AD- Let this be known among you...blah blah blah.
Sometimes you really kill me, man.
You are sounding just like the guys who are principally responsible for my decision to leave the Walk so long ago. Deep breaths, dude.
BTW, that it would even occur to someone that being with a woman is synonymous with being defiled, troubles me. There is nothing defiling about being with a woman for pete's sake. (if no women...no anybody)
I pounded my share of nails at Shiloh and made countless pallets at the mill. I humped around tens of thousands of cinder blocks for wall construction. I met my wife there, married her, and we're still married (37 yrs).
For me, the Shiloh experience earned me my soulmate, and for that I am forever grateful.
As I'm writing this, I am reminded of how far from the "vision" I have traveled.
God for me, is something deep within my heart. Inside; not external; not dependent on another person or their interpretation of spirituality.
Although, I would very much like to lay my hands on JRS's personal library. Some cool stuff, I'll bet.

KbOY, You give me a lot of hope with your posts. I hope this is true, and I will hold onto that thought, because I am ready to leave all this behind me. I still have too much anger, and at the same time I have prayed for these people, even the dead ones. Now I am ready to leave this all behind me, with the thought of JOHN AND MARILYN quietly in their graves, I hope they planted them side by side, they deserve one another. I will think of Living Word Fellowship as a real church, and I will consider JRS the one that started it. I will also think of him as the one that actually did "kick the Walk down," as he threatened to do on the tapes a few times. I think he actually did it really, he created it, and he destroyed it, and now a church is arising out of the ashes. They have my prayers. I pray for the souls of the ones in the grave yard, like the priest that threw his holy water in and moved on, I move on too............


kBOY Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A.D.
>
>
> Actually, TLW has in many ways over the last 25
> years attempted to ‘normalize’ itself with the
> community at large (Christmas truck, Valley
> school, Shiloh fireworks, Marilyn Farms, Shiloh
> U., etc.) which will ultimately contribute to
> de-emphasizing it as a personality-cult. That,
> along with a liturgy that has become so diluted
> that it barely poses a threat even to an innocent
> passerby, and you have the formula for being
> ‘ordinary’.
>
> More and more I see pictures of folks, who in the
> past, never seemed to have the opportunity to
> enjoy themselves outside of church functions, now
> going out, taking vacations, spending time with
> family outside the fellowship, etc.
>
> Referencing Shiloh, I not only helped in its
> construction, but lived there, met my wife there,
> and was married there. There was a time when a
> ‘shepherd’ from an outlying church made his
> own sign and put it at the entrance. It read,
> “If you don’t have the guts to become a
> prophet STAY OUT”.
>
> We’ve come along way, baby, with still much
> ground to cover.

kBoy:
There was a time when a ‘shepherd’ from an outlying church made his own sign and put it at the entrance. It read, “If you don’t have the guts to become a prophet STAY OUT”


Ha--I wish I had a picture of that particular sign. I would use it as my cover page on Facebook.

JRS was not too happy about it, and had it taken down the same day, much to the consternation of the rabid youth (2nd generation).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2015 02:17AM by kBOY.

PGXGUY:


It looks like we have a common heritage are far as pallets go.

With regards to JRS’ library, what seemed ‘occult’ 50 years ago is now mainstream ‘new age’, and probably a lot of what he had may now even be seen as backward and primitive by comparison. The world has come a long way from a myopic, dualistic, unbalanced view of the DIVINE.

GOD=LOVE=TRUTH

You are sounding just like the guys who are principally responsible for my decision to leave the Walk so long ago. Deep breaths, dude.
BTW, that it would even occur to someone that being with a woman is synonymous with being defiled, troubles me. There is nothing defiling about being with a woman for pete's sake. (if no women...no anybody)

PB..I really think you either have not read the bible and you think I am talking from the top of my head, or you have an issue with the bible and not me.

I will be reading here, and maybe posting from time to time. I think a few of you are apologetics fo the Walk, and that OK too. I already said what my hopes for the few present generation members is, and the the ones that are already dead or are tetering on the edge, well, there is a greater judge they will face, whether you psuedo-intelects believe that or not.

You know it seems to me that it should not have taken half a century for the Living Word Fellowship to evolve into a typical charismatic church that it only takes normal people a few minutes to open up and to become functional. Below is a post from the old FactNet site from somebody that posted simply as "guest." This is what LIVING WORD needed to do to get normal according to this poster and I agree. Again, to take fifty years to do it, is really says a lot about the stupidity of the "highly anointed" ones that built it and maintain it today:

FROM THE FACTNET FORUM::::



I just wanted to let everyone know that several of the smaller churches in this movement have been closed down in the past few years. This is unfortunate because its my opinion that many of the smaller churches are healthier and dont really have the issues of sheparding or designated relationships that become toxic because everyone is really busy with careers, families and schooling and they dont spend all of their time working or volunteering at the church, like someone living at Shiloh, or San Diego would. They just dont really focus on sheparding. And the members of these churches seem to be more integrated into the community, and their kids usually attend public schools ("in the world but not of it"). Churches in Detroit and Minneapolis most recently have closed. Their names have been taken off the Living Word website, but I think there are still home meetings taking place. Auroura is a very small church so it too may be closed down in the future, which is unfortunate because in my opinion, Auroura is a healthy church. Everyone I know from Auroura are kind, well-balanced people. After a church closes, many times there are few families that still have home meetings/bible studies, or the remaining members will relocate to live near one of the large churches (Shiloh, San Diego, or Los Angeles).

The problem is that there has been hardly any influx of new members, and current members are leaving, or just stop coming to services and helping out around the churches/facilities. I predict the movement will last as long as the core families keep handing down leadership to new generations.

