waysider

One man's mess is another man's order.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- I finally "got it" and that bothered me for a while. ------------------------------------------------------------- Here is the quote from page 2: Our goal in Witnessing and Undershepherding II Tim. 2:2 The basic reason we witness is to help people into the classes on Power for Abundant Living and help them walk on it. Now here is II Tim. 2:1& 2 Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. I am curious to know how that could possible be translated: Go forth and sell classes. Indoctrinate the students into our cult dogma.

I visited my buddy's grave site this past spring. Does that count?

Nope. This predated my FLO days. In FLO, we did "door-to-door" and some "mall witnessing"(not shill---- at least in the twigs I was in.) on witnessing nights. (We were primarily supposed to use our "9-5" jobs as a vehicle for witnessing, so we really didn't do much evening witnessing. We mainly worked at limb HQ or on limb HQ assignments, such as MANNA, or prison outreach, or special projects like "Foreordained"(Gospel quartet) etc. in the evenings.) But, since all our "twigs" were closed corporation, we could not bring them to twig with us. (Not many newbies want to go to twig at 11 pm anyway. Go figure.) Instead, we turned their names and info(ie: sales leads) over to the believers who were operating twigs in their locale. They followed up on the "under-shepherding" aspect. Sometimes the local people ran the classes and sometimes we did if it wasn't too distant. It was really an impersonal approach. Once you passed their name(sales lead) on to the local people, you were pretty much out of the picture and had no direct contact with them. Even if you wanted to, it would have been difficult because we did not have phones in the "houses" and almost all our time was controlled. Plus, you could not leave the complex without specific approval other than to go to your "9-5" or regularly scheduled FLO activities. There was exception made for Saturday afternoon and evening so you could go into town and get a haircut or do laundry at the laundry-mat, etc. Still, you could not leave the local area without prior approval. It was very much a PFAL sales effort.

Ya know----- It would have all been soooo much easier if the witnessees had just followed the same script that the witnessers were using. How dare they improvise and change the script to suit themselves!!!!! It's just not right, I tell ya. It's just not right.

Boy, this could go a zillion different directions. (And probably has on older threads I haven't read.) Without going into scriptures and history, I'll just throw in my two cents. Wierwille proposed that the only way to PERFECTLY worship God was to SIT. The inverse is that, without SIT, you can only worship GOD in an inferior manner. It was part of Wierwille's "schtick". It was his way of isolating us from the rest of mainstream Christianity and promoting an elitist attitude amongst our ranks. Please note that this is not a comment on SIT, per se, but rather a comment on how Wierwille used it to give us a sense that we were unique and special. He used it to instill a subliminal sense that we were actually superior to other Christians who did not subscribe to this train of thought. And you know, how is it that drawing a mental image of an apartment with red drapes while you SIT constitutes worship? If anything, it draws your focus off of God and redirects it to yourself. Why does worship even require that a language be spoken? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "When through the woods and forest glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees; When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee How great Thou art, how great Thou art." How Great Thou Art------Carl Gustav Boberg --------------------------------------------------------------------- Not saying I'm right. Just saying I believe worship goes beyond mere words that are uttered, whether they be tongues of men or tongues of angels.

Miming in Tongues(with interpretation) :wacko:

The inner city is already a war zone. If you die because of an IED or because you were caught in the crossfire of a drive-by, you are still dead. Live life as fully as you can and let destiny take its course.

It wont be official without these: http://members.nuvox.net/~zt.proicer/recipes/buckeyes3.jpg

Hi, Potato. Sorry it took so long to get back here. I don't know how, when or where it started. Pretty sure I know why, though. I remember doing it when I was in Cleveland back in the early 1970s. Here is one example of how it worked: We would go to the mall(I think we still called them "shopping centers" back then.) and split up. When a prospect was spotted sitting on a bench, one of the "believers" would sit down on the bench but not make contact. The second "believer"(the shill) would then sit down and pretend he didn't know either of them. The first one would strike up a conversation with the second one in hopes of drawing the prospect in. At some point, the shill would politely disagree with believer #1. This would give believer #1 an open window to expound on his/her point of view.(Which, of course, was a lead-in to pitching PFAL.) We did this in bars, also. (I was already an adult at that point.) Funny bar story: Believer #1 told the prospect that "believing is a verb and a verb connotes 'action' ". HaHaHaHa!--- The prospect had an entirely different definition for the word "action". He (believer #1) had to do some fast talking to keep it from appearing to be a "pick-up line". There were all kinds of variations but it is not really any different from what law enforcement calls a "shell game". I hope that describes it well enough,

I don't think I know it but the lyrics sound like something John Prine might do.

