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Rough recollections-history and overview of TWI.


WordWolf
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WHEN was it $200, and roughly how long?

WordWolf,

VPW did initiate this 200 buck sign up. I do not know the dates and months and hours and minutes, but there must be more than me that experienced this bump in sales price PFAL directed by VPW~~~ otherwise I am living in a fkn fantasy of bs!

i was only involved TWInty years

do you recall any selling Way Books door to door?

Kewl WW

That memory is just that and i can not offer any more, wish i could and i am also interested that memory oh me mine!!!

Rok Howl On

Song

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Yeah, the book sales TSRTS. There was a guy, nice guy, can't remember the name - Gary? He'd put together a door to door sales program himself one year. He bought the books from the Way, sold them door to door and made a buck or so, not much as I recall. But it was a combo witness and sales thing. Entre' to people and a great way to move the books. What's not to like, right? All I remember is he was brought in to talk about his idea to the corps at one point, and it was laid out as a possible way to "move the Word". Some people tried it, for a bit it was the hot topic. I think he had a little business going for awhile. In essence, not a terrible way to make a buck although I don't think a lot of bucks were made from the idea. It didn't really embed itself though as I recall.

This happened with various ideas all the time. Like the PFAL "public ex" meetings, and the orientation meetings. Someone would figure something out, like hey let's get everyone that's coming in to the class together for a semi-formal prep meeting to make sure everything's set for everyone. Hey, that worked great! Then it would get trucked out the following year as the latest Hot Thing and ground in to a program. Rules would follow. "Guidelines". Expectations. Punishment for non-performance, glorious rewards and advancement for the successful. All because someone decided one time to have cookies instead of cake at class break or lay out the songbooks to the right instead of the left or something.

Class costs - 25 bucks when I took it. 50 if you wanted all the books, PFAL, RTHST and the "collaterals", a gazillion little pocket sized booklets. It got up to 200 bucks at some point in the 80's.

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Jerry Jacks. His name was Jerry Jacks. He sold Way Books door to door and you can blame HIM for the door-to-door witnessing program.

Biggest brown-noser in the Bookstore, and now in charge of the entire operation at HQ.

His tapes on introducing door to door to The Way Corps / Way of Indiana are up on Ebay, BTW.

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That's it! Thanks Catcup. I remember Jerry now. He was tonsorially challenged before many of us. icon_biggrin.gif:D--> I never took the thing seriously, there were always flavor-of-the-year things like that. Steed, books. Something or other.

But I should talk. "Wanna buy an album?" icon_razz.gif:P-->

Door to door - one year I got our fellowship together and got out a map of the town we were in and started talking about "W.O.W." What's that? How do I know when we get there? Is it a commission or a goal? Waddizdat? I"d been "thinking" about the whole WOW thing since the 70's but it was getting harder and harder to actually discuss the topic. Just sign 'em up and shut up, please.

So we started going door to door, and had fun. The idea was, we'll try it, and if it sucks we'll stop.

No one, including me, was thrilled about marching up to someone's door and interrupting them watching Starsky and Hutch, god forbid, but we figured it might be fun. AND the side benefit - we'd mark off the streets on the map as we went. Yellow marker lines all over that baby. At some point if we continued, we'd have every street covered. So at least we'd have some sense of accomplishment, much needed in the early 80's as the Way Tree bureaucracy was being taken over by briefcase toting mooks. So we had something that was measurable and doable. It was an experiment. Maybe if we actually went out and talked to people in a way that allowed for us to meet people, that'd be a step towards understanding what we were really trying to do ... which was, what was that ... ?

Door to door wasn't ideal, but it was a brief start for us to see what we wanted to do.

We covered most of the town. It was a lot of fun, met some people along the way that were really nice, had adventures, exploits. Y'know, we were gettin' 'er done! icon_biggrin.gif:D--> After the first night we tried it I was ready to put it to a vote - continue or not? Everyone was too busy buzzing about who they'd met, what they'd talked about and their own plans to get back together with people that it was obvious, we'll give it a shot for awhile. So we did.

For a couple months it had a life of it's own. I never mentioned it to the Area coordinator where we lived, he heard about it from other people. At first he was for it, and people were getting all scared yikes! we'll have tod do it next! Soon enough he was making cracks about us - "We need to witness but it's not like we have to go door to door every night!"

Which was typical. We didn't go every night, and we didn't even go every week after awhile. It evolved into something else on it's own. At no time was anyone coerced to do it. We joked about our own feelings about doing it, for gods sake. But it was in sharp contrast to the sit-on-your-*** attitude of Way tree leadership who usually had "Mangement Ministries" devoted to planning everyone else's lives, as opposed to "Get Out and Actually Do Something" ministries.

-------------------- pea s

tbe word a$$ was a$$stricked out by the board, thank goodness, I went nutz there for a minute. Sorry, buut that kind of fowl language is for the birds and I'm glad it got marked out. I lost my mynd for a sec.

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Well, I guess I'll make my contribution to the remebering ancient history thread....

