CW--NO question, as the years went by, more and more that was the ideal being turned out...
There were plenty of those types, by my knowledge, in the 1rst through 10th corps(the ones that I knew rather well) but there were very significantly MORE who did not buy into that ..... Now, how they changed as the years went by, I certainly cannot say. But the rebel crowd I ran with did NOT display those "lcm wannabe" tendencies...and if you did, you would have been subject to bronx sarcasm, mockery and derision...
I have often wondered about how there can be such night and day differences between people's experiences in the same organization.
In answer to my wonderings, I keep coming back to the idea that perhaps it had a lot to do with how people slotted others.
For example, I knew a couple in twi who were both cops. They were our twig leaders, too. We were not allowed to bring anybody to twig that had ever been arrested and/or jailed in our town. We weren't allowed to bring guests to any twig functions where alcohol was involved (which was usually every twig function) unless we gave the twig leaders names and birthdates first. We made the mistake of not obeying these directives once. Ai yi yi! The stuff hit the fan!
When we asked the twig leaders what the problem was, the response was that there are only two types of people in this world...cops and perpetrators. The twig leaders couldn't jeopardize their standing with other cops by associating with perps.
I've always thought that the wc I ever experienced had a mentality just like that: there are only two types of people in this ministry...wc and those who cop out.
I often think that mentality accounts for the differences of experiences.
I agree completely. On another thread I used the term monolithic; i was not referring to the process in which twi was built but rather the "face" of twi--it was not monolithic but very dependent, esp. the farther back in time one goes, on who the individual was. Group think was pushed more and more, esp. after lcm came in outa da fogg and ordered loyalty by all the gruppenfuhrers, er, way korks......
Galen... Do I detect a chip on your shoulder?? After all this time??
Get four people together... you'll have "the good, the bad, and the ugly"... and one extra.
Who, is which, will depend on who you ask, and when.
I was "in" from 78 to 86. Saw each. One observer sees one thing another something different. I dare say the same could be said of the navy. What's good for one EM may not bare the same results in another. So do you categoricaly (sp) condemn the whole officer corps???? I think not.
In retrospect we now see the corporate entity that underlied what was twi. But at that time we didn't see it. So we didn't realize what was truely going on.
In 18 years you didn't see every "leader". You can't condemn them all. I had some GREAT "leaders." One in particular recognized, and helped me develop, abilities I never knew I had. AND... I am still friends with this man 25 years later! I owe MUCH of what I am, and have achieved, to what he did for me 25 years ago.
You imply that some leaders were too hard on people or just hard with people. SO here's a guy that stands up and says "help me, I'm tired of living like this and experiencing all this pain, failure, broken relationships, lost jobs, (take your pick)." He says "help me PLEASE... I'm tired of being a loser!!!" WHAT DO YOU DO?
Helping someone change 20, 30, 40 years of a lifestyle isn't always easy. AND please keep in mind I'm NOT talking about getting them to conform to lcm's way cult lifestyle that evolved through the 80's and 90's. I'm just talking about helping someone incorporate basic christian principles into their life.
Yeah... there were some mean people promoted to leadership positions. They were neither Godly or loveing. Yeah, some were abject evil, users, abusers, self serving in every way, and they still are. But they weren't all that way. In later years more and more of them were... but not all, and not always.
Blue forms - for tax accountablity, sure. For measuring or evaluating a person's well-being, nasty. The endless blahdee blah, "if you're BLESSED you'll be giving. If you're not BLESSED and NOT GIVING, something's wrong. With YOU".
I'm not proud of the way I handled all of this over the years. Eventually my underlying convictions fought against requirements at times and I rebelled in stupid ways. I'd have been more honest to just say yes I want to be in the Way Corps and yes I want everybody and their uncle to be blessed but no I won't do something I feel is being used wrongly. If I feel something else can be done with the fellowship's resources I'll discuss it with everyone involved and if that makes me derilict of duty so be it, kick me out, I'll just do what I believe with people somewhere that want to work that way.
That's eventually the route our fellowship went when we ended being an "official" Way twig. We were just a fellowship of willing participants and we were eager to retain friendships and associations, with no enemies. But if you got in my face or our people's face without showing the same respect we gave you, I wasn't going to tolerate it. Don't let the door hit you on the butt on the way out.
What's really weird to me now is that in one of those now infamous expositions that I once heard VPW give on this whole ABS/blue form thing he said to a small group that if he was in a twig and there was a need or something he felt like ABS should be used for, if it was him he'd just do and keep it between God and himself. "Just don't tell anybody". Oh, I thought that was so cool at the time. He wasn't suggesting irresponsible behavior but from the legal and tax standpoint he knew it could get dicey. So that was an "answer" for certain situations. But it really wasn't. Because it wasn't a standard it was an exception. If you did that all the time, those blue forms would creep back up. "The ABS has gone down. What's wrong, isn't everybody BLESSED?" So at best you'd have people all over running around doing whatever they wanted to and not telling anybody. Maybe that would have been better, it might have brought things to a head a lot sooner.
Al was corps and I knew him in the stupid place. He was sweet, kind, cool and fun. And very attractive. He was a good person that happened to be corps.
My sister knew Alfacat. My sister was never corps. She thinks he is one of the best humored greatest believers she ever met.
Washington Weather was corps she stood against some of the evil people and trends of the corps. She had guts and integrity, she was wonderful and was corps. She was a foxy little thing that did not have to go corps to get attention or be noticed.
