chockfull

What a prison camp in rez corps training has turned into. One of the best memories I have of in rez is ignoring the study hall directives and doing some word studies on my own. Actually reflecting back most of my valuable experiences I can recollect involve some form of ignoring a TWI directive and following the still small voice of God. Now I can see how that makes perfect sense. TWI directives oppose God working in an individual.

TWI's outreach programs - Way D, WOW, other extrapolations over years - all have some things in common. They remove a person's normal support structures (friends, family, community) and put in their place artificial support structures made up by TWI. The problem with this is the same problem with all TWI's artificial support structures - they really don't care about you. People serving in an artificial support structure don't really care for people the same way they would for those in their real support structures. This opens the door for a lot of calamity. Can good things happen in this type of arrangement? Can a person who voluntarily removes all support structures and "relies upon God" grow and progress? Sure. God honors what's in a person's heart. Could it be a good thing for people to get removed from loser friends and family? Sure it could. TWI supporters and party line supporters will say "nothing is wrong with encouraging people to trust God more". What's wrong is removing the support systems. And replacing them with non-caring substitutes. False shepherds. Middle managers with aspirations. Tons of rules. Then turning their back when people don't succeed and blame them.

I'm willing to be last - the last person to be swindled again by false prophets and their delusions of grandeur.

Awesome. Should be entitled "When Bitterness Teachings Backfire". I'm not angry anymore towards those complicit in my leaving TWI. They were wrong, misguided, and being used as pawns. However, they did me a favor. What could be worse is if they refused to be used as pawns and to have me still in the organization bowing down my knees to the false prophets in charge. My life still could be in the bondage of that legalism, never intended by God. Actually, it's hilarious to me that you have people at the very top acting like complete megalomaniacs and demanding loyalty and absolute obedience. Then when people refuse and leave they label them as bitter and teach people not to be bitter. This is removing normal boundaries of conscience. A normal person would respond to injustice with retaliation. However, label them "bitter" and teach others around them they are bitter, then the tendency is for them to not react to injustice, but rather swallow it and remain obedient. More false teaching, more brainwashing, more standing in the place of the Savior and explaining to people an opinionated divine interpretation of a teaching that should be left for the victims to interpret for themselves. I think the reactions by people like Paul and Fern Allen, the Barnes, and others are fantastic, and completely in the face of this bitterness teaching facade. Abusers should have to face the fear of retaliation. LCM should have to pay a multi-million dollar settlement out of his organization's money to cover for his selfish and hurtful behavior. It should come out of my ABS so that I wake up and stop enabling abusers by sending in my money to them. Their followers should drop off and follow organizations that don't abuse. Yes, root that bitterness out. And the people attached to that bitterness too. Life is too short to be stifled by mediocre minds.

I'm sure VP plagiarized that statement from somewhere....

Usually a bold-faced lie goes longer before it is challenged. Manifesting the "more abundant life" in TWI has to be viewed as a dubious proposal at best. If it is happening, it is for a very elite few within TWI. Rosalie and Donna are sitting on millions in property, savings, cash. Top level bootie kissers on the President's Cabinet have management level salaries. The rest of the staff and followers of TWI? Not so much. Staff work at a wage barely above minimum wage. Personal lives are spied upon and reported to leaders. A heavy-handed micromanagement system is in place all the way to the top. Followers of TWI? They cannot have any debt - so this would include not being able to do student loans for higher education - a key element in employment in this decade. They can't have a mortgage payment to build up equity over time. Of their free time, most of this is taken up - meeting after meeting, class crews, setup and cleanup for local events, phone hookups to listen to teachings from HQ - as listening to this on tape or CD must be done in addition to this. Friends - TWI supplants normal acquaintance / friend types of activities - pressure to sell TWI's classes and fellowships. Witnessing - most field level fellowships have pressure to put together classes - this is a mandated sales quota spelled out by vision and direction documents - this means followers when not busy with other meetings have to do forced witnessing outings - much like the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormon missionaries. Money - at least 10% of net income goes to TWI. Little to zero comes back in any form of benefit - of all local money in TWI - 75% goes to TWI - that's the budget. The remaining 25% is usually 1-3 people's salaries - the region coord, and maybe state coords although there are less and less of them paid - they have to work a seperate job. Oh, and the leadership of TWI - the Corps - they move around a lot. Get used to building up savings, only to have it completely depleted moving to a new city - of which TWI covers little actual expense. More recently to answer apparant contradictions in "abundance" now TWI re-defines abundance as not involving material abundance, but in overall "quality of life" - like peace, etc. Of course with boring minimum wage paying jobs you could misconstrue extreme boredom for peace. It's harder to get past micro-management, as that restricts free thought. It's a highly controlled existence. Some people like this. They are overtly challenged living their own lives, making their own decisions. It's easier to let someone else tell you what to do - look at how you can avoid responsibility and all that pressure. But to the hard-working, the core fabric of America - it's entrepreneurs and those with a brain and a vision - TWI is no place for you. With "over a hundred years of collective spiritual wisdom" on the BOD, they are not going to listen to you, no matter how great your ideas. They have all the answers. TWI - the more abundant life? In reality it's more like barely existing just above minimum wage - with your life controlled. Lie away TWI - it will not last.