Both times I went Lightbearers the class cost 200 buckeroos. Let's see, that would've been 1980 and 1982. Not a good deal for us at the time. icon_smile.gif:)-->

Jerry was also in the 10th, and I'm just wondering how many signees he got on Lightbearers? A couple of times, he almost got lynched while at Emporia, doing his door-to-door speal.... icon_smile.gif:)--> I remember thinking the aliens had indeed landed and populated Planet Way World....but heck, what did I know?

Ah, memories....... icon_smile.gif:)--> icon_smile.gif:)--> icon_smile.gif:)-->

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Class Mammon Trivia - the 1972 WOW program introduced a class "rebate" program. That year for a couple months, if you signed someone up for the class, you got 20 bucks back. Cash money, to the WOW that registered the person. Experiment. Try it out. See if it floats. Didn't float.

Although not always promoted, PFAL had a money-back garawntee. If you weren't fully satisfied, you get your money back. Just ask. If you're not happy, we don't want it. Anyone remember that? I gave a refund once and the reaction from the limb was - you'd have thought it was like Peter asking Judas for a loan. But it was, in fact, the policy.

I did a PFAL Public Ex once. VPW showed up and did about 20 minutes, he was on the road, was in town, showed up. As he was going through and talking about registering he leaned over to a guy in the front row and said "And sir, if you're not 100% satisfied with the answers you receive in this class, you can have your money back. That's YOUR satsifaction, sir. If you're not, you'll get your money back".

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The class went up to 200 bucks when they made the move to include the intermediate class with the foundational. A disastrous decision in my opinion, as most new students were not fully indoctrinated into waythink to the point where they could speil off 'interpretations' of tongues yet. Very uncomfortable classe

It also cracked me up that the rationale for the price boost was that if they charged what it was REALLY worth, they'd be charging thousands of dollars, so the class is practically a give away at 200 bucks.

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  • 1 year later...

shazdancer:

From TWI's own memorial brochure, made available at the Rock of Ages, 1985:

-Dec. 31, 1916 VPW born

-July 2, 1937 Wierwille marries Dorothea Kipp (ages 20 and 21)<LI>

BA from Lakeland College

-1940 Donald born

-1941 Bachelor of Theology from Lakeland;

Masters from Princeton Theological;

starts first pastorate (July);

ordained (July 29)

-1942 Karen born;

"snow on the gas pumps" (early fall);

first radio broadcast (Oct. 3)

-1944 second pastorate;

Mary Ellen born

-1947 Chimes Hour Youth Caravan

-1948 Pikes Peak "doctorate

-1951 VPW visits missionaries in Honduras;

VPW led into tongues by J. E. Stiles

-1953 first edition of Receiving the Holy Spirit Today,

first PFAL class

-1954 Pillai takes PFAL, teaches Orientalisms

-1955 JP born (July);

ministry becomes The Way, Inc.

September-April,

-1955-56 Wierwilles (minus JP) travel to Great Britain, Europe, India, and the Bible Lands

Dilemma of Foreign Missions in India published

-1957 Sara born (July);

VPW resigns from denomination

=======

shazdancer':

-1961 The Way, Inc. moves to the Wierwille farm

-1962 first summer school in the new BRC

-1967 Are the Dead Alive Now? published; PFAL filmed

-1968 VPW goes to Haight-Ashbury

-1969 first Way Corps

-1971 WOW ambassador program begins;

the PFAL book and Vols 1-3 are published

-1974 Way C of E bought

-1975 Jesus Christ is Not God published

-1976 Rome City and Gunnison campuses bought

-1977 Live PFAL taught at Ball State U.;

HEW and HRA installed as new BOT;

Vol. 4 published

-1978 LEAD property bought

-1979 Advanced Class '79

-1980 Jesus Christ our Passover published

-1982 Fortieth Anniversary celebration;

LCM installed as new president;

Jesus Christ our Promised Seed published

-1984 live PFAL in Gunnison; Gartmore dedicated

-1985 WOW Auditorium opens;

Vol. 5 published;

VPW dies May 20, age 68

"Mike":

An addendum to the above list:

the item that reads

"WOW ambassador program begins;

the PFAL book and Vols 1-3 are published" occured in 1971.

"shazdancer":

I noticed a couple of things just from looking at the dates:

1.) Wierwille was only 24 years old when he started as a pastor.

Then after only one year, he is disillusioned about not being able

to help people (according to the pamphlet).

He spends one whole summer :rolleyes: studying the Bible

after Rosalind Rinker's challenge, then sees snow on the gas pumps.

Hmm... sounds more like lazy than revelation!

2.) Mrs. Wierwille had given birth just two months

before VPW took her and the older children to India and elsewhere for a year.

She should barely have recovered from the birth.

They left JP with relatives for the baby's crucial first year of life.

Not exactly a sterling example of Christian parenting.

3.) The 40th Anniversary celebration was not for the 40th year

of The Way, nor of PFAL. It was 40 years since the snow on the gas pumps

story supposedly happened.