Excathedra although her post are short and perhaps do not expose her great depth and oceans of love, believe me they are there. She is deep and understanding and put herself between injured people and screaming leadership (other corps) many many times.
Vickles was corps and my roommate. She was sweet and soft and I think she would have died rather than ever sacrifice people.
MoreyT is corps and was a really full of life kind wonderful woman with a warm and loving heart.
Too Gray now - was very cool. He was the kind of guy other guys wanted to be like in high school. He was warm, talented and loving.
I met Hope several times and although we did not get to really know each other both she and her husband were very up lifting and fun to be around.
These are just some of the people that you do know Galen. You know them from here. You have inter acted with them. As much time as we spend here you probably know them as well if not better than the ones who hurt you. So, now you have met some folks you would have loved to have been around. We probably did not like the same corps to which you refer.
I hope this helps to show you the people who you never met. It is unfortunate you had all the corps creeps. THERE WERE CREEPS. Oh, my could we tell you stories about being in rez with them or under them on the field!
I understand how you feel.
There are many other wonderful x-corps here but I did not know them personally prior to the board so I did not mention them.
I just never got how you could blanket all or almost all the corps as "bad" and yet not see the guy in charge VPW was training them to be the monsters you met. You say you did not know him so you did not want to blame him, and then you met a few nasty corps and do not mind labeling them as responsible for the "bad" on the field. As much as I cannot stand some of the rotten corps by which I was injured, I KNOW they were trained by VPW to be hard-nosed unloving, judgemental, self serving, ego maniacs. The buck stops there.... I bet, you saw HIS training each time you were offended.
I do understand your feelings of the "corps" on a whole because I feel the same way. Just I know VPW is the source of the training.
I know what you and Diazbro are saying about florishing areas that HQS sent the corps to and they killed the area and then blamed the believers there. I was fortunate that I grew in an area without corps for about 3 years before they sent corps in to ruin things. I had been with Joe Guarini the best ever person and Eddie Fisher and neither of them were corps at the time. When they did send corps it was the Merkels and Lynn was kinder to me than almost anyone ever...
I was very lucky to have a soft fertile ground in which to grow.
But then came the corps as "branch leaders" and the meaness started. But I will tell you this, one of the poor girls was very young and already had VPW abuse her sexually. And other lock box stories were leaking out. When the corps came so did the weird teachings of Weirwille, the odd sex practices and beliefs, and the condemnation.
Weirwille may have started the ministry (off stolen material) but his own odd behavior and training of that behavior is what killed the twigs and branch. The seeds of the end of the ministry were in the beginning of it as it all came from a lying cheating abusive man named VPW.
That cannot even be stated as a 100% as I worked limb staff. It was before I went into the corps. I worked there because I lived about 15 minutes away.
Some of the finest people I know were there with me like Terry Pascoe from the 7th.
WW- For the most part, we did not get to choose our assignments they were given to us. There were good and bad corps sprinkled all over. But many (not all) of the BETTER assignments went to those that sold out (not all). And in order to sell out you had to buy into the Weirwille crap.
I didn't go into TWC to learn to be an *******. I went because I wanted to learn how to better serve.... and I mean SERVE the body of believers, not help myself to them.
My dream was eventually to go to HQ and serve. I believed that surely the most humble servants of God's people would be those at HQ.
However, once I got there, I found the reverse to be true. The following is what I believe happened to WC who were assigned to HQ. They fell into these categories... if you fell "in between the cracks" of these categories, excuse me please. But this is what I found from my own personal experience of 1982-1983 on staff:
Those who had the propensity to become asskissing corporate clones, did so fairly quickly, and played that game quite well.
Those who became discouraged at what they found, but quickly subordinated that feeling and adjusted to blending in and "getting along" to keep their jobs.
Those whose department heads protected them from ills elsewhere at HQ, and these employees did their jobs with joy in their hearts and a degree of freedom within their own departments. But were discouraged to see the disparity between departments and figured the politics going on were something they would have to just live with.
Those who were outraged at what they found, rebelled at ungodly restrictions and practices they discovered and actively resisted conditions within their departments and/or confronted people of rank.
Unfortunately, the last category of folk never lasted very long at HQ. They were driven off or left of their own volition after discovering they could not "fix" what was wrong.
Sunesis and I were in that category.
When Walter Cummins let me know that Emogene Allen was trying to get me fired, I personally in a placements meeting simultaneously confronted Donna Martindale, Emogene Allen, and Bill Winegarner. Donna didn't know what hit her, Emogene Allen was hopping mad, but I nailed her on every issue, and I shut Bill Winegarner up as well. I even took on Don Wierwille for a decision he made that years later he agreed I was right on and apologized to me for. The other three have yet to apologize.
But at that point my husband and I agreed there was something fundamentally wrong at HQ and that it would be spiritually wrong to work there under the conditions that were offerred to us, so we left after ROA 83.
I believe in order to "get along" at HQ and at higher levels, you had to compromise or kill something inside yourself to do it.
Those who refused to compromise were run off and defamed.
To go far or survive in the organization you had to either have
1) Enough clout you could run things the way you wanted within the confines of your own area or
2) You had to compromise your principles.
But to paint all Way Corps with the same brush is shallow and unjust to people who actually committed their lives to do nothing but serve you the bread of life at their own expense and sacrificed their lives trying to do so and save the ministry they thought God had called them to.
