Kevlar2000

Groucho and Dot, Congratulations to the both of you! This is happy news indeed!

"The bottom line is this. I lay down for no one. I surrender to no one. I stand for my Lord Jesus Christ and I stand for God. I plan on speaking to the whole city wherever it is and uprooting the devil's kingdom myself and I will step on anyone and anything that gets in my way. So who's with me? Who wants to join the fight? Who wants to help the people? We're going to let them walk on our feet until they can walk on their own. Nurture them up in the word and love them. It’s a matter of spiritual life and death. For some, it’s a matter of physical life and death. We have what they need and we should be giving it to them. So who’s with me?" In one sentence they talk about standing for Jesus Christ and God, and in the next, they will uproot the devil's kingdom and they will step on anyone and anything that gets in their way. Once again, another ministry in which it's all about them and not really about God or Jesus Christ. Another group that's better, smarter and holier than anyone else. Another group that just doesn't give a dang about anyone else, just promoting their narrow mindset. You really want to help the people? STFU and start listening for a change.

Let's see - hitchhiked a number of times as a WOW because I didn't have a car. Only one semi-creepy driver (some sort of clergy - why am I not surprised? ). Hitched with another person from Baltimore to Emporia for the Advanced Class 1978. Our ride out there had suddenly cancelled, and my car would not have made it out there. Left Thursday night and got there either Saturday or Sunday morning (can't remember which anymore). Pretty much got back-to-back rides with fairly nice (and sometimes colorful) people. Ironically (or maybe not so much), I was more blessed by the hitching out and the person with whom I was hitching than the stuff I was exposed to in the Advanced Class.

Happy Anniversary Greasespot Cafe!

You can put new words to an old melody. You can use old words with a new melody. You can even change some words to an old song and melody to fit your theology. But you generally can't change some words to an old song and melody to fit your theology, put them in a songbook without attribution and sell it without the permission of the songwriter. Unless the words and music are so old they're in the public domain. Even so, to do so without attribution is to pretend you wrote it. It's dishonest. Conduct unbecoming an organization purportedly holding God's Word to the highest standard. I never saw much in the way of hymn-writing abilities evidenced during my sojourn with TWI. I don't know if it's because the talent and abilities for that kind of thing weren't there, or (as I mostly suspect) they were squelched by Mr. Wierwille et al. TWI had a real propensity for belittling what they couldn't understand or appreciate within the narrow confines of their theology or world experience.

Probably because those were the best days of his life, and everything's been downhill ever since.

OMG! Funny as hell and well done! LOL

Weren't there more graduates of the first way corps (not counting the original "zero" corps)?

It works pretty well on my Droid phone. Thanks GT!

500,000 posts at Greasespot? I would be surprised there aren't more than that.

I remember seeing "ads" in the Way Magazine saying, "Remember the Way in your will." I thought it was fairly creepy, even through my WayBrained haze. ------------------------ To start and promote a "Christian" service like elder care with the ulterior motive of reaping financial rewards instead of providing a blessing to their congregation is beyond unethical. I would suspect the level of service given would be in mind to keeping as much of the money given as possible, instead of taking excellent care of their elders in their declining years. Sounds like it's time to start looking for a new church. :blink:

You've got to be kidding me! And I thought I had heard it all! Guess not!

You know, it seems like TWI and other similar groups have adopted the motto, "Polyester Forever!". Their rationale must be, "My clothes don't need to breathe as long as I do." Well, yeah, cuz it still rocks!

Just try not to "manifest" all over everyone. ;)

You know, no one whose sole business and means of employment is biblical research and/or teaching and/or fellowship is going to include in their mission statement, "Some parts of the Bible might be complete and utter horse$h!t. Caveat emptor." They will spend the rest of their careers (if not their lives) making sure the "Word" fits like a schvantz in a vise.

Forget what? :wacko: Oh yeah...

Wow. I read that stuff, and I can almost remember which class I heard it in. I guess I could go look in my boxes of Way syllabi to check it out... Or I could try to put Christmas antlers on my ex's cat. Both potentially painful and pointless experiences. Well, not the cat thing, necessarily.

Really? Steadily risen? By how much? Does TWI publish this information? I don't see it on their website. After all, they must know at least how many persons send "abundant sharings" through their household fellowships, so that would have to be the minimum number of "active followers". Or is this just conjecture on your part?

