Dear RR Forum,
We missed you last night. So glad to see you back this morning.
Love, Reep <3

“Christians want to believe that everything the church does for them is for their safety and salvation,” he said. “That simply isn’t true, not right now.”

[www.nytimes.com]

Apparently, clergy abuse is alive and well everywhere. It's a wonder people go to church at all anymore. However, as bad as this story is, and as much as it reminds me of crimes reported within TLWF, it still doesn't sink to the level of organized gaslighting and systemic spiritual abuse that was experienced in "our group."

Consider for a moment the years of sermons and teaching on submission, obedience, authority of “Christ in the flesh" and the resultant servitude we all endured. We doggedly listened to and absorbed teaching on the “work of the cross" as administered by narcissists who believed that the rest of us were placed on this earth to serve and please them in whatever fashion they deemed appropriate.

The trend seems to be toward churches that are “safe" because of services they purchase. The one mentioned in this article, MinistrySafe, although supposedly in existence to protect children and families, seems to be more oriented toward protecting churches and ministers from lawsuits.

I believe that there is an inordinate level of trust placed in clergy of all denominations and religions. For God's sake, if an attorney is paid by a church, that is who they work for. Don't believe for a moment that they have you or your child's best interest at heart. If something happens to you or your child at The Living Word Fellowship, don't talk to their pet attorney. Go straight to the police and hire your own lawyer.

TLWF will spare no expense and will waste no time repenting for taking you down and discrediting you. They will leave no stone unturned in finding ways to destroy you and your family if they feel threatened. TLWF is a family business, and it always has been. Not your family, not God's family, but the Stevens, Holbrook and Hargrave families. It's time for you to take care of yourself and your loved ones because, unfortunately, no church will do that for you.

Chicken-catching and killing John's plants with lead-based paint? I forgot about these delightful posts from March of this year:

Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: kbyrne
Date: March 23, 2019

Yes, and add to that not just the free labor, sub-minimum wage, but the money that was made FOR TLW from kingdom businesses.

I don't know how many times I went "chicken catching." What a horrible and dirty job, and every cent went to Shiloh.

One of the biggest betrayals is that I thought that the leadership was living the same life of sacrifice that we were living.

I sure don't remember Gary going chicken catching with us. ;-)

Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: fool me twice
Date: March 23, 2019

My wife and I were at those chicken catching 'events' nearly every time they were held. It was indeed horrible and dirty. My wife developed allergies later to both dust and feathers. I did not ever see Gary there. ;-)
In 1974, just after my wife and I were married, I worked in a KB for a wage of $35.00 a week. After three months I got a raise to $75.00 a week.

Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: fool me twice
Date: March 23, 2019

Onion wrote:
Fool me twice: How many hours did you work to earn that whopping weekly pay? I would estimate at least 60 hours a week.

60 is likely the correct amount of hours. I should add that for $35.00 weekly I got room and board (an unfinished, musty and dirty basement) Once I got my raise to $75.00 a week all living expenses were mine to pay. Yes to be 'selected' for this opportunity to serve my marriage was rushed and we were in Iowa two weeks later.

I did painting on both the JRS home and the Blix house. One day while I was scraping paint on JRS's house, a job that is not only quite dirty but also causes a lot of paint chips to fall into your eyes since no productive gear was a thing with KB's. JRS stepped out of his house and scolded me because I had failed to somehow prevent the paint chips from falling into his flower beds. "That paint has lead in it and that will kill my plants" Not that lead paint could be harmful to you or your eyes. Actually that was the only time JRS said a single word to me outside of a service.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2019 10:10PM by changedagain.

Raised in the fellowship--

Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: reveal
Date: August 17, 2018

I’ve thought about posting here for a long time, and have been working on this post for months. I have been wary of it because, as I mentioned in my initial post, I know for a fact that TLWF monitors this site. Creepy! I also just really want to move on with my life, and wasn’t sure if it was the right thing for me to do in my healing process, to come forward. However, it’s been weighing on me for a long while, and I know that I need to be free to speak about my experience. I think it’s time for those of us who have remained silent (and there are many of us) to start speaking out. So, here goes…

I was born and raised in the fellowship (an OG YASPer, too), and for a long time I never really considered how toxic it was because it was all I ever knew, but several years ago I started to wake up and I began to see things for what they were. I’ve lived in about five different TLWF locations, and with each new location a new set of shepherds, almost all of which were emotionally and spiritually abusive and extremely controlling. From the time I was a young child I experienced emotional abuse by the church. When I was just six or seven years old and attending the “Kingdom” school, the leaders of the school had decided that I was too bonded to my mother and forced me to stay several nights at the principal’s home as a way to get me disconnected from my mom. I was so confused why the school bus was passing my house and terrified that I was not being allowed to go home. This is one of MANY such odd church-related occurrences in my childhood.

