OldSkool

....ed off enough is about right. I'm surprised the whole mona-vie fiasco didn't reach GSC last year. Long and short of it is l*nd@r started selling mona-vie to folks at HQ. R*s@lie flipped. Her and others went on a witch hunt. I should start a new thread on this. Will do later tonight. Stand by..

To say hi to Linder et al.

He gets paid to come here. They are crazy enough to suspect that someone may post some harmful intent concerning the prez (their unofficial WOG). He does some secret service type missions for those yay-hoos as part of his job. It's crazy that the BOD's egos are so big that they really believe that they are standing in the gap up there in their cornfield for all us ignorant unbelievers by keeping the adversary at bay with their uber-believing. And yes, they are that paranoid and have been for years. Frankly I find them quite insignificant in the scheme of things. Funny how being abusive to people for years, in the name of the Lord, seems to generate an extreme paranoia. Uhh...guilty conscience maybe?

did I just hijack my own thread...lol...j/k.

You'll find most are here for much the same reasons.

Strangers who have never had affiliation with TWI just wonder why you put up with it so long.

Enjoy getting your mind straight!

For me a couple of the reasons I put up with it for so long was I really thought TWI had a bead on the truth. As if what they taught could not be found anywhere else. I thought no one had the store house of truth TWI does. I even told my self, because of the abuses, that if there were somewhere else to go that taught the truth I would go there.

Another reason was I thought I could change things. As if to say that TWI doctrine was all true and only the practices were skewed.

I've had to face the fact that I was manipulated and controlled by the power structure in TWI. Of course they would deny such things. Have the blind that led the blind ever really known where they were going?

I have lurked here a long time. When I was in TWI I thought some of the posts were informative but I mostly thought that people needed to "get over it" and move on. Funny how one's view point can do a one eighty.

First let's start with the "get over it" part. I think I formed this view from cliches I learned in TWI like "you will stay hurt as long as you want to". Yikes! Doesn't this sort philosophy deny a person the process of dealing with their emotions? I mean after all, God gave us the emotions in the first place. Dealing with emotions is detailed in the Old Testament so many times. Anger and distress? Let's rent the mantle. Grief? Let's sit in sack cloth and ashes. What would others do to help? in Job's case his friends showed up and sat with him for seven days without saying a word. (Ya, I know - they attacked him later) David, and others, poured out their hearts in prayer. In those same prayers they even complained at times and probably expressed what TWI would consider "negative confessions" in their prayers! I believe these are examples of healthy processes of dealing with one's emotions.

Now, TWI thinks they can come along and say we stay hurt as long as we want to? I wish emotions worked that way. Like I could just turn them off. Not dealing with emotions is VERY unhealthy. I'm here cause I totally immersed myself in TWI's subculture, classes, programs, positions of service - everything the ministry had to offer. Now that I am out and living a "new" life I have come to realize that my relationship with God and Jesus Christ had been hi-jacked by an organization that set themselves in place of Christ as the head of the Body. So, I'm a little upset at the matter. I am also very upset by how I was treated in the last year and a half of my involvement. I need to deal with some of these things.

Why do that in a public forum? Three reasons. 1) Support from others who have been through similar experiences. 2) This is my way of holding TWI accountable for their hypocritical, ungodly practices. 3) Leave a warning sign for other's who are considering TWI as their home.

Why are you posting here?

OMG---ROFL! I didn't even catch the way ugly thing when I typed it. And, yep that's about the size of it.

I lurked for so long cause I was Way Corps and thought I could change things eventually.

Well, who is calling the shots on the B.O.D, you ask??., lemme tell you exactly who that is. R@s-a-lie and her silent partner, the perpetual wife of the president, D*nn@. The rest of the BOD, and Pres Cab. for that matter, don't move on anything significant without consulting with the prez first, or their director, who consults the pres for them. They dare not disagree in any meaningful way either. Prez and wife of prez are REAL close too. You would see prez leaving wife of prez apartment in Fndrs Hall in the middle of the afternoon many times. But make no mistake those two call the shots and have been since before Cr@ig was fired. Sorry I took a turn here. But it was mentioned.

The hypocrisy is what trips me out. They have a little blurb in the Way Mag about what the way is. They put it in song a couple years ago - a really bad song. I think I can remember part of it. "The way is a fellowship of the followers of the lord Jesus Christ, who freely avail themselves for..." I'm starting to quiver reciting that. Anyways, whatever happened to "freely avail". They talk about free will and swear up and down they don't coerce anyone but then they have their Staff do an attendance list each week.

It's coercion plain and simple. You have to make grown people, many of them in their 50, 60, and possible 70 check an attendance sheet. All the while the Staff handbook says "encouraged to attend". So your product is so good that you have to make people attend. I've heard this type of question before to handle matters like this when people didn't want to attend. "Well, why wouldn't you want to goto the service? Don't you want to hear God's Word?" AGGGH! That has to be some of the lamest reasoning ever. It leads you to condemn anyone who wouldn't wanna go. I would almost imagine someone could muster up a court case for the checklist / report attendance to the pres and chairman of the bod. It sure gives you the impression that you better go cause big sister is checking to make sure you were there.

Interesting...plus it looks like an ad for CFF ministry.

Ya, I thought so to. I haven't been able to find out too much about CFF. Using the search feature here turns up some older posts. Anyone got the skinny on them?

I'm all ears!

I'll take some time to do that. Just left in Aug 2008. But let me tell you I saw the BOD true colors and it was way ugly.

Welcome!

First slice is on the house.

Thanks! I just made my second post and can say it was like the first large crack in a dam that is about to burst. I got LOTS to say...Ros/Don not gonna be 2 happy with me...lol

I have spent some time looking over old STS / Way Mag and can say that now they just suck. After Cr@ig was booted around 2000 they came out with this cookie cutter approach for teaching in these two forums. From that time until I left TWI in 2008 STS / Way Mags have been just incredibly boring. Now, I have many doctrinal differences with TWI at this point. But at least teach me error in an excited, charismatic fashion...Im kidding about the error part. But these two teaching outlets were emasculated shortly after Ros/Don became pres. I mean in an obnoxious fashion. I mean it's lame, boring, dry white toast that barely gets into the scriptures at all. What's up with that?

To make matters worse they still coerce the Staff at HQ to attend the service. The handbook says Staff are encouraged to attend. In practice all of the departments take attendance and report it to their Pres. Cab. who report it to their director who report it to the pres. If you didn't go you need to report that you have made up the teaching before the following Sunday. Here's where it gets comical. Staff numbers have been thin around there for a few years. With all the Staff needed to put on an STS you can barely fill up the first three rows in the PWA. I mean the center section too. So they started scheduling areas from around the country to fill up the seats. There is usually a branch/limb scheduled to attend. It's pretty sad they have to make the Staff go and then bring people in from the Way of the USA to fill the seats. Still they only fill up about half the lower level. You only see the upper level open on Pentecost and Anniversary STS. Oh, the reason the Staff have to attend is because they "compete at the highest level of the spiritual competition". No kidding - that is in the staff handbook. Anyway, their product is so inspiring that they have to coerce and corral people in to hear it. One would think they would figure out how lame the presentation is and change it.

Hi,

I'm new here and wanted to introduce myself. I've lurked GSC 5 years or more. I left TWI little over a year ago and am so incredibly happy to be OUT of there. Picking up the pieces has been tougher than I thought it would be. So, maybe I'll start posting some of my experiences soon.