chockfull

Mr. Lynn,

After 21 years, Momentus, and the stranger than fiction stories surrounding what you've researched leading to all of the personal prophecy "entertainment" in STFI, I would have to say that you and STFI are poster children for Jesus words "you can't put new wine in old wineskins". After your interpretation of the scriptures basically led to "catfight by prophecy", and "character assassination by prophecy", your credibility is at an all-time low among any who ever took PFAL. However, by your letter, it seems the one thing that hasn't suffered through all of this is the size of your ego and delusions of grandeur. Get a life, get a job, go back to school, and if you want to be a minister maybe you'll learn how to not fail.

In the language of the kids today,

You = Fail

Lucy,

That's a nice letter. You are a good friend. Great example.

-cf

Has anybody heard of it?

No, but that web site provides some pure entertainment!!! Look at the Blodgett's pages under the Wolves tab. It reads like Passing of the Patriarch meets the Unabomber, and gives an overview about what life is like running that outfit! You just can't make up fictional stuff that funny!

Of course you know CES is now STFI (Spirit and Truth Fellowship International).

They should expand their vision, though, and call it Spirit and Truth Fellowship Universal.

That way their initials would communicate better - STFU!

Beautiful!

Then they could have an offshoot that starts their own Research Teaching and Fellowship Ministry. Referred to as - drumroll - RTFM.

I can hear the conversations now. Where did you come from? STFU

What do you believe now? RTFM

When I rejected the "family" vs. "household" blatherings of TWI, it was amazing to me how much more I valued genuine Christian fellowship regardless of the doctrine or background of the Christians. I saw that it was I who had blinders on due to a condescending and judgemental attitude I carried towards brothers and sisters in Christ. They were not considered "household". Boy what a beam I needed to remove from my own eye.

Hi Everyone,

I'd appreciate any advice on ways to recover from all of the verbal abuse heaped on us. If ypu have a story to tell, I'd like to hear it.

Thanks,

finallyunderstand

To me the verbal abuse happened by words that had the power of perceived spiritual authority behind it. What I had to deal with mentally was coming to the conclusion that the spiritual authority was a false one, and was there by people climbing political ladders that were self serving as opposed to what God set up.

Secondly, I realized that as an American citizen I have freedoms that nobody can take away.

Thirdly, I realized that the only power these words had over me were what I allowed. So I made a decision to rightly judge these words as coming from deluded people, and rejected their authority over me.

Fourthly, I started building my own mental patterns, Biblical research, and relationships around the premise that the only authority I would allow to be over me is that which is genuinely from God. I had to change myself from habit patterns of being compliant to false spiritual authority. That was hard work and would have been much easier to ignore or avoid.

I feel more free today than ever before. I am totally convinced that which is truly from Christ produces the fruit of complete spiritual, mental, and emotional freedom.

I got another email from Bob today. He compared me excusing myself from the Way to the betrayal in a marriage. Sez that he stayed, it was rough, Craig is gone, he was a jerk, but once you have worked in a common cause with someone and they leave, the trust is gone.

I am going to sit on this for a day or two and allow God to work in me before I respond. Because whatever I say may be important to bringing some unity back in this situation. heart to heartwise. He did invite me to a Way fellowship, I just don't have the heart to tell him that the people that fellowship with the Way won't allow us in their home.

I don't know about you guys, but I didn't leave because the party got boring or I had to go to work, I decided on my own free will to not hang around a place that spews biblical platitudes and doesn't live what they believe. I mean what were we doing it for, I want rewards. This isn't a contest or a gang war, I want to get the prize. I am going to go God's way, if nobody follows.

In case you haven't noticed, this has turned into a vent. So just take it as that.

I think the most loving thing I can do for him right now, is to show him that I am still his sister, I still support him just like I always did and buy a CD. Money talks .... walks, right?

I did see a great bumper sticker ( I am trying real hard to not cry here, me and him were close. VP had given me a rose bud from the last time I saw him at Gunnison and at the time it meant a great deal, when he died, I took some petals and sent them to Bob.) we were tight.)

the bumper sticker says,

I am not in heat

Get away from my tail.

We shoulda had those around the Way leadership eh?

Thanks for letting me talk,

Lucy

Lucy,

He's brainwashed and can't see the truth. There's an element of truth in his analogy of excusing one's self from TWI being like betrayal in a marriage. It's just on the other side. Most licensed counselors equate spiritual abuse as very similar to emotional and even physical spousal abuse. So the betrayal in the marriage would be the one having the power and authority abusing the weaker like an abusive husband emotionally and physically abusing the wife.

