lindyhopper

This is rediculous. Thinking someone is wrong is your opnion. Calling someone a liar is your opinion as well. It is also a personal attack. You do not always have the right to post your opinion on this board. I asked you once. You have not stopped. Now I report you. Very simple. For future reference, it is possible to state an opposing opinion regarding what someone else has said without calling them a liar.

It is totally freaking unbelievable. I had no idea what I was starting when posting this. To me "lifetime of Christian service" is somewhat vague or as Short fuse said a few pages back that it was "understated." I think most of us can't really argue the lifetime part (well I take that back we can argue about anything around here) the vague area is the service. What that meant exactly and how much of your life that was going to take up and how much control over your life they wanted was all "understated" and in my opinion, deleted to mislead people. As shortfuse said, if that was made clear even fewer people would sign up. I did ask what you CORPS GRADS THOUGHT it meant. We all know that the ministry could have a totally different feel from one city to the next and one state to the next depending on who was in charge and how involved one was. So with that in mind, I most respectfully ask Oldies, to shut the f**k up! How dare you treat Rascal this way. She was pressured by the people she saw as MOGs into GIVING UP HER CHILD! Not everyone wants that "choice". Inspite of perhaps your many experiences with getting an abortion NO ONE ENJOYS IT. It is dispicable and without any real respect or love to treat people that way. So if you don't believe what Rascal is saying...please stick to the topic and stop telling other people that what they experienced and felt was not the reality of the situation. You have no clue! I don't know how many times you need to hear this before it sinks in, but if you continue to do it on my thread I will see if I can't have you removed from it. Personal attacks are against the rules and you are basically calling her a liar. Which (to spell it out for you) is a personal attack. This goes for the rest of you as well. (I hate being the youngest person in the room and having to do this.) Argue about it, state your point with your POV, but do not assume that you know what everyone's motivation for going in the corps was. Do not assume that you know what people were told and how it was stressed in spite of a vague brochure. Do not assume that what did or didn't happen to you happened the same way to everyone across the board. Frackly I'm suprised that the people doing these things have been treated as well as they have on this thread. WD, I think most of us get your point, but we all know that no one went into the crops without getting council to some degree and those personal meetings could have stressed things in different ways. As I said, my parents and I believe my brother and my younger one planning on going in understood the commitment in terms of time. What I don't think they understood was degree and demands of the service by the ministry. Had those things been made clear (I doubt they ever will be) it would have been a much more honest situation and far fewer people would hvae made the commitment. I think shortfuse made another good point about it needs to be re-thought for it to survive. This alone could be the ultimate downfall of the ministy.

right now all I have is a Giannini craviola in not so good condition. I am looking to get a real nice Taylor or Martin acoustic one of these days soon. Used to have a strat and lots of toys. Sold most of it after not using it for a few years while in college to get money for the word in biz-nass conference. Burning the chaff you know. DAMN IT! I think a PRS would do today. A sweet looking Rikenbacher would do as well. Telecaster and a ....well, someday. Still have my "Wah" pedal. Nothing to hook it up to though, lol. It is fun to use while playing air guitar to movies and TV shows from the 60's and 70's.

From what I understand CK, this was not neccessarily what he said on his death bed, but something he said numerous times in his later years.

Socks is right. That would be a long list. It just doesn't sound right to me. Ckmkeon, how do you know what the list was of or that there was a list when it was "in behind the table"? This doesn't jive with what the MySpace young wayfers say. One said M&A was officially dropped a year or so ago and that anyone. YES even you and you, are welcome at a fellowship. Is that all BS or what? How did they know your dad was to be checked and not you or anyone else? No Nametage or something?

I find myself saying this still, usually around here and when talking to people who are still in. mstar said this on the "still a minister?" thead: This seems to be yet another way they used little phrases here and there to keep us thinking this was the one and only true ministry. Most other churches have a different idea of what a ministry is. I used to have friends, while I was still in, that when to other churches. They would talk of things like "the youth ministry" or "the young adult ministry" or this or that ministry. Seems like most people thought the word ministry to mean an entirely different thing. In twi, on the other hand, we thought we had the one, the true, THE ministry, and many of us, including me, still refer to it that way. "Old wine skin" perhaps? lol I think for me it is just an easy and commonly understood way of refering to twi. What are your thoughts on the use of this term and how it came about in "the ministry"?

