Pouring over the volume of posts that preceded my recent involvement, I wanted to suggest that no one beat themselves up over their decision to become involved with TLW. This merely compounds any insult and injury that may have occurred.

Each of us, for our own reasons, saw that decision to be of more value in the moment than any other. Any ongoing decision to remain as long as we did, was also the result of seeing more value in staying than leaving. Now that we have come to our senses and gained some perspective, each is deserving of some congratulations, even if we must be the one to applaud ourself.

We are in a continual process of investing and divesting of things which we view to be of value, which even applies to any involvement here. We would do well to leave our regrets behind, and instead, CELEBRATE our exit, for without that, who knows where we would be to this day.

I was reading one of the Living Word websites, the one where they show in encyclopedia form links that describe the teachings of JRS, anyway, it had one of the links that said "Latter Rain." That says that JRS had SOME similar beliefs of Latter Rain. Now, it is debatable how much of those beliefs might have some validity, that is not what I am concerned with right now, but it amazes me that the exact opposite is true, the other people that believed in those doctrines each had SOME of the beliefs, JRS embraced ALL of them, and more. That is the truth. I do not understand why they can't just tell the truth. JRS was MR. LATTER RAIN.

A.D.

The irony is that if the fervor of the Latter Rain movement existed today with TLW it would almost be an ‘upgrade’. A quick inventory of the last few years of messages are so threadbare of any inspiration they have fallen mostly on deaf ears. Same old, same old, reheated and re-served.

There was a movement a few years ago when the Brazil fellowship made an effort to reach out to others in the religious community that carried with it some success. It was during the time of the previous Pope, whose coattails they were hoping would gain them some ‘gravitas’. I think the combination of health issues, coupled with the change of Popes, slowed down any momentum they had built.

To make matters worse, a movement that had once viewed itself as the ‘cutting-edge’ of Christianity, has now been badly eclipsed by the new Pope himself, a man who seems to embody the GOSPEL of LOVE to a degree that garners the attention of much of the world, in spite of representing the infamous ‘Babylon the Whore’ who we were taught to despise.

I guess the leapfrog principle really does work . . .

kBOY, yours is a thoughtful and helpful viewpoint. If you are accused of being an apologist, know in advance that I disagree with that assessment.

LAMP: Thank you for your kind endorsement.

Just to be clear, no apology or justification will excuse the legacy of harm that TLW is responsible for. Any encouragement on my behalf would be FORGIVENESS, not for their sake, but for ours. We are the ones in control of our own state of mind, and hopefully the cathartic process underway in this forum will lead everyone to the point where we can let it all go FOREVER.

The only thing that stands in the way of our own HAPPINESS is our mindset. Change our mind--change our world.

I don't want to minimize the harm done by people that were put in the ministry that were not qualified nor called by God to be in the ministry. I do not want to place any blame on the innocent followers that were injured. But my experience in the LWF tells me that it would be difficult for any minister, even if he had the purest of motivation, to minister to them without being placed in a precarious position of becoming an idol. There would only be a few choices with a big part of the population of the "first generation" people. That is the only bunch that I am familiar with. First of all, the leader could just walk away and quit. Or, the leader could just send them away, and they could go find somebody else that wanted to be a lord over them, because that is what they were after to begin with. I know personally of occasions where people have tried to put me and others that I knew well in a place like that, even on the remote low level of the church that I was in. Women would ask for personal ministry, but they didn't like my wife, because she "didn't have a revelation of ME",, in other words, here comes the offer of the spiritual wife. Also people would call at all hours of the night to some of us and ask for the "mind of the Lord" about what kind of car to buy, or what color to paint their living room. You could tell them that is not something to ask, and all they would do is go somewhere else that wanted to be the lord over their lives, to be their "spiritual father" or "spiritual husband." Again, if you look back at my posts you will see that I have had no illusions that there was not abuse from the ministers. There seemed to be something about the MY generation, a need for fathering, most of us were rebellious to our natural fathers, whether their fault or ours, but when it came to some bagwan or guru, we seemed to lose our minds pretty quickly. Remember that was the age of the Jesus movement, when kids thought that they had a much better revelation of God, understanding of politics, everything. We thought we were greatly open minded and individualistic, but all we did was create a counterculture of people that were exactly like one another, their fasion, their politics, their religous beliefs, their choice of drugs, and if there was any deviation from the accepted norm, we rejected that person, shunned them, we were more of conformists than the society we rebelled against.

I don't think my generation, the so called first generation really caught on to what JRS was really teaching. That was I believe part of the problem. Now JRS tended to have some distorted ideas about people's ability to grasp, automatically by impartation, which is one of the Latter Rain doctrines rejected by the Assemblies of God. JRS would "get a revelation" of somebody, I think partly because that person boosted his ego, and he would set them aside and eventually set them in office.

Even in the little church that I was in, there was lots of strife, one guy wanted to take over so bad that is all he talked about. We were a group of ten adults usually, and years later my wife ran into one of the members, who was somewhat mentally challenged, and he thought that the dude that wanted to take over was the pastor. He never was. I guess this guy told him he was, and of course I was not much of a force in that church anyway. Maybe that was one thing I did right, I was not even noticed except when it came time to tell people what color to paint their walls or who to marry, or not to marry, which I didn't do, or when it came time to put the John tapes in the tape player.

A.D.

All of us in the ‘2nd Generation’ (mostly 20-somethings who came into TLW in the 70’s, as opposed to the ‘1st Generation’ who had followed JRS from the beginning), lived our formative years in the turbulent 60’s (Vietnam War, race-riots, political assassinations, anti-religious/pro-spiritual revivals, et al), so it is no surprise we were faced with the daunting challenge of finding our bearings in a brave new world.

