Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: Cloudwatcher ()
Date: November 03, 2018 01:48PM

Blowout Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Cloudwatcher:
> Can’t seem to send private messages. Got yours.
> Yes, interested. Please send email and we can
> communicate that way.

The pm came through and I responded. Didn't have your email though.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: Lilith ()
Date: November 03, 2018 08:53PM

This was posted on the Facebook thread, it seems there are several people blocked from seeing it so I will post it here:

Leilani Potter To: Shalom From: Leilani

It’s taken me some time to process the horrific reports about abuse you and so many have experienced within TLWF. I am grieved, sorry and devastated for what you have endured and had to live with for decades. The people you trusted and were supposed to protect you but were not there for you. They violated your trust and when you reached out, they failed you. And when you cried for help, you were abandoned.

What happened to you was wrong, wrong, wrong. You have lived with fear and intimidation and I can’t begin to imagine how terrible that has been. Despite all of this, you did what nobody else did for you - you came forward courageously to share your pain, which allowed so many others to share theirs. My heart is shattered for you and the many others on this feed who I dearly love. Many have expressed feeling rejected, isolated, depressed with PTSD. This is evil and the opposite of God’s eternal love for all.

I want you to know that I absolutely and completely believe you. I believe you were a victim of sexual assault and harassment. I have been called out on this FB feed as the YASP leader identified in your letter. I don’t know if you thought that person was me, but I have searched my heart and mind about this, I truly and honestly do not believe that was me. If I knew of your attack, I would have protected you and reported it. I’m crushed I didn’t know what happened to you then. But I am here to support you now. I’m thankful that you are finally free and I want to help in your healing process.

Thank you, Shalom, for your bravery, not just for divulging the abuse but speaking about the TLWF’s toxic culture, which we now know led to crippling low self-esteem, hopelessness and “performing” to receive love and attention. This was and is unbiblical. Jesus Christ loves all unconditionally and equally.

Because of you, there is now hope for everyone who has been affected by TLWF to heal. Thank you for revealing your truth. May it wash everyone clean.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: changedagain ()
Date: November 03, 2018 10:50PM

Oh My. That wasn't too convincing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2018 11:05PM by changedagain.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: changedagain ()
Date: November 03, 2018 11:04PM

> Leilani Potter To: Shalom From: Leilani

"I truly and honestly do not believe that was me. If I knew of your attack, I would have protected you and reported it. I’m crushed I didn’t know what happened to you then. But I am here to support you now."

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: puddington ()
Date: November 03, 2018 11:33PM

I am stunned and disgusted.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: changedagain ()
Date: November 04, 2018 12:26AM

Again, not surprised. No one in TLWF leadership seems to have known about the abuse that went on for decades in their midst. Now they're so graciously willing to help the traumatized.
Anyway, I hope the Holy Spirit has been able to communicate with Gary, assisting him with his memory. But as many have said in this forum, I am not holding my breath.
#fauxremorse



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2018 12:29AM by changedagain.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: Ohman? ()
Date: November 04, 2018 12:39AM

Leilani your'e full of shit. You and Rob were very involved with helping cover up Ricks affair with Maria. You covered for Rick then. Why wouldn't you RE: Shalom? I was good friends with Rob. He told me everything including how he would leave with Maria, "going to a movie" drop her at Ricks then head over to your house for the night. Oh! I'm sorry. Was that a secret? Thanks for your support.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: Carl Sanko ()
Date: November 04, 2018 01:16AM

