Twinky

Thomas, don't you realize that LCM was spiritually angry? Not sure anger management classes can cope with spiritual ... truths trash. His version of it, anyway.

Welcoming someone isn't "love bombing," Johniam - it's just saying hello. I liked it when I first started posting here and people welcomed me. Didn't feel like "love bombing" then - just that I'd been noticed and was welcome. Didn't you like that? When you first joined GSC or one of its predecessors? New posters can say what they like. So can you. But do try to stick to the topic sometimes. And don't keep playing the same old record.

That doesn't sound like Joyce Meyer. Are you really quite sure about that, Geisha?

I don't recall any interest in SIT or any other things like that when I was growing up in the church. In fact, church was so boring that I left. No Pentecostals near where I lived. I wanted to see exciting things like those recorded in the book of Acts. I met a WoW and he showed me that that was still available. Now had I met someone else from any church that SIT or was convinced that the power demonstrated in Acts was still around, I'd have gone with them. Now, there seems to have been a revival. Lots of churches where I live expect SIT and other demonstrations of the spirit. They all say that this has become much more common since about the 70s. It's the new normal. This is nothing to do with TWI influence. It's probably my generation and younger, seeking something other than meaningless ritual and wanting to know God better. As regards the other manifestations of the spirit - I don't know that TWI got TIP correct, nor WoK or WoW, nor anything else. A person who looks to God and tries to do as would please Him probably operates WoK and WoW much more than they realize.How many times have you "just known" about something, or "just done" something that was exactly right - visited a friend in despair because you were passing the door, or rang just as someone needed an answer to prayer, or such like? You can't legislate for such things. You can't teach them. The advanced class should probably have laid out specific examples from OT and NT, but made it much more plain that quiet time with God may well be the most important. Just quiet time, so that you could learn to hear that still small voice even more clearly. Not "fellowship" time with others - but space to think and reflect. Alas, as with most stuff at TWI, space to think and reflect was in short supply.

Hello Tony. You're a late arrival at the cafe - unless you posted here under another name - but nonetheless welcome. There are quite a lot of threads here in About The Way and in Open about the special phrases and terminology used in TWI.

And the early 90s. And don't forget, the Internet was run by devil spirits - oh, that was later, perhaps. No Google maps, no nuffin'.

Johniam...what's with your brain? I was actually trying to be a bit nice to you. Rejoicing with you that the damage was minimal in comparison with what it could have been. You are not (as far as I know) a sex abuse victim - so don't compare yourself with one. Sex abuse is nothing to do with trees falling on one's property. What a rubbish comparison. I am truly sorry for the people of Japan who have lost families, homes, cities...everything. It's all matchsticks. Thousands dead. Yet that doesn't seem to touch your heart at all. You have no empathy but want to discuss something completely irrelevant. Suttee. Huh???? Nobody here wants to burn you. Though if you keep on with your inane comments, a line might form to do just that.

I never knew about the LEAD assaults until I read it here. My Corps didn't get to go, so not sure what the plans would have been. Probably to hitch. What we were asked to do was to hitch to cities where we were to be Lightbearers. The only instructions we got were not to accept lifts in the open backs of vehicles - you know, a work utility vehicle with cab for driver and usually one passenger, and an open back where equipment could be carried. We were given a deadline to be at the venue. We were not given any kind of map either of the states or cities we might pass through, or of the city we were going to. Just an address. Nuts, huh? If you're hitching, you at least want to know if you're being carried in the right direction. Nah. We were to believe God for the right lifts where we could witness to drivers, believe God that the drivers would also take it into their hearts to buy us meals at truckstops (though I think we might have been given a sack lunch to take with us, can't recall), believe God for our safe and speedy journey. I believe we were taken out by bus or some such to a suitable hitching spot (ie, we didn't start from outside TWI's gate). If we got to the destination late (or too near the appointed time) we had to examine ourselves to see where our believing had broken down, such that it was so difficult for us to get the right lifts. Actually I quite liked it. I trusted them to know what they were doing (more fool me) and overcame my qualms because they wouldn't let us do anything foolish, would they? Like firearms safety training, it was to help us overcome our fears. I still hitch occasionally (just short distances) and also occasionally offer others lifts. It's easier to do this in some countries than others.

