There’s another book to check out: AMG’s Encyclopedia of World Religions, Cults & the Occult compiled by Mark Water, AMG Publishers, 2006. Pages 684 to 689 cover The Way International and briefly mentions Wierwille’s hearing God speak to him, his death, his teaching on sickness, TWI’s beliefs, prominent splinter groups [CES, Pacific West Fellowship, Great Lakes Fellowship, The Way of Great Britain headed by Chris Geer], and lists the current president as Rev. Rosalie F. Rivenbark.
Yep. It's all politics. You're only a "cult" if you're taking money out of a big church's collection plate. We ought to make T shirts that say "I was in TWI when it was a CULT!"
I had never heard of the Great Lakes Fellowship ... I did a search and found greatlakesfellowship.org, but it doesn't sound like a Way spinoff.... who started the Great Lakes Fellowship? Sorry for being off-topic.
The Pacific Group and Great Lakes were offshoots that were mentioned in the late 80's. They were listed in an article that had appeared in "Christianity Today" in '89 and in Juedes' stuff. Whoever wrote the book probably used that information as a source. I don't know what they're called today or if they're even around anymore.
Just around my area (Seattle and environs) there's probably a couple of dozen local "Mega" churches that have larger congregations than the entire current membership of WayWorld. It's just not big enough to register on anybody's radar anymore.
DL, I suspect that Great Lakes Fellowship proably got absorbed into Christian Family Fellowship with Wayne Clapp, John Srhoyer and Kevin Gigou. As for Pacific Fellowship, have no idea.
I thought it was interesting that the Wikipedia entry on "Dr." Walter Martin atrtibutes his "Doctor" Tiltle to a correspondence degree mill named California Coast University. The entry also seems to imply that his greatest battles were with the Mormons.
What strikes me as funny about this is that whereas they used to brag about being considered a cult - Today, they probably have had an announcement about this and bragged that they were hardly mentioned in that book. Taking pride in becoming more "mainstream" and like all other "religions", but they'll say they've also garnered more respect. Irony upon irony....
Spin doctors who believe their own hype....the scariest bunch of all! <_<
Pacific West Fellowship was started by Steve Sann (former limb leader of Indiana and the youngest limb leader in Way history at age 24 if I remember correctly) in California. I believe Pacific West Fellowship ended when Steve Sann moved to Montana in the early 1990's.
Maybe their being 'Hardly Mentioned' is due to the fact that they're 'Hardly Existent'....
Yeah...........a far cry from the early/mid 70s.
Where are the young, single, bible-fanatics that met in parks, malls, homes.......hanging out together five or six nights of the week and sparked a wave of fanaticism across the USA?
Where are the two thousand WOW Ambassadors who went forth speaking the Word, working in the communities, witnessing to their families, and returning to Ohio for the ROA?
Where are the corps groups that numbered 300-375 year after year.....swelling five campus locations from Colorado to Ohio?
Where are the singers, the songs, the music that soared to the heavens.....the outward expression of praise and thankfulness to a powerful God who forgives, heals and delivers His people?
Where????? Gone.
Legalism and religion are seated at twi......and plan to stay.
That means current numbers of adults is below 2000, and that perhaps 2500-3000 includes the children
currently. I don't expect that number to change radically over the next few years, since they've pretty
much run off everyone who is capable of developing independent thought. They'll still lose seniors
through attrition, since they consider them "dead weight", and youngsters as they learn there is life
outside twi, where free thought counts for something. twi now is a little like those fringe-groups
that spun off Mormonism, and hide in the hills, still practicing polygamy. People in the group grow
and learn once they are exposed to the outside world.
Currently, twi is crawling forward as a corporation.
IMO, the 50+ year old innies are awakened to the reality of meager sunset years.........and thus, have one foot in (twi) and one foot out (reality). Not much witnessing is happening.....lots of reasons, I suppose, one of which is embarrassment. It's hard to explain how this "prevailing" ministry has some 20-30 people scattered around in their state......and statewide meetings are pathetically small.
And then, try and explain twi's history and former presidents. Is martindale mentioned? When did veepee die? And, this gap of confusion. And now, a "new" foundational class.
