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Interesting point. I would submit that TWI is actually NOT a church. Since leaving "the ministry," I was surprised to find out how common non-profit businesses are around here... Many organizations legally cook their books to qualify as 501c3's. One of the biggest 501C3 scams going on in the Dayton area, in my view, is charter schools. Schools have been popping up around here like weeds. They are owned largely by 501C3 corporations and a lot of them are located in any type of building a company can buy or rent space in. My son attends a great one, funded well enough that they bought land and built three buildings in the area. But. I'm personally aware of at least three that have failed in the past few years. People were charged criminally, & schools shut down cause the owner didn't do it right, skimmed too much $$'s without rolling enough into legit school programs (providing educational services to children). Word on the street here is to be very careful about what charter school you put your child in, cause the school might not be there next year! Another interesting parallel point. Being a city slicker, while living in New Knoxville I had no idea how farms worked as a business. Not that I'm now pretending to be an expert on how farm business financing works, but I was amazed to learn that basically farmers can farmers rely on cash flow of the farm to fund their family's needs, the family is sorta meshed into the business of the farm. Family is the employees, and farmer & wife take a salary from the farm's income. Things like the family vehicles are actually company cars for the farm. Utilities, etc, are accounts payable. I thought it was neat how the farm paid for their life-style and they needed the $$$'s from the harvest, or seasonal selling of animals, etc. As long as they can sell their crop at reasonable prices, on schedule tey ould be ok financiall. Plus. Their farms have reached a critical mass as a business that will fund itself for perpetuity. I lernt that them dumb ol' farm boys wuz pretty darn smart after all. They live comfortably, not extravagantly, but they never lack for the essentials. The bigger the farm, the "larger" the life-style. Lean harvest seasons only mean that they give up a little of the "extras." (A few less beers at the summer festivals - stuff like that.) Farms that run closer to the belt could be ruined by two or more years of low harvests, but that almost never happens here. For lots of folks around here in Dayton area, "entrepreneurs" try to find "something" they can do to make a substantial salary while operating a non profit. I used to be like "Why would you want to run a NON profit business?" Aha! They profit personally while the business "breaks even." - They live off of cash flow. Some don't even actively participate in the day to day function of the business. They simply take an executive level salary as CEO of the company that owns the business. They hire professionals to run the business and they "oversee" it. What would be profit at the end of the fiscal year, they roll back into the company's capital improvement fund for the company's needs. Too much $$'s? hire some staff, expand the business. Company needs vehicle(s) furniture, office space, telecommunications, etc. They drive a company car, get phones and internet service on corporate accounts, etc. A pretty sweet gig if you can swing it. Goal was to get it to a critical mass so it could sustain itself, and their extravagant life-style. TWI is NOT a church. I say this for a number of reasons. I attend a church... for 14 years. Lets do a non binding, unofficial, point by point comparison. Agree? or disagree, ok? My church actually has a membership role, of which I am a member. TWI says they have NO membership... followers are NOT members. Our members get a vote in every major decision ( ie. major purchases that the church makes.) TWI's non members get NO vote... in anything. My church publishes every dollar that the church brings in - every week - in the church bulletin. Every person (member or non) has free access to that information (last week we brought in $87 THOUSAND 415 dollars). Our total attendance for the week (as recorded, but everybody doesn't record their attendance) was, 3,514. TWI doesn't publish figures like that (I've heard their total non-member, "followership" is around 3,000. (We cover one small city area, Dayton, OH, they cover the "whole world.") My church has ministries that actually help people. We save lives, feed hungry people in our city, region and other parts of the world. (I THINK the Bible says something to the effect that they church, ekklesia, should do stuff like that, you know to follow Jesus?) eg. Next year we will pack and deliver our 1 MILLION-th meal (in 3years) to a small country in Africa. These meals literally save people's lives. (We have partnered with an organization called "Children Against Hunger" and to my knowledge have produced more of these meals than any other single church in the country.) TWI hurts people and enslaves them. During an economic period in the US when most churches are either shrinking or remaining flat - my church is growing at a substantial rate. Last Easter we asked our people to do a special offering we called "An Easter Miracle," hoping to raise $175,000 (average $300 per family) to finance building a headquarters for The Luke Commission in Swaziland, Africa. They need a base of operations for their work ministering to people there medically, and every other way they can help. (Google them, you'll be amazed by their work. Signs, miracles and wonders follow them - regularly.) We also support over 80 missionaries around the world. Twi is - well you know they Marked and Avoided 0ver 80% of their most trained and experienced leaders. World wide they have grown DOWN to about 1% of what it was in its hey day. BTW. The miracle offering.. That weekend we raised over $300,000. Our people are happy to give to our church. We let everybody know what we do with all their money. We have an annual church council meeting where we vote on issues, and every member gets a vote. AND our CFO briefs everybody on, and every member gets a copy of the church's financial statement. I'll stop there, because Jesus defined what a church is when he said what churches should do. TWI does none of that. I think you get the point. 