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What a total load of bullocks. How much more inventive can TWI be, in belittling people? Most everyone you meet has a debt - a mortgage - that they are working to pay off. It's cheaper than renting, often. (Even though my mortgage is quite a lot of money, it would be nearly twice as much to rent a similar place - and I couldn't rent anywhere remotely habitable for what I pay in mortgage... a grotty bedsit, maybe?) (Actually, I couldn't even afford to rent a place!!) Debt has risks, true, but there are risks in not having debts. Much better to help people think about their money in a proper manner, learn to budget properly, and work out the best way to borrow if there is really no other way. My church hosts a Christians Against Poverty debt centre to help people in debt. Helps them manage finances, gives them a compassionate hand up when they're crushed by debt, sets up debt plans and even bankruptcy (so as to give a fresh start). Isn't that a better way to encourage people with debt - rather than beat them over the head with Bible verses? And the gentle compassionate approach - guess what! - leads some people to choose to become very thankful Christians.

So I ran into a TWIt a bit ago. They were explaining to me the new hierarchy in TWI. Besides the BOD, and the Corpse field leadership, we have a couple new classifications of leaders: 1. Household Fellowship Coordinators - for those with no debt 2. Bible Study Coordinators - for those with debt. Apparently the hard-line stance TWI has taken against mortgages and student loans has intensified. All of the followers of TWI have been complaining about the debt policy for the last 10 years. The BODummies response is this. Make a new layer in the caste system. Now tadaaa, we have a new lowest level of leadership in TWI. What pray tell, would be the difference between these two classifications of people, you ask? Hmmm. Well, I guess one could coordinate the study of the Bible, but can't coordinate fellowship right? So one group you go to and you can study the Bible, but because they have a mortgage there isn't the same full sharing relationship? What's next - rules for how long you can hang out after fellowship? Joe, I'm sorry but it's 9:00pm. Since you're in a Bible study, not a fellowship, I'm afraid you're going to have to leave. You're welcome to read the Bible and sit in the meeting, but you can't really fully participate in the cookies because you have a mortgage. Sheesh - you don't even have to go to a Westboro Baptist church for the service. You can experience all of the same ignorance and hate right in someone's home. And chip in $10 at the same time where $8 of it goes straight to the pope at HQ. Aren't you so glad you have a new president? Making cutting edge rightly divided decisions like this? I mean with these decisions we should see the Way on the magazine covers of all the Christian periodicals as the fastest growing church in the world, right?

no no. They ARE making progress. No good comes with haste. What they are doing is softening the ground for planting seed in people's minds. It takes a lot of effort. And a long time before results are visible. A long, long time. Like, long long after anyone who notices is gone kind of time frame. Believe.

The new hierarchy in twi is running on fumes. Just more bureaucratic bullsheet......it keeps extending "job titles" to encourage involvement. Back in the early '80s, this is what was happening during Tom Kn-upp's tenure in overseeing Zaire, Africa.......those involved were continually seeking designated titles that gave them a leg-up over their peers. In oppressed societies, like Zaire.....followers seemed to relish having designated power that others around them did not have. Therefore, as the twig fellowships swelled to 40-60 people.....all kinds of titles where initiated to give the coordinator an inner-circle of "go-fers" to get things done. Heck, being a designated greeter was a big deal. Twi's debt-policy has to go thru all kinds of contortions to stay viable.

yeah, awesome right? I'm not sure how new this is, I think at least a year old. It does all boil down to a BOD that is clueless and unable to admit they are wrong. We had something similar about 10 years ago when we were pressured to make smaller fellowship sizes and more fellowships. It was supposed to improve retention by giving people more individualized attention. With the no-debt policy ("we don't have a debt policy, we have a teaching from God's Word, and requirements to participate in certain programs..." yeah, yeah, shut up, it's a policy), we had not enough fellowship coordinator candidates to meet the new "more, smaller groups" mandate. This led to the invention in some areas of the "Fellowship Contact", a person who was the de facto fellowship coordinator but without the title. The branch coordinator was supposed to be the real coordinator, giving them extra attention, because they didn't have a real coordinator. I always hated that and treated them like the rest of the hfc's. Back then I still thought it would work itself out - they would see the problem and fix it. I was wrong of course. Recently, I was talking to my mom about this Bible Study/Fellowship distinction. She told me one of them - I think the Bible Study - was supposed to be more outreach focused while the other was more in-depth in the Word. I might be flipping it, but it seemed silly. "Oh, so you guys aren't focused on outreach now?" "No, no, we still do outreach." "Well, what's the distinction? What do they do that you don't do, and visa versa?" Never really got anywhere on that. They are still trying really hard to figure out how to "move the Word". It must be discouraging and confusing to believe the Word IS over the World, and this here now is what prevailing looks like. Nobody wants what they are peddling.

To spell it out......further When Pa-ul All-en found out that Craig Martindale was using his "spiritual authority" to have sex with Paul's wife......he demanded a face-to-face confrontation at Craig's office in the Corps Chalet and that Rosalie, then vice-prez, and John Reynolds, then sec-treasurer, be there. This took place late in the evening.....like 10:30 or 11pm. Reynolds tried to berate Paul and talk him out of it......but Paul was livid. So.....the face-to-face meeting happened. Martindale was seated at his desk, Reynolds and Rivenbark were there.....and John Linder, security patrol man, stool alongside the wall brandishing his glock 9mm handgun. Pa-ul All-en demanded martindale's RESIGNATION.......Feb 1999. Martindale balked and tried to bribe Paul with a job promotion if they could resolve this adultery [sex predation] quietly. NO WAY, NO HOW. Paul was having none of it.......Reynolds and Rivenbark sided with Craig and wanted to sweep in under the carpet. As things escalated.......Craig ordered Linder the bum's rush: to escort Paul to his dorm room in founder's hall, pack his things and get him and ferne off grounds within hours [in the cover of darkness]. By noon meal next day, martindale fabricated the story and told staffers that the allens were "possessed" etc. etc. [same drill used time and time again.] Within three weeks......Paul, a computer website guru, had Waydale up and running. The sole mission of the website, the forerunner of GSC was two-fold: To seek and destroy 1) The Way International and 2) Craig Martindale....... hence Waydale. Reynolds and Rivenbark were the sleaze that continued to cover for martindale.....until the lawyers got involved and strongly recommended that martindale be ousted for legal/insurance liabilities. So, the "man-in-tights-from-spirits-in-the-athlete" fame who had been salted and oiled by dikter wierwille himself slithered to Toledo, Ohio to a twi-owned house......trying to take him off-grid from one and all. No forwarding address. No phone listing. No one need ask questions....its NONE of your business [to hell it isn't !!]. See, that's the essence of all those dirty, little secrets at twi: You, little peon, have NO RIGHT TO QUESTION THEM. They can lie to you face, intimidate you into submission.......but when they utterly screw up, Reynolds and Rivenbark use every weapon in their arsenal to keep THEIR secrets. And......Reynolds and Rivenbark have been JYDL's mentors for the past 28 YEARS. Now, ain't his installation going to be a grand kick in the bucket? lol