*Never go on a weekend training or seminar of **Any Kind** if they refuse to tell you what it consists of and especially if they hint it wont be effective if you were told about it

Oh my gosh - I just had a flashback to a Landmark Education weekend...

Another point to bring up in a student services presentation:

If someone comes out of some event or workshop flying high, in a passionate happy mood, that doesnt prove anything.

Moods dont prove anything.

More important, what comes up must come down. We cannot be intense and happy all the time. Eventually, one bumps back to earth--unless kept going artificially by attending more and more workshops.

If glossy posters are put up and offer free classes, remember those posters were either paid for or the labor was donated. So what if the classes are free?

It costs money to rent facilities and manufacture advertisements. Who is going to pay for it and when?

YOU ARE.

So look for where the money comes from and where it goes. How a group or guru handles money is a marker for many other things.
Anyone or any group that claims to be %100 effective -- that alone is a sign to be suspicious.

Anything powerful enough to have desirable effects is powerful enough to have side effects. Even aspirin has side effects.

And if they dont respect a potential recruit's searching questions or participate--then think how little they will respect you after you've been processed by them.

If they want you to register, LOUDLY say, you want a copy of the paperwork so you can take it home and study it. LOUDLY say you want to have a copy of the release of liability form so you can show it to the legal clinic at your school.

This will make them show their true colors.

A decade ago, I went to some event, held at a rented hotel room. It started 30 to 45 minutes late--after the scheduled start time.

As the time went on, and the hour grew yet later, the material became more extreme. I sat through it long enough for them to present material that was anti semitic and consisted of conspiracy theories.

When I decided to leave before the third part of the lecture (which probably would have been yet more extreme)...I left the group, went to the taxi stand out on the hotel porch.

To my alarm, three people from the group showed up at my elbow and tried to persuade me to return. I didnt argue with them. I grabbed the next taxi cab and left.

This is why you should always keep control of your car or at least be in an area where taxi cabs are available. Dont let your friends wheedle you to car pool them to the event. If you want to leave, you will feel obligated to remain and you might remain long enough to be indoctrinated. These groups have 20 to 30 decades of experience dealing with smart people like us.

Keep control of your wheels.

If a group or lecture is advertised to begin at (say) 7 pm, and there is at least a half hour delay, get up and leave, no matter how they plead with you to stay.

Running late is a way to trick people to remain awake longer than they are accustomed. Disrupting someone's sleeping schedule is an important way to throw them off balance.

Two, this trick of running late is a way to ID people who are obedient or polite and who remain despite being kept waiting. Assertive people whom the group doestn want are the ones who leave early.

Its a good rule for assessing dates, too. People who show up late for appointments often have other troubles and will drag you into them.

Keeping people waiting is a sign of contempt in some Asian cultures. Maharishi Yogi and Ravi Shankar reportedly kept people waiting for them.

I suggest a campus group of concerned students meeting for times of prayer, at the very least. In addition, discussion and Bible study would be useful. I challenge such a group to discover: What does the Bible teach about spiritual warfare? What are God’s principles for things like witnessing, preaching and recruiting of ‘lost sheep’ into His fold? What character and preparations are necessary in those “who do not war after the flesh” (II Corinthians 10: 2 - 6)?

The students on campus who are believers in the One True God are enlisted in His army battalion on that campus. Their task is for doing battle against dark spiritual forces. They need to learn how to use the instruments of battle given them by the Commander, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. They need to manuever battle forces under His command, and never manuever in any way that is motived by human agendas.

YMBBA members and preachers are very familiar with christians and christianity. Their group likes to think they have solid christian views. An overwhelming majority of christians disagree with them, and some might even go so far as to say YMBBA offers counterfeit christianity. YMBBA wants you to treat them as brethren in Christ Jesus, but then they also want you to accept their statements that you are not born again if your salvation experience is not totally aligned with their teachings. Do you see a contradiction?

I encourage christians to stay out of traps. Often, the trouble arising in disagreements of fellow christians (or when pseudo-christians are involved) has to do with one or more of the following: a strong-willed personality, an aversion for uncertainty, argumentative inclinations, and pride.

Strong-willed personality: Some people do not want to back down to the point of admitting they are wrong. To them, the opposition is wrong; they hope to save their opposer from consequences of being wrong. Such a strong-willed person feels he is merciful and compassionate, when in fact he is rude, careless and disrespectful.

Aversion for uncertainty: In reality, most aspects of life are uncertain, when we view them from the human standpoint; that is because the human is finite in his knowledge and experiences, and the human is weak and powerless as compared to God. Some people, however, do not want to believe life is so uncertain; they also hope to demonstrate strength and power, and so they set about to prove what they think needs proving, under strict terms, so that they seem to believe with certainty, where others ‘compromise’ to accept uncertainty. Those who despise uncertainty seem to forget that they are not so knowledgeable as God. If God has not shown them all that needs to be shown to prove what they assert is true, then they fail to see as God sees. God is a God of miracles, and He can do what we think defies His own laws, when in fact, He never stated the law the way the man states it. He controls all things, and we are left wondering which of our ‘laws’ are not His laws.

I will not be exhaustive here, but we CAN be certain about lots of things. We can be certain He is a faithful, loving, merciful God. We can be certain Jesus of Nazareth is the Way to the Father. These are certainties because of what is so clearly written in God’s Word, which is, in its original - as handed down from God to man - certainly true. So then, live within His Word.