501C3 organizations ALL have a business that they perform that they fill out the proper spaces on the proper papers to "qualify" as such. My Church is a 501C3 too. We actually do bring in more money than our budget calls for - every year. We are required by law to do certain things with the money that the law determines are acceptable things to do with it. Some of it is allowed to be funneled back into the organization in certain legal ways. As long as the ledger says what the law requires, the IRS is fine with our books - IF & when we get audited. One year, we had about $15,000 extra bucks. We gave it back to our congregants (not just members - anybody who wanted could come forward & pick up an envelope with certain amounts of $ in it). Another year we used our excess (tens of thousands of $$$'s) to fund projects for each of our 12 partner churches we help support. Things like remodeling, etc. Whatever they asked for, until the buck ran out. What we do is what churches do. (We also go above & beyond what most churches do - but the reasons we do the stuff we do are in an old book... I think they call it the Bible, or something like that. How much of THAT does TWI do? (Maybe stuff like that is why we're growing??? and TWI is - - well they're NOT growing...) And, not to mention - we actually teach THE BIBLE to people. TWI teaches - - well they teach their product. This is my long winded way to compare TWI to a church, one that arguably actually IS serving God by serving HIS people. TWI draws an VERY similar parallel to the way that farms in the NK area are run... AND the way 501C3 organizations are run. - The bad ones. ALL 501C3's legally provide salaries for their officers. In TWI the only members ore the 3 trustees (expanded to the board of directors to spread the cash around). They reached critical mass long ago. Their investments, money made by freewill offerings of the "followers," is enough to fund their operation into perpetuity. Like other farms in the area, during lean times they simply scale back their operation, get rid of the "extras" so they can stay afloat. Like 501C3's they have a product, a business that they conduct by shaping and molding it to fit the applicable laws. THAT is why they filed to become a "church" in 2007. It was simply the closest thing on the list of 501C3's that they felt they could "qualify" for. The Wierwille boys, Harry, the other one (forgive me, his name eludes me) and Victor learned how to run a farm from their Dad, just like most every other NK boy of their generation learned from their Dad. Harry Wierwille used that model and basic business plan structure to set up The Way, Incorporated, International. TWI is NOT a church, it is an organization, a corporation with its business "goal" to move its product "The Word" - Over The World. "The Word of God is The Will of God" is its corporate slogan. The Prevailing Word is nothing more than a tagline - Its no different than McDonald's using "I'm Lovin' It" or BMW's "The Ultimate Driving Machine," Lexus - "The Relentless Persuit of Perfection." TWI's "Word" is no more "prevailing" than I am actually "lovin' McDonald's "it," BMW's cars are "Ultimate", or Lexus is actually relentlessly in persuit of "perfection." (What is THAT anyways?) Those companies simply hired a guy like me & asked them to come up with something they felt was a cool way to to speak of their product to attract customers. TWI did the big purge and other subsequent purges (M&A), liquidated their properties, cut programs like the ROA, cut the staff, ordered people to stop having babies, stuff like that simply to get their accounts payable down under the level where their investment income can cover. I would guess that they currently operate at a level they feel is a sustainable loss yearly. They have little to no desire to grow the business, because without huge expenditures like the Rock of Ages, the properties, Airplanes, executive travel, staff salaries, etc. too much money would be too hard to keep from becoming profit they couldn't "hide" legally. The last time the IRS investigated them, they actually TOOK the non profit status. It took a few years in the late 1980's and over a MILLION DOLLARS (I remember Craig yelling about the cost of legal fees) for the lawyers to win it back in court. Problem is, the legal definition of a church is so loose - and "churches" are so prolific, and their missions so varied, and protected by the laws of our great country. It would be pretty hard to legally determine them not to be a church. They did that 2007 filing to protect the business and secure the scam. They absolutely are NOT a church. My guess is that's why they maintained the Way Corps and their version of the WOW program - so they can qualify as providing their unique brand of educational services. The Way Mag, the books they publish, the classes they run...all support materials for their "bible" curriculum. Their curriculum, being "based on" the Bible "qualifies" them to be a church, so they went for that for whatever added tax benefit. PLUS, being a church releases them from the need to meet state requirements for being an actual school. Their teachers don't have to be state certified, mett state standards, etc. TWI is a charter school. (Without the charter.) THAT would be my guess.