From the outside looking in, the leadership of the church resembles nepotism, or the business practice of appointing family members to the leadership positions, which in the Living Word Fellowship are the apostolic company, and the overseers/elders of the chrurches. Those selected are literally appointed by a few members of the leadership. It is not a democratic process. Whether it is the leading of the Lord or not seems vaugely defined (and there is no accoutability to the congregation because a few individuals do all the decision-making.

On a positive note, I believe the Lord wants to bless this fellowship, and the key to its healing and growth will be found in ending its isolation, and its taking practical steps towards the eventual reintegration with the whole Body of Christ and Christians worldwide, something I've been praying for and would like to ask everyone reading this post to pray for. They havent done it yet because they know that mainstream Christians will not tolerate the potentially toxic practices or the secret (controversal) doctrine of John Robert Stevens and the current apostles.

Some areas where I see the opportunity for change, and would like everyone reading this to pray about are:

1. Unlearn the sad, sick, sweeping generalization that all churches categorized in denominational Christianity are a part of the Great Whore of Babylon mentioned in revelation. In fact, at this point, nothing could help the Living Word fellowhship more than associating with these same churches and believers.

2. Do away completely with Sheparding relationships, Christ in the flesh relationships, designated relationships, mentoring relationships, and men-women and boy-girl relationship controlling that create an arena where spiritual abuse can occur or the relationship is toxic to one or both members. Things will not get better until this is stopped (lay the axe at the root of the tree on this point). In a similar vein, do away completely with the practice of submitting every huge and misicule aspect of your lives (dating/marital/family relationships, careers and education, personal finance, where you live or what church you should move to, vacations, extracurricular activities, drinking, sexuality and intimacy between couples, etc) to another imperfect human being chosen by someone else for you treat as Christ, and obey without thinking or trying to reason things through in your head. The obvious consequence is the locking-in to perpetual immaturity and absence of any indepent or critical thinking necessary to foster any sort of self-esteem (bad pyschological implications). Enough posts have concisely described this practice and what is wrong with it, and it is exactly this Sheperding which has caused most of the bitterness and has caused most of us to leave the church. Obviously, healthy accoutability, responsibility, shaperoning, supervision, and guidance exist in all healthy mainstream Christian churches Bodywide, which would be happy to share with Living Word Fellowship what has worked for them.

3. Reform the process of leadership selection and make it more democratic, like it is in denominational churches (eg Methodist, Baptist, Assembly of God). Do away with the political spoils and nepotism that make leadership selection dubious. For instance, many times apostles are commissioned. These apostles have won a suffering/dedication contest by who has dedicated the most of their life to the fellowship. They have demonstrated the most loyalty to the current elders/overseers/pastors of their church and to the influential apostolic company. And almost all them have been sheparded by someone over them and obeyed without question what was asked of them, overtly or subtly, for a long period of their lives (e.g., move from where you grew up in California to Shiloh in rural mid-Iowa (with cold winters) for a long time (a big work of the cross for anyone, and enough of a drastic change to develop maladjustment issues), work for such and such a kingdom business, do not flirt with date that man or woman who is a "bad influence", or do not marry the person you are sure you love, cut off communication with family members who are bad influences, continue your education but stay involved with work at the church, etc.) The person making these decisions for you may not even know you well enough to be sure of what your best interest is. But, if you have been crossed time and time again by your shepard, when you are finally a shepard, you readily weild the authority to cross and say no to the person you are sheparding. And believe me, just like working to the top of a coporation, when I get to the top, my LIFE has literally been sacrificed to get there, so you had better believe that when I am commissioned as a member of the apostolic company or if I am the one over Shiloh, LA, Hawaii, etc, I will do anything in my power to stay there. So the system remains in place and keeps the sheep obedient and non-threatening. The system is not dissimilar to a pyramid-scheme buisiness or a huge corporation (Amway) where the few at the top benefeit (with control, the power of decision making, and finances) at the expense of all those at the bottom. If the leadership of the Living Word Fellowship are reading this, I hope they can put thereselves in the average congregational members shoes where it is easier to see this pattern. Again, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Those are really the main things.

A.D.


While all of the ‘recommendations’ of the Guest at FactNet certainly hold merit, he/she seems to be referencing a time period shortly after the G&M transition, when ideological and power consolidation were in full swing. As you referenced yourself in your trip to L.A., those ‘my way or the highway’ meetings were just the beginning of something that took many years to eventually unfold.

One need only look at the back of any This Week from the late ‘70s, when the number of member churches took 2-3 pages to list, to what TLW has devolved to today, and you see a movement that has gone from a more flexible association to what is now a highly stratified and controlled organization.

As to why this has taken a half century to devolve to what it is, one need only remember back to the days of deep insanity when yelling and screaming for hours, praying for death, forsaking everything we owned, and working long hours for free, were considered ‘normal’. That was some heavily spiked Kool-Aid, and the only ration available. This forum has provided our own version of psychological AA.

As you pointed out, coming from an outlying church provided for you with some insularity and a perspective that many caught up in the thick of things did not have. By the time JRS passed, much of the hardline 2nd generation had already invested a decade of service in the prime of their lives. Since Marilyn was a direct link to the former regime, a lot us took it on faith that things would basically continue the same. It took quite a long time for many to admit that was not the case.

As pointed out in many previous posts, the overall direction of TLW is complete devolution from days gone by. This leadership transition will further weaken the spell it has held over people’s lives, and hopefully open the door for an exodus we can all celebrate.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm so thankful to be out of the LW cult. And I'm truly thankful for this forum and each and every one of the posters here.