Ok perhaps I worded things in a way that caused this spin off when I really didn't intend it to go this route....but still somewhat interesting conversation going on. Sky wrote: Absolutely. One would think that if you are going to commit the rest of your life to an organization that you might want to know the specifics in advance.shaz wrote: Exactly. See current numbers of corps applicants and graduates. Once Martindale began to slowly put corps standards on fellowship coordinators and then everyday Joe believer, people realised what it was really like to be corps and for most people it is a turn off. This is one thing I wanted to get at. The business plan the ministry has is totally wacked. It needs these lifetime commitments from volunteers in order to keep functioning. So in order to keep these people in place there is a whole slew of teachings that have been focused on and taught to guilt and pressure people into honering thier commitment to God (ie the ministry). Yes they need to keep the everyday follower as well but they really need the corps to keep eveyone in line and in order and "in the household" of cha-ching. Now, even if the ministry is kinder and gentler, the corps program is still very demanding. Sky you said: That being true a corps person still may have many fellowships they oversee and perhaps multiple fellowships to run at times. While it may not be like the days of huge branchs to run there are also far less corps. For example I know someone who ran an area. One FC decided it was too much for them and so the corps peson had to pick it up and run it. Then the other corps person cross town left. That person oversaw fellowships and ran one as well. Suddenly this person with a full time job, now had to run two fellowships a week with quite a bit of distance between them and still had to preform all the other corps duties they already had. All because there is not the abundance of corps to fill in. They all have jobs to do (both secular and for the minstry) and there are fewer people who can pick up the slack when needed. This is not a good way to run any sort of organization.

rickyg wrote: Answers, yes, but as you describe it, weak answers. By this same logic we would have to say: - JC had to grow as a baby, he can't be God. - JC had to learn how to speak. If he were God, how could he have in the begining said "let there be light" if he didn't know how to speak yet. - If he were God, straight from the womb he would have said, "Mary I am your father." and "Thou shalt not swaddle mine bare hinnie for I am the Lord thy God! Let there be room at the Inn!" - If JC were God, he would have burst straight out Mary's womb directly into infinite space and presence. - etc etc etc First, the key word there is YOUNG Christian. Many young people really don't have things all worked out. Many don't really even know who THEY are yet. Plus, in the real world life's answers are not as black and white or as easy as TWI portrays things. Second, I hope there were other examples for the sake of making an educated decision. One person at one church and a few others at a Mormon church isn't really a very big sample size. It isn't neccessarily representative of all churchs or even most churchs. I know what it is like growing up in the ministry. I know what it is like to leave it and suddenly hot have all the answers. It is actually a good thing. You see, a real search for answers is a learning adventure and the more you learn the more you realise you don't know much and you didn't really have all the answers to begin with. I hope that even though you are back at fellowship with all the answers ready to be spoon fed, that you are able to honestly question those answers and investigate those answers and make a genuinely educated decision on whether they are true or not. I don't know where that will lead you, but I do know that is the best way to get answers. Unfortunately, with all the fellowships, classes, tapes, magazine articles, books to re-read, and whatever else they come up with, the ministry doesn't really give people the time they need to do this. After all, they've got it all figured out for you, right? "No need to reinvent the wheel." Right? Actually, if you can figure out a way to make the wheel wear longer, with better traction, with newer, cheaper, greener materials, with faster, cheaper production, more shock absorbing while being flat proof, then maybe it is a good idea. You know how much you would learn in the process of figuring those things out. Trust me, a lot.

Happy Birthday Abi. Us feces got to stick together. I mean Pisces. PISCES!

