard, your labor is not in vain in the Lord (1 Cor. 15:58). Your labor in other aspects of the service could have been more constructive, and our coordination would have been sweeter if only many of your activities in recent years have not stirred up grave concern from the co-workers, elders, churches and coordinating saints, who have brought these matters to our attention. For this reason, we are writing this very weighty fellowship to you.

From the outset, we would like to make it clear that these are neither matters of personal offense, nor do they pertain to gospel preaching or shepherding of the saints. We take no personal issue with you. Our concern, rather, is on three crucial areas: (1) the truth which you have deviated from, (2) your divisive ways of working and the different work you have undertaken that is not accountable to the Body and that does not take the Body as its governing principle, and (3) your undermining activities against not just the elders and Cluster 2 coordinators in Malabon, but also against some elders in Metro Manila, some co-workers here and from Taiwan, and some of the blending brothers in the United States.

YOUR TEACHING DIFFERENTLY

We need to be faithful in following the teaching of the apostles as brought to us through the ministry of brothers Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. The content of God’s New Testament economy is the apostles’ teaching. To deviate from it is a serious thing, and yet in your writings through the past few years, you have persisted in teaching differently, teaching erroneously, and teaching in disregard of the apostle Paul’s charge for women not to assert authority over men in teaching with authority (1 Tim. 2:11-12).

Many of your writings in the “seekers” website contain deviations from both the facts and truths in the Bible. You have also continually twisted and deformed the context of the words you quoted from brothers Nee and Lee. We have clearly pointed out such deviations from the truth to you in our meeting last January 27, 2010. Yet when directly presented with concrete examples, you turned pedantic to wiggle yourself out, defiantly claiming that there is no error in your teachings or articles, and confidently stating that you will defend the articles you wrote. We hereby list down the different teachings which you and your followers are spreading again below that clearly indicate a departing from the truth in the Bible:

1. You insist on “Universal Service”, which you redefine as “all the saints, both brothers and sisters, should take part in all the services in the church and in the Lord’s work” [Emphasis Added]. Clearly this is not so as there are no female elders, sisters may not teach the truth with authority, and no sister baptizes among us;
2. You claim that for one to teach that “sisters need to submit to brothers” in the principle of head covering in the church is unscriptural, despite the clear word in 1 Corinthians 11 as expounded to us by both brothers Nee and Lee, words which you have twisted to suit your ends;
3. To vindicate your refusal to be under the head covering of the brothers, you redefined head covering and limited its application only to ethical human relationships;
4. To support your own interpretation of how house-to-house Lord’s table meeting should be practiced, you taught that “in no section of the Holy Scriptures could we find breaking of the bread done in the “temple” or in big congregational meeting of the saints”, disregarding Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 11:20;
5. To prove your point that a house-to-house Lord’s table meeting only requires two or three gathered together, you misapplied the Lord’s breaking of bread with the two disciples going down to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-55) to be a Lord’s table meeting, when it was not;
6. To project the image of being an Antipas, you erroneously alleged that “Antipas will be the recipient of God’s blessing by way of much spiritual fruits for Christ’s multiplication and God's glory,” in contrast to the Biblical record in Revelation 2:12-17 where Antipas was never related to fruits and multiplication;
7. In your writing that sows seeds of suspicion and dissent in the saints toward the elders, you added extra-Biblical requirements for eldership such as “residency in the locality of the church where the brother is an elder” or “an elder’s wife and children needing to love/live the church life”, and other trivial yet overbearing allegations against the elders which have no basis in the Word;
8. In making a point that an apostle is answerable only to the Holy Spirit, you propounded an unscriptural teaching that Barnabas was stripped of his apostleship in Acts 15, despite Paul’s reaffirmation of Barnabas’s apostleship in 1 Corinthians 9:6 which he recorded under divine inspiration after he and Barnabas had split up in the work;
9. To promote your style of house-to-house Lord’s table meeting, you developed and elevated a descriptive practice into an absolute prescriptive teaching and yoke and forced it upon the churches through your Yellow Book, website and other writings;
10. In overemphasizing the matter of house-to-house Lord’s table meeting, you claimed that it is the optimum means to bring the Lord back, yet the ministry clearly shows us that hastening the Lord’s return has nothing to do with any practice of meeting, because it is the reality of the Body of Christ and the manifestation of authority that hastens His return;
11. To justify your insubordination to the elders in Malabon, you teach that as a “pioneer” of the church, you are exempt from submitting to the elders who all came in after you, but rather that the elders need to submit to you;
12. You mixed up “quarantine” with “excommunication” and “cutting off”, and in anticipation of a possible quarantine, made the extraordinary claim that Brother Lee taught that “No Christian can ever be cut off from the body of Christ unless he commit the sins in 1 Corinthians 5” allegedly based on Elders’ Training Book 4, p. 76, when such was not the context of Brother Lee’s words;
13. In enumerating your own criteria to absolve yourselves from division, you limited division only to mean: (1) not meeting in the local ground of oneness, (2) not bringing fruits to the church but to oneself, and (3) not bringing the offerings to the church but keeping it to oneself;
14. So that your website may not fall under being a “work within the work”, you redefine it by teaching that such a work only exists where (1) the souls gained for Christ be given to the service group of the web site; (2) the souls of the new believers be not delivered to the local churches; and (3) offerings be not given to the local churches but for a separate organization which has been raised up by the group serving in this web site;
15. You define “abiding in the vine” as necessarily only related to “bearing fruits” and “increase” without regard for the Word, disregarding an important prerequisite that to let the Lord abide in us is to let His words abide in us (John 15:7);
16. You project yourself to be a shining star and insinuate that the leading ones in the work and the elders among the churches are wandering stars;
17. You subvert the authority in the church by teaching that increase in numbers and the function of the members alone are the basis for authority, speaking half truths because in the very pages you quoted from Brother Nee, the first item he presented on delegated authorities in the church is concerning the elders, which you ignored and hid from your readers, thereby changing the meaning of his words altogether;
18. You teach that a co-worker is responsible to God alone, is not accountable to others, and may not be limited by men in any way;
19. You elevated a co-worker to a position higher than the elders and saints to lord it over them, and even maintain that elders have no standing to write letters of fellowship to you; and
20. You changed many of the facts in the Bible in your writings like those pertaining to Theophilus, Cornelius, Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, etc, adding to or subtracting from the facts in the Scriptures.

