Quote:
Originally Posted by Thankful Jane
As for the timing of the appearance of the “ministry station” phenomenon, I had never thought of that being at the time of consolidations as Ohio said.
John told me this morning that he wasn't positive, but he thought the “ministry station” idea (at least its introduction in Houston) was before the semi-annual trainings had started.
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Now I am not giving first hand accounts, but what I heard from others.
Steve Isitt or Hope could do much better than I can.
Early 70's had numerous migrations. Some new churches apparently were struggling to survive. Jan '74 elders meeting. (
Anyone remember where that post by Hope listed a number of dramatic controls which WL introduced?) One change was the appointment of designated brothers who would minister in certain key cities. I believe their messages were taken from the Genesis Life-Studies. This is also right about the time the semi-annual trainings began, and conferences in Anaheim on various topics ended.
I knew one brother well who had been in Milwaukee, WI (circa '73-'75). He had migrated there from Seattle, WA with a few others. Word came to them from LSM "
via the fellowship" concerning consolidations. They were to migrate to a church with a "ministry station." He chose Cleveland where TC was, but could have chosen Chicago where Reetzke was, or some other designated location on LSM's list. He felt Milwaukee was fruitful and saw no reason to leave there, but the ones he was with wanted to go along with "the fellowship."
I do believe that these "ministry stations" were the first stage
in America for WL to take over the contents of the teaching in all the LC's. As I entered the LC, Genesis LS messages were being taught in the Saturday night ministry meeting attended by all the Ohio LC's. Mansfield, which was quite far from Cleveland, had a little maxi-van to shuttle her people to Cleveland. Willoughby and Akron also attended.
Here Texas churches under BP took WL's directives to a "tee." They would teach WL's messages strictly verbatim, while TC more loosely followed the format. Visitors (
actually spies) to the area actually would report our apparent "looseness" back to headquarters. I do believe it just killed TC to be a WL "tape recorder," so JS in Willoughby eventually took over that job.
I remember BP visiting Cleveland for a conference, probably post-Max, and listening to a particularly tedious message of his.
(He really needed a drink of water.) The elder sitting next to me commented on how BP spoke almost word for word from the LS message of Hebrews. He implied that that was a great thing. That elder eventually left the TC LC's and joined the LSM LC's.