"Harmonica Hero will give you 1/2 hours of fun!!" :blink:

"Shill witnessing" was the absolute worst form of "witnessing", in my opinion. The very essence of it was based on deception. It was really just a variation of the old shell game, but the promise of money was replaced with the promise of an intangible.

I'm in Tomato Town, Groucho. I work just up the road from you in C.W. Several of my co-workers live in Lancaster. (If Tom can make it, we'll have to teach him the "correct" pronunciation.) Just let me know where and when.

Sounds good in theory, at least.

Is this what we're looking for? Session #10/ page 52 in syllabus. re: SIT & TIP "People have for years erroneously waited for God to push them off the so-called "eagle's rim." NO! NO! NO! NEVER. You have the gift, the ability. It has been given you by God, so you do it. You give the interpretation.

Very cool! I'll bet that Fender fretless has an awesome sound for that kind of stuff, especially with the 2 finger, finger rockin' kind of style. It's probably too heavy and spread out for my old hands but I'll bet it sounds great. That would be sweet if it turned into some regular work. Chatster----Sorry you and the hubs couldn't make the "Hot Licks Blues Fest" this year. They had a really cool zydeco band from Cincinnati (of all places) who had the crowd rockin' and jumpin' and screamin' "Eat more crawfish!!" (Complete with Mardi Gras beads and songs sung in Louisiana French.) DialThis sends his regards and said your presence was missed.

Man, that's just spooky! I can still hear and see him saying those exact words as he dramatically fumbled with his glasses or notes or something. What class was that in? I know he probably said it on numerous occasions, but I'm thinking of a specific class. Here's the really creepy thing--------Someone on the outside could look at that and say," What's wrong with that? It's true."( or at least Biblical) But what they don't understand is that he used it in a context that demanded we pledge allegiance to the cult because our feelings were insignificant in the big picture of "Word Over The World". There are so many, many things that might appear innocuous to an outsider that conveyed a unique meaning to the intended audience.(us)

This is way off topic but a mention of CF&S brought this to mind. In that class, VeePee makes the statement that, "intercourse is always a spiritual experience." What the heck was that about? Anyone else remember that statement in the class? Maybe in some obtuse way it really is related to the topic of twisted indoctrinations.

I'm just surprised we didn't all make millions selling condos in the Everglades after we left. We certainly had the training(at least by example ) to do so. I went to a "public ex." of sorts recently for a financial planning endeavor. I thought I was going to bust out laughing. It was so similar to a "public ex." for PFAL, I was sure I would lose it if the sign up forms appeared on green paper. They even said they knew secrets about the market that none of their competitors could even understand. It was a hoot! I guess you had to be there.

HaHaHaHaHa! I know that feeling, Groucho. May I call you Groucho?(I saw it on your name tag.) I have to wear a uniform for work. It has my name over the shirt pocket. People do that "hi, waysider" thing to me all the time. (Not sure why 'cause that's not the name over my shirt pocket.) Sometimes when I go to pick up lunch at the local Burgers r Us, the person behind the counter will say something like, "Would you like turnip chips with your Biggie Burger, waysider?" That drives me nuts. There's a lesson in all this. The next time you meet a person who works in a service industry, don't automatically assume they like turnip chips.

Hmmmm----- Well I still think they had some sort of "secret", vested interest in a company that actually produced nametags. Thus, the more nametags they required, the more nametags their "secret" interest manufactured. Self generated income. OK, OK------ I don't really believe that but it makes a pretty cool conspiracy theory, dontcha think? Hey! Here's another thought. Maybe in one of his heavy revvy moments, VPW saw that as we got older we would need something to help us remember who we are. Nah!! That one doesn't fly either. Gimme time. I'll think of something else to explain it or my name isn't --------

Waaaaay too much light pollution from the city to see anything like that here. I remember the first time I went to HQ in the early '70s, though, and looked skyward on what was a cloudless night. I had never seen a sky that was so full of sparkle in my entire life. It added some sort of self fabricated profoundness to being there.

I just wanted to add that there were people who came into the FLO program who had been students in classes Garry ran and were inspired to reach for greater heights as a direct result of the example he set.