You should tell him that. I hear he refused a request to go to HQ and be the new face of Way Prod. So he's not buying in to drinking all the kool aid even though he's acting like a jerk to you.

Plus I wonder.. how many details were placed in the hand of your overseer's overseer. How much debt one had, how many times and when one had sex with one's spouse, how much is in the bank, etc. etc.

Very personal information.

I wonder if as they were considered a counsellor or advisor in the organization, one could bring criminal charges against them for violating confidentiality. They had the organization's stamp of approval after all..

I'd like to see them argue that before a judge.. "well your honor, he had debt. Therefore, he was a danger to himself and others. We had to tell.."

I agree Java Jane, there seems there were two lockbox practices, one for the average follower, another for the mogster's sexual appetites and worse..

There definitely is a double standard. Whatever personal details you tell an overseer gets repeated all the way up to directors / trustees. However, whatever the top dawgs do or say is "lockbox".

Exactly .....beliefs I don't think he figured that he needed to list everyone , or that he could . the belief in the Bible as scriptural truth is a belief That means when John D.Schmitt said The right to believe is absolute. The right to act is subject to reasonable regulation. They are two separate things, belief of scriptural truth ( which is a belief) and actions are not one in the same. We absolutely have the right to believe and accept scriptural truth despite or regardless of any good or bad actions by the speaker. Actions of the speaker while subject to civil law as they should be ,do not however change the truth of scripture or earthly knowledge one can learn from their words into untruth.

Jesus dealt with this issue when confronting the Pharisees in Matt. 12:34 - O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

The difficulty presented by the Pharisees was that they had an appearance of goodness, and spoke words that sounded like truth. Yet their actions did not line up. What he was showing there was that in reality they were not speaking truth. The words they taught were tainted by leaven. It tainted the whole of what they taught. So he taught disciples to "beware" of this leaven. The Pharisees made up rules that protected themselves and caused their ailing parents to suffer.

Like this the teachings of VPW have to be viewed as tainted with leaven. With the same heart that he performed acts of sexual predation he prepared teachings, classes, research.

Can you remove the leaven out of bread? Take the little piece out that was tainted? No, as it spreads throughout the whole loaf, and you're unable to determine which section is leavened and which section is not.

VPW's teachings are of a similar sort. Like the leaven of the Pharisees, you can't remove the leaven out of his classes, teachings, research. The loaf has been leavened. If you want unleavened bread, the only solution is to throw out the loaf and bake a new loaf.

Unfortunately what you see with many of the offshoots is that instead of throwing out the loaf, they keep it and start a ministry around it, only changing the "behavior" to be more godly. Therefore what they attract is those who are accustomed to a leavened diet, as opposed to the unsaved, the untrained Christian, the pure soul in need of instruction. It just doesn't work.

There once was a loud screaming Okie

Who almost got thrown in the pokey

With him out of the way

And his ex a bit gay

Now they all wink and say "Okey Dokey"

Please forgive the crude humor in advance. I'm in a mood today.

I was thinking instead of changing the inscription on the tombstone, we could just leave it as it is.

Except we could carve the picture of a very small penis right under it.....

Waysider,

Its illegal to upload copyrighted material to Youtube as well. I have posted songs by TWI groups here in the past but am Leary to do so now. Any other ideas as to how to do it??

sudo

Youtube's enforcement policy is to remove any material that an organization complains is posted in violation of copyright laws. That is how they legally protect themselves with copyright issues. There is a recourse to any copyright owner to prevent infringement, get items removed, and prevent damages.

What does this mean? That someone trying to take legal action against a copyright infringer in addition to bridging the gap of problems in enforcement due to jurisdiction for this kind of thing would also have the weaker position that to avoid damages all they had to do is send a note to Youtube.

Here's an interesting link that describes courses of action if you have a clear owner of a website posting copyright violations on their website:

http://www.marketingdock.com/copyrights/de...nfringement.php

As far as songs go, LimeWire is a good option...

What's going on in Gunnison? We were going to rent a bus, fill it with alchohol, and go on a road trip over that way seeing what kind of young and defenseless women we could find with sketchy psychological histories that we could convince to have sex with using roofies.

slap...slap.... "stop it".

Boy I just hate it when the flaming head of VPW appears and starts typing on my keyboard.

;)

That section where it says that "with their lips they do worship me but their heart is far from me..."

