local churches

     

The local churches (one-city, one-church) (Chinese: 地方教會) is a Christian movement base on the Bible as interpreted by the teachings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, and associated with the Living Stream Ministry publishing house. Its members see themselves as part of God's move to recover lost truths and experiences and practices from the Bible -- part of what they sometimes call "the Lord's recovery". One of the defining features of the local churches is their adherence to their interpretation of biblical principle that all of the Christians in a city or locality are in a local church and hence a collection of local churches is what the movement consists of. To follow proper governmental procedures, many of the churches do incorporate a corporate entity and refer to themselves only as "The Church in -insert-locality-" (eg. The Church in Corinth, The Church in Ephesus, and likewise).