Hey, Johniam, glad your tree landed where the damage was minimal. Not through the middle of anyone's house or on top of anyone. Small stuff (happily) compared with what's going on in Japan right now.

Thanks, Waysider. Funny, OE.

I did a two-parter once. It didn't start out as a two parter, but the first part was dynamic and really inspired the people there. I had a lot of material and was going to put it together for part 2. But you know it just wouldn't come together like part 1 had. It felt "heavy" and lacked the vigor of part 1. On the way to the location, out of the blue (as it were) I felt inspired to teach something completely different from anything I'd looked at, prepared, considered - in fact, a zip through one of the books of the OT picking out some salient points to part 1. (Free from Way teachings, as I don't think I'd ever heard anything taught from that book.) Yet (though I say it myself) it was magnificent. Really fixed things in people's minds. The people there were excited. They were still talking about it some months later. Heck, maybe even now. While that wouldn't work for SNS, given the opportunity, God might, just might, be willing to work within the teacher if he were given a smidgen of space. At least VPW and LCM pretended that God told them to teach something different from what they'd planned, once in a while.

Was the 75' ash tree ... the Way tree? I find it interesting that "putrid fruit" of an organization is raised, directly challenging Johniam; and he answers with something completely different. Ah well. Have at it, John.

From the thread Your Old Way Bible recently started. In fact over the years, there've been a few threads like that. I thought I'd open this one as a new thread as the Cafe will close soon and this might stay obvious to help latecomers. Others have posted on that thread and elsewhere that it had been a long time before they could read their Bibles again. No pleasure in it; brought back old teachings; all sorts of reasons. For me, it was LCM yelling: "The Bible's got nothing to say to cop-outs/to unbelivers. They need to get themselves back into fellowship (read: TWI)". For me, reading the Bible was reading condemnation. I was too hurt, too damaged. If you're an innie trying to get out; or if you're recently out -- as ever, your experience is common to many. Perhaps some other people here will also be able to tell you how they felt when they first got out. I'd say: put aside your old reading matter (your KJV) and get some other version. But maybe not straight away. You'll be surprised at how fresh some of it seems. Don't try to read it through Way-colored specs and think that it's "inaccurate." Just read it for the pleasure of it. Or don't read it for the pleasure of it. Nobody will condemn you. So, Cafe patrons: How long was it before you felt like reading your Bible again - in any version?

Chas, could you explain that a bit further for the benefit of overseas Cafe patrons? Chuck U Farley?? CUF??

What a waste of talent and ability. Yours, and that of everyone else involved. You'd think they had more important things to do. Move the word, perhaps. Outreach. LOL. I can see the point of an outline, and a rehearsal. I can see the point of squashing individuality in teaching...because some Wayfers simply can't understand anything that's not straight blue book. It's so refreshing to go to other establishments - churches, wherever - and hear something from a different point of view. You know what? There are such similarities (or should be - usually). Even if the teacher is a dyed in the wool trinitarian or from some other different Christian background. Yet the different perspective does give something to think about.

T-Bone, you really didn't have anything much to do with your time, did you? All that time, effort! I remember doing the "homework" of dechomai/lambano marking and the HS/hs stuff. Actually I thik some of the HS/hs marking might have been useful. Not so sure about D/L. I was never a huge marker-up. Just because it's relevant to the latest teaching session on XYZ doesn't mean it's relevant to the teaching session next month on PQR. I did sometimes write Bible cross-refs in that I'd found (for myself) that weren't annotated in margins or footnotes. I still have the old Way Bible (a Companion) but never look at it. I don't mark up Bibles any more. I do have a large selection of different versions of the Bible, and read bits through all of them. Compare translations. Some are better at bringing the text to life, making it more meaningful, by choice of an alternative word. I'm quite keen on a Holman Bible that I got from a Christian bookshop. It seems quite well translated and "accurate" (as far as I can tell) with useful word-choices and nuances of tenses. It's not widely used, though; don't know why.