I for one, actually found some stability with my involvement in TLW. The excitement of being a part of something we were told was going to ‘change an age’ was too hard to resist. Our lives gained some gravitas by simple association.

My entry into TLW was initially via a small outlying church with minor drama. It was only after relocating to the LA area that I had some major adjustments to make. But, with everything else in the world, perfection was too much to expect, and so justifications seemed to be the order of the day.

The ‘guru/disciple’ dynamic was a simple leap in the ‘light’ of scriptural justifications. Most of us had built up quite a tolerance level for anomalies, both interpersonal and doctrinal, so much so that each of us had to reach ‘critical mass’ before we decided to thrown in the towel.

It should be of little surprise we swallowed the pill of following ‘the flesh’, but maybe of some surprise for how far and how long we did.

Perhaps something to consider is that no Christian movement we know of has gone beyond two generations without becoming dead in its doctrines and practices. Something John Stevens was well aware of and repeatedly warned about. From Martin Luther onward it seems human beings can only move in a few "new" things, then God moves upon others to carry the torch. I think such is happening now, and that we may be on the threshold of the 3rd great awakening that many believe is to come to America.

I am thankful for my time in the Living Word fellowship, and mourn that we did not break-through to greater restoration. I am very reticent to criticize JRS or even Gary and Marilyn even though I am aware of much damage done, especially after the death of JRS. I always remember a few things that stay with me about John. First I have yet to see the same level of love in any Christian, or person as I saw in John. Additionally I have yet to see the full compliment of the gifts of the spirit in any individual, although I think I am seeing more and more spiritual men and woman with tremendous walks with God, moving in miracle healing and a powerful word.

We learned important things, perhaps things that will help other churches, or movements to avoid a whole set of errors. Look up, as they continually did in the book of Acts, see how many times it speaks of the disciples looking up to heaven. I wonder how well I would have done in the same place or position? We all have flesh, we are all tempted, but if you were in a position of leadership how would you fare?

Could you have the courage of Paul to rebuke Peter to his face, a founder of the church? One of the inner 3 disciples? When you yourself came 30 years later, and you were the chief persecutor of Christians? Or to resist the Judaizers coming from James, the brother of the Lord? Not an easy thing to stand up to men who have an anointing, have position and yet also have flesh.

We were young and maybe did not know better, and John perhaps needed men around him that could have said something now and then, but he had such spiritual stature we just didn't know we could help him, but I think we know now.

If you were in a fellowship and felt abused, or it was destructive, well what did you learn? What should be done differently? What would you do differently, would you fast and pray and seek God that the word you speak would be free of error?

I encourage everyone who is here to look for a place to serve again do not be bitter or burned out, be something to young pastors that have just as great a hunger for God as we did in our youth, help them, be a part of what God is bringing to the earth, do not count yourself over and out. Can these bones live?

I personally believe that the LWF, got worse and worse with each passing generation. I said in my last post that the FIRST generation did not understand the message, but I meant to say the SECOND generation of Walk members , my bunch didn’t understand the message. I think each generation has gotten worse, until now, and I don’t have an opinion as to if it swings for the good, or swings for the bad.

I know that there are several strange sects going on in Christianity today, very dangerous beliefs based on taken out of context twisted scriptures. There is the “emerging church” the “New Apostolic Reformation” which has some good guys and some bad ones, (the leaders I mean) and there is the ecumenical movement , which really heads back toward more Catholicism , there is the even more dangerous ecumenical that want to go so far as to create CHRISLAM, that merges with Islam, (a true pipe dream), there is of course the Word of Faith movement, it goes on and on. I don’t think at this point the Walk is the most dangerous out there, for one thing, they have contained themselves pretty much.

We will see, it is interesting times. To me, I still believe that John Robert Stevens, though he had his own quirks and his own personality flaws and they got in the picture, was not an intentional deceiver.

I know that I might be considered out of line for saying this, but I do believe that since JRS believed so much of the Latter Rain thing, and that he NEEDED to be adored by his “children,” my generation, the ones that were with him in the 70s and 80s had a lot to do with making JRS what he was.

I have to take a little breather now, I will post maybe half or less of what I have been posting here. I think I need to take some time for other things for a while. I tend to take up too much room on this forum anyway, and it would be great if I let some people come back that have been on before, and also have some new ones come in. It could be that there will be some current members willing to post.

I think it might be good that we do not just shut them down if they defend any of the weirdness, if there is some debate, as they try to unravel and disconnect from what they have believed for so long.

PAUL T.


You made mention of the ‘cycle of movements’ and how they fail to survive beyond their own second generation.

I had the occasion a few years ago to have dinner with a close friend from the 70’s, who had been in a ministry position in the LA area. and who I had not seen in 30+ years. He informed me that he had exited the fellowship after the ‘my way or the highway’ meetings that had occurred following JRS’ passing.

He subsequently found his way into the next biggest Christian movement in the early 80’s (cannot remember the name), saw its ranks swell, pop, and crash. He then transitioned into the next biggest thing happening at the beginning of the 90’s, and again witnessed it swell, pop, and crash.

Adding insult to injury, he drug his poor family into whatever was the ‘soup du jour’ of the early 2000’s, and again, for the 4th time, witnessed the same cycle. I kidded him about only having to go through it once, while he had to endure four different crash and burns.

All that said is that he and his family finally learned their lesson about whatever ‘God is doing in the world today’: its whatever HE/SHE/IT is doing through them--period. Its not always necessary to re-swear allegiance to a new shibboleth.