Questions.....questions. And then, there is the internet.
Heck, if twi can even fill the lower part of their hq auditorium...........imagine the sparse numbers on the field a thousand miles away.
Actually. to go back to the opening post on this thread, I don't think Walter Martin's book ever had much if any mention of TWI. Dunno if the degree thing had anything to do with that or not.
Actually. to go back to the opening post on this thread, I don't think Walter Martin's book ever had much if any mention of TWI. Dunno if the degree thing had anything to do with that or not.
It had LITTLE mention of it, IIRC.
The only one that really devoted space to it was the "Encyclopedic Handbook
of Cults and Sects in America."
Gave it a pretty fair shake, too. It skipped just about all the wild 3rd-party made-up claims
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dmiller
Surprised they even got a mention at all.
Nice to hear they are reduced to a single sentence though.
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T-Bone
There’s another book to check out: AMG’s Encyclopedia of World Religions, Cults & the Occult compiled by Mark Water, AMG Publishers, 2006. Pages 684 to 689 cover The Way International and briefly mentions Wierwille’s hearing God speak to him, his death, his teaching on sickness, TWI’s beliefs, prominent splinter groups [CES, Pacific West Fellowship, Great Lakes Fellowship, The Way of Great Britain headed by Chris Geer], and lists the current president as Rev. Rosalie F. Rivenbark.
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johniam
Yep. It's all politics. You're only a "cult" if you're taking money out of a big church's collection plate. We ought to make T shirts that say "I was in TWI when it was a CULT!"
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DogLover
I had never heard of the Great Lakes Fellowship ... I did a search and found greatlakesfellowship.org, but it doesn't sound like a Way spinoff.... who started the Great Lakes Fellowship? Sorry for being off-topic.
Dog Lover
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TOMMYZ
The Pacific Group and Great Lakes were offshoots that were mentioned in the late 80's. They were listed in an article that had appeared in "Christianity Today" in '89 and in Juedes' stuff. Whoever wrote the book probably used that information as a source. I don't know what they're called today or if they're even around anymore.
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TheEvan
Poor cult, can't get any respect I tell ya...
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excathedra
you made me laugh, ev
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Eagle
You're right Evan! No respect!
LOL!
That cracked me up so hard reading that post that I nearly fell off my chair!
Eagle
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George Aar
It's hardly surprising I guess.
Just around my area (Seattle and environs) there's probably a couple of dozen local "Mega" churches that have larger congregations than the entire current membership of WayWorld. It's just not big enough to register on anybody's radar anymore.
Even as a cult, TWI is second-rate...
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
DL, I suspect that Great Lakes Fellowship proably got absorbed into Christian Family Fellowship with Wayne Clapp, John Srhoyer and Kevin Gigou. As for Pacific Fellowship, have no idea.
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TheInvisibleDan
The author, Walter Martin, is dead.
Deader than a doornail.
And has been for quite some time now.
Whoever recently "updated" his work
must have been a "ghost" writer.
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Lifted Up
I thought it was interesting that the Wikipedia entry on "Dr." Walter Martin atrtibutes his "Doctor" Tiltle to a correspondence degree mill named California Coast University. The entry also seems to imply that his greatest battles were with the Mormons.
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Eagle
Invisible Dan:
Walter Martin is dead? And he used a degree mill for his credentials?
Then it was a "ghost" or ghost writer that updated his book....posthumously of a degree mill graduate.
Chris Geer is behind this...
Eagle
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SafariVista
Maybe their being 'Hardly Mentioned' is due to the fact that they're 'Hardly Existent'....
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Belle
What strikes me as funny about this is that whereas they used to brag about being considered a cult - Today, they probably have had an announcement about this and bragged that they were hardly mentioned in that book. Taking pride in becoming more "mainstream" and like all other "religions", but they'll say they've also garnered more respect. Irony upon irony....
Spin doctors who believe their own hype....the scariest bunch of all! <_<
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Paradiseden
Pacific West Fellowship was started by Steve Sann (former limb leader of Indiana and the youngest limb leader in Way history at age 24 if I remember correctly) in California. I believe Pacific West Fellowship ended when Steve Sann moved to Montana in the early 1990's.
