Dear intercessors & ministry parnters, I am writing to you at a very important moment of my life & ministry, asking you for extra prayer covering as I enter into divine national and international assignments these next 60 days.The Lord has led me in the last few months to take on a massive assignment to mobilize the nations young adults to vote and pray for the coming elections
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. . "enabled Bob Weiner to touch many lives" "now with locations on 150 campuses in 20 nations." "During the last 10 years, Bob trained 50,000 youth in Russia" "many hundreds of thousands of youth have been saved, established in churches and cell groups by the thousands." "placed over 3 million Bibles in China and recruited over 100 Am
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. . "My youth leader 'praised' Bob Weiner for his "cleverness", i.e. each time he came to Indonesia, he would stay at ordinary room. Then he would try to find problems in the room and made complaints. And each time, the hotel manager would feel embarrassed (because he is an American, too), and the hotel would upgrade him to the suite room for the same price. In my op
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. . BOB WEINER IN BOSTON, the official version: Boston is the site of much secular and spiritual history. A strategic city that sits on the northeastern Atlantic coast, it was once a spiritual beachhead during The Great Awakening of the 1700's and the revivals of the 1800's, but now is considered one of the least reached cities in the United States. An intellectual fortress and
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. . LATEST OFFICIAL BOB WEINER BIO: Bob and Rose Weiner (www.youthnow.org) It is God's grace and strength that has enabled Bob Weiner to touch many lives through the ministries that he has founded and supported. God moved Bob to found Maranatha Churches and Campus Ministries, now with locations on 150 campuses in 20 nations. During the last 10 years, Bob trained 50,000 youth
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. . LARRY TOMCZAK AND RICE BROOCKS: "Larry Tomczak, apostolic leader and author, is celebrating his 35th year in ministry with a transition from Atlanta to Nashville to establish a training center devoted to New Testament evangelism and church-planting fueled by prayer. Co-laboring with him are Rice Broocks – co-founder of Every Nation Ministry, a network of 400 churches in 50 countri
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

The former Maranatha board member from Austin has been on the FactNet.org board for several months. He has carries on at some length about the hardship his family suffered because of what the church did to him. He doesn't use his real name. He goes by flo1151. Here’s what you need to know about Flo: -- He fibbeth -- He fibbeth exceedingly I arrived in Austin several months after
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. . LEARN FROM MY EXPERIENCE WITH MARANATHA INTRODUCTION: I crouched down on my knees the phone cradled against my ear, straining the cord and almost pulling it out of the wall. Tears streamed down my face and my stomach felt like someone was kicking me there, hard. And someone was, but not physically. The voice on the other end of the line spoken in a deep baritone with an eastern Kentuc
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. . SECOND LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF WASHINGTON CITY PAPER You really need to delve into Ball’s relationship with Champions members, especially Brunell and Green. They and other Champions members who attend Every Nation churches are forbidden to associate with him. Champions members who are not Every Nation church members probably received a phone call or an email saying, “Greg has been re
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. . . COLLECTED MARANATHA STORIES: During the last MLTS, one or two of the performances involved smoke and there were smoke machines on stage. While Rose was speaking, I saw smoke coming down from the ceiling. Like everyone else, I assumed one of the setup crew accidentally pushed the wrong button while preparing for the next performance. But when Rusty came through a few months late
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THE SHADY, INCESTUOUS, AND DISASTROUS DEALINGS OF GREG FESTE OF CHAMPIONS FOR CHRIST, EVERY NATION, AND AUSTIN WRANGLERS INFAMY Last we heard, he moved back to Houston, his original stomping grounds. He cleared out of Austin after trying (and failing) to be the Jerry Jones of Austin with his AFL Wranglers Arena Football team. He imploded the first year. Took "other" investment mo
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. . LETTER TO WASHINGTON CITY PAPER Major kudos to David McKenna for his investigative piece on Mark Brunell’s involvement with the Champions for Christ / Every Nation cult. I would like to see Washington City Paper delve into the conspicuous silence of Brunell and Darrell Green about Greg Ball’s departure from both organizations. Ball cofounded Champions and was its true builder and
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Has it ever occurred to anyone to wonder why Bob Weiner, Rice Broocks, Greg Ball, Phil Bonasso, Leo Lawson, etc have never gotten on Rick Ross’s site or the FactNet site to set the record straight about anything? Whether it be their depraved condition, their idolatrous values, their wicked behavior, their unscriptural practices, their carnal efforts, their illegal activities, their obscene lif
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Advice to Philip Rosenthal: Don’t waste your time trying to get EN / Maranatha leaders to behave. The two biggest mistakes you can make in dealing with these people are 1) treating them as if this is the first time they’ve heard what you’re saying 2) treating them as if they don’t understand what you’re saying. Countless people have tried to get their attention over a period of decades. P
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

