Heck yeah. That's the way most folks were disposed of in the late 90's and early 2000's.
After attending one particularly hypocrisy-filled teaching, I informed my daughter on the way home that we had just attended our last fellowship-- no way was I going to go back.
When Mark Wallace got wind that I had left, he called and wanted to arrange a "meeting".
When we got there, there were two couples who were there to back Mark up in anything he wanted to do and say. These were people who had no first hand knowlege of our lives in any meaningful way. They were just there as Wallace's bobble-heads.
Mark decided during the meeting to mark and avoid us and "put us out of the fellowship."
Funny, but how can you do that to someone who already decided to leave?
Anyway, actually attending the meeting was my mistake. No room to get a word in edgewise, it was a one-way blast of foul language from Wallace's pie hole with "me too" agreements from the other two couples.
I hear they are "kinder" and "gentler" nowadays, but so far, no one has apologized to any of us who were treated in such a heinous manner. Those who tried to break up our marriage and gutstrip our family were promoted for their efforts-- they are now region coordinators.
As a matter of fact, Wallace and Panarello and others were in a bit of a competition with regards to how many long-standing faithful believers they could cut down (See Psalm 74, especially verse 5). And Wallace eventually took Panarello down by deceit as well. He's an extremely jealous viper good at eliminating his competition.
In Psalm 74 David accurately describes the kind of rampant internal destruction that these kinds of people conspire to do-- to destroy God's heritage from within.
Nothing new under the sun.
And God isn't blind, nor is he deaf to our cries. Payback is coming, and it's a b!tch.
I can't imagine any other reaction that totally agreeing with whatever the MOG-wannabe said. They wouldn't stop to think. Glazed eyes would be the most common physical trait of the Wayfer.
My kangaroo court case came up with the new area leader and our twig leader. Both had been in town just two weeks. The witness was our twig leader. When I realized that the area leader had just lied to me, I questioned his story. The booblehead witness saw this as rebellion; but I was simply asking the area leader to tell the truth. The booblehead witness, not having any knowledge of prior communications, had no idea what we were talking about, but was just taken back by my apparent disrespect (in his eyes) of our area leader.
Now, being set up for a fall, and the area leader knowing full well that the twig leader knew nothing of his lies, asked the twig leader if I and my family (after this disrespectful conversation) should be allowed to attend fellowship. Sure, from the false evident, appearing real, it looked like I had made false accusations against the area leader. The twig leader answered: "No, I don't want him or his family in my fellowship"
That area leader looked me right in the eyes and lied; and that bobblehead witness just agreed with him.
With TWI's perverted court system, for the innocent, there was "No Way Out", except the door.
It makes me mad as hell to see how this grew like a cancer and that these men and women would stoop to deliberatly destroying lifes so that fatbellied faggot from oklahoma could tighten his stranglehold on Gods people.
I'm sorry it happened to you, rest assured that justice in one form or another will come soon.
Thank you for your thoughts and the link between the threads.
The link being; an obvious repitious pattern of abuse (choose a catagory) within the history of TWI.
DIALOGUE
fortunateone
posted August 08, 2004 14:34
So sorry for your Way Troubles.
I had mine also.
Very sad how the WAy distorted the concept of
"confrontation."
The biblical idea of confront before two or three witnesses was twisted to mean,
the leader figures out what is wrong with you
then gets a couple of his people to meet with you and confront you. Then they all agree to these findings even if the witnesses never
witnessed anything of the sort.
The ruined believer is then left to figure out
what he did wrong and confess and be humble
to change. Which is then ignored by the leader
and you are sujected to further ridicule and denegration.
You lose!
Or do you win cause you are then inspired to quit TWI.
Woe to the pastors that scatters the Lords flock
FORTUNATEONE to be out of TWI
TheSongRemainsTheSame
posted August 08, 2004 18:01
Fortunateone,
You certainly nailed that on the head.
I called the LC to discuss the bs that the BC was dishing out and so we ended up in a three way phone conversation with my wife on the extension and the BC's wife on the other. The BC lied his aZZ off to the LC. I told our sitiuation and the LC basically said that he had to agree with the BC because of his leadership position and that I was on probation... My wife and I just shook our heads with smiling faces. I mean we just could believe our ears.
Right ON Fortunateone
Right On
Yo Forone,
quote: Woe to the pastors that scatters the Lords flock
Since the assumption in TWI was that in a disagreement between a leader and a non-leader, the leader was always right, whatever the leader said in these confrontations was also assumed by the witnesses to be right and therefore requiring agreement.
In my experience, the "accusation" was usually nothing more than an interpretation of a person's behavior as being "off the Word". Numerous things that personally ticked off a leader might be described as "slothfullness"; a messy house, a bad haircut or a rusty car might be called failure to adhere to the "decent and in order" admonition; but it all boiled down to the leader's opinion that the action actually fell into the described categories.
Since the leader defined the "broken fellowship", failure to satisfactorily address the issue became disobedience, which was also confronted.