The whole DFAC terminology, language, designation, and handling of people to me is nothing more than more fear tactics enacted by the BOD of TWI. Since they are all false prophets, I have a better way of describing that whole angle. DFPOA - Dropped from a Position of Authority (Over Me, My Life, My Family) That's right BOD - you heard it first here. You are DFPOA as it concerns me. I have dropped you from having any authority over myself, my future, my finances, and my family - because you are false prophets. You have been dropped due to your lack of concern for my life, for your spiritual ineptitude and false judgements, your trading in flesh, your pompous attitude, your lack of producing anything remotely interesting in the spritual realm, your heavy hand over the flock, your dogmatic wrong interpretation of scripture in many areas, and your entire Phariseeaic functioning and attitude. When Jesus Christ comes back I will gladly watch as he strips off medal after medal that you have mentally awarded yourself, leaving you barren, naked, and ashamed. Those that will be first, shall be last.

Ah, yes. This was the "material gathering" era. Plagiarist eras are always preceded by material gathering. As of today, the people involved in that era who came in to speak are relegated to placques in the Founders Room of the auditorium. There's a dozen or so of them.

When you get done at a university you'll have an accredited degree? As opposed to a .79 cent diploma and a .39 cent wallet card?

People in TWI really like to talk about the devil. The devil this, the devil that. The devil is coming after you. He really doesn't want believers to prosper. Sometimes they say he's coming after you due to your stand on the Word. But most of the time they like to blame people when they have problems - kind of like you read about in the book of Job. So I thought I'd make up a little poll.

For sure - there are plenty of people (myself included) that God honored the heart of and they received results. I mean to stick with my original language and analogy that's true in the Bible as well - God looked on the hearts of the griping Israelites as they performed the hard labor to build the pyramids and provided them with a miraculous solution - Moses and the book of Exodus. The problem in TWI enters in when the muckity mucks and uppity ups in high places who are professing Christians and also carry the burden of leadership requirements from God behave a whole lot more like the Egyptian slave masters than they do professing Christians. You see the same hard-heartedness towards people that Pharoah showed that the 10 plagues were sent to deal with. The same lack of concern for people's welfare and well being. The same obnoxiousness in attitude towards their little pet rules they have in place, and the failure to yield on them. Sheesh - one particular vomit-inducing thread illustrating this was one where Rico was purported to say that "God created welfare so believers don't have to go in debt". All the while the guy is collecting a management level salary and paying cash for his house. I mean I guess in TWI God isn't powerful enough to create a leader with compassion who will pay employees enough so they don't have to go on welfare. There will be no 10 plagues, no prophet to save them. No parting of the Red Sea. They will sit in their little cieled palaces and high seats at the lunch table and grow more irrelevant every day until nobody listens to them anymore. And then Jesus Christ will come back and they will get deflated from all their hot air.

IMO TWI plays upon that phrase. Let's look at the hearts of those building systems to promote compulsory actions. They are using others. Trading in flesh.

