"frightening"

[johniam]

When I was young my mother, a democrat, told me that Elinor Roosvelt once said of Richard Nixon, that his ambition was frightening.

Recent finished Kris Skedgell's book 'Losing the Way'. One thing that appalled me was the consistent behavior of her ex husband. She describes an incident where, before they were married, he was stewing about how he wasn't a reverend yet, and he was in the worst limb in the country, really angry about all this. IMO he had his head up his rear. So Kris tries to get him to lighten up by telling a corny joke...and he decides she's not taking him seriously enough, so he starts poking her...repeatedly...hard...and he breaks her arm. Huh?

I recall a Ralph D. teaching from late 70s early 80s about what he called a "vision problem". He compared 2 guys who had graduated from the way corps. One was assigned to be limb leader in a state which had two (2) twigs in the whole state. The other was assigned to be a branch leader over 9 twigs. On the surface, the guy with the 9 twigs had greater responsibility than the guy with just 2 twigs. But...

After 3 years at their respective places, the guy with 2 twigs had expanded to 15 twigs. Not bad. But the guy with 9 twigs had shrunk to 5. Why? Because he was only a branch leader, not a limb leader. He thought it was beneath him to just be a branch leader and apparently, his attitude trickled down to the people for whom he was responsible. For all I know, Ralph could have been referring to Kris' ex.

But it struck me that there were possibly a lot of way corps who had big dreams. John Hendricks, in his spinoff CRF, did a seminar on the hope. In it, he said he figured there have been 20 billion people exist all time and that we as knowledgeable believers had a golden opportunity to have special responsibility and privileges after the return in the new heaven and earth. That this was part of our hope. I don't believe JH himself was one who had "frightening" ambition, but some people who listened to that kind of message just might.

Does anyone here have any stories or recollection of people who had ambition that was "frightening" in twi?

[waysider]

"Does anyone here have any stories or recollection of people who had ambition that was "frightening" in twi?"

VPW and his "PFAL Over The World" program

[chockfull]

After 3 years at their respective places, the guy with 2 twigs had expanded to 15 twigs. Not bad. But the guy with 9 twigs had shrunk to 5. Why? Because he was only a branch leader, not a limb leader. He thought it was beneath him to just be a branch leader and apparently, his attitude trickled down to the people for whom he was responsible. For all I know, Ralph could have been referring to Kris' ex.

The object lesson here is not only to examine the lack of morals in those with ambition to climb the TWI ladder, but in those who manipulate that ambition by their assignment of and removal of titles, position, etc. TWI's BOD holds people hostage with positions, titles, etc. and the threat of losing them. That evil far exceeds the evil that you reference here of ambition and jealousy, although that account in Kris's book pretty much shows a man with little character or spine.

The denominational churches just call people "pastors" regardless of whether their church is one of 25 or of 2500. But in TWI, you have the too many chiefs too little Indians scenario. Look at recent Way Corps graduations for examples. How many tiers of positions and titles do you see in those pictures of the little dictatorship hierarchy? It far exceeds the numbers in the ranks.

[waysider]

And, the example only serves to illustrate the point.... The whole thing was driven by an effort to increase membership. (Yeah, I know, there are no "members" in The Way.) Increase ranks by selling PFAL to new recruits who would eventually bring a constant flow of cash to the organization via classes and ABS. The classes were a method of obtaining short term profit while ABS was a method of guaranteeing long term profit.

Edited September 3, 2011 by waysider

[Broken Arrow]

When I was young my mother, a democrat, told me that Elinor Roosvelt once said of Richard Nixon, that his ambition was frightening.

Does anyone here have any stories or recollection of people who had ambition that was "frightening" in twi?

Yes...me!

[Twinky]

I always had a big vision for seeing God BIIIGGG in people's lives. Even from a child I knew that God could do big and special things for people, and loved and cared for them. Guess I musta listened in Sunday School. I wanted to be a missionary in Africa.

I had big visions for a life of service when I got involved in TWI. I enjoyed my WoW year and had big vision for the city (which didn't come to pass, but we certainly did find some excellent new people for our WoW twig who really saw God's love and care in their lives).

I never had the ambition to be a big religious hotshot, and the idea of building up anything that made people look at me, as opposed to glorifying God, never entered my head (I think I fancied the adventure of the idea of going to Africa!).

As we all know, TWI's ideas of service and other people's aren't quite the same. I wasn't the hard b----- they tried to turn me into, so they squashed and squished every idea and every attempt at service. I met some very frightening people - and they made a point of being frightening. Some who were not frightening to start with became so, with that constant "You are not obedient to the Word" condemnation of individuality.

Having big vision is fine.

Having ambition is fine.

Having ambition to climb over and squash everyone else to achieve one's vision is dead wrong.

[mstar1]

Does anyone here have any stories or recollection of people who had ambition that was "frightening" in twi?

Its frightening that any of those people you mentioned were ever ordained at all.

It is apparent it was never about 'service' but always about THEM.

It was more the norm than the exception in my experience with TWI.

TWI was almost always about ego gratification behind the superficial and very thin veneer of pseudospirituality.

[johniam]

quote: Having big vision is fine.

Having ambition is fine.

Having ambition to climb over and squash everyone else to achieve one's vision is dead wrong.

Yeah. I'm on board with that. I knew a guy in twi who told me after I'd known him for years that he wanted to be the next pres. of twi, that he actually prayed about this every day, but he never showed any tendencies to squish people. Hmm. Maybe he should have.

[chockfull]

Yeah. I'm on board with that. I knew a guy in twi who told me after I'd known him for years that he wanted to be the next pres. of twi, that he actually prayed about this every day, but he never showed any tendencies to squish people. Hmm. Maybe he should have.

I think you've got that right. I personally have faced challenges in the org where I refused to squish people - I've always been more of a person that roots for the underdog. I'm sure I just don't have what it takes.

[Jim]

I remember many occasions when I felt a twig or branch leader had crossed the line from "living the Word and blessing people" to "Hitler brownshirt". I just wished I had had the balls to confront them on it.