I didn't go into TWC to learn to be an *******. I went because I wanted to learn how to better serve.... and I mean _SERVE_ the body of believers, not help myself to them.
I'm certain that most , if not all, who went in had
the best of intentions and only honorable goals.
And understand that believers in the field typically
,at least initially, were supportive of the corps concept
and had great respect for those choosing that path
but this is why many people were so unpleasantly blindsided by the corps visitations. There was the full expectation
that things would go to the next level and we
would "really see God's blessing" so imagine the
letdown and disappointment when it was the opposite.
Locals who were witnessing and signing others up for
the class were discredited as being "spiritually naive" !
What for ? Very odd when the local people had signed up more people for PFAL then any corps person I knew had. I also
remember around the time "America Awakes" came out that
some corps types were showing up to make sure that people
were aware of the impending take over of the US government.
(old timers remember that I'm sure).
Yea. Important insider knowledge designed to spread fear.
And after nothing happened (imagine that) the same people
were telling us to "thank god for VPW". Yea. sure...
Also I remember a visiting leader telling a newcomer to twig that the best thing he could do to solve his domestic problems with his Father would be to buy a copy of "America Awakes".
Oh man. I knew this newcomer. He had a horrible, violent home situation and this corps geek is saying this !!!! I felt like decking him. And sure the corps guy was "nice" and "polite" but his arrogance and ignorance of the true gravity of the situation were inexcusable. He didn't know what he was talking about but he
didn't let that get in the way of his mission to push TWI merchandise. Damn I'm mad even now thinking about this.
In my opinon the Corps weren't there to witness. They
weren't there to undershepherd. They might have engaged in
these activities but the local people were already doing that instinctively and typically with greater success.
In my view the corps were there to feed the Way machine
and keep bodies moving into WOW and the Corps. I remember a
corps guy telling me that I should "be bolder" and when I told him that I had signed up 8 people in 3 months for PFAL he initially thought I was lying about it. In his entire Way existence he hadn't signed up that many people for PFAL and this even after his WOW experience AND Corps training - yet he wanted to assert his newfound spiritual "elitness" in the belief that only "the salted" could produce "real" results. In classic
Way fashion he told me "well 8 is good but you can do better.
Sign up for the WOW program and then you will REALLY learn
what its all about !". Oh Christ !
quote:
I believe in order to "get along" at HQ and at higher levels, you had to compromise or kill something inside yourself to do it.
Wow this is a true statement. When I had friends who went Corps I always regretted it because I knew that it was a distinct
possibility that I had lost a friend because I knew that their
loyalties to TWI would soon outweigh any friendship that I
ever had with them. On occasion I was pleasantly suprised when
I would get a call from someone who had left or had been asked
to leave the Corps. I did sponsor a guy once who went on to
be a prominent fixture in TWI corps and Way leadership.
After he graduated Corps He always treated me politely and with great courtesy but he did that with everyone and it was readily apparent that he didn't remember details of our friendship.
It was like talking to one of those salesguys who tries so
hard to make you feel like his best buddy when in reality he
is thinking only about his commission for the day. All he
kept telling me was "God needs you in the Corps". It
became a joke between myself and a mutual friend. Instead of saying
"hello" to each other we would say "God needs you in the
corps".
As I keep saying, I don't know that ALL Corps people were
like this. I didn't meet all of them. Its just that my most
negative experiences in TWI involved corps people or HQ types.
thats my reality and I won't sugarcoat it to make anyone feel better.
I had lots of friends all over the country and I travelled a great deal and I would always experience a strong sense of deja vu when I encountered Corps folks. In my view they were , for the most part, following a script. Some were into it while others weren't but it was crystal clear that those who were into it the most were also the most obnoxious and objectionable people I have ever met at least on a human relations level.
Thats my experience and to put it any other way would be lying.
I believe you. And I have a feeling that you were probably "smarter than your average bear." :D--> (Ihope I haven't offended anyone by saying that.)
But I gotta tell ya, there was a flip side to the coin. But I don't know if we really wanna go there.
There were times, in my corps grad experience, (although mine was fairly brief) where "Way believers" expected anybody who was a "Corps grad" to have the answers to all life's questions. And if you had the guts to admit that you really didn't know anything about anything too much, and you really didn't "have the answer" for their particular situation, well then look out!
What kind of a "leader" ARE you anyway?
There were people in the way, who had GREAT NEED, who were desperate for "answers." And if you actually admitted that you didn't have them, then you got treated like ........I won't say.
I guess I just never had the ego to presume that I could figure life out for anybody else besides myself. I could be a friend, and lend a shoulder, and even offer some encouraging words, but sometimes that just wasn't enough.
Problems ensued.
So I guess what I'm saying is, it was a two-way street.
I never presumed to be able to "fix' anybody. All I could do was point to Jesus Christ. Sometimes, that just didn't seem to be enough.
Hey diazbro, thanks for all the comments on this thread. The balance of information and ideas is really interesting.
ex10, your post is close to me. I've often thought of how the expectations were built to literally expect a person, like Way Corps, to have all the answers all the time, to be perfect and to always be everything that anyone needed and wanted at anytime of the day or night. Kind of like Dirty Harry. Never sleeps or finishes a meal ;)-->. He's on The Case 24 X 7. I think that kind of lifestyle appealed to some people, too. So what do you get? Well, for better or worse people who's byline is "The Ministry's my LIFE!"