Hello Dave and Marci! Thanks Marci for “outing” Dave and what a pleasure it is to cross paths with the two of you again after all these years, though now on this troubling venue. I will forever treasure the times in San Diego with much of the church working on Ethel the accounting manual accompanied by significant doses of gelato and interrupted by lengthy volleyball games every weekend even though I was only mostly there for the weekends circa 1988 one time going silent in the Miller’s kitchen when we heard the shot fired around the world, okay, it was only Kirk Gibson hitting a 9th inning home run in the first game of the World Series. Doesn’t anyone else have any fond memories to share in between the grieving? (and I am truly not saying this in any kind of mocking or uncompassionate tone…I am sorry for the deep wounds that have been expressed, especially toward those who have been victims of sexual predation or other forms of abuse and harm, and who also believe that their best years were taken from them). Thank you everyone for letting me share with no intention of offending anyone by being perceived as flippant, unfeeling, or condescending. If you don’t personally know Yeshua (i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ) but have only trusted in human religious leaders that have utterly failed you, then I grieve with you, and seek with you a redress from those leaders who harmed you and demonstrated a false Christianity. Let us who do know the Lord, as emissaries of Christ, reflect His true grace and love toward you in the hopes that you will know Him and be healed. Yet, surely, for those who have been born again, God has continuously been in your life during these past difficult years, and has been richly good to you with great blessing, letting you pass through a desert for years only to find in wisdom that the walk was no Promised Land, even though you may kick yourself in the head for being so dimwitted as to have been part of a cult and not properly pursuing the Kingdom of God (I speak from experience). Even Gary and Marilyn actually believed that a dead JRS might actually rise from the dead as the “Apostle to the Kingdom”. Keep in mind that your leaders throughout all their churches were sincerely gullible as well, and as good lemmings actually preached this folly. The oddity in my thinking, and heresy no doubt, is that I still believe that God led me to the Walk while I ignorantly thought I had found the Kingdom of God. I don’t blame God for that (I better not!). He always does only good. Without further comment, I have learned that hardly anyone, most notably pastors who teach, know what it means to pursue the Kingdom of God (JRS sure did not with the remarkable exception as a clearly born again 14 year old who wrote “To be a Christian”; but he sure messed up on the years of follow through). Most of the Christian church is heretical, including Pre-millenial Dispensationalism which is most likely the Christian cult that some of you will turn to next.