A funny story....or not, for those of you who thought you always had a choice to go where you wanted. This is from my very first post here at the GSpot, from my story. (This was the year the WOW program ws canceled and my parents and younger bro were planning on going that year....it was their request as corps) Totally true, I was there. What was that about corps assignments? Your desire, your ability, the needs of the ministry, and the flip of a lucky silver dollar. :blink:

...continued The first time I opened my eyes was somewhere around or after the "put your hand to the plow and don't look back" theme or maybe the "vow a vow..." time. Perhaps that was the same year. So obviously that was being propounded over and over again. This was also by coincidence around the same time the corps went full time. Our LC was B*b D@rn*ll and his wife. They had sold their multi million dollar business to go "full time." When RM got all up in their personal business as to how they were spending their money and gift giving etc., they left or were kicked out or something. They may have only dropped out of the corps at first and then left, I don't remember. Anyway, these were the same people saying "keep you hand to the ploy" and "if you vow a vow, you better pay it (stick to it)" and then they left. So that opened my eyes a bit and I thought to myself that I had better really think about this corps thing that has always just been assumed I'd jump into. I did and realised, I wasn't hearing a "call" of any sort. That didn't stop people from continueing to ask me when I was going in. So that gets me back to all these young, devoted, naive, friendly, nice kids over at MySpace and the ones that are not. "Get em' while their young." My now sister-in-law was at that meeting as well. When she heard that she said, "that's kinda scary." Then the guy started backpedaling. I was never asked to go into the corps. I was never asked if I thought I had been called. It was always just assumed an implied and really was set up in a way that going corps was just the next step on the road to spiritual maturity. So regardless of what the brochure says about the service being for a lifetime, from my perspective, it was never put forth to me as an option. As I siad, it was assumed. At least not uptill years later after I had started telling people I didn't think it was for me.

OK some people didn't take the Ritalin break. That was one of the points of this thread but not the only one. I am interested in, as I said, both what was printed and said (lifetime of Christian service) and what was implied and what people really thought it meant. WD, your brochure is helpful, but I assume it is from only one year, maybe a few years. There was more than one brochure. Like I said, when we went in we were thinking lifetime of Christian service....but perhaps as "twig" leaders or perhaps as branch or limb leaders. This is what my parents wanted to do. This was in the mid-80's though, people going in earlier may have had different experiences. As Sky pointed out, there have been a few changes over the years. I do remember my P's being able to put in preferences for assignments but people didn't always get that. It did seem that people with kids, family corps, did usually get their preference and usually had longer assignments. My parent's first one lasted 8 yrs. I think it was a little different for the single corps, especially when many of the old timers started droppin' like flies. Then, as I said, someone had to pick up the slack and that was usually the single people who didn't have kids and therefore didn't have has much keeping them down. As more corps left and continue to leave the remaining ones have more slack to deal with. Obviously, these days fewer people are signing up. I think that this is because the control of the 90's kind of showed everyone what corps is really like and more and more people said to themselves "there's no way I'm subjecting myself to that." Although, there still are people signing up and it seems many of them are now young people who have been raised in the ministy. I know my younger brother says he is going to go in. I have an older brother who is corps already. He went in after leaving college and many of the people signing up are doing so instead of college. It seems like it has always been this way. Is it by design? I know what is by design, the "growth track." Growing up in the ministry it was clear. You start with the foundational and then you graduate to intermediate, then to advanced. Then before you finish the AC there is usually someone up at the podium plugging the corps program. Where else is there to go (and grow, uhg)? I know that I always thought that I would end up going into the corps. It really was assumed. My parents went in. My brother went in. The question was never one of have I been called. It was always just, "So when are you going in the corps."