In my twenties I was dating a man in the church, who unbeknownst to me had submitted our relationship to the shepherds. I wasn’t connecting with anyone at the time in a shepherding relationship and it was during the time that the words on having an Elijah/Elisha relationship were coming out. I had asked a particular shepherd to be that relationship to me and she said I could only have a relationship with her if I broke up with him. Weird, but also not uncommon…the shepherds have always interfered heavily with relationships, often splitting couples up or telling them they were not allowed to date someone in the first place because they didn’t “have a witness on it”. If you disobeyed them, you were usually ostracized and criticized. We were also so brainwashed with the belief system that if we did something without the blessing of the shepherds, we would be totally out of the will of God and therefore…fucked. In a word.

After I entered into this “Elijah/Elisha” relationship with this pastor, things got very bad for me. I was constantly being criticized for EVERYTHING by her, for the way I talked, how I dressed, how I behaved, every little fucking detail of my life and personality was scrutinized. She said very cruel things to me about my character, even though she had never taken the time to get to know me at all. And speaking of “Girls Turn it Off” I was even told by her that the only reason that guy I was dating ever wanted to date me in the first place was because I “beamed it at him” to like me. I was also berated for dressing “provocatively” at a social function because I was “clearly trying to get his attention”. I was wearing jeans and a modest blouse, by the way. I started wearing dumpy sweatshirts after that. Men were never held responsible for their part, women were basically just slut shamed unjustifiably.

I became very isolated and depressed during this time. I was purposely excluded from many functions and constantly getting in trouble for every little thing. I had massive anxiety because I was paranoid about getting another “talking to”, as it happened so often. I felt I had to walk on eggshells at all times. It left me feeling so horribly about myself that I had almost zero self-esteem. It was a very lonely time.

The abuse continued with nearly every other shepherd I had subsequent to her. It was either highly personal attacks or it was having my life so controlled I could hardly stand it. At one point it became intolerable, as a lifetime of being abused in this way became too much to handle. I became so depressed and self-loathing that I began hurting myself. The constant criticism, the pressure to perform according to shepherds’ expectations, being ostracized when I did not live up to their expectations, struggling to earn their love and acceptance, the never-ending scrutiny and so-called discipline piled up until I felt I was a worthless, unlovable piece of shit. I tried going to therapy but it was hard to get anywhere when I knew if I told the truth about my situation IT WOULD SOUND LIKE I WAS IN A CULT. I literally remember thinking that.

It was only after I spent some time away from a local church for the first time in my life and began to slowly feel better that I realized perhaps it was the church itself that was making me so depressed. But I kept hoping things would change in the church, and because of a lifetime of being conditioned to think that any doubts I had about it were satanic deception or something, I stuck around for several years even after I began having major doubts. I kept hoping that things would get better, but nothing ever changed, in fact the Living Word culture only became more oppressive and fanatical.

Everything is very manipulative in the Fellowship. They play this messed up game of giving and then withdrawing affection, demanding total participation, and making you fearful of being rejected by the group. They play on people’s longing to belong. They tell you that submission is not absolutely required, but you better believe that there will be consequences if you don’t submit to them. You will be punished by being excluded, gossiped about, removed from teams, positions (even paid jobs), relationships, and will be generally coldshouldered. I’ve heard shepherds make fun of people for “subnouncing” things, as in announcing what they were going to do rather than submitting it. So many of us abided by shepherding directives that felt totally wrong because we knew if we didn’t we would be ostracized. They also convinced us that “even if the shepherds are wrong, God will honor your submission and make it right.” How many of you have been fed that line before?

The prevailing culture of the group is so deeply entrenched in these negative ways of treating the sheep and its disturbing hierarchical structure promotes exclusivity, elitism and man-worship. The leadership is very toxic, abusive, and self-serving.

After I finally decided to split with the church a couple of years ago, I began to feel more happy and free than I had ever felt in my entire life. I also felt that the things that had troubled me internally for so long were starting to get better. I actually started to grow spiritually, something I did not feel happened for me in the church. I felt like we were always going around the same mountain over and over again. I realized that I rarely saw much change or growth in people at all, in the Fellowship.

