Quote
NancyB
Back in those days ministers used "doctor of divinity" to show how respected as a holy person - like a Catholic Priest.

JRS as "Holy Person". I guess that was quite an exaggeration. Or quite a scam. So sad.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2019 09:32PM by Reepicheep.

Reepicheep Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>

Quote
NancyB
> Back in those days ministers used "doctor of
> divinity" to show how respected as a holy person -
> like a Catholic Priest.
>

> JRS as "Holy Person". I guess that was quite an
> exaggeration. Or quite a scam. So sad.

Yes, sad. He was exceptional at promoting his own inflated image, and manipulating others to do the same. I succumbed to that idolatry, but have been 'clean' for over 21 years now.

Reveal:
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.

"so-called discipline piled up until I felt I was a worthless, unlovable piece of shit."

Gee--I wonder why efforts to evangelize people to join this church always failed.

Reepicheep Wrote:

Date: July 17, 2019
-------------------------------------------------------
>

Quote
NancyB
> Back in those days ministers used "doctor of
> divinity" to show how respected as a holy person -
> like a Catholic Priest.
>

>
> JRS as "Holy Person". I guess that was quite an
> exaggeration. Or quite a scam. So sad.


JRS living word was consistently full of "holes'.

Leaderships' words were not the "whole truth".

JRS and his minions (most) acted the parts of "holy men" IMO

William Shakespeare said:
"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts

Hi everyone,

I just created my user credentials for the site and wanted to say hi. Don't have time for a long post right now but will post more later. I'm curious if anybody remembers or knows anything about a Living Word congregation in Columbiana, OH or possibly Youngstown.

Best Regards,
JimK

 I try hard to look at sides of a coin or the other side of the fence. To be fair on this TLW forum discussing current leadership I feel it only right to listen to or read what ever I can that is presented by Gary Hargrave although’ he has claimed to have resigned.


With that said, I am too cheap to pay for CD’s from the Living Word Fellowship or what ever corporate name they go by at any given time.

I believe that the pure and true Word of God is giving to us humans for free. I think that a charge for messages that Hargrave was paid a pastors’ salary to present should not be more than the cost to duplicate. IMO. ( I think we need to look into what is legal on that note.)

As I listen to Gary Hargrave, maybe it’s me, but ,I want to doze off with his monotone and redundancy. I feel insulted as an intelligent adult , that I would need to listen to a broken record in order to understand the man’s message. I get it!

For fun and trying to be fair, I counted repetitious words in a short FREE passage at this link with the title:
Our Obedience Removes Our Spiritual Blindness
July 11, 2018 - by Gary Hargrave
[livingwordpublications.org]

It has only 312 words 1,738 characters that include punctuation. Just 3 paragraphs!

I reduced all those words down to repeated concepts and came up with 64 significant words. ( no punctuation.)

x5 obedience x 1 disobedience
x4 serve
x1 new day
x 3 understand x9 ears, hear or deaf x9 eyes, see or blind
x1dominion x1- please x1-possess x1-masters
x1- healed

Of course I have my opinions as to why Gary Hargrave teaching style is to be repetitious. I wonder how Gary’s supporters could help me understand what grade level he is teaching at?

I won't be surprised if this link is deleted soon once Hargraves assistants who obediently serve at Hargrave Family Ministries read this post.

PS I think Gary might find studying The Rules of 3 helpful in his presentations.

A good presentation technique is the rule of three.

The rule of three is based on the technique that people tend to remember three things. In oratoration it comes up all the time. So by repeating something three times or using the alliteration with three words, a quite ordinary speech becomes quite emotive. [www.presentationmagazine.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2019 02:46AM by NancyB.

Welcome JimK3

I am a native of Iowa and have been in a number of bodies but not Ohio. We probably know a few of the same people.

I'd love to read what you have to say.

JimK3 - Welcome. I look forward to your long post!

There was a TLWF church in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. I remember a pastor from there was at Shiloh for a while and was getting involved in the finances (I believe this was 1979-ish). He wanted to go over all of the tithing records to use it as a mechanism to measure how well the sheep at Shiloh were doing. I blocked it because I thought it was a load of crap to measure people by their money when most of them were giving all of their time and energy anyway. The pastor's name was Jim Holbrook (no relation to Rick Holbrook). A group is Fraziesburg (sp?) branched off from Reynoldsburg and was overseen by a man named Morrison.

Hope that helps.

changedagain Wrote:changedagain ()
Date: July 17, 2019 and quoted Reveal
-------------------------------------------------------
> Reveal:
> 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.

Thanks Changed for re-sharing Reveals words which are so sadly very consistent with how so many others who call ourselves "survivors" of the cult The Walk of the Church of the Living Word.

No matter how fun the video of their little show look on video or how well written the LWF mission statement appears on the public website - we who left do NOT feel that we were loving nurtured as Christian Church members. We felt beat down, used, abused, lied to, defrauded and more ( see the quote above and a typical example of what former members say.)

Many of us survivors of tLW have asked question in order to right what we feel has been so wrong. ZIP NADA ZILCH except for a letter of apology that did not cut the mustard to the 3 woman who filed sexual abuse charges this year.

Perhaps if you are considering joining the Living Word founded by JRS or if you are still in the group perhaps you could ask some of the questions for us that we have asked on this forum. We have asked for transparency in numerous areas.
thanks