Yes, I was in a cult! By any stretch of the imagination, so is becoming a brainwashed U.S. Marine, but most of us are too indoctrinated in an allegiance to the State to see that as a cult. Reminds me of my marine friend here in Vegas who did so well that he became part of the DIA, worked alongside Ollie North, and has since repented of his role as a government assassin, trading that for a ministry of helping dying vets. What lack of understanding for most of my own life (though still largely a dullard), with my childhood culminating in foolish rebellion in my teenage years! Don’t I get a pass for having been under the extremely limited tutelage of two people for 18 years whose discipline I had to submit to as parents who could only “teach me what seemed best to them”? Was that a whole lot better than JRS who taught us as seemed best to him, albeit mixing Scripture and the Latter Rain Movement with some of his own faulty expositions? (though my parents’ love and concern for me, were far, far better of course than having parents or relatives or leaders that committed child or adult sexual abuse). I have sort of been in several different cults much of my life: submitting my teenage years to the peer pressure of my near hoodlum friends, replete with drinking, drugs and inappropriate conduct with the opposite sex. Who should I blame for my lawless ways? Of course, I chose those things, being of an age of accountability, so I can’t really blame them for my acting like an irresponsible idiot. Before the Walk and college, I grew up in the cult of the Catholic Church and its school system. At least the Pope didn’t require us to pledge allegiance to an alien lord, the U. S. flag and what it represents, so that we would be good beholden stool pigeons, I mean citizens, so that the State can then order us out to willingly kill ‘gooks’ and involve ourselves in the napalming, carpet bombing, and general mass destruction of foreign populations and their lands. Just how many millions in our country are or have been part of that cult? Billions of people are part of the cult of false religion, including atheism. Others believe in the State as sovereign and Yahweh functions only as a little god having jurisdiction over the church that gets permission to operate under the IRS, instead of His being absolute Sovereign Lord over every person, fact and event in the entire universe whose Word alone is law. Reading through pages of notes on this site, I see that something major seems to be overlooked so far. No one here seems to be blaming their parents or grandparents or schools for not instructing them how to avoid false leaders, con men, and false religion in general. In the cult of the public school system, there is a deliberate dumbing down so that critical thinking skills are not developed but rather training young tender minds to a conformity to obey orders and to be subject to peer pressure, kind of like the Walk in that valuable years seem wasted, but at least with the Walk it was not deliberately purposeful(e.g. see Charlotte Iserbyte link: [deliberatedumbingdown.com]), nor demand rigid enforcement by a perverted legal system. Some of you were born of parents who were already in the Walk when you came along. Aren’t they responsible as your leaders and teachers as well? Did they teach you and demonstrate to you submission to church leaders as though these leaders were to be Christ to you? If so, is there not some culpability on their part in these matters we are discussing? Well, lots of blame can be distributed around, but there is a much deeper source to our being prone to deception and following error that is less about blaming others. Does not the Scripture teach us that from Genesis 3 something called “the Fall of Man” that we are all sinners, have inherited this state from our parents (back to Adam), and that we pursue our own self-interests, our own ideas of good and evil, that we are responsible for our choices, and that there is no way out of this impossible condition unless we are saved from ourselves by God’s grace? Think about this just for second. If I join the cult known as Buddhism, or even if I am born into it by way of total indoctrination, doesn’t God still warn me in the Scriptures that I am still held accountable as a creature made in His image to “be holy even as your heavenly Father is holy” and puts me under His wrath for suppressing the truth in unrighteousness and consenting with others to commit sin (Romans 1)? Is not the major problem our own corruption, lack of sanctification, and susceptibility to deception and falsehood? As the Scriptures say, we should all be examining ourselves to see if we are in the faith. Accordingly, we are not supposed to allow ourselves to be led astray. I read about Miller and GH repenting (God knows if genuine or not, I am not the judge, though sincerity will come to be tested), why is no one else acknowledging owning their own deception when Scriptures plainly reveal we are fallen beings who commit sin and thus have a predisposition to lies and errors (Ps. 51:5)? Blaming others for our being susceptible to being in a cult is not adequate. Only one Person in history lived His entire life such that He could say “Who convicts Me of sin”…”I do only those things that I see the Father do” “What the Father speaks that’s what I speak”. In His absolute obedience to God, Yeshua was incapable of being deceived by men and didn’t give Himself over to them “for He knew what was in the heart of man”. I am not accusing anyone, just trying to make sure we are owning up to what the Scriptures teach. Shouldn’t you have read the Scriptures and known these things as well? Yes, and according to the Scripture, God expects it and gives us no out in the judgment for our fallenness (even though love, grace and mercy responds “Forgive them, for they know not what they do”). It seems that our fallen condition is far more of our stumbling than JRS, MH, GH, Apco, etc. and you should be interspersing your dialogue with these and other like Scriptures. Most of us would have wasted our lives or been conned wherever we went, and we no doubt have been in many other instances and circumstances as are millions of kids trapped in the blasphemous public school system that teaches immorality and makes God’s Word anathema. Even up to the present, our thinking and lack of the Word of God operating fully in our life is indicative of fallenness when compared to how the true pattern Son lived His life. Even knowing that, how far removed I am from living that way. Just shy of 18, the Lord gave me spiritual birth, and I set out to a Christian college, getting my B. A. in religious studies, and just like GH, even graduated summa cum laude. There, I was, trusting in men to teach me about God. Except for my Greek classes and a couple of others, it was all quite dead (ever study Rudolf Bultmann? Or the existentialist Barth?...oh my gosh, what a waste of time learning about blind false teachers) and worse, if I had chosen seminary. As an insult to what I thought of my education, I shook the dust off my feet, refused attending my own