You know, a number of things jump out at me in reading Mr. Lynn's email, besides its verbosity, the immensely self-serving tone and the "call to arms" to overthrow the STFI board of directors: - The number of times he says he founded the group. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought he was a co-founder (along with S^e Pi*rce and R^lph Dub0fsk>- and others). Maybe in his mind those others are "cop-outs" and not worthy of mention. - If he believes he should be compensated for founding and leading the group as a chief spokesperson and past president, then bugger 1 Corinthians; ask for it, and if they don't give it to him, sue them for it. Otherwise why even bring it up? - The obvious attempt to link himself in people's minds with Martin Luther, the "point man" of the Protestant Reformation. Perhaps he believes he'll be at the forefront of a new "Reformation" of STFI. Just remember - Martin Luther wasn't all that successful in reforming the Roman Catholic church, and the movement took sort of a different direction. Position and power. And how money provides the means and method to those ends. That's what it's all about. You know, this is (at least) the second group with whom Mr. Lynn has been associated in a position of prominence and authority. Both have gone down the blighted path to the land of "epic fail". If I were him, I would think about what role I had in the failure of those groups. I would consider not joining, forming or "re-forming" any groups in the future. Maybe take some time just to travel, enjoy renewing his relationship with his wife, and visiting with friends and family.

Hi, Skyrider, Linda Z is correct; it was 1972. Or thereabouts; I no longer have the letter, and I'm no longer sure of the exact date - it might have been 1973 when I got that stuff. In all the years I was "in", I've never heard of anyone else receiving that letter and materials, and am wondering if I was "targeted" somehow because of my interest in music. Of course, I didn't go around asking, either.

I received a very similar letter from Mr. Wierwille within a year of my taking the PFAL class (1972). The tone was a little different, though. He wrote about how the Adversary had really attacked the Way through the music ministry, and he needed our help in bailing it out, essentially. He had sent 4 record albums with the letter; two of Pressed Down, Shaken Together and Running Over, and two of Selah. In the letter he asked us to either sell or give away the albums and send him $20 ($5 per album). I ended up giving away the albums, and not sending any money for it. I was a little shocked and offended at the entire thing. I had just recently finished his class which taught me we were more than conquerors in every situation, that we were to go boldly to God for our requests, believing He would be our sufficiency, and then I get a letter with unsolicited material begging me to send money to TWI. I never felt it was my obligation to send money for this, especially given the begging tone of the letter, and the albums were not requested by me. I notice, though, that the tone of the begging changed from the letter that I got to the WOW auditorium letter. It went from, "Hey, please help us out over this rough spot" to "It's your fault finances aren't going well for us (or you), and you're in poor health because you don't send us enough money, so send us money and things will get better (and we can build our auditorium, which you had no input into having built in the first place)". I must have been "stupider than stupid" to have missed all the red flags over the years. Man, I hope I'm a little smarter now. (Note: bolded, underlined and italicized words are my emphasis)

:)

Hope it's a real good one for you!

The old times. The old days. I would find it hard to believe that anything concerning the Way International resembles "the old times". It certainly would not resemble its incarnation from the 1950s and 1960s. I think most people who went through the PFAL class back then were older and saw Wierwille's organization and class as possibly interesting and intriguing, but not anything to which they were going to alter their basic lifestyle. Certainly nothing in which they would devote their lives, their money or their free will. From the few folks I've spoken with who took Wierwille's class in the early-to-mid 1960s, they viewed the PFAL class much as we would view a college class; they took it once, then felt free to do what the class implied to them - use the keys to interpret the Bible themselves, not waiting for Victor Wierwille to further explain it to them It certainly does not resemble the 1970s. People floated in and out of the "Twig" fellowships as they pleased, and took the PFAL class (or not) as they pleased. Unless you were part of a formal program (WOW Ambassadors, Way Homes, Way Corps, Fellow Laborers, etc.), you did pretty much as you pleased. If you felt like attending someone else's fellowship for a while (or permanently), you generally didn't encounter a lot of static. You didn't have to let "leadership" know if you were going on a trip, or going to visit your family, or, really, going to do anything. (Of course, there were always various attempts at controlling behavior by various individuals, but I'm speaking generally.) It was the 1980s when attempts at controlling and enforcing TWI edicts among the "general believer population" became more pronounced, culminating in the Martindale letter to the clergy in 1989 (?). Coincidentally, that's the decade I ended my affiliation with TWI (as so many others did, also). From what I've read on Waydale, Greasespot and other forums, the insane attempts at control became more evident into the 1990s and 2000s. Even though L. Craig Martindale is no longer the chief dogmatic and mouth-foamer at the Way, it sounds like most of the policies are still in force, though not as overtly enforced. And, perhaps most importantly, TWI no longer has any kind of "charismatic leader" to center their "believing images of victory" around. No cultleader of personality claiming (either implicitly or explicitly) to have a real strong "connection to God" to center their renewed mind around. So, exactly what "old times" are they referring to?