johniam

All that talk about minor chords got me thinking. Most way prod songs had minor chords in them. LCM talked once about not having too many minor chords, but, hey, we live in a minor chord world sometimes. Also, as a musician in a group that played for branch and limb meetings, I was told repeatedly to avoid music that sounded like blues. There was a real agenda to do this. Yet, blues is in the word. It's just not called blues, it's called lamentations. I believe they were sung based on 2 Chronicles 35:25 - And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah; and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations. Isn't modern day blues simply lamenting something? Hey, Waysider, why don't you try to pull up that SNL skit where Dan Aykroid was playing Tom Snyder and asked Ray Charles...if my woman left me, and I ran out of money, and I went to prison, WOULD I GET THE BLUES????? But, seriously, I just don't think God is upset if people express sorrow in music. He created us with the capacity to cry, didn't he? I know about the "sorrow of the world worketh death" but I think twi was a bit heavy handed with their restrictions on music sometimes.

By 'social hour', I meant just feeling comfortable socially with the people you actually see all the time. Not interrupting anything. That, to me, is a common courtesy issue. When twi leaders said to me this is not a social hour, it was usually 'provoked' by talking about something other than the word and (gasp) smiling. Oh, geez, if you interrupted a teaching you got flamed.

First a disclaimer: although I will be one degree of separation away from a political event, that is NOT the intended topic of discussion. KMOX is the most popular radio station in the St. Louis area. They do Cardinals, Blues, and Mizzou Tigers games, but other than that, they do only talk radio. Rush Limbaugh's show is broadcast on the station, but they do all kinds of talk radio besides him. They have a morning show with 2 DJs, a man and a woman. They pick topics and outline them and ask for callers' opinions. Pretty normal stuff. Normally, I don't listen to that show. The male DJ can be a bit abbrasive, IMO, but yesterday I was tuned in. The first topic they did was about the election statistic that 50% of catholics nationwide voted for Obama. The female DJ is catholic. She thought it was OK because catholics aren't robots. The male DJ says, "but the church is suing the president over mandated birth control and how can a true catholic vote for Obama?" They wanted opinions from callers. St. Louis has a lot of catholics btw. So I called. I told the screener what I wanted to say, he asked my name and said please hold. I'd done this before on KMOX at all hours. Sometimes you get through; sometimes you don't, but if you do get through you always have to wait at least several minutes. Not even 5 seconds later the male DJ says, "Hello, John, you're on KMOX!" I said hello just to make sure it wasn't someone else named John. Then I commented that, IMO, religion isn't just a spiritual outlet, it's a social outlet as well. If people feel comfortable socially in any religion, then they may not feel like they have to agree 100% with what the religion is trying to promote. Both DJs said I made a good point. They made more comments and wanted to know if other callers agreed or disagreed. I was working (cleaning windows) and I didn't get to listen much longer, but this is where twi comes in. How many times during the last few years in twi did I hear, "Hey! This is NOT a social hour!" Everything humans do together is social, isn't it ? Not just religion. If it isn't, then we ARE all robots. In twi we heard constantly that other churches, especially the catholic church, were oppressive and heavy handed. Well, let's see. This kind of situation sounds like it might tempt some clergy to want to stress commitment, but I, personally, am curious. Any catholics here getting any fallout from this? It can't be as bad as twi...can it???

You make a good point: It is much easier to pursue a certain train of thought if even ONE of your peers might give you the space.

Each of those amounts can be reached with one bill and one coin, each of which has the same person on them.

quote: They can all be formed with two pieces of currency, no less. True, but there's one more detail.

Ham: I have a math brain teaser for you. I wouldn't have started a new thread for it, so I'm trying to sneak it in this one. Using US currency only, what do the following 4 amounts of money have in common? $1.25 - $2.05 - $5.01 - and $100.50. quote: Amazing how a product can rescue us from the horror of static cling, for example. Or 'ring around the collar'.

