johniam

I went to CFF fellowships at the early stages. I was intrigued because I remembered hearing a LCM teaching where he was talking about people who left and people who stayed and he mentioned John Shroyer saying, "He's as solid as a rock!" So of course I was curious that someone as "solid as a rock" would defect to the "fellowship of the contaminated". At the time he (John Shroyer) said that he knew stuff was wrong in TWI before he left. Then (red flag alert!!!) he said he was driving on the highway in Fla. where he was limb/region cordo and God spoke audibly to him telling him he had to start his own ministry. He almost went off the road. No gas pumps. No snowstorm, red flag nonetheless. He said the last straw was when LCM counselled a woman at HQ to dump her husband because he would never amount to anything. The husband killed himself (see "driven to suicide" somewhere on the GSC archives) and then LCM told the way corps that he "saved" this woman from "oblivion" or something. So Shroyer left. He spent much time at first just driving all over the country listening to peoples' stories of abuse at the hands of TWI. He got madder and madder as the stories piled up. He opened his HQ in Tipp City, OH in June of 1998. The last fellowship I attended was in fall of 1998. IMO John Shroyer is intent on helping people get healed from TWI induced cruelty. That may have shifted somewhat since almost 10 years have passed. But he's a good guy.

Neat. I remember a Bill Withers song called Grandma's hands or something like that. Wonder if it was along the same lines.

I was at CFF fellowships from '96-'98. They were OK. Interesting that kids seem to be a good barometer for whether someone's trying to exert undue influence over us or not.

At my WOW training someone prayed for 5 minutes...at breakfast. Thanks for cold eggs.

I've been stuck on "do I have kids, or did I read it in a thread?" for awhile. Sometimes I feel like that. Then one of my kids comes up and says, "Naw, you don't have any kids." so it's OK.

I don't fly much, but in '87 I rented from Alamo at LAX. They were good. They specifically said to leave as little gas in the car as possible. Is that standard?

I was glad to hear one sports talking head recently say that the jury's still out on players like McGwire. His reasoning was that if many players were on steroids during the 80s and 90s (which I believe they were), then McGwire was still way above his peers and should go in the hall, but if it turns out that few players were using steroids, then he shouldn't go in. That reasoning is better than the witch hunt some media members are on. I believe that MLB was a very steroid friendly environment for at least 2 decades and that MLB execs not only knew about it, but turned a blind eye to it and, after the strike in '94, even encouraged it to get sales back up. It makes me angry thinking about how now that MLB is in the hot seat over steroids they act like they never had anything to do with this "terrible problem". Canseco's probably being truthful about how many players used steroids.

Good for you for standing up to her.

quote: I had once owned a 1613/14 King James Bible. In the center (between the New and Old Testaments) was a section of Psalms set to music. The introduction to this section said that its purpose was to counteract the proliferation of madrigals, "which corrupt our youth." THAT is funny! In 11th grade I sang in choir and in a madrigal group that did gigs the choir didn't do. But one thing was terribly wrong! I, a guy, had hair down to the middle of my back! Somebody wrote a letter to my mom pleading with her to make me cut my hair. Even SHE laughed at that. But I was a "corrupted youth" AND I was a madrigal. It all makes sense now. I guess they could have kicked me out but I was a 1st tenor and none of the other guys could hit the high notes without going into falsetto. They were STUCK with me. The music we sang in that group was awesome. The girls really made the group, though. Lot of really tight baroque sounding harmonies. I remember one song in particular called "Sing sorrow". It was about a peasant girl who was in love with a nobleman and suffered in silence. The chorus said, "sing sorrow, sing sorrow, now she sleeps in the valley where the wild flowers nod; and no one knows she loved him but herself and God". But we were evil madrigals, don't forget.

Hmm. So God does disasters, but not diseases?

Man, in the 60s/early 70s you took your safety in your hands every time you went outside if you were a long haired male (depending on where you lived). I got abused for it all the time, but that only strengthened my resolve to keep doing it. That CSNY song 'Almost cut my hair' refers to being a long haired male as "letting your freak flag fly". My dad died when I was young, but my mom said he would've reacted violently. She put up with it.

