Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by:
Apostle Dog
()
Date: October 16, 2015 12:45PM
I am going to try to look at some of the things that I did learn while I was in Living Word Fellowship, at least, some of the good things that came from bad experiences. Although the intercessory prayer was largely misplaced, I learned the value of spending time in this sort of prayer. I don't think it was invented by John Stevens, but it was emphasized by Stevens in his church. Of course the part where they were all interceding for him all the time was a perversion, but the fact is there is power in prayer, even if it is one person. I think the church has always, since the very beginning had intercessors in the background standing in the gap. This is the ministry of the priesthood, those that go to the Lord for the people. Jesus is at this moment on the right side of the Father interceding for us.
I learned what not to do in that movement more than I learned what to do. But either way, I learned. It was not all wasted time, not for any of us.
Living Word is not the only church I was in that was full of problems. I have been in a few that collapsed. The very first church that I was in was in the Jesus movement. Miracles happening. One day a heroin addict was delivered and his needle marks actually disappeared from his arms. But even in a church like that, the Children of God rolled into town and seduced the pastor's wife and they rode off with most of the people and all of the church vans, and of course, the pastor's wife in only one week's time. That is how fast the seduction of the enemy can work and breeze right through a church.
The Living Word Fellowship didn't get invaded like that, with them the threat was within. But still, I learned quite a bit, I just learned how to re-apply it.
A church I was in after I left Living Word Fellowship dropped from 12,000 members to about 1200 members in a week's time, because of immorality of the pastor. Those people were never conditioned to pray until they got a revelation of whatever is going on, they got up and walked out.
I learned from my experiences in life, and in a huge way, my experiences in Living Word Fellowship, that any time that you look to a man and think that they are THE MAN OF GOD, you will find that that idol has feet of clay.
But one of the biggest lessons that I learned is that if ever I hook up with a church or organization of any kind, I will go to the headquarters and see what it like right there at the top before I give myself much to it. I will not take it for granted that it is what it seems to be. Tapes can be edited, I saw that with the meetings I went to in L.A. The videos of that meeting were so highly edited that it looked just fine, and I was there in person and thinking along with the pastor of the Gainsville Florida church that we were going to refuse to worship Marilyn and then head for the door and fight our way out, literlly fight for our lives. And we were not going to go down easy. I am sorry that so many people in the fellowship, decided to go down easy. That is a shame to me.