“I have observed that some UBF chapters are unsuccessful for 2 reasons.”

> Yes there are indeed just 2 areas to change for a ubf chapter to begin transforming out of their cultic cocoon and into a new life Christian ministry. You give two good examples, and there are numerous ways to say the same two things.

“First they are very legalistic, and manipulative.”

> Yes the first category of change needed is what I call “face the facts”. Legalism and manipulation are two facts that need to be faced head on. I understand that Korean culture beats around the bush and does not enjoy directness. But the gospel persuades us to do so. Abraham faced the facts about his life and his wife. Are we any different?

“The second way I have observed them fail is with regards to the policy on marriage by faith.”

> Yes the second category of change needed is what I call “release the bonds”. The marry-within-ubf-by-obeying-your-shepherd just has to end. Such bondage is unhealthy and produces people like myself and Andrew who write books about undue religious influence. There are many other layers of bondage, and I explore those in my second book.

This sermon brought me back from years of stagnation. I had not attended church and I felt that God was very far away. Then at once I felt him close again with this sermon. I cannot recommend it enough. I brought it to the Philippines.

http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf

He says this
“I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child—not in a conceited child, but in a good child—as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in a dog or a horse. Apparently what I had mistaken for
humility had, all these years. prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most
creaturely of pleasures—nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator. I am not forgetting how horribly this most innocent desire is parodied in our human ambitions, or how very quickly, in my own experience, the lawful pleasure of praise from those whom it was my duty to please turns into the deadly poison of self-admiration. But I thought I could detect a moment—a very, very short moment—before this happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved and rightly feared was pure. And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the
thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex for ever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero’s book. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself.”

Yet another glaring example of the difference between a Christian ministry like Philippines ubf seems to be and the cult-like new religious movements most other ubf chapters propagate. Christians exalt Jesus; cults exalt themselves.

When my home ubf chapter studied John 17 our main messenger at the conference taught us to replace “Jesus” with “your name”, and shout “God, glorify ME! God, glorify ME!”.

That was the last ubf conference I ever attended. That message woke me up and I suddenly saw that I had become a nostalgic hagiographer, misusing the name of Jesus to defend and enable an abusive religious system.

You studied John 17. Remember our concerns about the 2013 ISBC?
No John 17: http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/05/19/why-john-17-is-about-the-mission-of-jesus/

Any thoughts?

In part 2 I mentioned 1-1 bible studies. But after the message there was a group bible study/ testimony meeting. It was somewhere in between, and seemed to vary from group to group how it was done. In my group the leader asked each person 3 questions. I don’t remember exactly, but they were related to the message. It turned into a discussion. When one student began answering in Tagalog the leader said “English, english” I stopped her and told him to speak in Tagalog. After he finished she translated. Then he asked me about a confusing issue he had the the second coming. I tried to answer his question but I had a distinct impression I did not understand what he was asking. He said I had answered his question, but I felt like he was just saying this. If anyone from Philippines UBF sees the very tall student David. Ask him about his question. I would like to see it answered.

* Orthodoxy: Right beliefs. Grounded and rooted in Scripture.
* Orthopraxy: Right practices. Repentance, faith and obedience.
* Orthopathy: Right emotions. Love, joy, peace, etc.

Some churches that emphasize Bible study and obedience might come across (without realizing it) as believing in the Father, Son and Holy Bible.

Worse yet, they might even disparage anyone who seems to show excessive emotion of joy and public expressions of worship, thus inadvertently despising the Holy Spirit and accusing such Christians as being steeped in empty emotionalism, while not realizing that they might be communicating a dead orthodoxy.