JavaJane

Yeah, that was LAME... and they would always want to do it at HO-HO parties where we were supposed to bring new people. Talk about a way to alienate your undershepherdee!

maybe I should have said "undersheep" instead of "undershepherdee?" (not to be confused with Underdog the superhero in any way, shape or form.)

Part of that "learning experience" many times is an informant arrangement. They pair up "new staff" with people that will tattle on them if they complain.

That is exactly what I was thinking!!!

Excellent analysis as usual.

Thanks, shorty!

It just amazes me how clear it all is in hindsight... now, when I was in the middle of it, I was the biggest TWI promoter Rosalie could want! And how embarassing that is, looking back... I wonder if they miss me?? Hopefully I am doing some damage nowadays to make up for the people I "won to the Word!" Most of those are out now, but a couple are still in, and that makes me sad. I pray that every post I make here helps steer some other God-seeking, good hearted person away from TWI and takes a little more money out of Rosie's pockets.

One thing I changed, and it makes a huge difference--I don't keep people in my life who want to use me or put me down or control me. If I get a weird feeling about them, or they do something 'off' that makes me uncomfortable, I don't give them a bunch of chances and try to reason away their behavior like I did with the precious 'household' believers in TWI. Life's too short. There are other people out there who can be real friends.

And since leaving TWI I've only met a few of those types--they must all be drawn to groups like TWI!

The friends I now have are real friends.

SO TRUE!! I have learned to trust my gut when it comes to people. I am usually right on when it comes to that... and when I don't listen, I get in trouble... I really like to believe that all people are good, but when I get a bad feeling, I don't have to be around that person. I can make that decision myself and not just make excuses as to why I am the bad person for thinking that way!

Why should Rosalie and TWI encourage "speaking up?"

hmmmmmm?

I have a couple of reasons I can think of... (and please pardon my conspiracy thinking on the subject - my brain has been wired this way after almost two decades of living in the environment of a controlling CULT...)

How could encouraging "speaking up" and "questioning" in The Way International further the purposes of Rosalie and TWI?

1. By encouraging "speaking up" and "questioning" The Way International and Rosalie engender trust amoung new people and the rank and file believer. Have a question, new person? Well, ask away! We'll answer all your questions... see, you can trust us! Answer the easy questions, gain a little more trust... soon people don't even bother questioning because they believe the leadership and the ministry they fellowship with. They have become THE authority on the Bible and God. And since they are THE authority on the Bible and God, people don't feel the need to have questions anymore... the trust has been built. This keeps the money flowing in - through classes and tithes and abundant sharing. BUT, the all important APPEARANCE that speaking up and questioning are ENCOURAGED is still intact, even though the questions don't even come into people's minds much anymore. Too long on this track of thinking, and TWI takes the place of the Bible and God... it's all based on TRUST.

2. By encouraging "speaking up" and "questioning" The Way International and Rosalie easily identify and remove those that would cause others to question. Sounds like your friend is in this category, OldSkool. Your friend had enough independent thought to begin to question the methods of TWI and Rosalie... And since he still didn't buy the lies he was marked out as a "troublemaker" who didn't trust TWI. (Remember, TWI by this point has replaced God by "representing" Him through being THE authority on God/The Bible.) Your friend couldn't be trusted. I mean, why in the world would you WANT to not trust GOD, who set up the "powers that be" within the body? Well, if you can't trust God, then most believers don't think they can trust YOU... and so the questioner who speaks up becomes shunned. This is pretty handy for Rosalie and her lap-dogs... because now no one will be contaminated by the independent thought of the questioner who spoke up.

All in all, it's a pretty neat trick they have going for them. Not sure if they planned it that way, but it is sure how it works. I know, because I have been the one who trusted (#1) so much that I shunned my own family - thought they were evil and that they would contaminate my walk with God. How far from the truth that was! Then later I began questioning and speaking up myself... and I found out about #2.

*edited for grammar.

I never liked singing christmas carols with the words changed to waymin lingo. It was embarassing.

Yeah, that was LAME... and they would always want to do it at HO-HO parties where we were supposed to bring new people. Talk about a way to alienate your undershepherdee!

What's the standard response from the almighty board of dummies? "God will give you what you need when you need it."

Yep... a minimum wage job at Mickey D's or Wally World as a greeter...

I also remember sharing a room with my old FH roommate. We were grown, divorced women who had to share a room two years in a row. I'm still ....ed about that.