"Why? The Trinity, as I know you believe, is the most important and most essential doctrine, but yet how does MSI see it? Shame on MSI or any professing Christian church that does not accurately define and exalt the tri-unity of God. And how dishonoring to God to have (a) Oneness implied statements (out of ignorance or not) on MSI’s Statement of Faith and (b) support Oneness advocates such a
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While MorningStar was still courting His People, Jim Laffoon came and gave a prophecy about a Net at the Cape Town church. He repeated it at the Jo-burg church. Essentially the theme is for the need for loyalty to Paul Daniel and not to say anything bad about the leaders, because that might fray relationships. The reason was that there was a great enormous harvest of dragging a net across whole c
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Some of the things I did “for the sake of ministry” . . . I can’t believe I was so naive! I really did have a servant’s heart, but I was so blinded and deceived. Just a young college-age girl who really didn’t know better, and took leadership at their word. I was so hungry to serve God in whatever way possible. There was a very genuine and real zeal, but it was a zeal without wisdom. This particu
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

One of my big regrets was letting Bob Weiner and company talk me into being "rebaptised." It was a very confusing thing to me at the time, during the initial outreach at Auburn. Already a Christian, I listened to testimonty after testimony during body ministry night with this theme: "I was saved growning up but I wasn't 100% totally committed." Weiner jumps up after a
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

An insightful person could probably have predicted that I would end up in a group like EN; the foundation for it was laid years before I had ever even heard of EN. I grew up in a Christian home. Focus on the Family paraphernalia littered my home--books, all the different magazines, videos, and radio shows. As a child I listened to an obscene amount of "Adventures In Odyssey". All of the
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. I didn't leave EN, but our family did leave Maranatha in 1982. I have mixed feelings about posting what happened, but I think it speaks to the level of blindness at the top of the chain of what now seems to have become Every Nation. My memories are hazy due to the passage of time, but I think the central facts are pretty much dead on. As I recall, there was some big hoohaa meet
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

And at the very essence of our calling as a people is to raise up a generation of men and women from every sector of society from the medical field , to the judicial field, to the political field, to the entertainment world, to the real estate world, to the finance world, to the corporate world, who have been SO well trained, SO well discipled, SO filled with the vision of God that they can go in
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Edson & Eneida Porto: Update on Harvard Intercession Cambridge MA (Aug. 10, 2006) During the 24 Hour Prayer at Harvard on July 3rd 2006, Rose Weiner felt God's call to minister a new kind of worship. During the prayer meeting Cindi Hinson and Rose Weiner came from Florida to lead the worship. Amazing things happened on both days at Harvard. Edson & Eneida Porto Jo
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

My advice to Rice Broocks: Step out of ministry completely. Take a sabattical. Go visit some other churches that are not run like authoritarian personality cults. See how they run things. Don't go as a special guest. Just go incognito. You have been in Maranatha / Every Nation too long to know what is normal. Find a normal job where people don't hero worship you. Until you do this,
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

. ROSE WEINER AND A TYPICAL MARANATHA FAD We also had church picnics and “love feasts” where testimonies and funny stories were told- where we would laugh and sing and have great fun. Occasionally we would poke fun at the upper leadership - but never in public. But we could and would occasionally take indirect or unplanned shots at them. One of these almost got Matt and I expelled from ML
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. TAG TEAMING WITH GREG BALL It had started well enough. In fact, it had completely exceeded any expectations about getting the ministry off the ground. Our “Crusade” had begun the last week of August and coincided with the frat rush at the large Midwestern University I was assigned to start a ministry at. I felt really blessed, because despite the fact that almost thirty “new ministry pl
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

THE GREAT SEND OUT By late 1980 I had worked my way into the top echelons of the Auburn Maranatha Campus Ministries. I had a lot to be proud of. I was responsible for personally bringing about 20-25 people into the ministry and only three or four had washed out. In turn over a four year period these people had brought at least 10-15 people in to MCM - not counting washouts. I had been elevat
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JOE SMITH: FALSE PROPHET At the end of the service Bob called Mike and Missy Caulk up to the stage. “Now, he said, “I am going to be here preaching at Auburn only two more nights, at least for right now” There was a groan from the crowd and shouts of “stay longer” and “don’t leave.” “Now, now” said Bob, “it is God that is doing the things here - I am just sowing the seeds. Trust me I will b
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

MARANATHA STAFF HOUSE LIFE ... At the lowest level of the MCM plantation hierarchy were the “slaves” the single brothers being at the bottom of the heap. These single brothers lived together communally and footed the bill for the meeting house and for the pastor’ apartment. They had neither private lives nor any privacy and had to be ready at a moments notice to be called to action. Additional
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

MARANATHA AS PLANTATION ANALOGY It may seem strange to an outsider when I mention the word “status” with regards to MCM. One of the reasons that I had joined MCM was that I perceived that it was an egalitarian “Band of Brothers and Sisters” on a “Mission from God.” We were all equally committed right? We were, as Paul implied in his letter to Corinth, “equal members of the body of Christ” righ
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REAL BIBLE STUDY versus MARANATHA BIBLE STUDY Sissy had asked me to attend this Bible study after our first date. I really did not want to attend a Bible Study (heck, I had read the entire Bible through three times and could vomit scripture out at will, as I have told you). The thought of going to a Bible study made me want to actually vomit at that point. But I would have walked on hot coals
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families