Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Date: May 16, 2017 10:20AM
This Mother’s Day, I found myself especially thankful for my mom who now lives with my sister in Palmer Lake, CO – the same small town my wife and I live in. My sister is out of town for a few weeks and my mom and I have been spending a lot more time together. Her and my father left TLWF in 1979 after five members of the Des Moines church corporation set out of ministry all the other leaders of that local church. They never really recovered from that ordeal. There was no bad behavior involved, just a lack of agreement over praying for Martha’s death – Shiloh versus the local church. It was quite sad in hindsight.
My mom especially made every effort to get me to rethink my involvement in TLW, always sending me books about cults. I think they felt responsible for bringing me into TLWF at age 14. Although I did read everything she gave me, I thought the people who were writing these things were clueless about what life inside TLWF was really like. Over time, I started realizing much of what she had sent me was in fact true. However, I valued the decades-old friendships over what I considered to be doctrinal errors – after all no church is perfect, right?
It wasn’t until I sent a letter to Apco questioning some of the beliefs that I began to see the talons come out. It became very apparent that it was about control, not about helping me gain further understanding. I was not allowed to speak in a church service for the next year until I learned not to question anything. Since I was on probation, many of my long standing friendships also evaporated. I didn’t really learn how conditional they really were until I severed ties with TLWF – then they became hateful. Oh the joys of being “Satan”.
Jesus taught that we were to honor our father and mother. The first step I took after leaving TLWF was to restore that relationship. Even though I had disconnected from them emotionally for the past 20 years, they were both very loving and understanding towards me. We’ve discussed how dishonoring it is to disconnect from your natural parents and let others become “mom and dad”. What was taught as breaking family bonds ultimately led to mind control. Jesus taught that we were not to value family relationships above our relationship with him, but never that we were to dishonor our parents.
The clever way deception is ministered in TLWF is that the lordship of Jesus Christ is taught (which is a good thing) but then the leadership takes the place of the Lord - which is idolatry. Marriage was taught, but then Marilyn was given a higher place than our spouse – which is adultery. Honoring father and mother was taught, but then G&M took the place of our parents - which is very dishonoring to our natural parents. All of this is destructive teaching and contrary to the scriptures. I’ve watched health restored to all three areas in my personal life since leaving TLWF. I’m thankful for the prayers of my parents who would never let go and never stopped loving me. In contrast, I found I was used and discarded and then lied about when I no longer served a useful purpose to the leadership of TLWF. Quite the reward for 30 years of faithful service. Fortunately, God does restore what the locust have eaten!