Ok, Ritalin break. Yes, EVEN me. I'll assume you didn't mean that the way it sounded. I believe that when my parents signed us up for the family corps they knew it was going to be a LIFETIME of service to the ministry. I think they knew it meant we would be moving every 3 to 5 years. They still wanted to do it. I doubt at the time they thought that training and position could be yanked out from under them the way it was. If they were allowed they would still want to be corps today. I do wonder what sort of contract there was if any. What was on the application? What was on the paper you signed etc.? I do think that most people didn't expect that they were now required to jump when asked to jump and right on their daily schedule when they had a "movement" and submit it for review. FOS of course. We were family corps though. That meant had a family and usually meant you were a little older than the regular corps folks. The Emploria and Gunnison people seemed to be younger people generaly...20 somethings a lot of the time. Most of the time people don't grow up to be the people they were when they were twenty. This includes career, interests, and beliefs. Was it an honest thing to ask of a young person to commit their life to the ministry, or was it something they knew young people would be psyched for without being able to honestly evaluate a decision that affected the rest of their life. My wife went to one Way function. The thing that freaked her out the most was something my old roomy said in response to her comment on how nice it was with all the young kids around. He said, "It's good to get them while their young." It sounds like a f'd up thing to say and at the time I tried to rationalise it and say he was kind of joking, but he wasn't. Looking at these MySpace sites, I think of this. Get em' while their young. They have no idea yet think they've got it down. I used to think I knew more "Word" than most priests. Boy was I wrong. I also brought this up in like of the many people that come here that want to leave but are with spouses that either don't know about how they feel or don't want to leave. There is a fear that isn't unrealistic that the marriage would be at risk to bring up such a topic. I also think of the people in this situation that are corps. I have more thoughts on the subject and on the things already said, but I have to go. So maybe later. For now though, I think it is important to know what was printed, said, and implied by your corps commitment and what people felt they were getting into. I don't think it is all the same and I don't think the wrong impression is solely the corps applicant's lack of reading comprehension.

I would say that with all the things one could find on the internet that they had to come out and teach this to counteract it. "Sex outside of marriage is not a part of God's plan." This also seems to address a formerly grey area of premarital sex. just saw the sarcasm warning...I know at the top in big bold letters, but just where did it stop in your post. Or did it ever?"

How many companies or charities run basically by volunteers do you know of that ask for a LIFETIME of any sort of service? For you old corps grads, what were you thinking that meant when you decided to go into the corps? I think it is a rediculous thing to ask anyone of. I believe that perhaps in the early days the program was just to teach you how to serve, not full time in the ministry, but serve to some degree. I would think in those days it would have been a little easier for corps folks to decided not to serve anymore and just become a normal fellowshipper type person. In more recent years they don't have a lot of corps. It seems everyone who is corps is a leader of tens, hundreds, etc. They all have bigger assignments. Now when someone thinks of dropping their corps status, they have a whole area that someone, somewhere else, somehow has to pick up the slack and take over. This over extends the now one or two fewer existing corps. This just seems like a rediculous way to run anything, but especially when you are talking about your main workforce being volunteers. Now, if a corps person still wants to be in the ministry but not corps or wants to step down and out the door one step at a time, they have to consider all the stress and strain you are causing other corps people who you may care very much for. Not to mention as corps you have all your local people that you have said put your hand to the plow and blah blah blah to. To sleek away after saying that would make you look foolish and cowardly, even though the reality of leaving is the exact opposite. But what a crazy thing to ask of someone, a LIFETIME of service in a group. Especially when the majority of corps applicants are fairly young. It is insane to think a young person won't change their mind as they get older.

Wow, Paw, you sound like you should be on the radio. well, I guess now you are.

((((((((((NLL)))))))))) :(

Perhaps I stressed being hurt by twi too much in that last post, not that it isn't a reality. Perhaps the biggest thing about their defence of twi is that most of them are young people raised in the ministry. They are currently at a point of learning new ideas as they go to college or into the real world as an adult and are confronted with things they haven't had to deal with really. Those are the days when one a) fights the hardest to defend what has been all they know about God and the world, and/or b) when they start to give a little and start to see some of the bad elements of "the ministry."

