Local Churches (affiliation)

Local Churches (affiliation)

The local churches (one-city, one-church) (Chinese: 地方教會) is a Christian group based on the teachings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee and associated with the Living Stream Ministry publishing house. The term "Lord's Recovery" is also used by them about themselves because of their belief that truths, experiences and crucial elements from the Bible were lost in time and recovered from the Reformation onwards, and that today only they currently are what the Lord is recovering. One of the defining features of the local churches is their interpretation of the Bible refers only to churches as being defined by their locality and that the Christians in a city or locality are members of the church in the locality in which they reside. Many of the churches refer to themselves as "The church in (city name)", e.g. "The church in New York City" and "The church in Anaheim" even though according to this interpretation all Christians in a locality constitute the church in that locality.

The group began in China some time after Watchman Nee (倪柝聲) became a Christian in 1920. Between 1920 and 1952 Watchman Nee established local churches throughout mainland China. Watchman Nee was imprisoned by the People's Republic of China in 1952. It is asserted by the Living Stream Ministry that before his imprisonment, Watchman Nee asked Witness Lee to go to Taiwan in 1948 in the event that the Communists took over so that their work would not be lost inside China. In 1962 Witness Lee moved to California. Local churches are now spread throughout the world: in the United States, the far East, Europe, Russia, South America, Africa and the Middle East. The Shouters is a cult offshoot, and local churches mostly distance from them, which is ironic given local church history.