(ooh I love the Dirty Harry flix! but of course he was a troubled conflicted character who's personal problems led to all kinds of pathological behavior. The assumption was that the force of the character's personal resolve could overcome all human failings and in the end, when that .44 took aim, it hit what it was aiming at, right?)
I've always been kind of fascinated by people when they have that approach. They're "called" to this or that, they have a calling of some sort they say and they want everybody to get on their bandwagon. But if the calling destroys the vessel it lives in, what's really going on? It's something we don't see see immediately sometimes. (at least ol' Harry had the class to go it alone since he knew he could only account for himself ;)-->)
I never presumed to be able to "fix' anybody. All I could do was point to Jesus Christ. Sometimes, that just didn't seem to be enough.
________________________________________________
Ex10
There are some people who want someone else to make decisions for them ,that way if things go wrong they have someone else to blame and not themselves. And there are those that don't want to do what they need to so that they can get to the place that they want to be. Sometimes there are no shortcuts.
But your in good company T it happened to Jesus too like Luke 18:18 Jesus told the man what he needed to do and he did not want to do it. Your right sometimes Jesus himself wasn't enough!
I think that is why I finally left. To sum it up. Because my life was being destroyed and I thought I was called to go serve God and his people via the corps program -- and one day when I saw how destructive it was and KNEW it was never going to be fixed. I knew then I had to leave.
One of the confusing things was if I was called to help serve God's people and this program I was in was destroying my life (and I would not participate in destroying others.) Then who called me?
Next, I had to see it was not a calling but a con built on the love people had in their hearts to drop everything and "follow" (go in the corps). So, the fact that I lost so much; house, pets, money, good paying job was for NOTHING.
You made great points. I drove people to job interviews, wrote their resumes, prayed for them in the car while they spoke to human resources... and it was never enough.
How many times did anyone ever offer you gas money? Or long distance phone money? And after calling all over "to serve" and driving all over "to love people" we still did not do enough... We heard it from leaders above and sometimes from our own people we were doing all of this for--
Thank you so much for saying that. Your words mean more than you know.
You were there! We couldn't have lasted as long as we did without your support and undying loyalty to the "cause." You and yours saved us so many times...
One of the confusing things was if I was called to help serve God's people and this program I was in was destroying my life (and I would not participate in destroying others.) Then who called me?
________________________________________________
Dot
Yep we should have seen that long ago. What were we thinking? All of the one's in Ephesians 4 should have given us a clue. If there was one calling it could not have been to a program if so Paul lost out,as there was no Corps program.
So if God has called us in one calling then one is one any other is two and not from God.
Yes it was the being as well as the doing for sure... That was pressure to have people always expecting you to have the answers because you had a green name tag....
Ahhhh, it was a lot of crap!
White Dove-
Good insight. But I know people who preach in other churches who believe they were "called " to serve in that capacity. Then, what you are suggesting is that if there was one "calling" then perhpas the "call" to be a minister is not a call but a choice.
I NEVER saw it in that light before.... Very interesting...
Where does that leave gift ministries? I guess any believer can have those gifts and if the body of Christ is meek it will recognize them -- this is a whole other canyon of thought.
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alfakat
CW--NO question, as the years went by, more and more that was the ideal being turned out...
There were plenty of those types, by my knowledge, in the 1rst through 10th corps(the ones that I knew rather well) but there were very significantly MORE who did not buy into that ..... Now, how they changed as the years went by, I certainly cannot say. But the rebel crowd I ran with did NOT display those "lcm wannabe" tendencies...and if you did, you would have been subject to bronx sarcasm, mockery and derision...
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CoolWaters
alfakat,
I have often wondered about how there can be such night and day differences between people's experiences in the same organization.
In answer to my wonderings, I keep coming back to the idea that perhaps it had a lot to do with how people slotted others.
For example, I knew a couple in twi who were both cops. They were our twig leaders, too. We were not allowed to bring anybody to twig that had ever been arrested and/or jailed in our town. We weren't allowed to bring guests to any twig functions where alcohol was involved (which was usually every twig function) unless we gave the twig leaders names and birthdates first. We made the mistake of not obeying these directives once. Ai yi yi! The stuff hit the fan!
When we asked the twig leaders what the problem was, the response was that there are only two types of people in this world...cops and perpetrators. The twig leaders couldn't jeopardize their standing with other cops by associating with perps.
I've always thought that the wc I ever experienced had a mentality just like that: there are only two types of people in this ministry...wc and those who cop out.
I often think that mentality accounts for the differences of experiences.
But that's just me.
:)-->
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alfakat
I agree completely. On another thread I used the term monolithic; i was not referring to the process in which twi was built but rather the "face" of twi--it was not monolithic but very dependent, esp. the farther back in time one goes, on who the individual was. Group think was pushed more and more, esp. after lcm came in outa da fogg and ordered loyalty by all the gruppenfuhrers, er, way korks......
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Al Poole
Galen... Do I detect a chip on your shoulder?? After all this time??
Get four people together... you'll have "the good, the bad, and the ugly"... and one extra.
Who, is which, will depend on who you ask, and when.
I was "in" from 78 to 86. Saw each. One observer sees one thing another something different. I dare say the same could be said of the navy. What's good for one EM may not bare the same results in another. So do you categoricaly (sp) condemn the whole officer corps???? I think not.
In retrospect we now see the corporate entity that underlied what was twi. But at that time we didn't see it. So we didn't realize what was truely going on.