graduation and the worthless recognition I might have received that day, and embraced the Walk. At least through JRS, the Holy Spirit stirred something alive, through the Scriptures no less, and believe or not, to this day I still believe it was the Holy Spirit leading me. In the Walk I met mostly wonderful, dedicated (albeit deceived) people. I learned many skills (bindery work, printmaking, playing ping pong with Brazilians, etc.) culminating in watching Dolores Taylor, CPA make so such miraculous sense out of Fineline Graphic’s disastrous financial records that I knew God had finally shown me what I was to do with my life’s career path. From that time on a door was opened to me to be paid part time as a Fineline pressman while taking accounting classes and working under the guidance of Dolores. I can still remember the major trepidation I had the first time I had to make an actual entry into Fineline’s general ledger circa 1982. What an awesome responsibility! Yet, in that environment, unlike most commercial businesses, I was given the freedom to learn, the grace to stumble, and to make mistakes. Not to toot my own horn, but rather to show that God used all of that to lead my life in the midst of sinful people (including myself) and my unwitting acceptance of religious error (with my summa cum laude B.A. in religious studies no less!), that we can now discuss and loathe. Grace paved the way so that by May, 1985 I had passed the CPA exam and was working in L.A. for the largest accounting firm in the world. I can look at those years and say that God was very much involved in my life. If we are born again, we should be able to say likewise. JRS did have godly wisdom when he said that the Holy Spirit is able to take harmful experiences and memories and put a whole other light on them so that instead of being so troubled by them, you understand that God was there with you, guiding, and it was all for your wisdom and understanding, and your memory banks receive a gracious perspective. You must have heard: “My people perish for lack of knowledge”…”in all your getting, get understanding” and then “You need not that any man teach you for His Spirit will teach you all things”? How much are we applying these Scriptures folks, or have we overly depended on others to do it for us? Any Berean fact checkers out there? “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness”. A starving 7 year old little girl in Yemen, whose naked picture Facebook wouldn’t show until there was a public outcry for the media to reflect conditions the U.S and Saudi Arabia are creating in that country, died today [www.rt.com]. How does that relate to the Kingdom of God? Even if you’ve now taken the red pill and awakened to some truth, I doubt you really understand the meaning of what your life has been missing, or that you would have come upon it even if you hadn’t been in TLW cult. Do you think Gary knows it? I doubt it or he would have been diligently teaching it since Matthew 6:33 requires it. I didn’t until rather recently and still very partially, but I do know and won’t shortchange what God has taught me. I had learned what the Scriptures said, but for a long time had not understood the meaning nor the coherence of the whole, and now it’s still a matter of being obedient to knowledge that has been committed to me, of being a doer and not just a hearer. From the old English “rightwiseness”, comes to us the word “righteousness”, that completeness of God’s Being that comprehends all his attributes and whose interchangeable synonym is justice. To seek first His Kingdom is to seek righteousness, justice. Yeshua teaches that our eye is to be single, no place for doublemindedness. Therefore, seeking His Kingdom must be one and the same as seeking His will, His righteousness, His justice. Not the harsh justice that seeks revenge, for mercy must triumph over retribution, but that akin to Mary’s husband, Joseph, who being a just man, did not want to put her away by making a public scene of her as an adulterer. Justice encompasses love. “Justice, and only justice shalt thou pursue” (Deut. 16:20). What form will that take in the present instance that we are all discussing in this venue? (thanks for having me.) GH and other church leaders should come voluntarily with an accountability to show either that they have clean hands or else that they need to make proper restitution. If not done voluntarily, then the force of the law needs to be brought to bear, yet without malice on our part. Properly, the law as a hammer is solely to address injustice. The use of governmental force is only valid when we are overwhelmed or not equipped to deal with injustice by ourselves and thus need the aid of a just legal system to rectify the situation. Yet, always let it be understood that but for the grace of God you might have done very similar things to those whom you wish to prosecute should you have been in their shoes. Are not riches desired by almost all? Power and adulation have been known to be quite intoxicating (and corrupting). Access to beautiful women who fawn over you has tempted many a leader, whether king, politician, or pastor. Half the things being said about Marilyn might be within the imaginations and fantasies of many women had they been as close as she was to a powerful, eloquent leader. If you were in a cult, well, so was she! Keep a sense that we stand before God as individuals, not as a collective. Every leader needs be given the rightful courtesy of making their own peace with you. RH might be the worst of the bunch and it may require much force of the law to get him to ‘willingly’ cooperate and own up to what he did. As part of our assertive duty to fight evil, victims may need to step up and bear their witness against him in a court setting. Let’s see now how each individual reacts in their willingness to come forward. GH has not done enough (GH, did you read what Marci said?), but I commend him for a start by what he has just written. God can judge the motivations of his heart and the depth of his repentance. Let’s ask GH now for the further due process step of financial accountability regarding his stewardship of TLW resources, recognizing that there may be something amiss if he is a millionaire many times over, unless accomplished properly by inheritance or by wise investing of his income commensurate to being an executive of an organization (whether a cult of not, and I can tell you that the largest accounting firms in the world were run akin to a cult, as apparently we are finding so are Google, Facebook, and other corporate entities that require a collective, PC mindset). We must be fair in our assessment of each ‘leader’ for the Scripture says that the laborer is worthy of his hire, even if they did their jobs so poorly that we now have to go in after them and clean out the stables. Obviously, with hindsight, it is clear that these ‘leaders’ are fallen human beings, sinners no less, but so are we for stupidly following them: “blind leaders of the blind” and we all fell in the ditch, just like people did in Yeshua’s day and throughout history.

