The WOW (Word Over the World) Program was basically a missionary program. People would commit a year of their lives to spreading "the Word", setting up fellowships and running Power for Abundant Living (PFAL) classes. The idea was that a group of four WOWs would be sent to an area that did not have an existing Way presence. The WOWs would take a part-time job, but would spend the bulk of their time "witnessing". The goal would be that at the end of the year a local fellowship would be established, or an already existing one would be strengthened. The WOW program was wildly successful. By the end of the decade there was a strong Way presence in all 50 states as well as a number of other countries. The annual gathering at Wierwille's farm, called The Rock of Ages, was when the new WOWs were "commissioned" each year, and the previous year's group "welcomed home". By 1980, several thousand were going out as WOWs each year.
The Way Corps was a multi-year program where people were groomed to be the leadership in The Way. It was initially a two-year program spent at the Way headquarters, but eventually an apprentice, or preparatory, year spent in the candidate's home city, was added, as well as a year "in the field" to practice what was learned before graduation. As the number of Way Corps graduates increased from a dozen or so the first few years, to 500 or more by the sixth year of the program, the practice of fellowship leaders developing naturally was supplanted by Way Corps leadership at most levels of the organization. When I became involved in 1978, there were nine "branches" of 7-10 fellowships each on Long Island. Neither the leaders of the branches, nor the "Area Leader" who oversaw all of Long Island, were Way Corps graduates. Within a few years this would be reversed, and even some local fellowship leaders were replaced by Way Corps graduates. This changed the makeup of The Way from a loose confederation of home Bible Studies to a rigid hierarchy with branch leaders leading 7-10 "twigs" (what home fellowship were called, based on a "Way Tree" analogy), Area Leaders overseeing multiple branches and "Limb Leaders" overseeing an entire state.
A bureaucracy was also developing at The Way headquarters as well, with leaders over the "Trunk" (all of the United States), International Outreach, a Way Corps Director and multiple departments responsible for everything from publications to vehicle maintenance. The Way Corps was slowly morphing from a program of voluntary service to a lifetime commitment to go wherever The Way sent you and do whatever they told you to do. The WOW program, even though it was only a one-year commitment, was a program with a lot of rules and expectations, its rigidity solidified the expectation that leaders were to be obeyed unquestioningly, rather than altruistically serving. In a short 10 years, the structure of The Way changed from people freely attending local fellowships without many, if any, demands placed upon them, to a rigid hierarchy and more onerous rules and requirements to attend meetings and classes, including those in far away cities and at The Way's headquarters in Ohio.
It was around this time that the epithet "cult" began to be attached to newer religious groups, and The Way was included. The tragedy of Jonestown occurred just as The Way was peaking in membership and influence. Family members of Way followers started getting concerned. "Deprogramming" became, if not common, then at least not unheard-of. Books on cults often included The Way, and occasionally Way members would be kidnapped by "deprogrammers" hired by the family. Some left The Way after this experience, while others escaped and returned. The presence of deprogrammers in conjunction with hostility toward The Way by families of Way members and by many churches helped to foster and "us vs. them" mindset among the Way rank and file. Wierwille stoked the fires by teaching that opposition to "the ministry" was opposition to God and that Satan was stirring people up in order to attack God's people. For many Way people, this was a vicious cycle: outside opposition encouraged defensiveness and an isolationist mindset while that very attitude fueled opposition. Parents could not understand why their children, who had been faithful members of the local church, were now preaching that The Way was the only place where God's truth was being told, not seeing how their opposition was a catalyst, feeding the stridency of Way rhetoric.
The Way never retreated to an isolated "compound", cutting themselves off from the world, even though they had several "root" (there's that tree symbolism) locations that were self-contained communities. The majority of Way members lived and worked among non-Way people, held regular jobs and met in private homes for their weekly meetings. They seemed normal. But something very different was going on beneath the surface.
Start from the beginning
Part V
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