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Was idly thinking this evening about the internet, perhaps triggered by the disclosures about Facebook. Had the internet been around when many posters here became enmeshed with TWI - they would have checked it out first. Had the net been widely available when I got enmeshed - again, I'd've checked it out first. Today's potential victims, likely mostly young people, have great opportunity to check TWI out first. Maybe they went along to a couple of fellowships with their mates, but decided to check out the organization before they got more involved. Well, well! When I was (in my ignorance) planning to crawl back to TWI, I googled them and the first site up was - GreaseSpot Cafe! And so it still may be, for random people googling TWI, depending on how they phrase their enquiry. BUT, at least with Google, there's lots of other potential or similar sites listed, both after the main site and at the bottom of the first page. TWI's own boring, very static, site appears high in the list - closely followed by a few anti-TWI sites. We who have been here for a long time know how much GSC has helped us, and most of us remain so that we can help others too. What we can't know is how many people have encountered GSC, had a quick look, and zoomed off the other way. They've never been "helped" by having to de-tox here, because they never got "toxed" in the first place. Good for them, I say!

There's been a lot of examination, inspection given here at GSC over the past few years to the practice of tithing. Conclusion? It's a modern day "shtick", a sort of membership dues required by various organizations. Sure, it's recorded in the Old Testament that such a thing took place. There is no indication it's a Biblical requirement, continued into modern times. It's really more of a business requirement, a tax, if you prefer. Now, to be clear, tithing and freely giving are not synonymous. Tithing is giving 10%. That's what the word "tithe" means. In The Way, it was used as a method of extortion. "God can't bless you if you don't give what you already owe." One of their henchmen even went as far as to say that "God would't even spit in your direction for less than 15%". (sic) That doesn't sound too much like something that's freely given. It sounds like coercion. Hey! Wait a minute! It IS coercion!. Well, I'll be darned. (I'm not too keen on being spit on anyhow.) When I left The Way, it was quite a big deal for me. Where will I give? Surely I have to find a place to "abundantly share". If I don't, bad things could happen to me. I learned that in PFAL. Yep, two believers even got struck deader than a doorknob back in the records of ACTS because they didn't follow the rules.....What a load of nonsense. Give a nickel or give a million bucks. Or, don't give anything at all. It's up to you. Just bear in mind that you're not doing it to get blessed or whatever, you're doing it because you want to fund someone's business venture. That's what most of these spin-off ministries that require a tithe ABS are...business ventures. Here's principle #4 from the SOWERS website: 4. Practice believing to bring material abundance to you and the Ministry. (Some of you may recognize that as a Way Corps principle. It was a FellowLaborers principle, too.) We now know that the "law of believing" is just a load of hogwash, so factor that "practice believing" part out. With that in mind, allow me to rephrase the principle in a way the will reflect it's literal meaning according to usage. Heh. 4.) GIVE to bring material abundance to the ministry. And there you have it. It's as simple as that. Churches (not just The Way or its various spin-offs) have to make you think God requires it. That's how they fund their organizations. (Well, that and Saturday night bingo.) That's why The Way was dead set against bakes sales, car washes and so on. It diluted the concept, weakened the mystique of their method. Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

penworks.....the RISK FACTOR in opening our homes to complete strangers is a brilliant point! Yet, twi schooled us on "negative believing" and just get out there knocking on doors and running twigs, WHEREAS wierwille and geer were layered in security with glock-totting bodyguards, attack dogs, security patrol units and a whole network of nametag staffers who were told to be vigilant when they'd "see something, say something." SO.....could I ask the question, "Where in the he-ll was wierwille's BELIEVING???" We were out there year after year in less-than-average neighborhoods inviting complete strangers into our homes......and wierwille is multi-layered in scores of security measures. Indeed, wierwille was this sociopathic narcissist who dwelled on his own safety and couldn't summon any fiber of empathy or compassion to see how we were AT RISK. Same deal with hitchhiking to LEAD. Hey, twi.....you know what you can do with that $64 MILLION? Stick it up your.......

It was a catch-22 situation. We should love the untouchables like Christ did, yet deny any inner wisdom we had about protecting ourselves because the Bible said we were more than conquerors and should fear nothing. I'd like to know about this, too, if it is not a secret that DWBH can reveal that might jeopardize his identity to outsiders...or insiders...or whomever...