In 18 years you didn't see every "leader". You can't condemn them all. I had some GREAT "leaders." One in particular recognized, and helped me develop, abilities I never knew I had. AND... I am still friends with this man 25 years later! I owe MUCH of what I am, and have achieved, to what he did for me 25 years ago.
You imply that some leaders were too hard on people or just hard with people. SO here's a guy that stands up and says "help me, I'm tired of living like this and experiencing all this pain, failure, broken relationships, lost jobs, (take your pick)." He says "help me PLEASE... I'm tired of being a loser!!!" WHAT DO YOU DO?
Helping someone change 20, 30, 40 years of a lifestyle isn't always easy. AND please keep in mind I'm NOT talking about getting them to conform to lcm's way cult lifestyle that evolved through the 80's and 90's. I'm just talking about helping someone incorporate basic christian principles into their life.
Yeah... there were some mean people promoted to leadership positions. They were neither Godly or loveing. Yeah, some were abject evil, users, abusers, self serving in every way, and they still are. But they weren't all that way. In later years more and more of them were... but not all, and not always.
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diazbro
alfakat said:
Diazbro--would you mind telling us time frame and, if you can, location where you were? Time frame would definitely say a lot....
>>
Alfakat. Let me assure you that these people weren't
functioning as loose canons or rogue corps. These were
active corps grads in so called good standing sent to
the area to improve what was already very good. Let me
also assure you that I experienced similar behavior in
other cities in other time frames with different corps
folks. FYI. I dabbled with Twig in the early 70s ,
took PFAL around 74 and left around 83.
Now. Onto your question. (Note: I don't know you , at
least I don't think I do, so I'm speaking in general).
I've been down this road before.
Once I start saying that the corp group
was X,Y, and Z and it was this year or that year
then someone is gonna pipe up and say "yea - they
were control freaks. They were a bad lot" or "Hell.
Everyone knows that the Xth corps was weird" or "We
all know that after the Xth corps it was all down hill".
So even within corps years people have strong ideas
about which years were "good" and "bad" which speaks
to the subjectivity of it all.
You do realize that
some later corps grads consider earlier corps grads
to have been remiss in their duties and blame
them in part for the problems that emerged around POP.
And of course some earlier corps grads feel that
theirs were the best years because they were closer
to the source. Can anyone agree on what corps years
were the best ?
But what I point out is that the problem was systemic
from my point of view -It wasn't peculiar to one person
or even one corps year at least during my run. Lots of
well meaning people mutated into mini VPWs and Craigs
before my very eyes only later to return to their
normal laid back behavior in absence of the spotlight
and an audience. Obviously the people emulating VPW
were a bit less foul mouthed than those copping the
LCM style.
My experince is that corps people did more to
polarize branches and twigs and alienate people
than any so called "seed boy" did.
They were the ones who provoked the "get
off the fence - you are either with us or against"
mentality that broke up friendships and even
marriages.
I do support
the view that there were people who , on a one
to one basis, were pretty cool but its
once they were in "corps mode" it was like
a light switch being flicked.
Now even in the 70s before screaming and
spitting became the preferred form of communication
I noticed
a condescening attitude on the part of budding
leaders and those seeking to call the Way a home.
Some of these people were my friends prior to
TWI so its not like I didn't know them on a
personal basis. I would have conversations with
them and they became closed off. They would
speak in way cliches and try to sum up every
conversation in terms of a scripture and
look at you weird if you didn't do the same.
And then it was like "Hey you have alot of
potential. Why don't you answer god's call ?".
Oh brother. How do you answer something like
that and tell someone whom you thought to be a
good friend that he was turning into an arrogant
ahole. Obviously to someone who thinks
he knows it all its not going to work so you
just avoid the person and move on. such was
the story of my way existence until I didn't
have any real friends left.
Now if someone is the kind of person who
responded well to the "why don't you answer
God's call" then I can see how later corps
behavior might not present such an obstacle.
Obviously some people took such questions
as challenge to improve themselves and took
it on but I typically accepted people as
they were and didn't see a great need for
everyone to go WOW and then go Corps.
Lots of people did well on their own and their
local fellowships flourished so why impose
some corporate structure onto what is clearly
successful in absence of that ? I think TWI
wanted to own our happiness and good works.
They wanted credit for it.
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socks
Radar
:)-->
ex10,
:)-->
Everybody
:)-->
I'm just a smiley foo' today.
Blue forms - for tax accountablity, sure. For measuring or evaluating a person's well-being, nasty. The endless blahdee blah, "if you're BLESSED you'll be giving. If you're not BLESSED and NOT GIVING, something's wrong. With YOU".
I'm not proud of the way I handled all of this over the years. Eventually my underlying convictions fought against requirements at times and I rebelled in stupid ways. I'd have been more honest to just say yes I want to be in the Way Corps and yes I want everybody and their uncle to be blessed but no I won't do something I feel is being used wrongly. If I feel something else can be done with the fellowship's resources I'll discuss it with everyone involved and if that makes me derilict of duty so be it, kick me out, I'll just do what I believe with people somewhere that want to work that way.
That's eventually the route our fellowship went when we ended being an "official" Way twig. We were just a fellowship of willing participants and we were eager to retain friendships and associations, with no enemies. But if you got in my face or our people's face without showing the same respect we gave you, I wasn't going to tolerate it. Don't let the door hit you on the butt on the way out.