The most abuse I saw in this was when people were moving. Not leaders, just regular believers. You felt obligated to help people because it was "the right thing to do" but you get over there to help them and they don't even have stuff out of their cupboards yet and ultimately the whole day's shot. In '83 we all came to the area leader's house to rake leaves but the leader himself and his 2 under 10 kids helped right along with everybody else. Had beer afterwards. Beer covereth a multitude of ...well. Once a year several of us STL believers drive 100 miles southwest to cut firewood for a believer family. It's pretty cool; they feed us and put us up in a motel that night. We work our a$$e$ off all day (cut down trees, use splitters to convert them to much firewood) but the fellowship is good. That's the way something like that should be done: EVERYBODY is blessed.

I was never told that the reason for Christian ettiquette was to not PO the MOGs; I was taught that if you're going WOW and were going to witness to perhaps a large cross section of people, then you need to have enough refinement so as to not offend someone you may witness to. In other words, the word we held forth was beautiful no matter what, but some people would never see it if we didn't present ourselves at least somewhat cultured. That was the idea. I was a drug using hippie before TWI; I NEEDED some instruction in that area. No offense CW, but I'm glad you weren't in my WOW family; we'd have killed each other.

On the 'baseball the talking sport' thread few months ago this came up. I wondered what ever happened to a certain former baseball player turned broadcaster who was well known from the late 60s through the early 90s. According to Wikipedia this guy had a thing for "latin boys" and his broadcast partner was a "screaming queen". I couldn't believe it. So I pasted the juicy stuff on the thread and one of the regular contributors to the thread immediately went to Wikipedia and erased it. Then one morning while driving to work I'm listening to the STL talk radio station and the DJ says that Wikipedia is so credible and can be trusted. Ha ha.

Hmm. This reminds me of something. Back in '83 or so I played music for a TWI wedding. The clergyman who performed it did not use a bible; he used a copy of RHST, the leather bound one with red on the borders of the pages that everybody got who went to Living Victoriously, which LOOKED like a bible. As far as I know, the couple was still legally married.

Far out, man.

I think if a poster had serious problems with another poster's PM they should contact the mods first. That way the whole thing could be handled privately if at all possible. But private means private. I've had 2 different posters reveal stuff to me in PMs that I KNOW they don't want revealed in the forums and no matter what level of disagreement I ever have with either of them I will NOT violate that trust. I know of another situation where 2 posters who vehemently disagreed with each other exchanged emails, and one of them threatened to reveal some of the contents of the other's emails on the forums here if the 2nd poster didn't stop expressing certain opinions. That's not good and it IS a matter of trust. As far as emails and PMs being "legal documents", anything posted or emailed can be subpoenaed and used in court if it relates to, say, a murder case. The way that works is, if the local police can do no more with their own investigations, they have the option of requesting help from the FBI. A few years ago here in STL a serial killer was caught by that method. He emailed somebody connected to the case and by federal authority the emails were traced to the killer's computer and case eventually closed.

Never heard of Burgerville, but I like 'Whattaburger'. As for TWI, they fed us real good at Living Victoriously.

Thanks. Different drum? I thought he played bass. Kidding.

Spongebob here. I'd rather be Heiffer from Rocko's Modern Life. That was a cool cartoon.

I won't mention any names, but some posters probably wouldn't do well on that test. Oh, hey Rascal, how ya doing?

Is Carroll Bills still in TWI? Anybody know?

I told my oldest child, a girl, that there was no Santa Claus when she was 7. No big deal. Besides, if you allow Santa 5 minutes per house, he's only got time for 72 houses from midnight to 6AM and that's if he doesn't take breaks. Even Santa should get recess.

OK this explains something. At my AC we all had to name our twigs. I can't remember what our name was but it was really lame. There was a girls twig I can't remember the name of, but their twig scripture was Luke 9:58b "foxes have holes". THAT I remembered.

This business of not offending anyone: Matt. 15:12-14 - Then came his disciples and said unto him, knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this saying? But he answered and said, every plant which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up Let them alone, they be blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall in the ditch. It doesn't appear that Jesus was too concerned about simply offending people. Now I realize that Jesus had a ministry to perform and this doesn't always transfer to people who are equals conversing on a forum or in person, but using guilt is always an option for those who think that THEY should be in control of every conversation.