Oakspear

People are not trained to think. It's not too much of a stretch to assume that a cheeseburger will have cheese on it. Or that the baconator will have bacon on it. You have to spell out every little thing to folks. The breaded chicken one was the best.

Exactly!The verse that I heard thrown around was the one in Corinthians about all things being done decent(ly) and in order. First of all, it's talking about speaking in tongues, not your furniture. And even if it was talking about housekeeping, everybody has a different idea of what constitutes "orderly". Some of the things that I was reproved for in the "decent & orderly" category: I re-used my tea bags and kept the bags in a cup on top of the stove after the first use. Leadership thought that the used tea bag was messy Kids had school desks that they did their school work on. We kept the desks in the living room arranged in a manner that we thought was most conducive to multiple children working at different grade levels. Leadership insisted that they be lined up (stringing chairs anyone?) Same desks were used to store pens, pencils, paper etc, hidden from view. Leadership told us that all the pens & pencils should be lined up and pointed the same way Books, including TWI books, on shelves were arranged according to category. For example, all collaterals together, next to PFAL, next to RHST, etc. Leadership thought they should be arranged according to size. Since our living/dining room was also our school room, boxes of books and papers were stacked in corners. Leadership wanted them hidden away. Yada Yada Yada During one particularly busy time for our branch coordinators, we invited them over for dinner. They had just moved, were running a WayAP class and I forget what else. We thought it would be a nice gesture, freeing them from cooking one night. We weren't pressured or guilted into doing it. We were just being nice. We made no special effort to tidy up the house, just set the food out and fed them. During the whole meal Mr. BC seemed to be simmering with anger over something. is wife seemed perplexed at his attitude, buit didn't say anything. When they were done eating, he abruptly left with Mrs. BC in tow. The next day I received a call from Mr. BC, asking to meet with us. We agreed to a time and met at our house. When the BC's arrived we were treated to doctrine, reproof and correction on the so-called disorder in our house. When it was done, we were expected to drop everything and start working on it. This was in the middle of a work/school day :o I would say that this incident and its aftermath was what got me thinking seriously that leadership in TWI was just plain nuts.

Mal George was a TWI rev. - I don't think George Jess was You know, I knew that, but never really thought about it. Was ordination a shiny toy dangled in front of young folks' eyes to make them feel important? I recall seeing a picture of someone (B.G. Leonard maybe?) laying hands on Don W and ordaining him when he was still a teenager (Don, not Leonard), but he never used the title to my knowledge. I remember Howard Allan saying that he didn't want to be ordained "because he didn't want to bury people", i.e. preside over funerals. I thought when I first heard it that it made very little sense. Are you aware of any specific situations where this happened? I can't think of any examples of people who were ordained because their spouse was. In fact I can think of only a few instances when both husband and wife were ordained: the Greenes and the Lallys. I think that there was an expectation that region coordinators and above were to be clergy, although this wasn't always the case. In 1990 Bill Sage was a region coordinator before he was ordained. Joe Coulter was on the President's cabinet for years before finally letting Martindale slap the "reverend" title on him. I think it was more the case that the pool of candidates for these higher positions came from the clergy ranks. Looking back, there was no clear-cut difference between clergy and non-clergy. As was stated, non-clergy held positions at the top of the pyramid and clergy sometimes were twig coordinators or held no titles whatsoever.

Who said there weren't?

I'm the husband who does most of the cleaning at my house, kinda like Java Jane's husband. My dad was and still is a neat freak; some of it rubbed off on me! Mainly I just like to be able to find things when I'm looking for them. When I was in TWI we homeschooled six children and I had my office in the house; it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to keep the house tidy.