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skyrider
Yeah...........a far cry from the early/mid 70s.
Where are the young, single, bible-fanatics that met in parks, malls, homes.......hanging out together five or six nights of the week and sparked a wave of fanaticism across the USA?
Where are the two thousand WOW Ambassadors who went forth speaking the Word, working in the communities, witnessing to their families, and returning to Ohio for the ROA?
Where are the corps groups that numbered 300-375 year after year.....swelling five campus locations from Colorado to Ohio?
Where are the singers, the songs, the music that soared to the heavens.....the outward expression of praise and thankfulness to a powerful God who forgives, heals and delivers His people?
Where????? Gone.
Legalism and religion are seated at twi......and plan to stay.
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WordWolf
The largest number of people at any one time in twi was about 30,000.
There were about 100,000, worldwide, who signed up for pfal.
That includes those who never made it to Session I, those who made it to Session I
but did not make it to Session 12,
and those who completed Session 12 but were gone within the next 3 months.
Maybe 1/3- 1/2 the people I ever met personally in twi had faded within 3 months of Session 12,
whether or not they made it that far.
twi was fond of obscuring its numbers whenever possible to appear larger, all through
its history. 30,000 is not a monumentous number, but 100,000 was enough to get people's attention,
especially when someone claimed it was "the fastest-growing cult" at some point.
That was probably true in the H33fn3r/D*op era, but not true a few years later, except locally in a few
places, for time periods of about a year. Of course, that partly backfired, when "followers"
had to deal with the easy panic of people worried that twi was going to subvert all their teenagers
(like those evil commies or those possessed D&D players). That, in and of itself, was a windfall
for twi, since it gave them something to "brag" about, causing a panic, but it was a problem for
the individuals. Not that this bothered twi any-individuals have always been DISPOSABLE in twi,
and vpw himself began that proud tradition.
Getting back to the CURRENT numbers,
twi had tried hard to get people to associate the number "5000" with them currently.
It's a fiction.
The number "5000" supposedly referred to the number of people on-grounds for some anniversary,
when everyone within a 250-mile radius who could be convinced to show up walked in.
That included family, neighbors, etc.
The number "5000" supposedly was the highest estimate around 2000 AD of members worldwide,
which included all children. That meant the number of adults at the time was 2000-3000 worldwide.
Since that time, the total number of members, of course, has been dropping steadily. We know that
because plenty of posters HERE left within that timeframe.
That means current numbers of adults is below 2000, and that perhaps 2500-3000 includes the children
currently. I don't expect that number to change radically over the next few years, since they've pretty
much run off everyone who is capable of developing independent thought. They'll still lose seniors
through attrition, since they consider them "dead weight", and youngsters as they learn there is life
outside twi, where free thought counts for something. twi now is a little like those fringe-groups
that spun off Mormonism, and hide in the hills, still practicing polygamy. People in the group grow
and learn once they are exposed to the outside world.
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skyrider
Currently, twi is crawling forward as a corporation.
IMO, the 50+ year old innies are awakened to the reality of meager sunset years.........and thus, have one foot in (twi) and one foot out (reality). Not much witnessing is happening.....lots of reasons, I suppose, one of which is embarrassment. It's hard to explain how this "prevailing" ministry has some 20-30 people scattered around in their state......and statewide meetings are pathetically small.
And then, try and explain twi's history and former presidents. Is martindale mentioned? When did veepee die? And, this gap of confusion. And now, a "new" foundational class.
Questions.....questions. And then, there is the internet.
Heck, if twi can even fill the lower part of their hq auditorium...........imagine the sparse numbers on the field a thousand miles away.
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Lifted Up
Actually. to go back to the opening post on this thread, I don't think Walter Martin's book ever had much if any mention of TWI. Dunno if the degree thing had anything to do with that or not.
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WordWolf
It had LITTLE mention of it, IIRC.
The only one that really devoted space to it was the "Encyclopedic Handbook
of Cults and Sects in America."
Gave it a pretty fair shake, too. It skipped just about all the wild 3rd-party made-up claims
and everything.
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