Another discussion about tithing has brought up how TWI uses that tithe - this is very enlightening as it is a way to examine the fruit of an organization. This leads to focusing in on a subsection of that discussion. TWI demands and expects greater than 10% tithe. What else? The volunteering of your time. How do you calculate the net worth of time spent, and compare it to what you receive? In the times of Egypt, the Pharoahs used slave labor to build the pyramids. Generations upon generations performed back-breaking labor, survived ill-treatment, and had low quality lives all for the purpose of building the pyramids. These were elaborate burial chambers for the rich. The great pyramid of Giza is one of the 7 wonders of the world, but of what value was that to all of the slaves that built it? The sacrifice of many to serve the egotistical goals of the few. How about TWI? So to quantify some of that - "Corps worked 4 hour workday schedules" - minimum wage has varied over years, from $4/hr years ago to $7 - $9 currently. Even in residence the value of the work each person provides is a bare minimum of 20 hrs a week x 51 weeks a year (there is no 2 week vacation). That amounts to current values at $7/hr of $7140 a year. Actual values would include working weekend hours (all have chores on Sundays, many times work on Saturday too, as well as no study hall days and full workdays). The Corps trainees are also not average low skill workers. Many are worth much more than that. In addition to that - thousands paid in tuition as well. Adv. Class grads - work/study to provide augmented staff for Adv. Classes. Volunteer work to run fellowships, setup / crews for all ministry events unpaid, etc. Staff - the opportunity cost of minimum wage based payment for years versus developing a profession that will provide for your family, children, and future. Living in trailers or mobile homes, 2 families to one mobile home. Even your poorest welfare recipient in the worst neighborhood in any city would at least get to live in their own mobile home with one family. Running a fellowship - 3 meetings per week - 1.5 hours per meeting, 1 hour physical setup, 2 hours meeting prep = 13.5 hours per week. In addition, administrative - 2 hours, coordinator meetings - 2 hours, weekly phone calls with leadership = 19.5 hours per week (very conservative). Every fellowship - it's a part time unpaid job to run it. Running a branch/limb - most of those positions are unpaid as well. Same time spent - except for now it's 3 hours of Corps teachings (on color of poop, how to read labels, how to breathe, and very fundamental scriptural teachings), weekly phone calls with fellowship coords plus next higher leader. 25 - 40 hours a week to do those jobs in addition to needing to make a living. Yes, TWI is built upon slave labor. The end result - some video classes, a boring magazine, more boring weekly teachings devoid of any personality, and an org with $52 million worth while the followers are on welfare. What are your experiences with slave labor building the pyramids of TWI?

I don't owe my life to any stupid egotistical condescending group of morons who operate from fear tactics and demand absolute loyalty. Yes, this means you TWI, and especially you, BOD of TWI. I owe my life to my God and my Savior Jesus Christ. And He will direct me how to serve, not some group of puffed up self-important idiots. You know the second part of your pet phrase - "the ministry owes you nothing"??? Well, scripture says you reap what you sow, and if you sow that attitude, you know what you're going to reap? Exactly - nothing.

Which by "footing the bill" he means she bought the materials and Way Builders provided the labor for free... Wow - if only the rest of the minions had those kind of resources to avoid having to have a mortgage as she staunchly enforces. Hypocrisy much?

drug problems. it just wouldn't fit. they would never have got along with vp as his problems were more sex and alchohol.

Is that a Bullinger's Figure of Speech? Words that sound similar but mean 100% the opposite? :)

Oh, absolutely. I've seen enough of this to know this is the rule, not the exception to the rule. And this attitude and lack of power spills out all over the organization. Leaders on the field have this mentality as well. Blame the victim. Ostracize the victim. Someone's not doing well? Oh it must be their fault - some secret sin. To align this with Biblical examples, we have Job and the miserable comforters. Blame the sick instead of healing and helping the sick. Here's another great example I found - Elisha and the Shunamite woman. Contrast this Biblical story to how TWI treats people in debt: http://www.jba.gr/Articles/nkjv_jbajuly97.htm