The "witnesses" who were shanghaied into participating only got one side of the story, and were never asked if the action by the accussee warranted confrontation, just observe. More often than not the one accused would admit to the accustaion ("well, sure, my car is rusty -->) and then be pounced upon by the leader. If theyt fought back, they weren't "meek", if they didn't, then they were cornered into having to explain why they didn't change.
I think you nailed it. They were there ONLY to observe. The name says it all: "witnesses."
The script I saw played out more than once:
Leader: "You sit there and watch. Oh yeah, rip into them when I can't think of anything or need a drink of water/coffee. By the way, go make me some coffee."
TWIt: "Yes, sir."
TWIt to Spouse TWIt: "We're so blessed to be trusted with this responsibility even if it is 10:30 at night and our kids are at home alone on a school night."
Spouse TWIt: "You're right, honey. Why can't [insert target of inquisition] get it? If they would just do the word, their life would be so much better. That's where deliverance is."
it breaks people down when they know they are dishonest.
a lie is evil and false witness is a lie that hurts Gods chosen people.
I work for a guy that will lie and he has also asked me to lie to folks I wont do it. I say ***** said that lie lie . or he tells meto tell you ****.
I have had very sharp people ask me who happen to have run into his problem they ask me is he lying? and I will tell the truth the way I see it. for example if he says he will be back in five minutes and I know he is 300 miles away and has no intention of being anywhere near I will say , as far as I know he is in and state the town he is at.
I tell him as well. they figure it out quick. See I know I believe Jesus asks us to love one another and false witness is crap and very unloving, I frankly wont do it. It has been my experience this has drawn me closer to the Lord. People end up in his face . He has aksed me to make up stuff about someone and I say no not me, it may even have helped me in my job if I did it , but I am the Lords child and Jesus knows I love His way . How do I know the other person is not called or frankly would I want somene to do this to me? I may work for this guy but i trust the Lord to protect me from his evil ways and He does because I put trust in being honest and loving first before even my paycheck. it isnt easy .
MY point oh yeah.
when anyone begins the spiral of false witness it becomes a trap and a prison and a habit. it breaks who they are can they really sleep at night and who they look at in the mirror in the morning ya know? it destroys a person where they begin to doubt even what they say they can no longer trust even their own self.
it is serious.
it breaks a person down into a spineless lying fearfull puppet.
I guess it depends on the purpose of a witness. In my experience, the "witness" was their to help the main TWI person confront the accused. Actual, first-hand knowledge of the other person's "offenses" was optional. They were there to "witness" the confrontation NOT be a witness AGAINST the accused. It seemed almost like moral support for the one screaming.
Not saying this fits anything remotely sounding biblical but that was my experience with TWI.
When I was marked it was by the LC who knew the situation because I told him.
the fact he held a meeting and told all the other fellowships to avoid me and then told them why( which was in a private phone call with him) is what gave twi its power.
to sit there and claim to love one another as brother and sister inchrist and pick and chose who belongs and who doesnt by what another may think is false witness to me.
How is it that sin is just sin and grace abounds when it came around to their own messy crap? but when it was "confronted" by a leader everyone I knew feared to the point of not saying the truth even when they knew different . it is passive but is that not also false witness? to agree with what you knew was wrong?
What totally sucked about these "confrontations" is that if you disagreed in any way with what was being said or tried to demonstrate your side of the story, you were labeled "unmeek" or "rebellious". It was so #%$&*@# frustrating!
I was in a situation where I was an assistant to someone who felt threatened by me. The fellowship we ran prefered to talk with me about things - they'd call when they knew she was at a phone hook up because they all said the same thing - she can't be trusted. They all had been burned by her breaking their confidences in her by her going to "leadership" with their problems/questions - blowing simple problems up to be something they weren't. Some of the folks were just lonely and needed a friend - I could sympathize with that!
Anyhow, I got framed by her more than once shortly after we got new BCs/LCs in our area. She painted a picture of me being a real little monster to them - that I was lazy, did what I wanted, didn't conform. The previous leadership knew me from other assignments - they wouldn't have called me on the carpet for the crap she was spewing. (I was also the only person in the fellowship who had brought any new people in over two years!)
I left shortly after some of the b.s. confrontations - I was sick to death of the "Salem Witch Trials" they were trying to hold. They were digging for crap! When I told my area coordinator, who I'd worked with when I was on staff, why I was leaving, he agreed I'd been getting a raw deal - he was more sympathetic about my leaving than I had expected.
It seemed like anyone with a green name tag and a mean temper could get away with whatever they wanted - the madder they could get, the louder they could yell, the more spiritually "right on" they were...
Last I heard the little sweetheart who had an ax to grind against me is no longer WC or running a fellowship... Suprise, suprise!
The Way International leadership survives on lies. They eat them, sleep them, dream them, then spew them out in order to achieve their ends.
Minutes before the kangaroo court where our Way Corps status was removed, I overheard Mark Wallace tell Larry Panarello that "The Nessles have to go." Panarello responded by agreeing to back Wallace up in whatever he decided.