No, i think there was another version after Walter's and before Martindale's That's right; and they were two diferent classes

You know, I really hate thread titles that give no hint as to what the thread is about (like this one ); but I get sucked in every time

Yes, Townsend did Way Tree. Cummins did the original Dealing With the Adversary class. It may have been redone in the early 80's, not sure

It was in the late 90's, Martindale directed that the Region Coordinators would ordain the chosen ones in their regions. I think Martindale made the decision and the RC's implemented it. At the last ROA Martindale was going to ordain a dozen or so people in front of the audience, but decided during the rehearsal to ordain them there and then. I seem to remember a mass ordination at one of the early ROA's, '79 or '80 maybe. I don't think it was ever made clear nor was it consistant

When I went WOW I was a college dropout with no job experience outside of entry-level jobs, so it was just more of the same as a WOW. My first job was as an apprentice glass cutter and general go-fer. I was fired after the owner's church complained about him hiring a cult member. My second job was as a nurse's aid in a nursing home. It was hard work, but I felt appreciated. We moved mid-year and I worked in a Burger King and later as a dishwasher in a family restaurant. I wasn't ashamed of any of these jobs since I didn't really have any qualifications for anything better. After my WOW year I started a job delivering papers and worked my way up to Regional Sales Manager.

I always proudly wore my WOW pin whenever I was wearing a suit, even at non-TWI occassions. In the late 90's I was wearing it on my lapel when a guy who I had previously had a lot of respect for told me that since the WOW program had been ended, it was no longer appropriate to wear it. I still wore it for a while, but got worn down by the constant "correction". I threw it out a couple of years ago.

In the late 90's they decided that the old green & black bumper stickers were "old wineskins" and "suggested" that we take them off and replace them with the red & white Way of Abundance & Power stickers.

"Bless patrol" had different colored hats: yellow for the grunts, blue (?) for the supervisors, Black & white for the big dogs

I thought "Take a Stand Caravan" was Joyful Noise in 1979.

Well, lessee... We had the blue on white WOW tags, the white on green & green on white Corps tags. Then for a few years there was the gold on purple (?) WOWvet tags, the University of Life (where they white on yellow?) tags, white on green advanced class tags. What were the white on brown ones? Was that staff? Was College division white on red? Or red on white? Nebraska WOWvets had a red on white tag shaped like the state. In the 90's if you took Martindale's advanced class you got a white on blue tag, and were not allowed to wear the old white on green one. The Corps tags changed in the late 90's...they no longer had the Corps number; they were a different shade of green and had Way Corps II on the bottom. How about Way Disciple tags?

Once one of my room mates & I were witnessing in our multi-ethnic neighborhood in NYC. Eric was multilingual. One night Eric witnessed in English, Spanish, Portugeuse and maybe Russian. Same night we see two guys leaning up against a car and started talking to them. They looked real nervous and we soon found out why: they were siphoning gas out of the car they were leaning against! In the mid-nineties, our Way Corps leaders were told that they needed to "teach us to witness". At this time our area was full of WOWvets and people who had been involved in TWI since the eraly 70's. We knew how to witness. One afternoon they took me with them to "teach" me. Mr. WC started talking to a man & his wife, whon turned out to be Mormons who witnessed to him. Instead of being graceful about it our fearless leader started shouting at these Mormons, culminating with "you're inSANE" at the top of his lungs, inside the store! I still won't shop there.

I, even though I am not a believer in the biblical god, rejoice that your arm was healed. Whether it was the result of your god, oxygenated water (inside joke - old thread...sorry ) or beet juice, I'm just happy your arm works now! I wouldn't think of asking you to prove anything...but I still don't believe in your Jesus! (sorry again...PFAL reference )

That's the answer, Jim Hensen could make a frog!

Jen-o: I never got the impression that Whitey followed all TWI doctrine, I've seen him argue against some of it. He has been a vociferous opponent of those who spotlight the sins of TWI's founder, and has expressed doubt about some of the stories appearing here. Maybe that's what threw you.

Man, I just love non sequiters! If I had a boy frog and a girl frog, then I could make a frog. If the frogs cooperated!

Jen-o, when were you involved? During the 90's I knew a few people who weren't involved that heavily due to school, work, etc, but they were always considered to be 2nd Class wayfers, uncommitted, doncha know. It wasn't the norm, by any stretch of the imagination, but they existed. The degree to which casual involvement was tolerated depended greatly upon the personality of the individual leader. By the late 90's we got some hardcore recent Corps grads as leaders and people like yourself were driven off.

It's a good thing we have you to warn us about excessive warning

I agree with Catcup; generally name-calling, even if not direct, means that rational arguments have been exhausted.