Yeah, that's bull $h!+... as if a grown woman needs a roommate - and (if it was anytime recently) it's not like they don't have the extra room!!!

We had an elderly emeritus corps lady who lived in our area for while - she had worked for her entire working life for TWI... she started having health problems and they gave her the boot (under the guise of "it's for your health!")... with nothing, no retirement, no pension, NOTHING except a free moving van and a couple of Staff guys to help her pack her stuff. I always had a problem with that. She had no one - no kids or family to fall back on, and she had given her life for this ministry that didn't even bother to take care of her when she got old and sick. Last I knew she was still working... She will never be able to retire.

Is that the abundant life?

George, it is kinda like that... Just rename it, and now it is specific to TWI - classes, whatever you want!

Which makes me wonder.. if one doesn't have professional ties, a different "side" profession.. what does an unemployed ex-way "clergy" or recognized "clergy" by da new organization DO? Start their own offshoot of an offshoot of an offshoot?

I hope it wasn't the fella I know who abandoned a career here..

I do believe this is the true meaning of "The Way Tree"...

I know this is a "cult thing" to do - to come up with your own terminology and lingo that only people within the group understood... TWI renamed SO MUCH STUFF... couldn't call anything the same thing the mainstream Christians did! We have a large group of "non-denominational" Christians around here (IHOP) who also do the same thing. They have a building with a sign out front that says, "Children's Equipping Center." It always scares me - I have this image come to mind of children being strapped on to people's backs like backpacks or something...

So, a brief glossary of TWI lingo:

Way Corps - Seminary (as if!)

Way Disciple/WOW - Missions

Advance - Retreat (WE NEVER RETREAT!)

Ho Ho (Household Holidays) - Christmas

Bless n Treat - Halloween

Happy Hearts Day - Valentine's Day

Resurrection Sunday - Easter (I can *kinda* see this one)

And I am sure there are lots more you all could come up with.

I have a confession to make...I said "Christmas" even when I was in The Corps! I never said "Ho Ho Relo" unless I was making fun of other people.

I was waiting for someone to figure out that the word "holiday" comes from combining the words "holy" and "day". Thus, to say "holiday" is actually saying "holy day" and the Bible says we are not to consider one day holier than another.

Of course, I didn't have the guts to ever bring this up to leadership.

Good thing you didn't, or they wouldn't have just renamed the holidays, they would have taken them away altogether!!

I once ran into a couple of kids who were taking PFAL with some group or another. They would get their books stamped everytime they took a class, and after it had been stamped 10 times they could go out and teach it themselves... I thought that was kinda weird at the time. I still think it's weird now.

Before we left there were a several young families who were bored out of their minds with the way TWI had gone with their teaching. Some of them had run into the Panere!!o crowd and thought that was the hopping place to be. I never really saw how it would be any better since it just seemed to me like some guy teaching the same stuff we were hearing. Maybe he was just a little more charismatic than what we were dealing with, but the same old disregard for people seemed to be there...

I decided a long while before I left that if I ever decided to leave TWI it would not be to just go to a clone of the same ministry down the street. If I left on my own it would be because the whole thing stunk - and to go somewhere where they were teaching the same thing would be to remain in denial.

Offshoots were just never appealing to me.

Yup... It was supposed to refer to your enemies "in the household" - people who were annoying, or that you weren't best friends with in THE HOUSEHOLD - you know, "enemies"...

Insanity, isn't it?

It was me giving him the finger, not the tomatoes. I was always happy the tomatoes were in the car instead of the snow where they would freeze. In that dream I am always thinking, "good thing I got the tomatoes in the car before those people got them!"

Does anyone else have these? I've been out for three years, and I still have bouts of them occassionally.

Dream #1: I'm out Way Disciple or WOW and am miserable. I end up losing my temper and telling everyone to go to hell, I try to leave, but the coordinator corners me with the team and they tell me how evil I am. I decide to conform and stay.

Dream #2: I run away from a STS with my husband and a bunch of tomato plants in the back of his car, trailing dirt behind us and giving the limb coordinator the finger as we leave. It starts snowing. (Not really a nightmare - but I have this dream a lot.)

Dream #3: I am cleaning toilets for a class or some event and Rosalie walks into the bathroom. She flushes and leaves, but the toilet overflows, sending poop water all over the floor. I keep trying to mop it up, but it gets out and soaks the carpet. I get in trouble because no one would believe that Rosalie would clog a toilet with a monster poop.

