This is a tie-in to the "How Marriage by Faith actually works" article.
After Sunday service all of the seniors and married couples have their "secret" meetings with the "missionary". When you ask what they do in those meetings they will tell you a half truth: bible study. They don't just have bible study. They also talk about how to conduct the next marriage by faith among things like "how to cleanse the internet". Marriage is what they talk about the most.
"Arranging marriages. As a fellowship leader (senior "shepherd"), I knew who was going to be married long before the two people knew. We sometimes help confirm “God’s will” as we discussed the two candidates for marriage as a group. Looking back, arranging marriages to be “house churches” consumed a majority of our time. That was why we had a “sister house” and a “brother house”. Those were the prime candiates for marriage." --Brian Karcher Source: http://ubfriends.net/ubfriends2015/confessions-of-a-ubf-leader/
If you asked married couples how they know he/she is the one they will say I saw it in a dream/vision. When they say something like that they are lying.
So the question is how do they really know which two current members God wants to marry? What they do is they get information out of the future bride and groom.
Their main source of intel on you is testimony writing/sharing. Let me explain.
The real purpose of testimony writing/sharing is to subtly trick you into revealing personal info about you. In that way the seniors and the chapter director would know if you meet the criteria to be with your future bride/groom. The criteria is something like this:
- Do they drive?
-What job do they have?
-How old are they?
-How loyal they are
-What kind of personality do they have?
-Are they obedient or rebellious?
-What is your racial background?
-Are they think about marriage/dating?
When you share your testimony on Friday nights the seniors are taking mental notes. The chapter director and/or his wife will take physical notes. I remember when I first started going to testimony night in El Camino UBF I noticed Grace Baik in the back of the room taking notes. At the time I thought it was weird since it's not bible study but didn't give it any thought until now. That's why "missionaries" take actual notes during testimony sharing and why they are always at the back of the room or in mid-section.
So when your "shepherd" asks you to go deeper in your testimony what it translates into "Share more info about what is going on in your own personal life". That's why the "shepherd" gets pissed off when you don't talk about yourself or reveal new info about yourself. They want your testimony to be like 30% about what you "grasped" about the message and 70% about your personal life and details.
The thing is that the "shepherd" solely relies on that method of information only. For that reason the info is 95% unreliable and inaccurate because the "shepherd" would often forget what they learned or they would distort the info.
With that method the chapter director determines whether the future bride/groom is "spiritually" ready for marriage by faith and whether they would make a good spouse to their future partner. After that then the marriage by faith process really begins.
Sidenote: when you converse with a member that is the opposite gender that they seniors and especially the chapter director don't want you to talk to they will make an angry face (mad dog) at you. This is because they will think you are trying to hook up with that person when in reality you are having a platonic conversation. The reason why is because they're upset and afraid that in their mind the marriage that they already pre-arranged will be ruined.
This is done to natives. For 2nd Gens it varies.
If there is any errors I made or anything I missed feel free to comment below.