Then when Panarello opened the meeting, he stated that nothing was a foregone conclusion regarding our Corps status. From that point on I knew I was dealing with a basket of vipers.
The first thing Panarello did was accuse me of witholding a specific bit of information from Mark Wallace. I then told him that in fact I had informed Josephine Wallace of that very bit of information in a two-hour face to face conversation the first day I met her. Josephine could not look me in the eye, but rather sat silently staring at her hands in her lap. Immediately I was jumped on by one of the three or four other "reverend" bobbleheads who accused me of "calling Reverend Wallace a liar" in order to take the spotlight off of the obvious communication problem I had highlighted between Mark and Josephine.
Then they tried to get me to attribute remarks to my former limb coordinator that I knew he did not say. I knew then they were after him as well, to catch him in his words. They asked me what he had said to me and I repeated it verbatim. Then they would twist his words back to me, saying, "are you saying he told you...," twisting and perverting the actual meaning of his words. I would say "no, that's not what he said... he said....etc.," repeating the words I knew he said. They did this for a good hour before they saw I was not going to let them put a lie in an honest man's mouth. This angered them to no end, so they began to attack me again.
On and on it went, the various "reverend" bobbleheads vomiting accusations one after the other. When I would successfully refute one person, then the next "reverend" bobblehead would fire another accusation to change the subject. They tried every which way to get me and my husband to lose our composure under their fire and break down and confess to their lies and perjure ourselves. We refused to cave in, and despite the hollowness of their accusations, the bobbleheads nodded their empty skulls in agreement that "The Nessles must go!"
In retrospect, I wish we had walked out. Our Corps status was removed, and later that year so was our fellowship, with Mark Wallace screaming evil epithets at the top of his lungs in our home, and threatening my husband, my daughter, and myself with physical ailments, spiritual possession, and death if my husband didn't "get a passion for the truth."
We had to attend fellowship at Wallace's house, which was a joke. There was no fellowship in the true sense of the word. We were treated like outcasts. One of my daughter's little friends, probably barely 5 years old at the time, came up and told her his Mom told him that it was OK that we wouldn't see them anymore, that he would see us at the gathering together!!!! Like we were already DEAD!!!!
Eventually, after enduring a ridiculously hypocritical teaching, on the way home I announced to my daughter that we had just attended our last fellowship. She was frightened to death, because she had heard Mark Wallace threaten that if her Dad didn't get a passion for the truth, that he would die a lonely old man, I would be crippled for life, and that she would become a stark raving lunatic! My daughter was hysterical at the announcement, fearing that our lives were in immediate danger. When I got home, she called the Wallace's house, crying, because we weren't coming back to fellowship and she thought we were all going to die.
When Mark Wallace got back into town, he was upset because we had left of our own accord, and he didn't have the glory of "casting us out of the fellowship" himself. So he called me and wanted to "meet". That was my mistake.
I had already left, I guess it was curiosity and partly feeling I was still obligated to this "reverend" in some way. So we went. Same kind of meeting as above. The meeting was to quick to assemble the "reverend" bobbleheads, so two other Corps couples would have to do. And on cue, as soon as I would refute an accusation, I was jumped on like white on rice, no word in edgewise.
I don't know why I expected it to be any different than the first kangaroo court. Chalk it up to the fact that breaking the control leadership has over you due to years of conditioned unquestioned obedience to superiors takes a while to finally break.
Lies and intimidation. That's how they operate. And when you refuse to cave in to their demands, the threats and pressure get worse until you give in to them and give them what you want, or they get rid of you.
The accounts here are more dramtic than what occurred when my wife and I were told to stop coming to twig. I have written about here in another thread and don't feel the need to repeat it.
My impression was that the witnesses were there more for their seeing us as an example, than as a legal witness. I feel we became a teaching point to motivate them to remain obedient
Kind of like having the crew of a old sailing ship all stand at attention to witness the flogging of a crewmember who was dissobedient in some way.
I believe that another reason that the "witnesses" were there was to give the illusion that it was not all one man's opinion. Also there was an element of "good cop/bad cop" in some of the confrontations.
Before I was the subject of the inquisition myself I was often called upon as one of the "witnesses". Probably because I was adept at taking accurate notes of what was said. The leader would refer back to my notes if he thought that the one accused was giving contradictory answers. I wish I had thought to take notes of what the accusers were saying; I might have caught them in contradictory statements.
Some times I feel like you are my twin as our experiences are SO similar. That was my main role as a witness. It certainly wasn't to say much or even help in deciding a situation. I was a good note taker. How sad is that? It was almost like watching a tennis match go back and forth at times. Guess I was a bobblehead too.
The disgust at my own lack of support for someone I felt had been unfairly treated is what caused me to start pulling out of TWI. Heck of a way to finally wise up. I'm trying to rebuild that friendship and hope they'll forgive me.
One poor guy in our area never even got the confrontation with witnesses (bobbleheaded or not). He was kicked out and then a branch meeting was called so that the entire branch could hear the BC air all this poor guy's dirty laundry in front of all of us. I remember thinking, "Why do I need to know this?" and "What does his family think having to sit here and listen to all this about their husband/dad/son/brother/cousin/uncle/etc?"
