Don’t fool yourself, Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF) and groups like them never stop recruiting new members. New minds to mold and shape and lives to control and sources of money serve as the life blood for WOFF and other groups like them. I know you are probably shocked that with all the information out there on dangerous groups and controlling practices, how can these groups continue to draw in members? Here is a tidbit that may help you.
The late Dr. Paul Martin’s research revealed that, “…fully two-thirds of the people recruited into manipulative groups were introduced to the group by someone they knew. Healthy suspicions about a group’s motives are often ignored because the introduction comes from a trusted friend or relative.”
(source link – here.)
In light of this, it should come as no surprise that the WOFF recruiters (any WOFF member) are continually checking their relatives and even friends at work or other sources for someone who may be open to the WOFF lifestyle. If you can get them over the loud prayer, the communal living and the closed group mores and rigid control dynamics, then you just may have a new member.
How is this done many times? I call it planned lying or time sensitive deception. When you prospect for a WOFF member, you do not tell them certain things first. Do other survivors remember this? You gain their trust and hopefully they will see you are a normal person. Right? Many times, I did not believe I was a normal person by being a part of WOFF, how was I going to convince someone else they could be “normal” like me? The thoughts I had when I finally did ask someone to church… well, you may start with a Friday night fellowship or a wedding or a special service other than a Sunday morning. For sure, you would tell who ever was in authority over you that there was a new person possibly coming. Why? So, Jane would know and not spill out “family business” around them. Most services with first time new visitors are filled with singing and testimonies and maybe some milk toast preaching. Sunday night services were not the first choice for a new prospect.
When they did show, maybe I could get them to meet Gerald or Marty or someone in the church that “knew how to take hold of new folks…” The hope was to get them to liking something or someone in the church besides me. Help them make connections, right? This was all done before they hear about the loud prayer and communal living and all the rules we lived by. And for sure get them to liking the place BEFORE Jane rebukes someone to an utter crying shame in a service or in the hall by the office.
Oh, how I would wiggle in my seat if I had a visitor and a sensitive subject came up during a service or time of fellowship. Why? Because WOFF life was strange and I knew it! WOFF life was then and now is still NOT NORMAL! I was asking someone to give up their freedoms to live in a place where there were so many rules and it was a big struggle to just remember them all. Why? Because they rules were not in writing and they could be changed at any time and at any moment and during any service. If you were not at the service you were STILL responsible for knowing the new rules! For a new person, they have to be led into the magnitude of their new life – gradually. Yes, for some new folks, Jane would actually give them grace until they “were walking with God at a higher place.” Once a person was accustomed to the “flow”, then they were free game for any blasting or rebuke that any person in leadership thought they deserved and it would be “for their good.”
Then there was the time when a new person was not new anymore. The WOFF member was now responsible for everyone around him or her obeying God and walking in the ways God was teaching Jane to teach us. This makes sense, right? You now become the eyes and ears for Jane and her burden to make sure everyone walks righteously in God’s ways. You became a member of the control team. If ANYONE did ANYTHING against the known or unknown rules of the group and you did not “have a check in your spirit” or a “doubt in your heart” or a “warning that something was not right”, and you did not “check-in with authority” or “lock in”; then you were in sin as well! If you let it happen in your presence or if you even heard about it later and did not report it, then “you were in as much sin as the person who missed God in the first place!” My, that sounds like a fun place to live, right?
NEW PEOPLE are NOT told about being a member of the control team BEFORE they get enthralled and enamored with the WOFF aura; before they are love bombed! Before connections are made that seem so inviting, new prospects are not told they are being recruited as part of Jane’s most ardent and ever vigilant control team.
How do I know? This was my experience which cannot be taken from me. I was a part of the control team, I recruited folks to come to meetings and some actually did come. I did not give them the whole picture before they came- NO ONE DOES! You can get rebuked for not hearing God what to tell a new person and spilling the beans before they were ready to know God’s ways! You were told that was losing an attack at them and you were a part of the devil’s plan to drive them out of WOFF before they actually got in the will of God! That sounded so spiritual, but it really meant you told them too much of the truth, too soon.
Those still in WOFF will of course say that I am telling you all lies. They never have the anxious thoughts when they invite someone into the group because they are so sure that EVERYTHING done inside of WOFF is God’s will and if a new person can’t accept that then there is something wrong with them and they were just not called to walk with us as one of God’s chosen holy people. If a new person can’t flow with us then we will not change God’s chosen ways for His chosen people. Everyone else has issues, we do not.
That is right. As Josh Farmer said, “… that’s totally absurd, we absolutely have nothing to hide.” Is the gate up, yet?
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“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” Aldous Huxley
Thank you, for taking time to visit and read this blog. Please, consume the information on this site responsibly. The author is not a licensed mental health professional and encourages those that need professional help to seek it. The intent of the material is to inform and be a resource. Be sure to tell every member that you know at WOFF about this blog. There are readers at WOFF. Jane told me and Josh confirmed it.
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Scripture references are Amplified Version unless otherwise noted. (Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation ) This is post number 477.