Dream #4: Headquarters is being attacked by zombies, systematically turning everyone into a mindless member of the walking dead. There is no way to stop it. I am trapped in the OSC with a few others armed with shotguns, but they just keep coming, and the people I am in there with are idiots who are trying to cast out the "devil spirits" in the zombies. They just get bit and turned into more zombies.

I think the symbolism is pretty obvious... anyone else have dreams like this?

I realized this weekend how nice it is to be comfortable... To be able to sit at a table in an in-laws' kitchen and talk about religion without thinking how idolatrous they are. Heck, to be able to SPEND TIME with the family on a holiday without getting reproved for not attending the Household BBQ or some nonsense! And to not feel like I have to witness to all of them was even better!

I had a fellowship coordinator who would chew (yes, chew) altoids by the handful to keep awake during Advanced Class Specials...

I went gambling... Penny slots.

I asked God to show me the spiritual side of life that wasn't devil spirits... Got some really interesting answers from that prayer. Still getting some real interesting answers from that prayer!!

I burn sage in my house sometimes when the need. I pray The Lord's Prayer on occasion.

I attend a Catholic church once in a while. I call the priest "Father" - that took a while. Felt like I was sinning.

Our daughter was baptized there - it was a lovely ceremony.

I reassessed every belief I had. I realized I needed to figure out what I believed for myself. My belief system changed a lot, including a recognition of both a male and female aspect of God. I believe God is both and at the same time neither. This was a big change for me.

This year I planted a Mary garden to honor the female aspect of God, and I bought a cross necklace to help me contemplate the male aspect.

TWI's big selling point is that you can have "The More Abundant Life"... but they thrive on putting people in uncomfortable situations and generally making them uncomfortable physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Especially those who have made a commitment: Way Disciple, WOW, Way Corps, Staff, Fellow Laborers, heck, even FELLOWSHIP COORDINATORS and class crews!

I guess the idea is that the more you make yourself uncomfortable, the more you grow?

Sleep deprivation, not having financial needs met, forced witnessing to family, friends, coworkers, and random people at malls (not to mention knocking on strangers' doors) doesn't sound like the more abundant life to me!

How about being Staff and being forced to live in a DORMITORY with a ROOMATE and COMMUNAL SHOWERS?

or

Being Way Disciple and moving to a new area to "move the word" with a bunch of strangers you share a house/apartment with, most of whom only brought the required couple of hundred dollars to live off of?

Yeah, being uncomfortable is just the way of life in The Way.

Oh well - yanno,.... even if it had meant that neighbor = household..... Jesus said "love your enemies"...

For the Way, that probably means, "Love your enemies...in the household."

That's the exact teaching I heard on the verse!!!

I will miss you, Gen!! And you're right - I can't avoid the c word with this family! I realized today that they wouldn't be asking if they hadn't accepted me into the family. They are a lot more polite to outsiders!

Thanks for the advice, all! I will take it all into consideration - and lots of good advice for anybody else out there who might be having the same issues.

I should probably also clarify - my husband's parents are very supportive and understanding. I am so thankful to have them around, because they have really taught me what being a part of a real family is all about (no offense, mom, if you are reading this - you know what I am talking about.) My family was in twi from the time I was around 12 or so, and before that there was a major divide between my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc... My parents were hippies and had major differences with their families. After my parents were kicked out of the WC and put on probation they kicked one of my teenage siblings out of the house under the advice from their BC. He lived under a bridge and somehow made it through highschool. I thought rifts like this were normal. They aren't. Families are supposed to be tight, are supposed to be understanding. I really get that now.

(Wow, that was pretty hard to type. Thought I was over that...)

Anyway, my mom and dad in law are fantastic people and have helped me a lot with getting my head straight about twi. Talk about unconditional LOVE! They have it in abundance!

The ones who are asking questions now are from the extended family - my husband's cousins and aunts and uncles (he has a LOT of them)... they all grew up together, so it's more like they are brothers and sisters than cousins, so the intrusiveness is a lot more like being hassled by your siblings. And yes, they can be a bit direct at times.

Are you sure they all know about TWI? I didn't know anything about it until recently.

Trust me, there are no boundaries in this family... they know.

Yeah, I think honesty is the best policy with this group!