He got divorced shortly afterwards - shock-shock. I wish I had spoken up or at least woken up then.
Chas, our stories are very similar about the confrontation. I kept maintaining that my actions were completely appropriate and pointing out the things that my HFC didn't do or did incorrectly leading to the problems they perceived were with me. No dice. You can't pin anything on a leader especially not a WC leader when you're non-WC. They are infallible apparently.
Adding some more insight into my TWI court case. The week prior to our inquisition,faith testing episode, I did have the area leader write down on paper what we had discussed. When our trial date came up, I confronted the area leader on him not telling the truth, than asked him to check his notes. See, we, by way of MY suggestion, had both kept notes. When he lied, and then I corrected him, then he denied it; I than asked him to check his notes. Oh God, did all hell break loose. He got caught in a lie and he had to save face. So he asked the twig leader, what do you think of this dialogue? Than the question was "Do you want them to attend your twig?" But to tell you the truth, I was nervous, but very satisfied that I stood up to him and stayed peaceful.
We were never allowed to speak up. When I tried to, His Majesty the corpse guy cut me off with loud, derisive sarcasm. We were blasted because I had written the wrong date on an ABS check, according to him deliberately pre-dating it. I accepted it and started to cross out the date and put the present date on it with my initials, which would have been accepted at any bank. I got blasted again for doing that, on a check made out to TWI, like I would do to some ordinary, worldly check. How unbelievably slovenly of me. We were told we would not be permitted the privilege of attending WIB for which we had already registered and paid, because of a small debt we had incurred. I immediately asked if we would get our money back from the deposit. That, too, went over like a screen door on a submarine. How dare I ask for money back from TWI - but yes I would get it.
We were not actually allowed to speak one word in our own defense. All of DM's questions were rhetorical, because he, as the MOGFODAT for that day and place and time, already had the answers, concocted in his own tiny brain, nicely warped and twisted to make him look good to his superior officers in the devil's army. We were quite stunned and I could naught but sputter; my poor husband just sat in astonishment.
Our twig leaders, the only witnesses to this travesty, were silent, except for a few pseudo-sagacious nods of agreement; one of them was related to DM and they were trying to comply with the insane demands of their relative-in-law by selling their home before a deadline, so I guess they had to put any decent impulses aside. I pitied them, actually, inspite of ripping us off of a piece of nice furniture, they were not bad people. But not all that good, either.
I never was requested to witness a verbal thrashing myself, but would probably have been too terrified to speak up anyway.
Now, I'm happy to say I'm getting back to being my pre-LCM days smart-a$$ self! :D-->
For a household that was supposed to be so united and like-minded about things, it is sickening to see the number of cases where people turned against others just to make themselves look good or because they couldn't stand up to some big-wig with a nametag!
Maybe it's me, but right after the "leadership tapes" or whatever you want to call them, that Craig put out that were supposed to clarify who was in charge, etc., and put an end to the "Fog Years" people began getting really two-faced.
This seemed to get even worse when the whole "Promised Land of the Prevailing Word" was introduced and there was a drive to eliminate weakness from the fellowships. Suddenly, people were getting called on the carpet for the darnest things - a dirty dish in the sink, their baby crying during the teaching, having too many pets (even if their house was clean) - any little mote in that could be found. Everyone was game - even people who weren't going to fellowship...
Anyone here ever have to go "Confrontation Witnessing"?
I'm not making this up - we really had to do this in my area - I HATED IT!
We had to pick a topic, such as debt, and write down two or three scriptures on a 3x5 card. Then we had to go door-to-door or to the mall and start a conversation with people about this topic. We had to teach/confront them that debt was against the Word and get them to read the little card. Then, we had to try to get them to fellowship.
Guess what?
I never saw any fruit from this at all, anywhere, by anyone who I knew who did this!
Oh, and I almost forgot... We were supposed to be talking to people who didn't look like they would be "high maintaince" believers if they did get in the Word. They should look like they had their lives together. (Then what the hell did I have that they would want if they had their lives together? HELLO-oooo!)
At least leadership wasn't snotty about who they directed the abusive confrontation towards - they even tried to share it with people who weren't IN the ministry to begin with!
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Catcup
Heck yeah. That's the way most folks were disposed of in the late 90's and early 2000's.
After attending one particularly hypocrisy-filled teaching, I informed my daughter on the way home that we had just attended our last fellowship-- no way was I going to go back.
When Mark Wallace got wind that I had left, he called and wanted to arrange a "meeting".
When we got there, there were two couples who were there to back Mark up in anything he wanted to do and say. These were people who had no first hand knowlege of our lives in any meaningful way. They were just there as Wallace's bobble-heads.
Mark decided during the meeting to mark and avoid us and "put us out of the fellowship."
Funny, but how can you do that to someone who already decided to leave?
Anyway, actually attending the meeting was my mistake. No room to get a word in edgewise, it was a one-way blast of foul language from Wallace's pie hole with "me too" agreements from the other two couples.