If that doesn't describe RFR and her ilk - what does?

Does this statement tie in to the "Her Holy Hermaphrodites" thread? Becuase I must tell you I just got this "ewwwwwwwwwww" feeling.

I really don't want to know about what RFR does with her lips.

don wierwille got his PhD. in education while he was at wc of emporia serving as the "dean" there..............thus, he was already "a part of his father's ministry" while he studied for and obtained his doctorate............certainly NOT "only later"!...........that's one of the reasons geer quoted vic in pop as stating that he "bought don's PhD." with twi money...............that's the facts, jack!................peace.

As a matter of fact, Don's PhD thesis was on the rennovation of the WC of Emporia from an old almost extinct college to the "new" TWI college.

No I understood what he said exactly nor do I doubt that they attempted such threats. I just can't figure out why someone would be dumb enough to do what they told them if it made no sense, and second especially if they were removing you from the grounds. I most likely would not have had time to pack either , I'd have been to busy on the floor laughing at their powerless threats. Me I would have found the first space available three feet off grounds to reside and sent them postcards every day just to let them know they had Zero power over where I lived.

They once tried that same logic with me they tried to tell me where and who I could write checks to on my Credit Union account. After again picking myself up off the floor from laughter I made it a point to write enough checks to keep the account current to every exway person that I could think of. They tried to close the account twice , mailing me a check which I refused, having worked in the banking industry I simply called the Ohio Credit Union Board and made them reopen the account which they closed illegally. I know it burned their butt having to process checks to People like John Towns*nd, Chris G**r, Walter C*mm*ns. D*ug S*ed, Vince F*nn*gan and a host of others. They wanted a war and got one. If a Limb leader was dumb enough to resign without having his stuff in order then that's his problem. He should have known better being in that level of the loop.

Exactly my point Oak as usual you got it. If your foolish enough to roll over for them then own your decision you can't really blame them for your choice.

You know WD I think I'm finally starting to get you a little. Yes, absolutely we own our responses to the situations we were in. There are huge numbers of mitigating circumstances and offenses and horribly gross mistreatment, but ultimately we are responsible for the only thing we can be responsible for. Our response to the situations. You are absolutely right in questioning where it exactly was that we started allowing the empty threats of the loss of foolish things to control our responses. I certainly did allow that, and openly admit it. We can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond.

I can only say that in my own mind, I bought into the lies that they introduced the fear with. I was played because I allowed it. I can certainly see how it was accomplished - very subtly, with the balance of threats of losing what I had built over decades, with control through insinuations, but ultimately it is my fault. And in owning that I think I am a little bit stronger and a little bit wiser, and am building the strength to not allow it to happen again.

I applaud your efforts with the Way Credit Union.

You know I think many times I get thrown off by your statements because they come off like you are a cold heartless b@st@rd. Maybe you are. Maybe you have a healthy balanced accountable viewpoint. Maybe a little of both. I'd like to strive to develop strong accountable believing as well as compassion. To each his / her own.

Exactly. We were manipulated.

Bottom line, we may have been led astray... maybe we should have been smarter, less willing to let people walk on us... But I think God is probably angry at the ones who hurt His children in His name and not at His children who are or were in need of healing.

After all,

Matthew 18:6 KJV But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Absolutely. These people will reap what they have sown, or otherwise, as the verse states, God would be mocked. And He may be for a time, but not when all the cards are on the table.

At it's best it was authentic, an honest effort by those involved to express what they felt and believed. BS? Plenty of that, more than you can imagine. It goes with the territory too.

The more these kinds of efforts fell to be planned and orchestrated by those outside the immediate effort, non-musicians, "leaders" and the like, the more it sucked. Offering the opportunity and capacity to get people together and do and try some things - that was good. Working together - that was good. More and more it seemed like people with no vision, no talent and no compassion ran the thing. That was bad.

socks,

Awesome stuff, and it's inspiring hearing about what was a genuine grassroots movement. People can sense that kind of stuff deep in the heart, and that's what draws and attracts them. Quite a contrast to what the lifelessness of way prod went more and more towards over time.