It makes me incredibly angry that we were all so abused when all we were trying to do was walk with God. It makes me angry that I waited so long to leave, believing that it would change and get better, all the while enduring more and more psychological crap that I have to now get over. I’m working really hard to forgive everyone that is responsible for the hurt and abuse, but it is not easy. Oddly, it is especially difficult to reconcile my anger with the love I have for even the ones that were so awful to me. It was my love for those people that kept me believing they could change. But I could no longer continue to be a part of an organization that is so cold-hearted, hypocritical and judgmental. They say TLWF is a family. It is not. It is a business.

Onion mentioned a lot of former members likely having PTSD. I started seeing a therapist towards the end of my time in TLWF and have continued since. I was diagnosed with PTSD. My therapist said my experience has all of the similarities of a domestic abuse situation. It’s been very enlightening to finally speak with someone openly and honestly about what I experienced in the Fellowship, and having them completely, 100% validate that it was extremely abusive and dysfunctional.

Originally I wasn’t planning to post on this site, not wanting any TLWF people to have a reason to label me another bitter blowout. But reading others’ stories here helped validate my own experience with TLWF as a truly abusive organization. These stories have to be told. I know countless stories of others who have been deeply wounded by their involvement in the Fellowship (all in recent years) but they are not my stories to tell. If you’ve been lurking on this forum like me for years but haven’t yet shared your experience, please post it. There is strength in numbers, so share your story.

-reveal



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2019 10:39PM by changedagain.

Reepicheep Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> “Christians want to believe that everything the
> church does for them is for their safety and
> salvation,” he said. “That simply isn’t true, not
> right now.”
>
> [www.nytimes.com]
>
> Apparently, clergy abuse is alive and well
> everywhere. It's a wonder people go to church at
> all anymore. However, as bad as this story is, and
> as much as it reminds me of crimes reported within
> TLWF, it still doesn't sink to the level of
> organized gaslighting and systemic spiritual abuse
> that was experienced in "our group."
>
> Consider for a moment the years of sermons and
> teaching on submission, obedience, authority of
> “Christ in the flesh" and the resultant servitude
> we all endured. We doggedly listened to and
> absorbed teaching on the “work of the cross" as
> administered by narcissists who believed that the
> rest of us were placed on this earth to serve and
> please them in whatever fashion they deemed
> appropriate.
>
> The trend seems to be toward churches that are
> “safe" because of services they purchase. The one
> mentioned in this article, MinistrySafe, although
> supposedly in existence to protect children and
> families, seems to be more oriented toward
> protecting churches and ministers from lawsuits.
>
> I believe that there is an inordinate level of
> trust placed in clergy of all denominations and
> religions. For God's sake, if an attorney is paid
> by a church, that is who they work for. Don't
> believe for a moment that they have you or your
> child's best interest at heart. If something
> happens to you or your child at The Living Word
> Fellowship, don't talk to their pet attorney. Go
> straight to the police and hire your own lawyer.
>
> TLWF will spare no expense and will waste no time
> repenting for taking you down and discrediting
> you. They will leave no stone unturned in finding
> ways to destroy you and your family if they feel
> threatened. TLWF is a family business, and it
> always has been. Not your family, not God's
> family, but the Stevens, Holbrook and Hargrave
> families. It's time for you to take care of
> yourself and your loved ones because,
> unfortunately, no church will do that for you.

Excellent statement Reep. thanks

Along time ago I heard it said, "God has no grandsons".

I believe that individuals must seek God- a high-power - on their own rather than depending on another man to do it for them. We have gotten "lazy" in exercising our "faith" in a spiritual force that we don't understand that some call "god". - we have put our faith in a leader than than that still small voice deep in inside that God gave us.

We must stop trusting another man; we must stop paying an organization to do our the spiritual truth seeking in our lives and families lives.

Changed, thank you for re-posting
Posted by: reveal
Date: August 17, 2018

the story is an accurate portrayal of how so many I knew were treated. It is heart breaking reality of the ways we were controlled so that a few at the top could life a life of leisure like kings and queens.

Yes, being raised in the fellowship presents nearly insurmountable obstacles to adopting to the 'outside world.' The children are purposely insulated in order to be of use to just one particular organization, which has always revolved around a few narcissistic leaders.

This from DitchDiggingYasper:

Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: Ditch_Digging_Yasper
Date: August 18, 2014

Thanks for the welcomes and replies everyone. I'm pretty much over my bitterness/anger toward TLWF at this point, the Cox video is more of a curiosity than anything. It sounds like it may not be worth the effort of tracking down.