I hear they are "kinder" and "gentler" nowadays, but so far, no one has apologized to any of us who were treated in such a heinous manner. Those who tried to break up our marriage and gutstrip our family were promoted for their efforts-- they are now region coordinators.
As a matter of fact, Wallace and Panarello and others were in a bit of a competition with regards to how many long-standing faithful believers they could cut down (See Psalm 74, especially verse 5). And Wallace eventually took Panarello down by deceit as well. He's an extremely jealous viper good at eliminating his competition.
In Psalm 74 David accurately describes the kind of rampant internal destruction that these kinds of people conspire to do-- to destroy God's heritage from within.
Nothing new under the sun.
And God isn't blind, nor is he deaf to our cries. Payback is coming, and it's a b!tch.
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excathedra
sounds like song's letter thread
so harvey turned into a big fat dilusional manipulator like so many others. but it got him where he is today damnit
i saw this witness crap in the corps program to some degree; for instance, with a little red dick in colorado
then i saw it with a psycho monster in gartmoor
some of these bobblehead (good one) witnesses were so afraid of the BIG bobblehead they just bobbled along
they all suck
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imbus
Exie,
Could you tell us how you really feel?
:)--> There is nothing more worse then the scorn of a women!!! 
:D-->
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JustThinking
I can't imagine any other reaction that totally agreeing with whatever the MOG-wannabe said. They wouldn't stop to think. Glazed eyes would be the most common physical trait of the Wayfer.
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Lightside
My kangaroo court case came up with the new area leader and our twig leader. Both had been in town just two weeks. The witness was our twig leader. When I realized that the area leader had just lied to me, I questioned his story. The booblehead witness saw this as rebellion; but I was simply asking the area leader to tell the truth. The booblehead witness, not having any knowledge of prior communications, had no idea what we were talking about, but was just taken back by my apparent disrespect (in his eyes) of our area leader.
Now, being set up for a fall, and the area leader knowing full well that the twig leader knew nothing of his lies, asked the twig leader if I and my family (after this disrespectful conversation) should be allowed to attend fellowship. Sure, from the false evident, appearing real, it looked like I had made false accusations against the area leader. The twig leader answered: "No, I don't want him or his family in my fellowship"
That area leader looked me right in the eyes and lied; and that bobblehead witness just agreed with him.
With TWI's perverted court system, for the innocent, there was "No Way Out", except the door.
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herbiejuan
It makes me mad as hell to see how this grew like a cancer and that these men and women would stoop to deliberatly destroying lifes so that fatbellied faggot from oklahoma could tighten his stranglehold on Gods people.
I'm sorry it happened to you, rest assured that justice in one form or another will come soon.
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TheSongRemainsTheSame
excathedra
You posted August 14, 2004 16:16
Hiya excathedra,
Thank you for your thoughts and the link between the threads.
The link being; an obvious repitious pattern of abuse (choose a catagory) within the history of TWI.
DIALOGUE
fortunateone
posted August 08, 2004 14:34
So sorry for your Way Troubles.
I had mine also.
Very sad how the WAy distorted the concept of
"confrontation."
The biblical idea of confront before two or three witnesses was twisted to mean,
the leader figures out what is wrong with you
then gets a couple of his people to meet with you and confront you. Then they all agree to these findings even if the witnesses never
witnessed anything of the sort.
The ruined believer is then left to figure out
what he did wrong and confess and be humble
to change. Which is then ignored by the leader
and you are sujected to further ridicule and denegration.
You lose!
Or do you win cause you are then inspired to quit TWI.
Woe to the pastors that scatters the Lords flock
FORTUNATEONE to be out of TWI
TheSongRemainsTheSame
posted August 08, 2004 18:01
Fortunateone,
You certainly nailed that on the head.
I called the LC to discuss the bs that the BC was dishing out and so we ended up in a three way phone conversation with my wife on the extension and the BC's wife on the other. The BC lied his aZZ off to the LC. I told our sitiuation and the LC basically said that he had to agree with the BC because of his leadership position and that I was on probation... My wife and I just shook our heads with smiling faces. I mean we just could believe our ears.
Right ON Fortunateone
Right On
Yo Forone,
Most eloquent description of the one finger.
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Oakspear
Since the assumption in TWI was that in a disagreement between a leader and a non-leader, the leader was always right, whatever the leader said in these confrontations was also assumed by the witnesses to be right and therefore requiring agreement.
In my experience, the "accusation" was usually nothing more than an interpretation of a person's behavior as being "off the Word". Numerous things that personally ticked off a leader might be described as "slothfullness"; a messy house, a bad haircut or a rusty car might be called failure to adhere to the "decent and in order" admonition; but it all boiled down to the leader's opinion that the action actually fell into the described categories.
Since the leader defined the "broken fellowship", failure to satisfactorily address the issue became disobedience, which was also confronted.
The "witnesses" who were shanghaied into participating only got one side of the story, and were never asked if the action by the accussee warranted confrontation, just observe. More often than not the one accused would admit to the accustaion ("well, sure, my car is rusty
-->) and then be pounced upon by the leader. If theyt fought back, they weren't "meek", if they didn't, then they were cornered into having to explain why they didn't change.