What's really weird to me now is that in one of those now infamous expositions that I once heard VPW give on this whole ABS/blue form thing he said to a small group that if he was in a twig and there was a need or something he felt like ABS should be used for, if it was him he'd just do and keep it between God and himself. "Just don't tell anybody". Oh, I thought that was so cool at the time. He wasn't suggesting irresponsible behavior but from the legal and tax standpoint he knew it could get dicey. So that was an "answer" for certain situations. But it really wasn't. Because it wasn't a standard it was an exception. If you did that all the time, those blue forms would creep back up. "The ABS has gone down. What's wrong, isn't everybody BLESSED?" So at best you'd have people all over running around doing whatever they wanted to and not telling anybody. Maybe that would have been better, it might have brought things to a head a lot sooner.
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Dot Matrix
Galen
Al was corps and I knew him in the stupid place. He was sweet, kind, cool and fun. And very attractive. He was a good person that happened to be corps.
My sister knew Alfacat. My sister was never corps. She thinks he is one of the best humored greatest believers she ever met.
Washington Weather was corps she stood against some of the evil people and trends of the corps. She had guts and integrity, she was wonderful and was corps. She was a foxy little thing that did not have to go corps to get attention or be noticed.
Excathedra although her post are short and perhaps do not expose her great depth and oceans of love, believe me they are there. She is deep and understanding and put herself between injured people and screaming leadership (other corps) many many times.
Vickles was corps and my roommate. She was sweet and soft and I think she would have died rather than ever sacrifice people.
MoreyT is corps and was a really full of life kind wonderful woman with a warm and loving heart.
Too Gray now - was very cool. He was the kind of guy other guys wanted to be like in high school. He was warm, talented and loving.
I met Hope several times and although we did not get to really know each other both she and her husband were very up lifting and fun to be around.
These are just some of the people that you do know Galen. You know them from here. You have inter acted with them. As much time as we spend here you probably know them as well if not better than the ones who hurt you. So, now you have met some folks you would have loved to have been around. We probably did not like the same corps to which you refer.
I hope this helps to show you the people who you never met. It is unfortunate you had all the corps creeps. THERE WERE CREEPS. Oh, my could we tell you stories about being in rez with them or under them on the field!
I understand how you feel.
There are many other wonderful x-corps here but I did not know them personally prior to the board so I did not mention them.
I just never got how you could blanket all or almost all the corps as "bad" and yet not see the guy in charge VPW was training them to be the monsters you met. You say you did not know him so you did not want to blame him, and then you met a few nasty corps and do not mind labeling them as responsible for the "bad" on the field. As much as I cannot stand some of the rotten corps by which I was injured, I KNOW they were trained by VPW to be hard-nosed unloving, judgemental, self serving, ego maniacs. The buck stops there.... I bet, you saw HIS training each time you were offended.
I do understand your feelings of the "corps" on a whole because I feel the same way. Just I know VPW is the source of the training.
I know what you and Diazbro are saying about florishing areas that HQS sent the corps to and they killed the area and then blamed the believers there. I was fortunate that I grew in an area without corps for about 3 years before they sent corps in to ruin things. I had been with Joe Guarini the best ever person and Eddie Fisher and neither of them were corps at the time. When they did send corps it was the Merkels and Lynn was kinder to me than almost anyone ever...
I was very lucky to have a soft fertile ground in which to grow.
But then came the corps as "branch leaders" and the meaness started. But I will tell you this, one of the poor girls was very young and already had VPW abuse her sexually. And other lock box stories were leaking out. When the corps came so did the weird teachings of Weirwille, the odd sex practices and beliefs, and the condemnation.
Weirwille may have started the ministry (off stolen material) but his own odd behavior and training of that behavior is what killed the twigs and branch. The seeds of the end of the ministry were in the beginning of it as it all came from a lying cheating abusive man named VPW.
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WordWolf
I think Galen just proved my point about wc and leadership.
The ones who really wanted to help people stayed on the field and
worked their little hearts out locally.
The ones who wanted to be in charge climbed the ladder, and circled
the Limb locales like vultures. Those are the ones Galen saw.
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Dot Matrix
That cannot even be stated as a 100% as I worked limb staff. It was before I went into the corps. I worked there because I lived about 15 minutes away.
Some of the finest people I know were there with me like Terry Pascoe from the 7th.
WW- For the most part, we did not get to choose our assignments they were given to us. There were good and bad corps sprinkled all over. But many (not all) of the BETTER assignments went to those that sold out (not all). And in order to sell out you had to buy into the Weirwille crap.
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WordWolf
Well, it could be stated as 100%, but, like all absolutes
in society, it would be an error.
:)-->
You served where you were sent, and worked your little
heart out for God's people, was my point. Others worked
their way to Limb, and, I expect, other places, because
they wanted to get to fancy-schmancy titles and perks.
You didn't scheme to get to where you were sent.
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Catcup
I didn't go into TWC to learn to be an *******. I went because I wanted to learn how to better serve.... and I mean SERVE the body of believers, not help myself to them.
My dream was eventually to go to HQ and serve. I believed that surely the most humble servants of God's people would be those at HQ.
However, once I got there, I found the reverse to be true. The following is what I believe happened to WC who were assigned to HQ. They fell into these categories... if you fell "in between the cracks" of these categories, excuse me please. But this is what I found from my own personal experience of 1982-1983 on staff:
Those who had the propensity to become asskissing corporate clones, did so fairly quickly, and played that game quite well.
Those who became discouraged at what they found, but quickly subordinated that feeling and adjusted to blending in and "getting along" to keep their jobs.
