So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXI - Getting Back In

The Way did not consider you one of them until after you had taken what they called a foundational class, Power for Abundant Living (PFAL). You could show up to their meetings, even contribute time and money, but without graduating from PFAL, you were just another "unbeliever". Even though my wife and I were not involved throughout most of the eighties, we still considered ourselves believers, and still viewed PFAL as the way to gain a basic knowledge of the Bible, even though we were not at the time involved with The Way. The usual minimum age that children were allowed to take PFAL was twelve (with parental permission). Toward the end of the eighties our two oldest children were approaching that age, so we tried systematically teaching them from the PFAL syllabus and collateral material. It was somewhat less than successful. 

Those of us who got involved in The Way in the seventies were generally high school or college students. We were also enthusiastically looking for answers. Part of the appeal of what The Way provided was that it was different from the religion that we were brought up with, different from our parents' religion. It was a way to rebel. We were unsophisticated enough in scriptural study to be unaware how shoddy Wierwille's "Biblical research" actually was, but curious enough to care about the minutia of things like "four crucified" or whether Jesus as or wasn't God. Those of who got involved when we were teenagers were now raising teenagers of our own, and PFAL was just "mom & dad's religion" to them. However I didn't realize at the time that the lack of enthusiasm that I was seeing in my own sons was pretty common among second generation Way kids. Wanting to give our children the foundation in "Biblical truth" that I had, we decided that we would seek out the local Way leaders and get our oldest son enrolled in a PFAL class. 

At the time I don't think we wanted to get wholeheartedly back involved in The Way, but just get our kids through PFAL. We knew a few people who were still active in The Way and asked them to set up a meeting with the local Way leaders - Gary & Mary, Way Corps graduates who were the Limb (aka state) Leaders of Nebraska, who also ran a home fellowship. That meeting was to affect the next ten years of our lives. 

From the beginning

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2019/10/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-i.html

Part XXXII

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2022/09/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-xxxii-man.html