I looked with delight at seeing that AA was started by a guy who later took acid. It all makes sense now. No, it doesn't make any sense. I still maintain that while AA is not the be all end all of anything, it has worked for a lot of people. I heard LCM admit that in 1989 or so, but later in 1994 when he was gestapo craig he called it a damnable pile of crap or something. That pesky present truth y'know. However, the same logic could be applied to....twi.

I got that link from cman's post #39. You guys got the jitters or WHAT?

quote from wikipedia: After a transcendent experience while under the influence of LSD, Bill Wilson considered adding an additional, thirteenth step which incorporated maintenance usage of LSD. However, he was dissuaded from doing so by Aldous Huxley. Nice.

Or reenforces the means.

This reminds me of something VP used to say. Something to the effect of, 2 guys get dead drunk and sleep it off. One gets up the next day, has a drink and he's OK. The other gets up, has a drink, and can't stop drinking until he's dead drunk again. The second guy was the alcoholic, possessed. I once knew a believer who was involved with Amway. He said good things about them plus one major criticism: that, as AA has been described on this thread, Amway leads people to Christianity and after they convert you they make you feel like you owe your Christianity to Amway. But if it helps, it helps.

I guess I should weigh in here. An update: my family still goes to the Chris Geer fellowship and were are quite happy with it. The house coordinator and his wife now live in a different part of STL. Not sure if they still coordinate a fellowship or not. The area coordinator is still the area coordinator for CRF AND he is still the owner of the window cleaning company I work for. I stopped participating with CRF, but I still work for him, as do a few other believers and they treat me just fine. I particularly want to adress THIS portion of the quoted post: quote: Just the mere fact that johniam refused to forgive was not wise or loving. Some people are just built that way in their old man ways, and those type of people unless they change will not get along with anyone or group for very long, because forgiveness is REQUIRED in order to walk in fellowship with God and with the family of God. Even if others have done something wrong. If no one ever did anything wrong, why would we even need forgiveness? Not for very long, eh? I was in twi for 18 years. I've now gone to the same fellowship for almost 8 years. Just how long is 'not very long'? If forgiveness is required, then so is self esteem. You can't just pause and enlarge a 2 hour segment of someone's life and assign permanent character traits to it, can you? Part of the problem for us is that 2 of my 3 children are autistic. TWI fellowship never had the capacity to accomodate situations like this. They all too quickly pulled out the proverbial rubber stamp which says POSSESSED. "I'm not responsible to love this person with the love of God! You can SEE he's possessed!" Glad Jesus didn't operate that way. This led to our leaving twi and also a different spinoff in MI late 90s. For the spinoff it was like CRF. More local people that the whole group. With twi it was the whole group. In the Chris Geer fellowship the leader's attitude toward our childrens' autism was "we're a family; we'll figure it out". Not quite 8 years later, it's still working.

I wouldn't exactly call it 'fiery', but it wasn't pleasant. The year was 1994. My wife and I had each been in twi for 18 years, 6 of which as spouses. At word in bus. that year LCM said any corps had 6 mo. to get out of debt or no more corps status. Then at roa the homo purge. Then AFTER roa the unproductive evil purge. THAT was what forced us out. If you don't jive with that term pick your own, but they actually had everybody in every twig go to "meetings" with the new sheriff in town Pat Pugh, who is now the limb leader of CT. He with the twig leader basically listed all our sins and told us to clean up or get out. We were bewildered. This was not the twi we had embraced all these years; WTF is going on? We limped along and had a second such meeting. Then the twig leader called me and informed me that I was welcome and my 5 year old daughter, but my 3 year old autistic son and my wife were not welcome. I sent copies of the same letter to LCM, Michael Fort (trunk cordo), and Allen Licht (limb/reghion cordo) telling them either we were all in or all out. Michael Fort sent a letter back saying "out". If I would have tried to cooperate with the regime, I'd be divorced now. And probably broke. Yes, I call that 'forced out'. quote: Johniam, yes, there was stuff about a mother's sphere of influence...but again, one of those things that lip service was paid to but the actuality was different. Husbands were given authority to overrule wives in any situation - and of course everyone was subject to someone higher up the Way tree - so in fact, there was interference from on high and external to the family about how children were being raised. I wasn't trying to defend him; just clarifying what he said publicly. I'm sure there WAS a different application when the cameras and microphones weren't on.