Those whose department heads protected them from ills elsewhere at HQ, and these employees did their jobs with joy in their hearts and a degree of freedom within their own departments. But were discouraged to see the disparity between departments and figured the politics going on were something they would have to just live with.
Those who were outraged at what they found, rebelled at ungodly restrictions and practices they discovered and actively resisted conditions within their departments and/or confronted people of rank.
Unfortunately, the last category of folk never lasted very long at HQ. They were driven off or left of their own volition after discovering they could not "fix" what was wrong.
Sunesis and I were in that category.
When Walter Cummins let me know that Emogene Allen was trying to get me fired, I personally in a placements meeting simultaneously confronted Donna Martindale, Emogene Allen, and Bill Winegarner. Donna didn't know what hit her, Emogene Allen was hopping mad, but I nailed her on every issue, and I shut Bill Winegarner up as well. I even took on Don Wierwille for a decision he made that years later he agreed I was right on and apologized to me for. The other three have yet to apologize.
But at that point my husband and I agreed there was something fundamentally wrong at HQ and that it would be spiritually wrong to work there under the conditions that were offerred to us, so we left after ROA 83.
I believe in order to "get along" at HQ and at higher levels, you had to compromise or kill something inside yourself to do it.
Those who refused to compromise were run off and defamed.
To go far or survive in the organization you had to either have
1) Enough clout you could run things the way you wanted within the confines of your own area or
2) You had to compromise your principles.
But to paint all Way Corps with the same brush is shallow and unjust to people who actually committed their lives to do nothing but serve you the bread of life at their own expense and sacrificed their lives trying to do so and save the ministry they thought God had called them to.
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diazbro
I'm certain that most , if not all, who went in had
the best of intentions and only honorable goals.
And understand that believers in the field typically
,at least initially, were supportive of the corps concept
and had great respect for those choosing that path
but this is why many people were so unpleasantly blindsided by the corps visitations. There was the full expectation
that things would go to the next level and we
would "really see God's blessing" so imagine the
letdown and disappointment when it was the opposite.
Locals who were witnessing and signing others up for
the class were discredited as being "spiritually naive" !
What for ? Very odd when the local people had signed up more people for PFAL then any corps person I knew had. I also
remember around the time "America Awakes" came out that
some corps types were showing up to make sure that people
were aware of the impending take over of the US government.
(old timers remember that I'm sure).
Yea. Important insider knowledge designed to spread fear.
And after nothing happened (imagine that) the same people
were telling us to "thank god for VPW". Yea. sure...
Also I remember a visiting leader telling a newcomer to twig that the best thing he could do to solve his domestic problems with his Father would be to buy a copy of "America Awakes".
Oh man. I knew this newcomer. He had a horrible, violent home situation and this corps geek is saying this !!!! I felt like decking him. And sure the corps guy was "nice" and "polite" but his arrogance and ignorance of the true gravity of the situation were inexcusable. He didn't know what he was talking about but he
didn't let that get in the way of his mission to push TWI merchandise. Damn I'm mad even now thinking about this.
In my opinon the Corps weren't there to witness. They
weren't there to undershepherd. They might have engaged in
these activities but the local people were already doing that instinctively and typically with greater success.
In my view the corps were there to feed the Way machine
and keep bodies moving into WOW and the Corps. I remember a
corps guy telling me that I should "be bolder" and when I told him that I had signed up 8 people in 3 months for PFAL he initially thought I was lying about it. In his entire Way existence he hadn't signed up that many people for PFAL and this even after his WOW experience AND Corps training - yet he wanted to assert his newfound spiritual "elitness" in the belief that only "the salted" could produce "real" results. In classic
Way fashion he told me "well 8 is good but you can do better.
Sign up for the WOW program and then you will REALLY learn
what its all about !". Oh Christ !
Wow this is a true statement. When I had friends who went Corps I always regretted it because I knew that it was a distinct
possibility that I had lost a friend because I knew that their
loyalties to TWI would soon outweigh any friendship that I
ever had with them. On occasion I was pleasantly suprised when
I would get a call from someone who had left or had been asked
to leave the Corps. I did sponsor a guy once who went on to
be a prominent fixture in TWI corps and Way leadership.
After he graduated Corps He always treated me politely and with great courtesy but he did that with everyone and it was readily apparent that he didn't remember details of our friendship.
It was like talking to one of those salesguys who tries so
hard to make you feel like his best buddy when in reality he
is thinking only about his commission for the day. All he
kept telling me was "God needs you in the Corps". It
became a joke between myself and a mutual friend. Instead of saying
"hello" to each other we would say "God needs you in the
corps".
As I keep saying, I don't know that ALL Corps people were
like this. I didn't meet all of them. Its just that my most
negative experiences in TWI involved corps people or HQ types.
thats my reality and I won't sugarcoat it to make anyone feel better.
I had lots of friends all over the country and I travelled a great deal and I would always experience a strong sense of deja vu when I encountered Corps folks. In my view they were , for the most part, following a script. Some were into it while others weren't but it was crystal clear that those who were into it the most were also the most obnoxious and objectionable people I have ever met at least on a human relations level.
Thats my experience and to put it any other way would be lying.
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ex10
Diazbro
I believe you. And I have a feeling that you were probably "smarter than your average bear."
:D--> (Ihope I haven't offended anyone by saying that.)
But I gotta tell ya, there was a flip side to the coin. But I don't know if we really wanna go there.