One thing that's always helped me, that I've realized since leaving, is how small and insignificant TLWF really is. When I was a part of things, it always seemed like we were such a large, powerful, and important organization, but it's pretty obvious now that it's a small, fringe organization that will probably die out on it's own in a couple of decades.

Rather than anger, I feel pity for the people still in the Church, paying their tithes, taking their tinctures, and paying for their "courses" - they will continue to have their time and pocketbooks fleeced by G&M out a of a misguided sense of duty to an organization that has nothing but their own self interest in mind. I wish the time and effort could be spent on something more worthwhile, but there certainly are more harmful organizations out there.

I'm sure Shiloh University is very lucrative, since many of the "professors" are volunteers, and tuition looks pretty expensive! Maybe this will help keep the "upward flow" of cash going to G&M for a bit longer. Expensive classes to move up in a religious institution? Straight out of the L. Ron Hubbard playbook when you think about it.

As I study what I can to work towards healing I run across some interesting articles that I don't want to lose. so, I take the liberty of passing them on.

i don't know about you, but, I get irritated when some one call me co-pendant. I don;t think I am, but, I'm open to learning how it applies to me. There is a good list in this link that I think is worth looking at.

[pairadocks.blogspot.com]

Gas-lighted statement was made about co-dependency by an alcoholic in the walk," I learned that I have a disease. Alcoholism is a disease and YOU are CO-DEPENDENT! YOU are sicker than I am."


As I was reading this article also found something sort of un- related to co-dependency, but, goes along with the fact that JRS plagiarized and my theory that all too much crap came out of Hollywood. i think it is proof that the walk, JRS , passing the mantle on to the king and Queen of god fraud M & G was nothing but bull- shit con job cover for other perversions- my opinion may too harsh for some to take. I am only trying to piece together what the hell happened to us and why.

I don't know if dissecting the cults of the LA area will help any of us or not, but, I find it rather eyeopening - what JRS taught was bogus no matter how we felt spiritually.

Here's the quote I found intriguing. I don;t know if it will interest you or not - the article is overwhelming.

Quote:
"I grew up in Hollywood. It's no surprise to me that several large cults of human potential have flourished in soil pre-treated to ardent belief in (excessive) self esteem, black and white / all-or-nothing thinking, obsession with achievement and fame, and submission to dominating authority.

"Observed through the lens of those four concepts (aka: perfectionism, either/or dichotomism, narcissism and authoritarianism), the attachment and devotion to what some might call a self-destructive degree of co-dependence near the Soboba Indian Reservation close to San Jacinto, California (described in recent articles i"n the Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker magazine) may make a lot more sense.

"We may never really know what all it was that the founder of Hollywood's largest cult had been exposed to that empowered his seemingly messianic (and megalomanic?) quest. Read those who deconstructed the individual, family-of-origin and group dynamics of the National Socialist, Red Chinese and North Korean "thought reform" techniques that made Hitler's, Mao's and Kim's (as well as Sun Myung Moon's) cults of personality possible. (Erich Fromm, Eric Hoffer, Robert J. Lifton, Edgar Schein, Margaret Thaler, Michael Langone, et al, are listed below). "

"In so doing, it may be evident that the founder of Hollywood's Cult numero uno (who finally expired in a trailer in a tiny village in north San Luis Obispo County) had access to -- as well as a considerable grasp of -- them. And that, at least in the last half century, he was only one of several who may have gotten his or her guru chops from the folks who produced the grisly spectacles of 1933 to 1953. " [pairadocks.blogspot.com]

I forgot about the sunscreen incident. I guess the lesson here is that Christ in the Flesh (CITF) is not responsible for providing skin protection for volunteer workers. And if you dare ask them directly for some, you are in violation of divine order & will be rebuked...by someone down the authority chain.
Thanks Aleutian for sharing this key moment in TLWF history :)

Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: Aleutian
Date: January 09, 2019 09:12PM

I recently recalled a time I was volunteering working on ¨G and M´s¨ luxury home on Oahu in Hawaii. It was a hot summer day, and I didn't bring any sunscreen.

I had the nerve to ask for some. After all, I was working for free. Instead of them helping me, they called for their ¨handler¨ at the time to help me. He was quite flustered that I didn't ask him first and chewed me out, telling me to follow "divine order."

It was a good light-bulb moment for me. After that I said "F%$K this" haha.

Another light-bulb moment occurred when I watched the Netflix documentary "Holy Hell". I would highly suggest it to people in this group that are fascinated by the social intricacies of "cultish groups".