I can't even be bothered to reply to Johniam's post #110 above. Chockfull has replied adequately on the Soap Box thread. I'll not prolong the agony here. The interest in CFFM is MY interest in what CFFM does with its finances, so far as may be known. It's okay to ask that question, surely? On this thread, I'm not interested in anything else.

John, I started the thread so that you could talk about whatever YOU wanted to talk about - without the need to derail other threads. It looks as if Ham and Waysider have managed a very effective derail, but you can bring it back to whatever YOU want at any time. Not my thread - a gift for you. You managed a very long convoluted post on Dishing it Out that I would have replied to on this thread but it seems that others, notably Chockfull, have done sufficiently well for me. I think, John, of VPW's analogy of a camera - point, focus, shoot - you seem incapable of staying focussed on the matter in hand. If a thread starts about X you divert it to Q via Z, A, B, C, etc and STILL never manage to discuss X. Whereas others will attempt to discuss X and may deviate to discuss W and Y as well but still keep it close to and bring it back to X. There are times that it's uncertain you can actually see "X" through your PFAL colored camera lens. It's perfectly okay to discuss Q, or anything else, if that's what a thread is about.

From The Interenet Archive website: Information access for the blind? What, with "teachings" like VPW's accessible, it'll really be the blind leading the blind, huh? Persons with disabilities...like glass eyes, maybe. Internet Archive isn't anything associated with TWI. Leastways, doesn't seem to be. They pick stuff up with crawlers. So that means someone else has posted all this stuff out there. And you can be sure it's not TWI itself, which is too secretive to put its "teachings" out on the net for people to listen to.

Okay, I opened a new thread specially for Johniam to have his say. Other people have gone there so that they can continue to converse with John. Who hasn't shown up there yet? John!!!! Because, it seems, he would rather distract everybody else. I asked a question because I wanted an answer. The answer seems to be, that CFFM in fact DOES dish out money. I don't know the level of that, but they sent me their tapes for a long time till I asked them not to because I can listen over the net. They've never asked me for anything towards the tape cost. And I haven't seen anybody saying that they are greedy b***s who demand "ABS" as a right. Could I respectfully suggest that if John posts again on this thread - the rest of us ignore him, copy any response onto the Soapbox thread, and respond to him there? He can do what he likes there. Go off on any tangent he likes.

Twelve...doesnt that mean "administratively complete" or some such? You're right. She has had her 12 years of complete administration. TWI is completely completely absolutely completely complete. Or replete. Or deplete. Time to go! As for what happens to charity funding, it should go to another charity that has more or less the same aims. Golly gosh, that could mean a windfall for an offshoot. Or maybe it could be given to a charity or church that really does outreach into the community. Maybe even the church in Van Wert, if it's still there?

Well, that should give John a few ideas to pick at and to keep him happy. Very happy to "debate" with John on his own ideas. For which this thread might provide an outlet. Not happy to have him keep butting in where those ideas persistently distract from the thread in hand. Johniam, over to you...?

Johniam, here you are: A gift thread for you

Johniam, on the Dishing it out thread, said: And I said: It’s quite clear that Johniam will distract every thread that comes his way. So I am starting this in his honor and he can take it wherever he wants. Whenever he wants. Just as long as he leaves other threads alone. Perhaps, Johniam, you’d let me know if you agree with this, as a topic starter? “You understand the WORDS and you understand (you think) the GRAMMAR but you DON'T UNDERSTAND THE MEANING and that pretty much applies to everything you say.” I’m not meaning this as a personal attack, just as a space where you, John, can say your thing and not feel the need to drag everything else off topic. Regard this thread as your own personal soap box.

Oh for crying out loud. Johniam, why do you hijack every thread? Why is it always about YOU? You hide behind VPW and you distract every thread. Now you have parsed a sentence of a few words to make it fit your doctrine (which is nothing to do with this thread anyway). You understand the WORDS and you understand (you think) the GRAMMAR but you DON'T UNDERSTAND THE MEANING and that pretty much applies to everything you say. Johniam, please START YOUR OWN THREADS if you want to argue. Others ARE trying to stick to the point. Hey, I'll help you, then others can get on with the matter in hand.