There were times, in my corps grad experience, (although mine was fairly brief) where "Way believers" expected anybody who was a "Corps grad" to have the answers to all life's questions. And if you had the guts to admit that you really didn't know anything about anything too much, and you really didn't "have the answer" for their particular situation, well then look out!
What kind of a "leader" ARE you anyway?
There were people in the way, who had GREAT NEED, who were desperate for "answers." And if you actually admitted that you didn't have them, then you got treated like ........I won't say.
I guess I just never had the ego to presume that I could figure life out for anybody else besides myself. I could be a friend, and lend a shoulder, and even offer some encouraging words, but sometimes that just wasn't enough.
Problems ensued.
So I guess what I'm saying is, it was a two-way street.
I never presumed to be able to "fix' anybody. All I could do was point to Jesus Christ. Sometimes, that just didn't seem to be enough.
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socks
Hey diazbro, thanks for all the comments on this thread. The balance of information and ideas is really interesting.
ex10, your post is close to me. I've often thought of how the expectations were built to literally expect a person, like Way Corps, to have all the answers all the time, to be perfect and to always be everything that anyone needed and wanted at anytime of the day or night. Kind of like Dirty Harry. Never sleeps or finishes a meal
;)-->. He's on The Case 24 X 7. I think that kind of lifestyle appealed to some people, too. So what do you get? Well, for better or worse people who's byline is "The Ministry's my LIFE!"
(ooh I love the Dirty Harry flix! but of course he was a troubled conflicted character who's personal problems led to all kinds of pathological behavior. The assumption was that the force of the character's personal resolve could overcome all human failings and in the end, when that .44 took aim, it hit what it was aiming at, right?)
I've always been kind of fascinated by people when they have that approach. They're "called" to this or that, they have a calling of some sort they say and they want everybody to get on their bandwagon. But if the calling destroys the vessel it lives in, what's really going on? It's something we don't see see immediately sometimes. (at least ol' Harry had the class to go it alone since he knew he could only account for himself
;)-->)
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Dot Matrix
Socks said:
"But if the calling destroys the vessel it lives in, what's really going on?"
Ain't that the truth?
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WhiteDove
Quote:
________________________________________________
I never presumed to be able to "fix' anybody. All I could do was point to Jesus Christ. Sometimes, that just didn't seem to be enough.
________________________________________________
Ex10
There are some people who want someone else to make decisions for them ,that way if things go wrong they have someone else to blame and not themselves. And there are those that don't want to do what they need to so that they can get to the place that they want to be. Sometimes there are no shortcuts.
But your in good company T it happened to Jesus too like Luke 18:18 Jesus told the man what he needed to do and he did not want to do it. Your right sometimes Jesus himself wasn't enough!
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Dot Matrix
I just keep reading that over and over Socks.
I think that is why I finally left. To sum it up. Because my life was being destroyed and I thought I was called to go serve God and his people via the corps program -- and one day when I saw how destructive it was and KNEW it was never going to be fixed. I knew then I had to leave.
One of the confusing things was if I was called to help serve God's people and this program I was in was destroying my life (and I would not participate in destroying others.) Then who called me?
Next, I had to see it was not a calling but a con built on the love people had in their hearts to drop everything and "follow" (go in the corps). So, the fact that I lost so much; house, pets, money, good paying job was for NOTHING.
It is a he11 of a bullet between the eyes.
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EX10
You made great points. I drove people to job interviews, wrote their resumes, prayed for them in the car while they spoke to human resources... and it was never enough.
How many times did anyone ever offer you gas money? Or long distance phone money? And after calling all over "to serve" and driving all over "to love people" we still did not do enough... We heard it from leaders above and sometimes from our own people we were doing all of this for--
The coin does have two sides.
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ex10
oh mygosh, White dove
Thank you so much for saying that. Your words mean more than you know.
You were there! We couldn't have lasted as long as we did without your support and undying loyalty to the "cause." You and yours saved us so many times...
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ex10
Dot
It wasn't just the "doing," that was so draining, it was the "being."
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WhiteDove
Quote:
________________________________________________
One of the confusing things was if I was called to help serve God's people and this program I was in was destroying my life (and I would not participate in destroying others.) Then who called me?
________________________________________________
Dot
Yep we should have seen that long ago. What were we thinking? All of the one's in Ephesians 4 should have given us a clue. If there was one calling it could not have been to a program if so Paul lost out,as there was no Corps program.
So if God has called us in one calling then one is one any other is two and not from God.
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WhiteDove
You and yours saved us so many times...
Thanks! T
I just wish " Yours" could have survived also.
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Ex10
Yes it was the being as well as the doing for sure... That was pressure to have people always expecting you to have the answers because you had a green name tag....
Ahhhh, it was a lot of crap!
White Dove-
Good insight. But I know people who preach in other churches who believe they were "called " to serve in that capacity. Then, what you are suggesting is that if there was one "calling" then perhpas the "call" to be a minister is not a call but a choice.
I NEVER saw it in that light before.... Very interesting...
Where does that leave gift ministries? I guess any believer can have those gifts and if the body of Christ is meek it will recognize them -- this is a whole other canyon of thought.
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ex10
and oh, yeah, socks
You got double snockered.
:D-->
Being Way Corps was demanding enuff, but add a Rev. onto the nametag, and you had to be perfection personified.
:D-->
Still do, I suspect.
:D-->
White Dove, I still grieve.
:(-->
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