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TheEvan
"They were just there as Wallace's bobble-heads."
Now that's pretty funny!
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JustThinking
Oak,
I think you nailed it. They were there ONLY to observe. The name says it all: "witnesses."
The script I saw played out more than once:
Leader: "You sit there and watch. Oh yeah, rip into them when I can't think of anything or need a drink of water/coffee. By the way, go make me some coffee."
TWIt: "Yes, sir."
TWIt to Spouse TWIt: "We're so blessed to be trusted with this responsibility even if it is 10:30 at night and our kids are at home alone on a school night."
Spouse TWIt: "You're right, honey. Why can't [insert target of inquisition] get it? If they would just do the word, their life would be so much better. That's where deliverance is."
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mj412
It is about integrity as a person.
it breaks people down when they know they are dishonest.
a lie is evil and false witness is a lie that hurts Gods chosen people.
I work for a guy that will lie and he has also asked me to lie to folks I wont do it. I say ***** said that lie lie . or he tells meto tell you ****.
I have had very sharp people ask me who happen to have run into his problem they ask me is he lying? and I will tell the truth the way I see it. for example if he says he will be back in five minutes and I know he is 300 miles away and has no intention of being anywhere near I will say , as far as I know he is in and state the town he is at.
I tell him as well. they figure it out quick. See I know I believe Jesus asks us to love one another and false witness is crap and very unloving, I frankly wont do it. It has been my experience this has drawn me closer to the Lord. People end up in his face . He has aksed me to make up stuff about someone and I say no not me, it may even have helped me in my job if I did it , but I am the Lords child and Jesus knows I love His way . How do I know the other person is not called or frankly would I want somene to do this to me? I may work for this guy but i trust the Lord to protect me from his evil ways and He does because I put trust in being honest and loving first before even my paycheck. it isnt easy .
MY point oh yeah.
when anyone begins the spiral of false witness it becomes a trap and a prison and a habit. it breaks who they are can they really sleep at night and who they look at in the mirror in the morning ya know? it destroys a person where they begin to doubt even what they say they can no longer trust even their own self.
it is serious.
it breaks a person down into a spineless lying fearfull puppet.
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JustThinking
I guess it depends on the purpose of a witness. In my experience, the "witness" was their to help the main TWI person confront the accused. Actual, first-hand knowledge of the other person's "offenses" was optional. They were there to "witness" the confrontation NOT be a witness AGAINST the accused. It seemed almost like moral support for the one screaming.
Not saying this fits anything remotely sounding biblical but that was my experience with TWI.
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mj412
When I was marked it was by the LC who knew the situation because I told him.
the fact he held a meeting and told all the other fellowships to avoid me and then told them why( which was in a private phone call with him) is what gave twi its power.
to sit there and claim to love one another as brother and sister inchrist and pick and chose who belongs and who doesnt by what another may think is false witness to me.
How is it that sin is just sin and grace abounds when it came around to their own messy crap? but when it was "confronted" by a leader everyone I knew feared to the point of not saying the truth even when they knew different . it is passive but is that not also false witness? to agree with what you knew was wrong?
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ChasUFarley
What totally sucked about these "confrontations" is that if you disagreed in any way with what was being said or tried to demonstrate your side of the story, you were labeled "unmeek" or "rebellious". It was so #%$&*@# frustrating!
I was in a situation where I was an assistant to someone who felt threatened by me. The fellowship we ran prefered to talk with me about things - they'd call when they knew she was at a phone hook up because they all said the same thing - she can't be trusted. They all had been burned by her breaking their confidences in her by her going to "leadership" with their problems/questions - blowing simple problems up to be something they weren't. Some of the folks were just lonely and needed a friend - I could sympathize with that!
Anyhow, I got framed by her more than once shortly after we got new BCs/LCs in our area. She painted a picture of me being a real little monster to them - that I was lazy, did what I wanted, didn't conform. The previous leadership knew me from other assignments - they wouldn't have called me on the carpet for the crap she was spewing. (I was also the only person in the fellowship who had brought any new people in over two years!)
I left shortly after some of the b.s. confrontations - I was sick to death of the "Salem Witch Trials" they were trying to hold. They were digging for crap! When I told my area coordinator, who I'd worked with when I was on staff, why I was leaving, he agreed I'd been getting a raw deal - he was more sympathetic about my leaving than I had expected.
It seemed like anyone with a green name tag and a mean temper could get away with whatever they wanted - the madder they could get, the louder they could yell, the more spiritually "right on" they were...
Last I heard the little sweetheart who had an ax to grind against me is no longer WC or running a fellowship... Suprise, suprise!
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Catcup
The Way International leadership survives on lies. They eat them, sleep them, dream them, then spew them out in order to achieve their ends.
Minutes before the kangaroo court where our Way Corps status was removed, I overheard Mark Wallace tell Larry Panarello that "The Nessles have to go." Panarello responded by agreeing to back Wallace up in whatever he decided.