These and other items of deviation have since been chronicled and corrected, and are now published in the website www.healthyteaching.org which you can visit to obtain the full details to see the extent of your deviation.

YOUR DIVISIVE WAYS OF WORKING AND PRIVATE WORK

Contrary to what you would like people to believe, gospel preaching and home meetings are not the issues here, Sister Charing. The issue is your lawless manner and eccentric style of working that is causing damage and division to the Body. We ask you to consider the following:

1. Your refusal to be limited to one publication work in the Lord’s recovery as taught by brothers Nee and Lee;
2. Misappropriating the common heritage we have in the Lord’s recovery by claiming that the contents of your website (which pertain mainly to work, ministry and church items) are your “personal copyright”;
3. Misusing the New Man, the official publication of the work for the benefit of the churches, to air your grievances, advance dissenting views, impose and dictate upon the leading brothers, promote your own work, and vilify those who do not share your views, teachings and practices;
4. Insisting that elders should always follow historical precedents in their decisions, and often interfering in the elders’ management of the church;
5. Publicly dissenting from the leadership in the work and in the church. Dictating and imposing upon the leading brothers in the work and elders of the church in public and in private;
6. Pernicious, public attacks against the co-workers and elders. Contacting the saints in various churches to poison them against the co-workers or their elders, and in making various false accusations against the leading brothers in the work and elders in Malabon and in other churches;
7. Unnecessarily thrusting to the public and upon the churches and saints matters that have yet to be resolved in the work;
8. Having a separate administration within the church by refusing to honor the decision of the eldership and encouraging the saints to selectively follow the leading ones;
9. Insisting on having your own house-to-house combined Lord’s table meeting outside the fellowship of the church while the church has a Cluster combined Lord’s table Meeting, thus setting up a divisive table;
10. Insisting that the Lord’s table meeting does not depend on the fellowship of the church, but just the convenience of the saints;
11. Separating what you call “phase 2” of the gospel and shepherding work in Cluster 2 and asking the coordinators not to touch this work;
12. Having your own service meeting outside the Cluster 2 service meeting;
13. Twisting others’ words, and deforming the Scriptures or words from the ministry,
14. Expecting others to be like yourself and being highly intolerant of those who are not like you or not supportive of your works;
15. Not abiding by the fellowship of the leading brothers in the work and in the church in various meetings;
16. Widely criticizing and being critical of the speakers in our blending conferences, and prodding the saints to do the same;
17. Insisting on foisting on the churches something the churches cannot take;
18. Insubordination and instigating rebellion in the work and in church: in writings, service meetings, co-workers’ meetings, etc;
19. Making the work your own work, carrying out your own work within the unique work of the Lord’s recovery; and
20. Uplifting yourself and your own work at the expense of and by disparaging others and their work.