Interesting thread. I personally SIT prior to TWI so after leaving it still has a place in prayer life. However, I think the real damage is in how TWI treats SIT like "magic", or like "The Secret", a fantasy cure-all for all maladies. They sell snake oil, so this is the perfect intangible snake oil. To me the important part of real SIT is just that you're praying, and talking to God in some fashion, fostering a real relationship. OldSkool, your story to me illustrates this. What greater illustration that there ARE NO signs, miracles and wonders going on at the top level of TWI. A top leader (middle level leaders don't teach Corps teachings) uses as a teaching example his lack of power not only to help someone who came to him (other than company at the hospital), but also his lack of ability to follow up and help the person who came to him ongoing. Also, to me, for TWI to send a person like that packing and tell them to go "where they can get help" is indicative of not only their lack of real Christian power, but also their lack of willingness to take care of their own. Shoot, corporations treat people better than that - with leave of absences from a position, medical benefits that include therapy and counseling options paid for, office teams visiting and doing cards, etc. When a for-profit big business entity can show more Christian love than a ministry supposed to be standing for God, well, that just shows you what's really true and what's not. I mean, from the woman's perspective - to hear someone say "go where you can get help" - I'm sure in her mind she was thinking "I did - that's why I came here on staff - to the HQ of the Christian ministry I joined". If you can't get help at HQ, to me that illustrates how anti-Christian HQ is. Jesus in the gospels healed everyone who came to him. Except for the Pharisees - they were too hard-hearted. And the Pharisees at TWI's HQ are no different.

I think that there are more "Bill and Hilary Clinton" types of marriages in TWI than we all realize. A convenient arrangement for the purpose of pursuing power and influence.

Bramble I really like your advice here. A lot of really great practical tips - love the pets comment. They are healing. Hobbies too - one of the tough things is to put something in the void that is left now that you are not on a hamster wheel of TWI design. Replace the hamster wheel with something personally productive, healing. I can't stress too much about the instafriend thing. Friends in TWI (with possibly a few exceptions) are based on the organization and your position, status, standing, etc. and are not real. They will cease to talk to you in a heartbeat if it is in their best interest (or if a big TWI leader tells them to). This is also true with change in favor with the leaders even while you are in (all a big leader has to do is tell one lie, then people will shun others within TWI even while they are still there). This didn't impact me as much because even within TWI I ALWAYS developed friends outside of TWI - community, hobbies, profession, etc. So when TWI people chose to stop talking to me, it wasn't as big an impact. If your only friends are in TWI, then leaving can really impact you in that there is absolutely no support system left for you. Family is many times great - those that have known you your whole life will rally if you're hurt. Just realize after leaving you need to heal. Whether you know it or not. Healing things around you are very helpful.

You know, honestly I've had both good times and bad time witnessing while under TWI's authority. The good times where it's me and God alone on an adventure - some of which had strange turns. The bad times were much of the mandated and forced stuff - TWI's HQ trying to push the blame for lack of growth off on those on the field and make them do sales cold calling to redeem themselves. Forced witnessing trying to fill up dead TWI classes was like putting lipstick on a dead pig.

I'm sure there are current TWI members reading this thread right now, looking down their nose at the "attacks of the adversary" to "bring up the past". What they don't realize is that people carry their past and habits with them after they come to TWI. It's not people bringing up their past failures that's the problem. It's that Rosalie carries them with her - her current antics with stealing away Craig's wife and their relationship is not Biblical. The fruit of her life currently is to split up marriages, to slander and blackball people, and to lie. So as much as you try to excuse it away, a zebra can't change it's stripes, neither can Rosalie change the fruit her life produces. And it is putrid fruit.

Seriously? We have a guy founding a ministry that basically sent in a couple of Cheerio boxtops to a correspondence school to get a doctorate degree, a leadership training program with no credentialed teachers, top level officers who are completely uneducated in the positions they hold. Now a president who was a teacher. What does that produce? Someone who is trained in lesson plans, micromanagement, and stabbing other teachers in the back to get ahead. Do they acknowledge this and fix it? Do they acknowledge ANY problems and fix them? No way. Why would you need to do that when you could draw an analogy of the 12 apostles, 11 of whom were uncredentialed? Funny though, by 2 Tim Paul's statements don't seem to indicate they were successful. But who cares about looking at the overall context of scriptures when you can just cherry-pick your own to prove whatever you want.