Then when Panarello opened the meeting, he stated that nothing was a foregone conclusion regarding our Corps status. From that point on I knew I was dealing with a basket of vipers.
The first thing Panarello did was accuse me of witholding a specific bit of information from Mark Wallace. I then told him that in fact I had informed Josephine Wallace of that very bit of information in a two-hour face to face conversation the first day I met her. Josephine could not look me in the eye, but rather sat silently staring at her hands in her lap. Immediately I was jumped on by one of the three or four other "reverend" bobbleheads who accused me of "calling Reverend Wallace a liar" in order to take the spotlight off of the obvious communication problem I had highlighted between Mark and Josephine.
Then they tried to get me to attribute remarks to my former limb coordinator that I knew he did not say. I knew then they were after him as well, to catch him in his words. They asked me what he had said to me and I repeated it verbatim. Then they would twist his words back to me, saying, "are you saying he told you...," twisting and perverting the actual meaning of his words. I would say "no, that's not what he said... he said....etc.," repeating the words I knew he said. They did this for a good hour before they saw I was not going to let them put a lie in an honest man's mouth. This angered them to no end, so they began to attack me again.
On and on it went, the various "reverend" bobbleheads vomiting accusations one after the other. When I would successfully refute one person, then the next "reverend" bobblehead would fire another accusation to change the subject. They tried every which way to get me and my husband to lose our composure under their fire and break down and confess to their lies and perjure ourselves. We refused to cave in, and despite the hollowness of their accusations, the bobbleheads nodded their empty skulls in agreement that "The Nessles must go!"
In retrospect, I wish we had walked out. Our Corps status was removed, and later that year so was our fellowship, with Mark Wallace screaming evil epithets at the top of his lungs in our home, and threatening my husband, my daughter, and myself with physical ailments, spiritual possession, and death if my husband didn't "get a passion for the truth."
We had to attend fellowship at Wallace's house, which was a joke. There was no fellowship in the true sense of the word. We were treated like outcasts. One of my daughter's little friends, probably barely 5 years old at the time, came up and told her his Mom told him that it was OK that we wouldn't see them anymore, that he would see us at the gathering together!!!! Like we were already DEAD!!!!
Eventually, after enduring a ridiculously hypocritical teaching, on the way home I announced to my daughter that we had just attended our last fellowship. She was frightened to death, because she had heard Mark Wallace threaten that if her Dad didn't get a passion for the truth, that he would die a lonely old man, I would be crippled for life, and that she would become a stark raving lunatic! My daughter was hysterical at the announcement, fearing that our lives were in immediate danger. When I got home, she called the Wallace's house, crying, because we weren't coming back to fellowship and she thought we were all going to die.
When Mark Wallace got back into town, he was upset because we had left of our own accord, and he didn't have the glory of "casting us out of the fellowship" himself. So he called me and wanted to "meet". That was my mistake.
I had already left, I guess it was curiosity and partly feeling I was still obligated to this "reverend" in some way. So we went. Same kind of meeting as above. The meeting was to quick to assemble the "reverend" bobbleheads, so two other Corps couples would have to do. And on cue, as soon as I would refute an accusation, I was jumped on like white on rice, no word in edgewise.
I don't know why I expected it to be any different than the first kangaroo court. Chalk it up to the fact that breaking the control leadership has over you due to years of conditioned unquestioned obedience to superiors takes a while to finally break.
Lies and intimidation. That's how they operate. And when you refuse to cave in to their demands, the threats and pressure get worse until you give in to them and give them what you want, or they get rid of you.
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ckeer
The accounts here are more dramtic than what occurred when my wife and I were told to stop coming to twig. I have written about here in another thread and don't feel the need to repeat it.
My impression was that the witnesses were there more for their seeing us as an example, than as a legal witness. I feel we became a teaching point to motivate them to remain obedient
Kind of like having the crew of a old sailing ship all stand at attention to witness the flogging of a crewmember who was dissobedient in some way.
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Oakspear
I believe that another reason that the "witnesses" were there was to give the illusion that it was not all one man's opinion. Also there was an element of "good cop/bad cop" in some of the confrontations.
Before I was the subject of the inquisition myself I was often called upon as one of the "witnesses". Probably because I was adept at taking accurate notes of what was said. The leader would refer back to my notes if he thought that the one accused was giving contradictory answers. I wish I had thought to take notes of what the accusers were saying; I might have caught them in contradictory statements.
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JustThinking
Oak,
Some times I feel like you are my twin as our experiences are SO similar. That was my main role as a witness. It certainly wasn't to say much or even help in deciding a situation. I was a good note taker. How sad is that? It was almost like watching a tennis match go back and forth at times. Guess I was a bobblehead too.
The disgust at my own lack of support for someone I felt had been unfairly treated is what caused me to start pulling out of TWI. Heck of a way to finally wise up. I'm trying to rebuild that friendship and hope they'll forgive me.
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tomtuttle
Catcup, so many good, pure-hearted people treated so poorly out of envy, jealousy, hatred ... say, aren't those qualities of some other god??