Not only from Malabon, but from many places where you had gone to work, we have received fellowship from the responsible brothers that the result has not been sweet, and that it has issued in turmoil and discord, because you have made yourself an issue and factor of division.

ON YOUR UNDERMINING ACTIVITIES

Sister Charing, you definitely have the full freedom, like anyone else, to preach the gospel, and the elders have never stopped or prohibited you from doing this. Hence, it is a blatant lie for you to spread the word that in Malabon, gospel preaching needs approval from the elders first. This is just one example of your disinformation to unsuspecting saints to undermine the elders.

You also made no secret of your contempt for the leading ones among the churches by repeatedly vilifying the elders of the church in Malabon and some of the elders of the churches in Metro Manila both in public and private fellowships, strongly criticizing the visiting co-workers from abroad who were invited to speak in our blending conferences (some of whom are in the forefront of the ministry in the Lord’s recovery today), and attacking in particular Brother Jacinto Chua who Brother Liu Chi Cheng has arranged to lead the work of the Lord among us in Northern Philippines.

Together with the co-workers and elders in Metro Manila who were present during that meeting, we all bear witness to Brother Liu Chi Cheng’s arrangement for Brother Jacinto Chua to take the lead in the work. In that meeting, you will recall that Brother Liu told us all, “Support Brother Jacinto like the way you supported me.” However, instead of supporting him and the work, you have undertaken to denigrate him and damage the work. You simply would not accept the arrangement of the Lord in the Body through Brother Liu and recognize that as a sister, you cannot be the leading one in the work, a principle that Brother Liu recognized and fellowshipped clearly to us. In the core group meeting of Malabon last October 20, 2008, you pompously declared that you will never submit to Brother Jacinto, claiming that he is just a titular head. Do you not realize that such attitude and activities in wanton disregard of Brother Liu’s fellowship tear down the Body instead of build up, and that you are sowing discord instead of inspiring oneness and one accord?

Pertaining to the elders, you have vociferously trumpeted your dissent both verbally and in your publications. You have continually taken an adversarial stance in the church to nitpick issues of concern and take exception to, while casting aspersion upon the decisions made by the eldership on various matters, parading your credentials while spreading to the saints that the elders are not following leading ones among us who have been around earlier than them. Because of your perverse logic and accusatory tone over a long period of time, we decided to move the Cluster 2 service meeting and combined Lord’s table meeting out of your home – a decision which you have vehemently resisted and assailed.

Moreover, we would like you to know that as you are against the church’s practice of having the prophesying meeting first before the Lord’s table in our monthly combined meeting, this matter was arrived at through much prayer and fellowship in the eldership. Because you neither recognize nor respect the elders of the church, you have continually contradicted and even challenged our decisions stridently. We caution you, dear sister, to be careful and restrained in touching God’s government in the church, for in so doing, you are touching God’s hand and not ours.

DISALLOWING THE USE OF CHURCH FACILITIES FOR YOUR PRIVATE WORK

After much waiting and fellowship before the Lord, we have come to a decision to disallow you from further using the facilities of the church that were once granted to you, because you have been using these to undermine the co-workers and elders and build up your own private and unaccountable work.

You should vacate the apartment provided for you by the church in the training center. This we ask because, on the one hand, we cannot logically allow you to gratuitously use the facilities of the meeting hall as your office to sow dissent and damage the saints, and on the other hand, we find this also to be fitting since you are no longer serving in any capacity in the fulltime training or the Literature Center for over a year already. Hence, we see no reason to justify your continued use of the apartment, especially since you yourself have your own house in Malabon. To this end, we would like you to vacate the quarters assigned to you by May 15, 2010.

Similarly, you may no longer use other church facilities like printing and internet access because you have been using these to promote your own private and divisive work. You may also no longer use the gospel cars which, even though you have been using for gospel preaching, you have also often been using to spread dissent among the saints as well as for your personal affairs.

One particular related item we feel you should know is the sentiment of the four brothers who serve as drivers of the church. You have forgotten to treat them as brothers first and foremost before treating them as your drivers, causing them to complain to us often about such ill-treatment in the past. The four brothers requested for a time of fellowship with us last January 13, and in that meeting, two of them asked to be relieved of the duty of having to drive for you because they can no longer stand your disparaging words and negative comments against the elders and coordinators who do not support your way of working. Last April 21, another one had requested that he be discharged from having to drive for you as well. Your lack of temperance and self-control, and your making them “garbage cans” do not reflect the proper character needed of the Lord’s worker. This prompted us to come to a decision to relieve all four brothers from having to drive for you and disallow your use of the gospel cars altogether.