Why not credit dictor paul wierwille, "founding president" of their phony "ministry"? Because it would bury them forever! So badly that sticking with da forehead's incredibly sophomoric and bigoted WAP classes is even better than digging out the ole '67 POS that's made them all that $65 mil. They have morons like Charlene's 2nd corpse bruddah, the mighty "rev" gerry wrenn, and jallymog john Lynn to do that for them better than Rosie the Riveter and Donna could ever do it, and more faithfully too! Remember those guys from ECU Charlene? The stuff Rosie had to agree to in their out-of-court settlement in the Paul and Fern Allen lawsuit in 2000 preclude her from ever fessin' up to the truth and facts of their prayshuss min-us-tray. The perjury raps alone would pull down what's left of their walls of Zion and prevailing woid. They have lied on and off the public record for so long the only thing they can do is STFU and hope the money lasts long enough to dump it on their most loyal gestapo and whatever family they haven't mark and avoided yet. You WILL NEVER GET THE TRUTH from twi. Rosie, Donna, Coward and Wanda Wierwille Allen, and da forehead himself, all wanna make it to their Gunnison Emeritus retirement home. Coward and Wanda have been there how long now? Da Forehead's name is still on the deed. He still gets his tax-free $65K pension too. How many of those salt'o'the earth, volunteer twig coordinators gave 15% of their gross income for 20 years plus spending every last penny they had not sending their kids to college, or even going to college themselves, on driving to meetings in all kinds of weather and non-functional vehicles, paying to get into those meetings, classes, advances, weekends in da Woid, Anniversary weekends, Outreach Weeks, Rock of Ages, Word In Business, corpse week, limb meetings, Brsnch meetings, area meetings, camps, coffe houses, door-to-door witnessing, inviting serial killers, homeless drunks, mentally unstable, emotionally distressed, and intellectually challenged into our homes, feeding them, driving them all over the universe, NOT because that's what Jesus might have done, but because those were the only types of people they could hustle'n'flo into their lowlife cult. VP was a human scavenger, and sexual predator. He was a paranoid, narcissistic, sociopath who loved Hitler, and his Drambuie. Jesus was only the name he used to bring in the checks and innocent. Rosie and her twits cannot afford to credit vic for anything! Not even his creepy version of B.G. And Bullinger, PFAL, or any of his plagiarized pre-school level Bible books. His abject fraud legally and spiritually, which he called "his min-us-tray" is too well exposed to ever want to take credit for even knowing vic let alone crediting him for their $65 million retirement fund. Lifelong lying, stealing, adultery, hypocrisy, and spiritual abuse of innocent christians and idealistic hippies, and covering it all up in Jesus' name is an expensive calling. At least we know they're spending it on the very best of everything they stole from their faithful batch of cultists and "volunteer". They took their Word over them alright. And they'll never let go of it because it means the word over the world to them................peace.

A few thoughts... This topic of grunt work in service to VP's agenda is vital to understanding his power of persuasion. Thanks for bringing up the topic...hospitality, a good quality, was made into a grind for many of us. Everything in the house had to be spic n' span before fellowships. I remember arriving in L.A. after graduating from the 2nd Corps. My fulltime job was keeping our apartment (I had just married another 2nd Corps person) in showcase-style for meeting after meeting. I loved the believers, but the cleaning thing, geez....but I'd learned amazing cleaning skills in the Corps. Cleaning should have been one of the Corps principles for we surely attained the goal of being experts at it. As for opening my home, more than the expenses of running a fellowship, I think there is no price tag I can put on the risks we took by having strangers in our house, especially when our baby came along... I think of the sexism of "the refreshments lady," mentioned above. That seemed like such a minor task but it was not. I don't remember a "refreshments guy," but there probably was somewhere in some WOW family... So what do TWI representatives have to say about all the risks we took to build the empire of $64,791,485 (million) in assets listed on their 2013 tax return? Thank you? There is a 147-acre farm on the outskirts of New Knoxville, Ohio, owned by a non-profit organization that pays no taxes. That tax money could help the community in which it exists. If religion is supposed to help you be a better person, how is TWI doing that? I guess the anonymous testimonies on the TWI web site are meant to be convincing, but these days, I suspect that most readers on the internet doubt the value of such flattering quotes attributed to no one. There is not one word about Wierwille on their website, either. Very interesting...why not give credit to their mighty man of god? Peace, Penworks

This is the truth. Any genuine movement of God happened with the young and the genuine lifestyles for God they lived and do live. The sellout crustaceans at HQ live for the worship of their own thoughts and supposed spiritual wisdom.

You guys have hit on the truth regarding the real successes of "TWI". It had nothing to do with the content of the classes. It had everything to do with the heart of service that so many people had, who believed the things Wierwille PREACHED about Jesus and the Bible instead of the things VP TAUGHT and DEMONSTRATED by his actions. It had nothing to do with the leadership's plans to move the word over the world. It had everything to do with seemingly anonymous people on the field exhibiting the hospitality of God's heart to strangers, with no prospect of remuneration. Those were the real heroes of "TWI," those were the wayfers who truly showed people the love of God, those were the people who are going to receive real rewards when the time comes. I too am thankful for those people. And their absence came about because Martindale, in all his stupidity, drove them away... Love, Steve

Without them, there would have BEEN no twi. The Christian hippies from the House of Acts lured in outsiders with their love and compassion, and the coordinators and other locals gave them a reason to stay with their love and compassion (to various degrees.) A dry class wouldn't have had much appeal to many people WITHOUT those others vouching for how good it was. (That's why twi is doomed-it can't recreate that without everything it's missing, and people are too savvy now.) I know that the twi IDENTITY brought group cohesion-something for the people to rally around- and "the class" was something tangible to offer people- a "rite of passage" and another marker of who's "in" and who's not- but the local people made it all work. REAL Christians made a difference locally and that's why the group grew once. Their absence is why the group's withered almost to irrelevance except to a handful of people.

Looking back, I often marvel at ALL twig coordinators and corps did to welcome complete strangers into our homes and lives. Sure, we were out there recruiting...er, "moving the word" but to do it year after year with fire and compassion. Those who opened their homes, opened their refrigerators are/were the salt of the earth......NOT the bloviating-bible reader at hq. Heck.....when did wierwille EVER do charitable work or knock on doors year after year? Same goes for rivenbark.....geez, a twice-divorced school teacher escaping her past. Ppfftt. Faithful twig coordinators SHOULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN extra praise, perks, and privileges at every roa. They were the "face" of the ministry and the "heart" to the burdened and downtrodden.

I remember being at work one day and thinking about how we didn't have twig that night and I felt relief! Come to think of it, when I left TWI that'a ALL I felt.