I do WISH (There, I said it!!!) I could go through some of those events today. I was too respectful back then ...
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frank123lol
Hi all,I think it was all a sick master plan to
shrink the fellowships,It was a blanket type
no one was worthy except the a@@ kissers the blind loyalty jacka@@ssess
I was part of some of it both on the giving and
receiving end
twi you were wrong and are still wrong for not being honest shame on you
God is bigger and never ever forgets you
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Belle
One poor guy in our area never even got the confrontation with witnesses (bobbleheaded or not). He was kicked out and then a branch meeting was called so that the entire branch could hear the BC air all this poor guy's dirty laundry in front of all of us. I remember thinking, "Why do I need to know this?" and "What does his family think having to sit here and listen to all this about their husband/dad/son/brother/cousin/uncle/etc?"
He got divorced shortly afterwards - shock-shock. I wish I had spoken up or at least woken up then.
Chas, our stories are very similar about the confrontation. I kept maintaining that my actions were completely appropriate and pointing out the things that my HFC didn't do or did incorrectly leading to the problems they perceived were with me. No dice. You can't pin anything on a leader especially not a WC leader when you're non-WC. They are infallible apparently.
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Lightside
Adding some more insight into my TWI court case. The week prior to our inquisition,faith testing episode, I did have the area leader write down on paper what we had discussed. When our trial date came up, I confronted the area leader on him not telling the truth, than asked him to check his notes. See, we, by way of MY suggestion, had both kept notes. When he lied, and then I corrected him, then he denied it; I than asked him to check his notes. Oh God, did all hell break loose. He got caught in a lie and he had to save face. So he asked the twig leader, what do you think of this dialogue? Than the question was "Do you want them to attend your twig?" But to tell you the truth, I was nervous, but very satisfied that I stood up to him and stayed peaceful.
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Watered Garden
We were never allowed to speak up. When I tried to, His Majesty the corpse guy cut me off with loud, derisive sarcasm. We were blasted because I had written the wrong date on an ABS check, according to him deliberately pre-dating it. I accepted it and started to cross out the date and put the present date on it with my initials, which would have been accepted at any bank. I got blasted again for doing that, on a check made out to TWI, like I would do to some ordinary, worldly check. How unbelievably slovenly of me. We were told we would not be permitted the privilege of attending WIB for which we had already registered and paid, because of a small debt we had incurred. I immediately asked if we would get our money back from the deposit. That, too, went over like a screen door on a submarine. How dare I ask for money back from TWI - but yes I would get it.
We were not actually allowed to speak one word in our own defense. All of DM's questions were rhetorical, because he, as the MOGFODAT for that day and place and time, already had the answers, concocted in his own tiny brain, nicely warped and twisted to make him look good to his superior officers in the devil's army. We were quite stunned and I could naught but sputter; my poor husband just sat in astonishment.
Our twig leaders, the only witnesses to this travesty, were silent, except for a few pseudo-sagacious nods of agreement; one of them was related to DM and they were trying to comply with the insane demands of their relative-in-law by selling their home before a deadline, so I guess they had to put any decent impulses aside. I pitied them, actually, inspite of ripping us off of a piece of nice furniture, they were not bad people. But not all that good, either.
I never was requested to witness a verbal thrashing myself, but would probably have been too terrified to speak up anyway.
Now, I'm happy to say I'm getting back to being my pre-LCM days smart-a$$ self!
:D-->
WG
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ChasUFarley
For a household that was supposed to be so united and like-minded about things, it is sickening to see the number of cases where people turned against others just to make themselves look good or because they couldn't stand up to some big-wig with a nametag!
Maybe it's me, but right after the "leadership tapes" or whatever you want to call them, that Craig put out that were supposed to clarify who was in charge, etc., and put an end to the "Fog Years" people began getting really two-faced.
This seemed to get even worse when the whole "Promised Land of the Prevailing Word" was introduced and there was a drive to eliminate weakness from the fellowships. Suddenly, people were getting called on the carpet for the darnest things - a dirty dish in the sink, their baby crying during the teaching, having too many pets (even if their house was clean) - any little mote in that could be found. Everyone was game - even people who weren't going to fellowship...
Anyone here ever have to go "Confrontation Witnessing"?
I'm not making this up - we really had to do this in my area - I HATED IT!
We had to pick a topic, such as debt, and write down two or three scriptures on a 3x5 card. Then we had to go door-to-door or to the mall and start a conversation with people about this topic. We had to teach/confront them that debt was against the Word and get them to read the little card. Then, we had to try to get them to fellowship.
Guess what?
I never saw any fruit from this at all, anywhere, by anyone who I knew who did this!
Oh, and I almost forgot... We were supposed to be talking to people who didn't look like they would be "high maintaince" believers if they did get in the Word. They should look like they had their lives together. (Then what the hell did I have that they would want if they had their lives together? HELLO-oooo!)
At least leadership wasn't snotty about who they directed the abusive confrontation towards - they even tried to share it with people who weren't IN the ministry to begin with!
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