corboy wrote in part: “Sleeping Where I Fall by Peter Coyote. (Humbly confesses how he egregiously
betrayed his mother's trust. Tells how con artists attached themselves to hippie groups and ran guilt trips. Anyone who owned something was made to feel like a criminal in relation to someone (usually the con artist) who had nothing.”

[[Anyone who owned something was made to feel like a criminal in relation to someone (usually the con artist) who had nothing.]]

-------------------

I know that spirit. Now that I’m going on sixty-six years of age I wish I would have saved every dime. Dying homeless on the streets at the mercy of the elements is the reward for such foolish thinking. The great ‘Protestant Work Ethic’ which so many of our generation disdained, just might have been based on grounds of sound thinking evolved over time through experience.

Damn.

That is interesting. I didn't know that JRS ever set in any females. I wonder about those three you mentioned, I don't know any of them, were they all three part of his entourage, I wonder what his thinking was, what the motivation was behind him setting them in, because I wonder what his motivation was for setting anybody in, other than they knew how to puff up his constant need for adoration.


TheSarge Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lily Rose, it was either the winter of '78 or '79
> in Shiloh when they were snowed in for an extended
> period of time that JRS set in several women as
> pastors. I know specially three: Marilyn, Mary
> Wyatt, and Phyllis Crow. There were others, but I
> just can't remember their names. I believe once
> Marilyn was commissioned a pastor that she began
> participating in bring the Word with John.
>
> lily rose Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Apostle Dog,
]

> >
> > Whether or not he would have gone
> > as far as G&M in setting in female pastors, I
> am
> > not sure.

After reading nearly all the posts on this site, I now feel ready to make a declaration about myself to the group.

As background, I can't remember a time when I wasn't aware of God in my life.I I started reading the KJV of the Bible when I was 4 years old. My intention was to start with Genesis and work my way to Revelations. I really got bogged down in the begats. I wasn't allowed to attend church, because my family was agnostic. So I would sneak out and go anyway. I loved looking at the communion table and was mesmerized by "Do Ye This In Remembrance Of Me" carved into it. I wasn't allowed to take communion (I didn't know what it was) because I wasn't baptized. When I asked to be, my grandmother punished me and told me I wasn't allowed to go back. But that didn't stop me. From 4-12, I listened to story after story from the Bible and loved it all.

I had no father figure in my family. So I was taken to sitting in a tree near school everyday and talk to God about my day. I felt like I was sitting on His lap. And I could feel Him answering me and guiding me and making me feel safe.

Eventually my grandmother died (when I was 13), and I joined a Presbyterian church one of my friends went to. By 18, I was elected at elder and taught the Adult Education classes. They even allowed me to give a sermon on Youth Sunday, and I did on Sunday Christians. The pastor had to make me soften it so as not to completely empty the church. HA!

When I was 16 was when I first attended a LW service. I liked the feel of the strangeness and the energy and the youth of the place. But I still was attending the Presbyterian church. After a couple of years I stopped going. I knew they were praying for my soul and eventual return, but I felt I had outgrown them. When I told the LW pastor I had been elected an elder, he laughed and said "That shows you how wrong organized religion is!" So I stopped going to the LW church.

Two years after that, I felt drawn to go back. Wow, the place had grown from a handful of people to hundreds. The worship made me cried. I felt like I was home. So I stayed, moved into a communal home and two years later moved to L.A. to be under Brother Stevens. I believed that I had found the church that was in line with my relationship with God! That is why I stayed! I prophesied, sang psalms, worked at TLW, went to Shiloh, the whole ball of wax. And always I weighed everything against my relationship with God, my understanding of the Scriptures, what my internal plumbline told me. When some spoke of cults, I said I was too smart to belong to one.

But slowly, I started feeling restrained, muzzled, oppressed, ignored, marginalized. Yet I reminded myself that these were just men, and God would protect me. Started taking things with a grain of salt. By 2003, I could no longer live choked up an imprisoned. So I left. I was immediately shunned and the 30+ years of relationships, standing shoulder to shoulder in the trenches, and all the years of service were wiped out as though I didn't exist. In just a snap of their fingers.

I can now admit that I was in a cult. I didn't think it possible since it had all seemed so completely in line with my personal walk with God. But, I continued to stay anyway after it veered in another direction. I would say JRS' death was the first indicator -- not because there wasn't reserection life, but because I lost my friend. I wanted to stay to continue supporting his Word. But I was chained.

