Twinky

Does "truth" change? Or is it simply our understanding that changes? The "truth" was that the heavens revolved round the earth. Then Copernicus and other astronomers and thinkers showed othewise. Copernicus was persecuted by the church for his heretical belief. (In fact, he's only recently been "forgiven"!) Did the truth change? No. But human understanding did. Likewise other things that appear to be in conflict as "truths" may not conflict at all, when we have a bigger picture, more information. But we will never have all information. Therefore, our understanding is always going to be imperfect. Wasn't it Bride of JC who used to have a tagline, "Truth is not a 'what' but a 'who'"?

T-Bone, after all these years, are you still asking the waiter for Corps sponsorship?

Thanks for your long post, Socks. Funny what you forget. I remember this : that man needs a point of reference outside himself for learning - and that - truth needs a center of reference which is not the man seeking - and - But not this: the revelation of the Bible is necessary to the senses man to be complete. The Word takes the place of the absent Christ. The Holy Spirit takes the place of Christ in the Word in us. Perhaps that "absent Christ" stuff simply got "mislaid" because I heard so many times, "Christ in you, the hope of glory" so I never formed a sense of "absent Chjrist." I would imagine Jesus sitting beside me or walking beside me at times of difficulty. Explaining a better way to do things. You also said this: This from a "research" ministry that claimed it would change if Bible research showed errors in what they taught. We all know that didn't happen. No meekness - despite demanding that of others. There are aspects here that I am still confused about but I don't find much help from Church theology. But when it all gets too complicated, I just think, God looks on the heart, and as long as I keep it simple and try to do the best I can and try not to disappear into flights of "head knowledge" - God'll cover for where I'm wrong and will show me sooner or later where I'm wrong. I heard something startling recently. Might start a topic in Doctrinal about it.

Now this is a bit of a digression, but not really "off topic" as this thread currently stands. Hmm...I really don't remember this "absent Christ" stuff. To the best of my recollection, I heard it here. But no doubt a heap of you will tell me what session it appeared in, or some such. Was I actually asleep in class every time that bit came past? Was it more of a VPW thing than an LCM thing? But...I do remember feeling I'd lost all "awareness" of Christ - of Jesus - of gospel stories. There surely was an "absence of Christ" within TWI. At some point I came to a realization that I knew very little about him...about his earthly life...as a coherent thing. Just the odd sliver like sending out two-by-two, or harvest is plenteous. I'm ashamed to say, I emerged from the Way Corps having almost completely forgotten about him in any real kind of sense. God-conscious, yes; Christ-conscious - no. Because the gospels were a bit of a no-go area, really, with the greatness of the epistles to be studied and expanded.... (yawn).

Cool, T-Bone! :)

I don't know about the Way article, but the other guys, the Processeans, sound reeaally weird. :wacko:

Socks, I don't think it's anything to do with change - just with control. And busy-work. And more opportunities for them to put a downer on people. Which comes back to control. Not even self-control. Heck, wouldn't you just love to see one of Jessu's days marked out in 15 minute segments? His days were marked by sponteneity and response to the needs he saw around him and where he was asked to help.

Waysider, "they" don't want you to know who "they" are.

Oh boy, Old Skool, you really missed a treat with LCM's "spiritual anger." Two years of being in rez with that to cope with...was a real treat. But you get me thinking. He'd go on about being "spiritually angry" and he was "spiritually suspicious" of various people (usually accusing them of being homosexuals, homo fantasisers or homo sympathisers). I have no recollection of emotions of "spiritual joy" or "spiritual excitement" or "spiritual delight" or anything that might be associated with "positive" emotions. Funny, that. I do remember being quite excited about some event - Adv Class?? - and skipping down the corridor in joyful expectation. My Corps Coord at the time was really down on me and told me to stop being so emotional. By the time he'd finished lecturing me, I couldn't care less about the event.

Thomas, don't you realize that LCM was spiritually angry? Not sure anger management classes can cope with spiritual ... truths trash. His version of it, anyway.

Welcoming someone isn't "love bombing," Johniam - it's just saying hello. I liked it when I first started posting here and people welcomed me. Didn't feel like "love bombing" then - just that I'd been noticed and was welcome. Didn't you like that? When you first joined GSC or one of its predecessors? New posters can say what they like. So can you. But do try to stick to the topic sometimes. And don't keep playing the same old record.

That doesn't sound like Joyce Meyer. Are you really quite sure about that, Geisha?

I don't recall any interest in SIT or any other things like that when I was growing up in the church. In fact, church was so boring that I left. No Pentecostals near where I lived. I wanted to see exciting things like those recorded in the book of Acts. I met a WoW and he showed me that that was still available. Now had I met someone else from any church that SIT or was convinced that the power demonstrated in Acts was still around, I'd have gone with them. Now, there seems to have been a revival. Lots of churches where I live expect SIT and other demonstrations of the spirit. They all say that this has become much more common since about the 70s. It's the new normal. This is nothing to do with TWI influence. It's probably my generation and younger, seeking something other than meaningless ritual and wanting to know God better. As regards the other manifestations of the spirit - I don't know that TWI got TIP correct, nor WoK or WoW, nor anything else. A person who looks to God and tries to do as would please Him probably operates WoK and WoW much more than they realize.How many times have you "just known" about something, or "just done" something that was exactly right - visited a friend in despair because you were passing the door, or rang just as someone needed an answer to prayer, or such like? You can't legislate for such things. You can't teach them. The advanced class should probably have laid out specific examples from OT and NT, but made it much more plain that quiet time with God may well be the most important. Just quiet time, so that you could learn to hear that still small voice even more clearly. Not "fellowship" time with others - but space to think and reflect. Alas, as with most stuff at TWI, space to think and reflect was in short supply.