My take after reading a lot of the posts over at these spaces, as a person who grew up in the ministry, is that they are young. I think back to when I was 17-22, I was gung ho. I was becoming an adult and I thought that I had thought through why I was sticking around as an adult. I hadn't really. It was all I had known. I hadn't really investigated other views, Christian or otherwise, honestly and openly. Most importantly, nothing had really happened to me personally. Up untill those years I was just following along doing what I was told as a child. Even during those years of early adulthood I still did that, perhaps with greater difficulty. This is what seems to happen though, or what seemed to happen then. As a kid/ teenager/ young adult you were not really held responsible for what you were taught. Well to a degree you were, but they wern't "all up in your biz" as a young adult. As I got older I was given more responsibility and I was held accountable more for what I did in my personal life. If I didn't ABS for a while as a teen, not too big of a deal. Plus my leaders were my parents. As an adult, if they noticed me not ABSing, it was brought to my attention. Debt was brought to my attention. Hanging out too much with unbelievers was brought to my attention. Not attending fellowship was brought to my attention. As I got older I notice that some of the college aged kids were cut a little more slack, they had classes after all. Of course when I went back to school part time while working two jobs, I was expected to be at fellowship and at times lead or teach. I suspect that was because I was an adult. Of course the kinder gentler twi has to be a factor as well, but IMO it is only a matter of time before the pendulum swings back. As a kid and a teen things weren't really all that bad. I had some good friends. the meetings were ok and I knew more than any of my peers about the Bible, so I thought I was the shi+. Plus my parents are much better people than a lot of the leaders I had as an adult. Anyway, I guess time will tell for a lot of these kids. So many of their comments sound like my young callused know-it-all attitude. Some of the others though seem much more understanding than I remember seeing when I was that age. Privitizing the one site definitely isn't a good sign, but the other "all may not agree" one, shows promise.

well if that is true then scratch what i asked

straying a little, but I am curious how cofortable any of you are with the the other side of the Luke 6:37 equation. Judge, and ye shall be judged: condemn, and ye shall be condemned: forgive not, and ye shall not be forgiven: give not, and it shall not be given unto you. Interesting.

Kevlar - Not thick, just funny as hell lmao, thanks.

Well, thank you all. Last night I was rather bloated after having an awsome meal and some great wine (red zin) at a local restaurant. Just me and the ladyhopper. Very nice. and yes it is 31.

Mark said: etc.I said: OK, I understand why the Greek semantics from the early part of the first millenium are important to many of you. You can also understand why they are not so much for me. I prefer to speak in modern English. I think for christians (and everyone really) etymology should be important but so is speaking in a modern, contemporary way at least to avoid confusion. From today's Merriam-Webster: 1 a : to give up resentment of or claim to requital for b : to grant relief from payment of <forgive a debt> 2 : to cease to feel resentment against (an offender) : PARDON So yes, I will move on and have. (Not speaking of just LCM, but of those who did directly cause pain and strife in my life.) BTW, even though he did not directly hurt me, he did indirectly and those are the "legs I stand on." Plus, I do feel resentment and indignation towards the man. He did and taught things that hurt many people including me and many teachings continue to hurt or hinder people I know. So I will not give up requital or cease to feel resentment. BUT I will move on and I have. That is where I am coming from...a modern perspective. If there is a god and this god is happy that I have moved on, then fantastic. I still hope people like LCM get what is coming to them. Pardon? I don't think so.

So are you saying that your god will forgive even with no repentance... and we are to mimic that? I see a whole other thing happening in many parts of the Bible, OT and NT. Why talk about it in acient symantics. Let it go? Sure. Absolutely. Forgive the guy? I think not. Rape and other abuses are not forgivable offences in my book. At least not without serious heart felt repentance and attemps to make amends. Forgiving takes a few seconds of saying it out loud or to yourself. Physical, sexual, verbal, psychological abuse takes a while to "let go." Of course this guy, LCM, never did anything to me directly, but I think holding people accountable for their actions is a GOOD thing. Am I going to loose any sleep over this? No Do I hope the guy gets what's coming to him? Absolutely I think I have let most things go yet I don't feel the need to forgive many of these people. Especially those who are still the same old manipulative, devisive, hypocrits.