Who and how are we going to start this process: Gary, Scott, Matt, others will you step up? Besides those necessary initial steps that Gary offered up, the ball is really still in your court to more extensively further the process. It must address church finances and it must address RH’s sexual abuse and others’ coverups of such things if those are what the church members in this venue require you to face and settle. “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord”; “So far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men”. If there exists an honest and open willingness, most of this can and should be done without any court intervention. Now the law was made for transgressors, and whether now or later, there will be a reckoning. Some men’s sin’s go before, to be dealt with ahead of the final judgement. Let’s pray that RH is not beyond repentance and thus we hold out hope that he escapes hell. I would not want to be so revengeful that he would not come to terms with his own soul before he stands before God. We did hear from John Miller. Sounds like they took all your worldly position and stuff John and put you on the outside some time ago. Thanks for your comment and for your notable speaking out in prior years when you understood what victims like Shalom was experiencing. Even under the present circumstances, it is so good to hear from you my brother. Weekend after weekend, my experience was that the emphasis in San Diego under Miller was in serving “the little people”, a leader who served up gelato, who let us throw a football around in the church auditorium, who radioed in the Dodgers while we were supposed to be working, and wept when he preached; a better man than I was, and in spite of whatever shortcomings, it sounds like he is still a true shepherd.
All the best to Dave, Marci, Mary Wyatt, Shalom (whom I have not met, but thank you for, in spite of the plight you have suffered that needs be addressed, God has and is wonderfully using you in this venue and hopefully showing you your true brothers and sisters in the Lord) and to everyone.

Carl Sanko

P.S. I had no intention of signing on, let alone writing anything, but taking all this in over several days and then my gosh, the Wellens no less, the thoughts were coming in and I decided I will not sleep tonight if I don’t write them down now, so here you are. I apologize for not being more concise.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: Tmason ()
Date: November 04, 2018 01:44AM

changedagain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh My. That wasn't too convincing.


There are none so blind as those that refuse to see!

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: kBOY ()
Date: November 04, 2018 02:50AM

CARL SANKO!

What a pleasant surprise. It has been WAY too long, and will require a fix sometime soon.

You laid out an impressive treatise, with points that even the RRModerator may agree with; the analogies of 'cultish mindsets' resident in many walks of life, far beyond religion.

From a victim's standpoint, it is initially very challenging to acknowledge that the perpetrator was first a victim. I realize how difficult it is to see beyond the tears and suffering to clearly understand this fact of the matter. It will take BOTH parties acknowledging the damage done to BOTH, in order for true and lasting healing to take place.

CARL--once again, great to hear from you and thank you for your contribution to the discussion.

Options: ReplyQuote


Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.
This forum powered by Phorum.