Sunesis

Oh Hell Noez...

Extremist, in answer to your question, yes. He and his trustees had a "woman in every port" so to speak all over the country and certain gals in the corps. How do I know? I was in one of the early corps. I knew people. I had my women friends tell me about their escapades. I sometimes think I was the only woman who said no to him. Long story, search the threads, its all there.

Hi Twinky! It has been awhile... Hope you are well.

Oh yes. A false prophet, Satan's angels masquerade as angels of light. (This is a bad paraphrase).

I do believe the Jesus Movement was a revival of God. Before Jimmy Dopp passed, I had been studying the "movement" and Lonnie Frisbee. He was the man God used. I don't care what he was or wasn't, he won thousands, he had a true ministry. But I wanted to know more. I wanted to talk to true men of God, those on par with (or maybe not totally) the Apostles of the first century. I believe we had some of those people still living, who had been a part of this revival and I wanted to talk to some of them before they passed. Excath was nice enough to arrange a phone call and an introduction to Jimmy Dopp for me. I got in the Word in Rye, NY under the Heefners - my first hearing of the Word was Steve preaching in Tim Bishop's living room and I was electrified - why had no one told me this before???!!! I was a high school Junior. This is just background. Anyway, I had been musing about the great apostles and men of the 1st century, true men of God who were given extrordinary apostolic power to preach the Word of God and Christ to the known world. After learning about Lonnie I had to know more. My brother-in-law from California knew Lonnie but couldn't tell me much. After Exci connected me with Jimmy, we had several, for me, life changing conversations. We'd talk until the early hours of the morning or until he fell asleep. We connected and we had amazing conversations. He told me of the House of Acts back then and how Lonnie had a little basement room. You had to go through the living room to get to the stairs that led to Lonnie's room. He said in the evening they'd be sitting there and kids would start walking through the living room, nodding good evening and just keep going, Lonnie would preach to 30, 40, 50 kids at a time and after it was over, would come upstairs and say, 30 people born again tonight! or 25 people, whatever the number, the man had a true ministry. They witnessed to everyone in the Haight including Charlie (Manson) who they eventually had to kick out - LOL to Jimi Hendrix. The Word spread like wildfire, then on to the rest of the country. VP read an article about this movement and hightailed it to SF. He played the PFAL for Lonnie and I believe it was a person named Chuck Wise who was an older man who was a leader in the movement and worked with Lonnie and other "main players" in the movement. Lonnie and Chuck said they would not be a part of it, but VP did get Heefners and others and invited the to the farm. The rest is history for The Way. VP was able to co-op a small section of this movement. The rest didn't follow him. This is all what JIm told me. He was there. He also hosted VP. Also, while during the day the wives did things together, VP had Jimmy take him down to the porno movie houses in the Tenderloin district. Jim thought this was very weird, but VP soon went back to Ohio and he didn't think too much about it. I do believe the Jesus Movement was a true revival. Those of us still living have hopefully tried to teach our children and grandchildren. As long as we live, I do not think we will see another revival like that in our lifetimes. That's enough for tonight.

DWBH - I will never forget your teaching to our corps on a class you did on the Temple. It was amazing. Frat doorprize - LOL!

It seems as we all age, its not that we learn "new" things to satisfy itching ears, but I think that I see and understand what I know much deeper. There's a wonderful "old school" writer named Arthur Pink I discovered a few years ago. His book on the Holy Spirit is one of the best I've ever read - really opened my eyes about what the Holy Spirit does in the world and in our hearts. I got it on Amazon, you might enjoy it. Thank you for your kind words everyone. It has been a few years since I've been here and I'm glad to see you all :)

Awesome post by DWBH. I don't believe VP knew Christ. If he did not know Him, how could he possibly have taught him to others? He didn't. Christ was glossed over. He was reduced to an incantation at the end of a prayer. TWI was always about God and the Bible. God's heart - Christ - was missing. I have often thought over the years, the biggest disservice done to people who wanted to know God, who came to TWI, was that they were not taught who truly Christ is. I remember during my time in TWI hearing other Christians, not in TWI, talk about their relationship with Christ. I always wondered - what are they talking about? What am I missing? When I left TWI, the very first thing God taught me was who Christ is. I mulled over this idea, this strange thought for months. I had put my Bible down and also hadn't read it in months. One rainy day, in my little studio apartment on E. 95th Street in Manhattan I read the Gospel of John - fireworks went off in my mind - Oh, I see... I have heard, but now I see. Now, I understand when people talk about their relationship with Christ. He is God's heart, he is the mediator between God and Man. We had God, we had the "Word," but we didn't have the Heart - Christ. Many people can know the Bible, preach it and yet still not believe it, not really. False teachers come from within the body, not from without. The Bible can give the one preaching a nice moral framework to live by, nice things to think about and one can try and make his flesh live by it, but without Christ - God's heart and the Holy Spirit dwelling in us - the flesh and its sin nature will always win, in the end. You cannot change your nature, your will cannot change your nature, your flesh cannot change your nature, your cat cannot change its nature - its nature is cat - our nature is fallen. It is the Holy Spirit that Christ gave that transforms our flesh and nature and conforms us, regenerates us and reconstitutes in us the Image of God we were originally created in. It is Christ who gave us back our lost Holiness. It is the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, dwelling in us, who gets down and dirty with us in the depths of our souls and transforms us into a new creature in ways our flesh cannot. We become a new creation. A masterpiece of God to be unveiled one day in Glory. VP focused on Paul. His sin he could not keep hidden - not in the long run.

