About 30 years or so ago I was witnessing in a bar and this guy told me about a group of men who met every month at a JoJo's restaurant, had breakfast, and did bible study. So me and 2 lightbearers went and checked it out. It was pretty good. Two of the men were associate pastors somewhere, one of whom led the bible study. Us 3 wafers, being bible geeks ourselves, were able to give some well received input to the discussion. We didn't tell them we were in a cult, but we sure didn't go there to get them all converted to twi. We just let the thing proceed as it would. It went fine. They liked us, we liked them.
Fast forward to the present. I'm a window cleaner. Last week I left early to do Cracker Barrel. Gotta be there at 5:30AM. Nothing to do after that for a couple hours or so, so I went to McDonalds, took a cat nap, then went to Starbucks before doing the next job. Lo and behold, at both McDs and at Starbuck's there were groups of people praying together and talking about the word of God in a similar manner to what I saw at the JoJos 30 years earlier. I've even seen the same at the Cracker Barrel on occasion. I found this to be encouraging. I mean, during the course of any week I'll probably listen to the media some, or watch a typical liberal socialist propaganda show on TV, and those sources make Christianity look like a dinosaur at best, so I found it encouraging that 2 places I just happened to stop at had groups of Christians praying together. I'm sure there are meetings like that all over the country. We may not get much good press, but we're still lights in this world, eh?
My next window cleaning job after this was one of those little Edward Jones offices in a shopping plaza. The receptionist there is a nice lady and I just KNEW she was a Christian, so I told her about how encouraged I felt and she totally concurred and seemed happy that God works in many situations. I guess I dispute the idea that twi puts their thumb over everything that attempts to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Even back in the day, even most way corps, once you get them out of the intense meetings and the agendas and the sell sell sell vibe, they were perfectly willing to see that the body of Christ exists outside of twi. Those lightbearers thought so. So does the fellowship I currently attend.
It took me many years to get over the thoughts that there was no life outside of twi. Now I can easily agree with you that there is much life of the Lord Jesus outside of twi, but that was not the case when I was overcome with that cult mentality of "there is nothing worth anything outside of twi and faithfulness and loyalty to twi is the most important thing in regard to loyalty to Jesus Christ."
I am so very thankful to be out of twi, and able to find, as you most easily find, that people outside of twi love the Lord Jesus Christ and His Bible and other people (from whom I was cut off for for the 20+ years in twi).
It seemed like when VP was still alive, that the anti cult pressure on us was super intense. That guy Jed Smock who protested us at pfal 77 and at the 77ROA. All the bad press at AC79. Some of those people were really venomous. That made it easy to circle the wagons and go into defense mode and shut out anybody who wasn't with us. But I remember in 83 or so Johnny Townsend saying hey the only people who know who we are are us and our enemies so quit being so paranoid OK.
After VP died the pressure like that just seemed to stop. Since then the worst friction I've had with other Christians has been ex wafers, and I don't mean from GSC either.
I got this utube link in a prayer list email, and I thought you would like to see that The Way is still found outside of twi, and that twi has not got their thumb over everything that is endeavoring to glorify The Way, the Lord Jesus. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to get the utube to appear here like some more wonderful posters.
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johniam
That's funny. She's the one listening to hip hop.
About 30 years or so ago I was witnessing in a bar and this guy told me about a group of men who met every month at a JoJo's restaurant, had breakfast, and did bible study. So me and 2 lightbearers went and checked it out. It was pretty good. Two of the men were associate pastors somewhere, one of whom led the bible study. Us 3 wafers, being bible geeks ourselves, were able to give some well received input to the discussion. We didn't tell them we were in a cult, but we sure didn't go there to get them all converted to twi. We just let the thing proceed as it would. It went fine. They liked us, we liked them.
Fast forward to the present. I'm a window cleaner. Last week I left early to do Cracker Barrel. Gotta be there at 5:30AM. Nothing to do after that for a couple hours or so, so I went to McDonalds, took a cat nap, then went to Starbucks before doing the next job. Lo and behold, at both McDs and at Starbuck's there were groups of people praying together and talking about the word of God in a similar manner to what I saw at the JoJos 30 years earlier. I've even seen the same at the Cracker Barrel on occasion. I found this to be encouraging. I mean, during the course of any week I'll probably listen to the media some, or watch a typical liberal socialist propaganda show on TV, and those sources make Christianity look like a dinosaur at best, so I found it encouraging that 2 places I just happened to stop at had groups of Christians praying together. I'm sure there are meetings like that all over the country. We may not get much good press, but we're still lights in this world, eh?
My next window cleaning job after this was one of those little Edward Jones offices in a shopping plaza. The receptionist there is a nice lady and I just KNEW she was a Christian, so I told her about how encouraged I felt and she totally concurred and seemed happy that God works in many situations. I guess I dispute the idea that twi puts their thumb over everything that attempts to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Even back in the day, even most way corps, once you get them out of the intense meetings and the agendas and the sell sell sell vibe, they were perfectly willing to see that the body of Christ exists outside of twi. Those lightbearers thought so. So does the fellowship I currently attend.
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Kit Sober
It took me many years to get over the thoughts that there was no life outside of twi. Now I can easily agree with you that there is much life of the Lord Jesus outside of twi, but that was not the case when I was overcome with that cult mentality of "there is nothing worth anything outside of twi and faithfulness and loyalty to twi is the most important thing in regard to loyalty to Jesus Christ."
I am so very thankful to be out of twi, and able to find, as you most easily find, that people outside of twi love the Lord Jesus Christ and His Bible and other people (from whom I was cut off for for the 20+ years in twi).
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johniam
It seemed like when VP was still alive, that the anti cult pressure on us was super intense. That guy Jed Smock who protested us at pfal 77 and at the 77ROA. All the bad press at AC79. Some of those people were really venomous. That made it easy to circle the wagons and go into defense mode and shut out anybody who wasn't with us. But I remember in 83 or so Johnny Townsend saying hey the only people who know who we are are us and our enemies so quit being so paranoid OK.
After VP died the pressure like that just seemed to stop. Since then the worst friction I've had with other Christians has been ex wafers, and I don't mean from GSC either.
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rascal
Lol THAT was funny. Thanks kit :)
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