Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Date: April 29, 2019 03:55PM
Reepicheep Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In my opinion, the communal
> home model has done much to perpetuate a
> controlling and rigid atmosphere over several
> generations. Any thoughts?
As bad as things were for me I keep thinking that I must have missed the worst of it. I lived in three communal homes as a younger man: the first in the Valley, the second in Ventura and the third in the Mason House in Santa Barbara I helped refurbish.
I snuck out of the one in the Valley in the middle of the night after a few months. I was in charge at 19 years old, and got sick of paying rent for five other people who never could seem to keep a job, and policing the marijuana grows in bedroom window.
Ventura and the Mason house were good experiences and there was only one crazy who was later committed. We kept catching him spooning down entire jars of mayonnaise, which was a little weird, but otherwise harmless.
I got married moved into a new kind of communal home. One where my wife is in charge and who keeps me towing the line. Strangely, I find myself still supporting everyone in this new communal home and after 42 years haven’t managed to sneak out. The doors are watched. Send help!
I think that I may have escaped the worst of communal homes because I never worked for a Kingdom Business and always had a job, so finances, or lack thereof, never limited my options. And, as many who know me know, I was never shy about calling out ridiculous notions and would only submit to what I believed and not what some “authority” told me I had to believe. Some I called out publicly. At the end, that didn’t work out well but I stood my ground. For most of my tenure I was in places where I was the authority, and if not, a powerful influencer.
I regret that I was never able to stop the train wreck after John passed, but people in those places at the end could not or would not hear, but I did warn the Hargreaves in a letter that if they didn’t do something that they “may as well take a shovel and bury the church in South Gate.” Palmer Lake was another slow motion horror show, and there I again warned the Hargraves that they were again facing a disaster because of the behavior of their lead pastors — the Sayers.
The Hargraves and other leaders were never particularly good at taking criticism or changing anything and that sad affliction has and will be their downfall. I think that all of these “Christs in the flesh” forget that God isn’t on their side and isn’t intimidated by their lofty claims of spiritual authority.