I spent a lot of years observing the ordained clergy in TWI and knowing many of them personally. I can understand why VP ordained the early 1-5 corps people - he was growing an organization and needed to have trusted leaders who would carry out his wishes. He needed a structure he could work with on the "field." That said, many of them were nice people but - looking back, I saw very few "gift ministries" at work. Although I will say, I do believe Steve Heefner, Jim Dopp, Donnie Fugit and a few others did have true, Godly ministries. I'm sure there were others but I did not personally know them. In fact in the years after that, during my time in the corps and on staff, there was only one person that I believed God showed me that they had a ministry and what it was - and she was a female who was never ordained by TWI. And I didn't tell her until 20 years later. As the ministry grew and the corps grew there were many people that quite frankly, I wondered how these some of these guys were getting ordained. As I would speak to later corps men, 10th, 11th and 12th, it seemed that ordination had evolved to become a carrot on a stick - it was what the men all aspired to, it was a huge motivator that VP used. It was the highest pinnacle of success in TWI. You had arrived. I cannot tell you how many men told me they were going to run class after class on the field and get their ordination. Well alrighty then... As I've thought about it over the years, there were very few of the "top" men who reached my heart in a spiritual way and affected true Godly change in my heart during their teachings - maybe I was just hard-hearted. But in the later years for me there were two. One was a 6th corps man and the other had been ordained when he had been a mainstream denominational minister. Other than that, some teachers were comedians, some full of fury, some boring, and ocassionally someone would be truly inspired by the Holy Spirit and reach people's hearts - they were the exception. It was human nature though to try and observe what ministry someone might have had - after all, if VP ordained them they must have had something. But over the years, I saw they didn't. In fact, they way I saw it was this: 1. Apostle - reserved for VP and VP alone. No one other than him had this one. 2. Prophet - this was a highly sought after ministry. Many rude, nasty guys had this one - because, after all, as VP taught, prophets were hard to live with and didn't take guff from anyone. 3. Evangelist - if you were good at running lots of classes on the field, you had this one. 4. Teacher - a lot of people thought they had this one, but really, it was mostly reserved for the research dept. or a couple of other revs who had a reputation. 5. Pastor. This one applied mostly the female reverends. They would spend time, talk, "counsel" and just have those healing one-on-ones with hugs. Its was the girls' ministry. I think though, if you did make that commitment and choose to be ordained, you were TWI's for life. It was a huge commitment. I had a person come to me who had his limb leader extend the invitation to be ordained at the upcoming corps week. I told him to think carefully. He was running an area and was trying to get a career going. I told him it was an honor - but - if he accepted to forget his career - it was obvious TWI leadership had other plans for his life. He would have to give up his career. If he got ordained and later decided to still give his secular career a shot he would be ostracized and have to live with the knowledge and guilt that he was "copped out." Could he live with that? He declined the offer. All in all, I don't think anyone ordained by VP, who I believe now was a wolf in sheeps clothing, has any business calling themselves "Reverend."

I think the best Way musician/singer was Stevie Kay Louis (is that right - I'm getting old). No offense Ted :) What a voice. She was mega talented, and, as so often happened with talented musicians who did not toe the TWI Way Prod "party line" - she was gone after a few years. She sang a song on a Sunday night service called "One Day at a Time" Lord Jesus... I listened to that song almost every day of my WOW year - sometimes it was the only thing that kept me going that year.

Actually, I memorized the Jet Style packing notes and tossed those! I think that's the only thing I still use from my "training."

Thank you for taking the time to answer Geisha :)

Weirwille's Rosebud: Harley. I had an interesting talk with the hospice "faith" lady who counseled many dying people. When VP started whining about how he "wished he was the man he knew to be" - I think he was starting to freak. The end was coming and his whole life had been a fraud - a wolf in sheep's clothing. The end is coming, no way out, and he can't change a thing. He railed and raged on his way out, but kept the basketball or football going on tv.