The trait of "being nice to people" with vp in my opinion you have to look at within the overall perspective of his life and what he was trying to accomplish. He was trained in school as a pastor. He did know the duties involved there, with meeting with people and caring for them. He did this for families when many other men went off to fight in WW2. During the time most of us knew him, he was expanding his organization he founded into a worldwide organization. As such, and as common to founding CEO's of many companies, the "sales" mode is always on, as is communicating vision. Can you separate a man from that vision or that mode? It's hard. Were the motives "pure"? Well, within the confines of his vision, probably so. Did he genuinely care for people and show it beyond what they could do for him to help establish his vision? That's hard to determine, and we may never have an answer. Certainly he was a man consumed by his vision, so everything he did and everyone he interacted with was framed by that. The vision itself is what I question. If it was genuine and God-inspired, as opposed to egocentric and megalomaniac-like, why would you sexually abuse people, make political power plays, take the glory yourself, and act like an overall abusive jerk? The overall fruit of his life, and that of those who followed in his chief position footsteps is one of abuse, control, perversion of scriptures, using people to please himself.

So the real crux of it from my opinion is that the fruit defines the man. And you can't separate a person from the fruit they produce.

Maybe they just don't want to get into endless verbal arguments mean harassments and harangues by former friends who once loved them but now are corrupted with hate and venom against them?

Maybe they were on the way to their keyboard and tripped and fell, injuring their wrist. Maybe they decided to take up knitting. Maybe they found a heathen website to post on saving souls.

Maybe you are projecting.

_____________________________________________________________________

I know that many of you know more TWI history than I do.

I'm wondering if we have some folks on this site that could make a comparison between this TWI cover-up and other sexual cover-ups. I would like to see if we could develope a point by point comparison for our learning.

______________________________________________________________________

Comparison - sure thing, bubba!!! Here's a start:

praying for you guys.

That just makes me want to take out a black permanent magic marker and cross out the word "Promoting" and replace it with "Obscuring".

I personally think the account in PFAL was not a real account, but a parable type of account made up by VPW to prove his point. After all, VPW's expertise and his doctoral focus of study was homiletics. I'm certain he knew the best way to make an impacting point. A parable story is more impacting than straight teaching of the point.

If you bypass all the parable type rhetoric, and try to analyze that story literally there are plenty of holes in it. There's quite a disconnect in the story about the minister "giving his kids to God", and how TWI recommends overseeing children. Also, to think that a mother with a young child would allow them to be near a busy street allowing them to run out in the traffic is ludicrous. Assigning blame to someone in a grief-stricken environment is pathological (but actually commonly practiced in TWI).

He used a parable to make a point about fear and faith. There probably is some truth to the lesson, however, as many have pointed out that whole 'law of believing' stuff can really be taken easily over the top to be a glossed-over generalized religious mental exercise kind of like 'the secret', which is too over-simplified in how things really work to be effective.

This also starts to make me wonder about the Job account as taught by VPW. Was it really 'fear in Job's life' that allowed all his children to be killed? The 'hole in the hedge' theory? Or is Job rather an account of the reality of human life, kind of like what Ecclesiastes contains, and showing God's goodness to bless people as they go through life's struggles and cope with grief, loss, unkind public opinion?

The 'gifts' vs. 'manifestations' argument - here's a couple of points:

1) Gifts of healing is taught as a gift - each individual occurance of operating that manifestation is a gift. So at least for one of the 9, no dice in stating it's not a gift.

2) Christians mostly refer to 'gifts' as particular talents that Christians develop when walking in the spirit. So their usage of the word would more closely align with how TWI defines 'longsuits'. So what if it's a current usage, not a precise biblical usage? Except that they aren't as limiting on what constitutes a 'longsuit'. One could have a gift in painting, organizing, finances, almost unlimited the possibilities, and none of it focused on the mechanics of how God delivers them. TWI on the other hand - totally focused on the mechanics of the operation, and as such vastly limit the definition of 'longsuit'. How many of you in TWI for years ever figured out what your 'longsuit' is in the strict definition? Which one of the 9 are you best at operating? Do you know? If you're honest, probably not. Why? Because even in their definition of 'longsuit' a good deal of the latter part of I co 12 doesn't fit in. 'Longsuit' really isn't an accurate dividing of the word. It puts God in a box. God can energize people to develop great talent in many areas, and that's regardless of if they are completely aware of how precisely He energizes.

So making a huge distinction between BG Leonard and VPW RHST book - is a pharasaiac straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. If we look at how most Christians talk about 'gifts' as a more modern current usage as opposed to religiously judging them on gift/manifestation - maybe we have a lot more in common with normal Christians than we think. Maybe it could free us up to develop some more things in our lives.

What was suppose to be the big problem with it?

The representation of good music might present an unfair competition to the blandness of way productions?