Argumentative inclinations: Some people just like to argue. No matter who they meet, they hope to take an opposing side against their neighbor, maybe to ‘help the neighbor thus engaged to grow’, or maybe to demonstrate his witty abilities (a symptom of pride). Arguing is seen as a challenge, and the object is to win the argument (sometimes with intentions to belittle the loser and to show how ridiculous is the set of beliefs in which the loser is immersed). At times, the argumentative people are cruel, and at times, they really have altruistic motives.

Pride: The one who has pride is the one who hopes to look good. God looks on the heart, and so, His perception differs from the one with a proud heart. Pride is always error in God’s eyes. Most importantly, the prideful person ignores what God says; God’s perception does not weigh heavily on him, and he has decided to think and do what he deems as best, whether or not God agrees. The prideful person often has a set of scriptures which he claims provide him rights to believe and do as he does, but his pride keeps him from hearing the words of a ‘low-caste’ person who offers an opposing view (even when that ‘unworthy advisor’ presents scripture). By ‘standing strong’, a prideful christian believes he is disciplined to refuse compromise of God’s Word, but in reality, he protects his own notions of God’s Word.

If God intends a man to protect a particular notion, He will raise up godly men (full of spiritual fruit) who independently come to the same notion, having been led there by the Holy Spirit. Even then, the unctions of one era are not necessarily the unctions of other eras. Let God speak to the living, and only carefully nibble at words (outside of the Bible itself) that are from the past. They were words couched in their context of politics, economics, society and education. Our world, formed by those same four elements, is uniquely ours, and our notions are uniquely ours. This is not to say any notion is acceptable. Notions arising from the Spirit of God are acceptable.

Truth is not made evident by a majority of people who believe something to be true, and truth is not made evident by a single, ‘special’ person who declares something to be true. Truth is revealed by the Word of God, by the Holy Spirit dealing in the hearts of men, and by the evidence of God’s hand touching His creation. God has so many ways of declaring His truth. Look for His signature, and then you know it is His: Look for divine love; look for what goes beyond coincidence. At the same time, I suggest a carefulness about visions and dreams. Yes, God uses them when He deems it as best for the situation, but no, they are not required as evidence of God’s hand for revealing truth.

What is a good alternative to confrontational debates? Calm dialogue. Practice gentleness and meekness. Have love as your top priority. God has Truth and doctrines all figured out, and no man can claim to have it all figured out. Let the ignorant one who thinks with pride be cast down when God Himself decides to do so. Be His servant, doing what is our regular duty under His command. Admit to seeing in a glass darkly, for now.

You can see as He shines light on His Word. You are not blind if the Holy Spirit dwells in you. You are responsible for you. You are your brother’s keeper, but you are not his puppeteer.

To all of the college students that are being preached at by this group:
Stand firm in your love of Christ and in the knowledge that YOU ARE SAVED. This group consists of many former Christian college students, people who were saved and dedicating their lives to Jesus Christ. They have an uncanny ability to brainwash saved students into believing they were never truly saved and the only way to live your life for Christ is to join them, so they can't show you the only true route to salvation.
The more you believe in Christ, the more you are at risk of being drawn in by this group!
I have a neice who is living with this group. She graduated from a Christian college and is a very smart girl, but her desperation to live her life for Christ made her vulnerable to this group. She still believes that following this group, cutting off her entire family, dishonoring her parents by writing horrible things about them (and posting it on the "church's" website, is what God wants her to do.
My advice to you is : Please do not even engage in conversation with them. If you see them turn around and go the other way. If you speak with them you risk them finding a way to plant doubt in your knowledge that you are saved and once that happens, they have you!
Please tell everyone you can to stay away from them. They are experts in brainwashing! They will take every opportunity to find something in your faith that you are unsure of, and they will have you! Don't talk to them, don't argue with them, stay away from them! I am praying for you all.

Amen! and I am praying, too.

Amen, stay away from them, guard your heart and mind. Besides they will be the ones doing all the talking, you won't get a word in edgewise. Praying for you!

This group has been on my campus for the last couple of months preaching. I have had some incredible interactions and am convinced of the Lords desire to lead them back to Him and reconcile the campus. It is finals week and they have been preaching almost every day, drawing large crowds many days. I ask that everyone on this forum would pray daily for our campus and that the Lord would empower His people to protect the flock, and shed truth on these men and women. Please pray that they would be free from the bondage of slavery they have submitted to, and Satan's work would be undone to the glory of God.

Hello,
We continue to prayer for those on your campus ands the other campuses where they are recruiting. Please share this forum with as many of your fellow students as you can. Hopefully, they can read of the hurt this group has caused so many families. I hope that this forum will help to show that if they choose to join this group the will see their futures, and realize that COW does not hold the secret to their salvation, and not only will they be sacrificing all of their relationships, with both family and freinds, but they will be encouraged to write horrible things about people and post iyt on the web.
I believe that the articles that have been written about parents of the group, and posted online for the world to see, proves that there is nothing Christian about this group! Where in scripture would our Lord and Savior approved of such cruelty? Top me the death of baby Faith is also proof that the so-called elders are false prophets, for if God had truly spoken to them the baby would be alive today!
Praying for all students, COW members and families that are affected, or in danger of being affected, by this group. Hold fast in the knowledge that you are saved and dont allow them to convince you otherwise. Pray for us all!