Hello Tony. You're a late arrival at the cafe - unless you posted here under another name - but nonetheless welcome. There are quite a lot of threads here in About The Way and in Open about the special phrases and terminology used in TWI.

And the early 90s. And don't forget, the Internet was run by devil spirits - oh, that was later, perhaps. No Google maps, no nuffin'.

Johniam...what's with your brain? I was actually trying to be a bit nice to you. Rejoicing with you that the damage was minimal in comparison with what it could have been. You are not (as far as I know) a sex abuse victim - so don't compare yourself with one. Sex abuse is nothing to do with trees falling on one's property. What a rubbish comparison. I am truly sorry for the people of Japan who have lost families, homes, cities...everything. It's all matchsticks. Thousands dead. Yet that doesn't seem to touch your heart at all. You have no empathy but want to discuss something completely irrelevant. Suttee. Huh???? Nobody here wants to burn you. Though if you keep on with your inane comments, a line might form to do just that.

I never knew about the LEAD assaults until I read it here. My Corps didn't get to go, so not sure what the plans would have been. Probably to hitch. What we were asked to do was to hitch to cities where we were to be Lightbearers. The only instructions we got were not to accept lifts in the open backs of vehicles - you know, a work utility vehicle with cab for driver and usually one passenger, and an open back where equipment could be carried. We were given a deadline to be at the venue. We were not given any kind of map either of the states or cities we might pass through, or of the city we were going to. Just an address. Nuts, huh? If you're hitching, you at least want to know if you're being carried in the right direction. Nah. We were to believe God for the right lifts where we could witness to drivers, believe God that the drivers would also take it into their hearts to buy us meals at truckstops (though I think we might have been given a sack lunch to take with us, can't recall), believe God for our safe and speedy journey. I believe we were taken out by bus or some such to a suitable hitching spot (ie, we didn't start from outside TWI's gate). If we got to the destination late (or too near the appointed time) we had to examine ourselves to see where our believing had broken down, such that it was so difficult for us to get the right lifts. Actually I quite liked it. I trusted them to know what they were doing (more fool me) and overcame my qualms because they wouldn't let us do anything foolish, would they? Like firearms safety training, it was to help us overcome our fears. I still hitch occasionally (just short distances) and also occasionally offer others lifts. It's easier to do this in some countries than others.

Hey, Johniam, glad your tree landed where the damage was minimal. Not through the middle of anyone's house or on top of anyone. Small stuff (happily) compared with what's going on in Japan right now.

Thanks, Waysider. Funny, OE.

I did a two-parter once. It didn't start out as a two parter, but the first part was dynamic and really inspired the people there. I had a lot of material and was going to put it together for part 2. But you know it just wouldn't come together like part 1 had. It felt "heavy" and lacked the vigor of part 1. On the way to the location, out of the blue (as it were) I felt inspired to teach something completely different from anything I'd looked at, prepared, considered - in fact, a zip through one of the books of the OT picking out some salient points to part 1. (Free from Way teachings, as I don't think I'd ever heard anything taught from that book.) Yet (though I say it myself) it was magnificent. Really fixed things in people's minds. The people there were excited. They were still talking about it some months later. Heck, maybe even now. While that wouldn't work for SNS, given the opportunity, God might, just might, be willing to work within the teacher if he were given a smidgen of space. At least VPW and LCM pretended that God told them to teach something different from what they'd planned, once in a while.

Was the 75' ash tree ... the Way tree? I find it interesting that "putrid fruit" of an organization is raised, directly challenging Johniam; and he answers with something completely different. Ah well. Have at it, John.

From the thread Your Old Way Bible recently started. In fact over the years, there've been a few threads like that. I thought I'd open this one as a new thread as the Cafe will close soon and this might stay obvious to help latecomers. Others have posted on that thread and elsewhere that it had been a long time before they could read their Bibles again. No pleasure in it; brought back old teachings; all sorts of reasons. For me, it was LCM yelling: "The Bible's got nothing to say to cop-outs/to unbelivers. They need to get themselves back into fellowship (read: TWI)". For me, reading the Bible was reading condemnation. I was too hurt, too damaged. If you're an innie trying to get out; or if you're recently out -- as ever, your experience is common to many. Perhaps some other people here will also be able to tell you how they felt when they first got out. I'd say: put aside your old reading matter (your KJV) and get some other version. But maybe not straight away. You'll be surprised at how fresh some of it seems. Don't try to read it through Way-colored specs and think that it's "inaccurate." Just read it for the pleasure of it. Or don't read it for the pleasure of it. Nobody will condemn you. So, Cafe patrons: How long was it before you felt like reading your Bible again - in any version?

Chas, could you explain that a bit further for the benefit of overseas Cafe patrons? Chuck U Farley?? CUF??

What a waste of talent and ability. Yours, and that of everyone else involved. You'd think they had more important things to do. Move the word, perhaps. Outreach. LOL. I can see the point of an outline, and a rehearsal. I can see the point of squashing individuality in teaching...because some Wayfers simply can't understand anything that's not straight blue book. It's so refreshing to go to other establishments - churches, wherever - and hear something from a different point of view. You know what? There are such similarities (or should be - usually). Even if the teacher is a dyed in the wool trinitarian or from some other different Christian background. Yet the different perspective does give something to think about.