YOUR LETTER TO LIVING STREAM MINISTRY

We also take this opportunity to bring up with you the email you sent to the brothers overseeing Living Stream Ministry with the title “That you may have a chance to right the wrong" last March 29 in reply to their letter of November 20, 2009 under the heading “The work on the Tagalog Old Testament Recovery Version” which states:

“Some months ago you wrote to us here at LSM regarding help with software for your work on the translation of the Old Testament Recovery Version in Tagalog, and we were happy to provide you assistance then. However, upon further consideration of this project, we who oversee LSM feel that because there is some confusion in the work there in Malabon, you should withdraw from the work on the Tagalog Old Testament completely. We feel that for the time being LSM should withhold from you and any others working with you our permission to translate LSM's Old Testament Recovery Version into Tagalog. We will continue to stay in fellowship with the co-workers related to the Philippines regarding the situation there, and when the situation has cleared up, LSM will consider how best to permit the work on the Tagalog Old Testament Recovery Version to begin anew.

“We are copying this email to some of the leading brothers in the Philippines, so that they will know of our decision to ask you and all others involved to withdraw from the work on the Tagalog Old Testament Recovery Version.”

Unfortunately, you have completely failed to recognize the Lord’s hand and seek before Him the reason for your removal from this service. Instead of accepting this as the Lord’s dealing, you have squarely put the blame on the overseeing brothers, even maliciously accusing them of “doing evil” in stopping your translation work. Sister Charing, how much longer will you hold out against the Lord? Can you not see how He wants to break your outer man? Lamentably, the intemperate letter you wrote to them only shows how you refuse to undergo the dealing of the cross and that you have so much trust and confidence in yourself.

MARKING YOU OUT BASED ON ROMANS 16:17 AND 2 TIMOTHY 2:25

In keeping with the apostle Paul’s admonition in Romans 16:17 where he said, "Now I exhort you, brothers, to mark those who make divisions and causes of stumbling contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and turn away from them," and his charge in 2 Timothy 2:25, “In meekness correcting those who oppose, if perhaps God may give them repentance unto the full knowledge of the truth,” we are compelled to mark you out as being divisive and destructive to the oneness of the Body of Christ. This marking out is made as a warning so that saints may come to know and keep a watchful eye on your condition, and also to protect the oneness of the Body of Christ and the unsuspecting saints from your damaging works.

To mark you out as being factious does not mean that you are being cut off or excommunicated or even that you are being quarantined. It is simply to warn the saints lest the uninformed and unprepared get infected by the germs of division. You may continue to attend the meetings of the church like the prayer meeting and bread-breaking meeting. As to your partaking of the Lord’s table, we leave the discernment whether to partake of it or not to you for now. If you feel that you have a word of supply, you are still free to share it in the meeting, but only that which is good for needful building. Should your fellowship be for tearing down and not for edification, we ask you to restrain yourself, or as shepherds we may have to discharge our responsibility to protect the flock by restraining you.

We who have served and coordinated with you for decades are deeply saddened by your present state and attitude. It gives us no gratification to write this letter of warning to you. The decision to do so came after much consideration before the Lord and over a long period of fellowship with the co-workers and elders in Metro Manila and Regions I to VI, even with some co-workers from Southern Philippines and Taiwan, and taking into consideration the feeling of some of the blending brothers. The feeling of the Body is unanimous that we need to mark you out as being factious.

As elders and shepherds of the church whom the Lord has entrusted His flock to, we claim no perfection or superiority in ourselves. Yet although we are unworthy, we endeavor to be faithful by following closely the teaching of the apostles and by leading the church onward in one accord in the direction of the general leading in the Lord’s recovery.

Despite several admonitions we have made over the past years, you have persisted in your ways, and now appear to be even bolder than ever in fomenting dissension and rebellion through your writings and speaking. We ask you to reflect deeply on the perilous nature of your present course and on the dangerous consequences of such a course. How tragic it would be if despite your indefatigable labors for the gospel, your stubbornness will cost you the Kingdom.

We pray and sincerely hope that you will bring our fellowship to the Lord and that He would grant you the gift of repentance to turn from your divisive ways. You have the full liberty to write to us, and if you do so in a way that builds up the Body of Christ, you can be sure that we will read it and bring it to the Lord in prayer. However, if you will just write criticisms and negative things that kill and destroy, you can be sure that we will put your letter aside.

We await to see in you the fruits of repentance (Luke 3:8). However, if you persevere in your destructive course, we shall be constrained to send out our letter of warning to the churches in the Philippines and abroad as a warning of your factious ways so that the Body can be forewarned and protected.

Your brothers in Christ,

The elders of the church in Malabon:
(Original Signed)