My walk with God has not suffered. But I will never join another church. I was fine without one for a lot of life, and I'm fine without it again. I don't want to be aligned anymore with a group who wants to use me. I don't want to minister to anyone anymore. And I don't have the energy or drive to be a point man or work horse or Atlas to steam someone else's vision. It's enough that I take care of me, to continue a moment by moment relationship with my Father.

So, that's me with a little PTSD thrown in for seasoning. Thanks for reading.

I am sorry that I still have so much emotional baggage and anger against JRS. There were good things I am positive about him, and if he had remained in a church system that had some checks and balances, where he was not free to build for himself a kingdom, with yes men stationed around him to always praise his every thought and word, then he could have been a positive force in the lives of millions of people.


I am not rejecting the teachings of Pentecostals that there are people that operate in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. I do reject however those people that are thinking that they can have those Gifts operating in their lives without the fruit of the spirit being evident in their lives. That is the biggest fallacy of cults, people put stock in people that are false teachers, false ministries that have their own motivation rather than a submissive spirit to God. They know how to demand submission to themselves, under the guise that to submit to them is to submit to God. But they themselves submit to no-one, including God.

It's a .pdf download for $5 at the TLW store

changedagain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BTW, the "vision" John had when he was allegedly
> transported seven years into the future (from 1972
> to 1979) was described in a message contained in
> the book 'The Shape of Things to Come." My guess
> is that you will never be able to purchase that
> book.

Is it a copyright infringement to post the .pdf of the book?

Apostle Dog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Changedagain, so what all is happening now that we
> have gotten in the Kingdom? What all is in the
> book Shape of Things to Come. I am sure I read it
> but i don't remember what was in it.

When Jonestown happened, JRS told people to go home to their relatives and let them know the LW as not like that. LW is about life, not death. Hence, no kool aid for us and we're not a cult. I never liked kool aid anyways because it was too sweet. I would't have drank it.

paleface Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So here's the question of the week for you all:
>
> When you were inside, did you ever consider that
> the Living Word might, just might, possibly be a
> cult? Did you have little nagging thoughts in the
> back of your mind? Feelings that it might be an
> unhealthy church.
>
> I sure did. I remember when the Jonestown tragedy
> happened. I thought to myself: " Crap, now they
> are going to investigate us too."
>
> But I chose to ignore those thoughts. We were
> taught to not doubt.

Thanks for sharing your experiences/background with the group, Sarge.

TheSarge wrote in part: ----- “I was immediately shunned and the 30+ years of relationships, standing shoulder to shoulder in the trenches, and all the years of service were wiped out as though I didn't exist. In just a snap of their fingers.”

&

“My walk with God has not suffered. But I will never join another church. I was fine without one for a lot of life, and I'm fine without it again.”

-------------------------

I’m with you on this. It has to be significant that Jesus used the word “church” only three times all in Matthew. Salvation does not require membership!!! Thank God.

(Reference my post on October 13, 2015 10:50PM)

Those three were Blix House residents who edited the tapes, rode in the van, were privy to every meeting JRS had with anyone. There were others, like Larry Cotton's wife. After their divorce, she was sent to the Detroit church to pastor. Phyllis married and runs Shiloh. Mary Wyatt is an attorney.

Apostle Dog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That is interesting. I didn't know that JRS ever
> set in any females. I wonder about those three you
> mentioned, I don't know any of them, were they all
> three part of his entourage, I wonder what his
> thinking was, what the motivation was behind him
> setting them in, because I wonder what his
> motivation was for setting anybody in, other than
> they knew how to puff up his constant need for
> adoration.
>
>
> TheSarge Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Lily Rose, it was either the winter of '78 or
> '79
> > in Shiloh when they were snowed in for an
> extended
> > period of time that JRS set in several women as
> > pastors. I know specially three: Marilyn,
> Mary
> > Wyatt, and Phyllis Crow. There were others, but
> I
> > just can't remember their names. I believe
> once
> > Marilyn was commissioned a pastor that she
> began
> > participating in bring the Word with John.
> >
> > lily rose Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Apostle Dog,
> ]
>
> > >
> > > Whether or not he would have gone
> > > as far as G&M in setting in female pastors, I
> > am
> > > not sure.