(Clarification by Catcup -- TWI counts its anniversary

from the first Vesper Chimes Hour radio broadcast,

also in 1942, also 11 years before the first PFAL Class. Thanks, Catcup!)

Sure makes it sound like TWI was well-established to say it that way, though, huh?

===========

Sites with some history of twi...

http://www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/cultsthe.htm

http://www.watchman.org/profile/waypro.htm

http://www.excultworld.com/twi.htm

Edited by WordWolf
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Ok, let's see....

Continuing on from vpw's death,

between 1985-1988 there were a few events.

-Schoenheit's Adultery paper

-Passing of the Patriarch presented

-a bunch of top guys- Ra1** Dub0v**y and J0hn Ly*n included- leave

was this when the "fog years" happened?

1989- lcm draws his line in the sand,

demanding allegiance.

80% of the current membership leaves,

including much of the Limb leaders and Corps

And what happened when in the 1990's?

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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Also, when was pfal $100, $200, and other<BR>prices? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I paid $80.00 in 1976.

When I took it at Indy in January 1976, it was $85 for the foundational, then $35 for the intermediate class. Shortly...well maybe it was after ROA...the two were combined and the combined class was $100...a discount of sorts.

I remember being at ROA...think it was 1978 at a corps meeting, maybe someone else around remembers better...when it was raised to $200 after a voice "vote" after VPW floated the idea.

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Well, some stuff from the ninties kind of blurrs together, but here is a timeline as I remember it.

1990--Leadership tapes/Galations tapes. At first only twig corrds and corps heard them. LCM's explanation for why so many left. Those ran around for a year or more-- I heard them twice.

Early nineties: Advanced class specials started to really be pushed. Lucky for me i was a nursing mom for years.

1993/94 Big get out of debt/mortagages are sin push. Being good wafers we sold our little, affordable house, and moved to the'hot' limb city where there was nothing in our price range, so I went back to work nights(but not twig--err, fellowship--nights). We had to quit running a twig at this point, and yay, got to pay capital gains tax on the sale of our house. We were incredibly poor for a while.

I think LCM received his big revvie of WOW around here.

1995, Last ROA. The homopurge, poor people purge etc all were in full effect around this time. ROA was a class--and there was truly no point for me and preschool kids to be there. WAP( though that might have been earlier, because I have few memories of WAP) Many people in the branch left or were kicked, all M&Aed.

Reproof, ugly reproof of the screaming variety, was common. Don't embarass your leadership is the lesson learned there! Because that's what really set them off--they got their bohunkis chewed by higher leaders.

1996-- began hearing horrible things about Way Corps, then mark and avoid really got going. Believers quit taking pictures of each other, cuz you just had to rip them up anyway.Many people we knew were on probation or Leave of Absence now.

Sometime around here--big money/budget business.Expected to tithe more than 10%

way Corps full time??? Can't remember. But we still cleaned and did yard work for the fukll time guys.

No longer offering Children's Fellowship at branch or Limb meetings.

1997 Big Announcement--LCM was making the WAP advanced class. Seems in fellowship we followed a guidline on teaching--one from wap class, one from Mag, one from tape EVERY WEEK. Boring.

Much talk of slothfulness and hardheartedness.

1998 Advanced class at HQ. WE had to go because we missed the others. Huge price tag( we had to have a motel for 2 weeks), exhausting to the brain material( nothing K.I.S.S. about this class), and the lovely song,"Wash your feet in the blood of the Wicked"

1999--two by two, schedules a week in advance, home inspections, budget inspections. Then, Y2K preparations, including a list of every item in your home, its location, and even your perscription meds. The thought of spending that much crisis time with current leadership made me feel physically ill. I suspected in a crisis, me and my kids would get the short stick."Why stay here in the big city," i plead to hubby. "Why not move back to my hometown. I'm related to mountain folk who chop wood, butcher their own elk, know where to ice fish and pick huckleberries. They even bow hunt. Make their own jerky. Plus, many firearms."

Even more control from leaders. We leave TWI. We eventually move to my hometown. We now make jerky.

April 2000 we hear about LCM stepping down for adultery.

edited for spilling.

Edited by Bramble
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I took the PFAL Class in June 1972, and it cost $65 ... the Intermediate Class was then taught as a seminar ($20) called Tongues, Interpretation, and Prophecy ... I took it in July 1972.

A friend of mine who had taken the PFAL Class in 1971 paid only $45 ...

During the 23.5 years I was in TWI, I saw the class move from $65 to $85 to $100 to $200 and then back to $100 or less ... each change in price had some "spiritual" reason behind it, as I recall.

Interestingly, the Advanced Class was $250 when I took it and stayed that way for many, many years ... what changed was the amount of money you paid to stay at either HQ or the Root locale at which it was held.

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Well, not sure anybody gives a flip anymore, but the charge for the class was jumped to $200.

the year I went W.O.W. the first time (1979-80).

Yeah, that made for a swell time. You think selling religion is a tough gig when it's $100.?

No, we never "got a class together" that year or the next time I went W.O.W. either.

My believing? Yeah, I 'spose. That musta been it...

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