In 1995 on, ahem, Mother's day, he did a teaching called 'a mother's believing authority'. In it, he said that women had a sphere of influence and authority, ESPECIALLY in dealing with children. He even said to men not to mess with this 'authority'. He used Sarah and Rebecka as examples. How God told Abraham to do what Sarah requested re: Hagar and Ishmael and how God told Rebecka, not Issac, there were twins in her womb and the elder would serve the younger. One reason this teaching stood out in my mind is that I had been forced out of twi the previous year, yet I listened to the SNS tapes via a friend. Every other time LCM taught it seemed like he used the exact same formula: 20 minutes of actual teaching and 40 minutes of him screaming about whoever p'd him off that week. This mother's day teaching was like a breath of fresh air by co0mparison. "Yeah, Craig. Might want to ease up a bit"

I agree that he was too busy DOING things to bother writing them down. Doesn't it say somewhere in John that the whole world could not contain the books that should be written? Yeah. Last verse in the book. I guess that's why we have stenographers and journalists.

quote: We minister edification, not destruction. :(

quote: What do we need tongues for now? The church is already established on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets . . . Instead of asking ourselves why or how it has changed....or if it is the same thing as the first century.....we might rethink the question and ask what the practical and God glorifying reason there would be for SIT now. We are far too removed from the 1st century church to ever get a satisfying answer as to if it is the same thing. Too far removed????? The "foundation of the apostles and prophets" is the mystery (Eph. 3:5). The one body. We today are just as much a part of the body of Christ as was the first century believers. That's never going to change.

When I was back there in atheist school, there was a person there who put forth the proposition that.... "the face in the mirror won't stop, the girl in the window won't drop" He may have cancelled his subscription to the resurrection, but not to oblivion. He was THERE! Therefore, he was credible. Believe it if you need it; if you don't just pass it on.

I was mad at the STL post-dispatch when they removed Mallard Fillmore from the funnies. Mallard is a duck who make social commentary with illustrations and leans to the right. He makes fun of Obama and liberals. He said he got an email from an outraged reader who said the funnies are supposed to have lighthearted hijinx for children; not his slanted social commentary. He came back with 'so is the evening news, but you don't see that stopping them'. I don't even read the funnies anymore.

A 'twi trained' believer as opposed to a 'trinity trained' believer, which is what churches crank out.

This sounds like some hell fire fundamentalist preacher telling me I'm a sinner no matter what I feel like. You might buy time with that kind of argument except, I've been into this for 36 years now. I felt a lot more isolated being a drug person than I ever did being a twi trained believer.

Paul said I would ye all SIT. (1 Cor. 14:5) Why would Paul wish that if God didn't?

No. Nothing about his RECOVERY has reversed.

quote: And your comment, "Any church does this." Does any church have security patrol 24/7, bodyguards, trained dogs and corps bless patrol during summer camp training? Sure, every 'church' has a person who crawls under the mainstage prior to their event searching for bombs! sure, every main pastor speaks suspiciously of FBI agents on their grounds.....like wierwille did at roa. Twi's ISOLATION......especially corps/staff/hq projected an affront to the 'outside world.' Other than SIT, churches DO the 5 basics. As for the security measures, I bet that crystal cathedral of Robert Schuller's has security. TWI had enemies. That's why you have security. I never felt isolated in twi; just ostracized from the extremists who targeted us and whoever they got to. I said recently in another thread that you don't need to have that many people in your group to feel appreciated. As long as I felt appreciated, I did not feel isolated. Yeah, I'll bet those FBI agents felt REALLY isolated. Stuck spying on a bunch of Christians. Tough work.