Re: Reboot!!!!
Wow, that's some news!
Why do I find it so hard to believe?
Know anything more about the background...? - Could it be that Zerby is dead? Or have they run out of mental bondsmen?

Re: Reboot!!!!
Yeah, I've heard a little bit about this from a couple people, and I'm interested in reading some of the actual GNs if anyone has them. This sounds like a pretty massive change, which I can only assume is being done out of desperation after bleeding so many members.

Re: Reboot!!!!
someone has just promised to sent it soon. sorrry to be so ignorant, but how can i attach a file?

Re: Reboot!!!!
Email them to Peter Frouman or any of the other active editors and I'm sure they can get them on the site.

Re: Reboot!!!!
I've posted the 1st (of 13) letters in the latest Letters from Zerby & Kelly called the, "Reboot Series". I will be posting all 13 in the following hours.

You can read the first letter here: "Change Journey Manifesto"

Re: Reboot!!!!
Thank you. End of an era.

Re: Reboot!!!!
I've been calling this for the past few years. Call it what you like, but this is essentially a disbanding. There is not much of a "group" left.

Re: Reboot!!!!
R.I.P. to my past
You were part good, part bad,
But always less than I deserved
How can I mourn you, when you never really were?
You were nothing but a collective's delusion of grandeur
I mourn those who loved you, who are left without their dream now
They have far to go to find reality you pushed away from them with your honey words
I saw long ago you were a trick of fancy, nothing but smoke and mirrors
You cannot be mourned because you never were
Yet somehow, I feel you may haunt me still

Re: Reboot!!!!


True. They are not technically "disbanding", however (and you may call this semantics), what really is a "group". If it is just a subset of a culture or of a society, then, yes, TFI is still a "group". If, however, a group has membership requirements, then it is more like a "club". But what is a club without a structure (and leadership) and requirements? TFI's new requirements are not much more than what it means to call one's self a Christian.

Anyway, I haven't read all of the "Reboot Series", but from what I have read so far, there is very little left of a "group". Note that they will (now) only tally membership numbers of either 16-year olds and up (with parental permission) or 18-year olds and up. They even give the numbers: There are now less than 5,000 adults of all former membership levels (FD/MM/FM). I suspect that before the year is out, there will be far less than that. If this "reboot" was to expand their membership levels, I think they will find the reverse to be true. Then again, maybe they are going into semi-retirement and don't really need the growth. I am sure Zerby & Kelly have all of the money they need to go into a fashionable (and permanent) retirement.

Does anyone know if there is a precedent for a group to do this?

PS: As a side note, I thought it interesting that they will no longer be referring to themselves as "Mama"/"Queen Maria" and "King Peter". They are now just "Maria", "Peter" and "Dad"/"Grandpa" is now just "David".

Re: Reboot!!!!
Here is the complete list of the documents in the Reboot Series with links to the actual documents: The Reboot Series

(Note: Not all documents are currently available.)

Re: Reboot!!!!
I know they are not disbanding. BUT, with that said, anyone who grew up in this group the way I did, can see the family, as it was, no longer exists. this is a different group entirely, comprised of people who are grasping at straws to remain relevant. to me, the family is over, completely. they have settled into mainstream.

The Family I know said they were "radical revolutionaries, rebels against the rotten, decadent, decrepit, hypocritical, self-righteous, inflexible, affluent, self-satisfied, proud, stubborn, disobedient, blind, bloodthirsty, Godless, dead, selfish, churchy, unchangeable older generation of their day!"

TFI's decleration:

"We have declared War of the Spirit on the System's Godless schools, Christless churches and heartless Mammon! We hope to stop the pollution and destruction of the earth by the world's worst rebels of all time--the generation that produced us--our parents!...

"The qualifications of a Christian revolutionary must therefore be very rigid.... He must be willing to "endure hardness, as a good soldier, not entangling himself with the affairs of this world." end of family quotes

-THIS GROUP WITH RADICAL IDEAS ABOUT CHANGING THE WORLD IS GONE FOREVER. they are mainstream now. like a scattered church, having left many wounded along the way.

Who cares that they are still technically a "group". it's not the same thing at all and with their new-found of freedom it's only matter of time before they are only a memory.

Re: Reboot!!!!
There is no more mandatory tithing or statistical reporting either,and the LOL doesn't include sex. In essence the group we grew up with is over. Kind of a weird feeling.

Reboot, but still same old operating system
Remember what that American idiot, George W., tried to say once? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me! The cult has travelled this road before. More than once in the early days they sent everyone home. More than once they've changed their name. More than once they changed their rules, doctrines, etc. Maybe they're going down this road a bit further than they ever have before, but you can never trust deceivers and liars.

They call this a reboot, which strikes me as hilariously stupid since everyone knows that when you reboot a computer you are merely restarting it, and continue to use the same old operating system. Maybe they will claim, or already have, that they haven't just rebooted, but have installed an entirely new operating system, but I would say bullshit to that. No matter what cosmetic or structural changes they make, at the core it is still the same old corrupt belief system.

Here's a couple of metaphors I think make better sense:

How about the Yo-Yo series, where they continually roll out new policies that seem to grant far reaching freedoms, only to jerk on the string to bring back the yo-yos into the fold, over and over again.

Or how about Frankenstein's Extreme Make-Over series, where they try to 'surgically' correct all the deformities and defects in the monster they have unleashed into the world.

As you can tell, I'm pessimistic about this. If, for example, one of the fastest growing religions in the world, Mormonism, still continues to convince people that the fraudulent and absurd Book of Mormon is actually a holy book, then there will always be idiots somewhere who will come to believe that Berg was actually a prophet.

Re: Reboot!!!!
Seems to me a big thrust of Reboot--as much as I've analyzed thus far--is to dismantle the caste system of membership and reduce several layers of leadership. They're going to a flatter administrative structure, which is not unlike what happened with the RNR (in the beginning). M&P are still functioning over the group in a priestly role--claiming to mediate between the followers and God--which makes them like some Christian groups (e.g., Catholics & Mormons) and unlike some others, particularly the evangelical/pentecostal movement from which they sprang and to whom TF is closest to in their mission. Other evangelical/pentecostal groups will continue to shun and disavow them. Actually, so will the Catholics & Mormons, since they represent the only "legitimate" priesthood, pope and/or latter day prophet. If TF could get a major piece of real estate (like the Vatican or Utah), they might gain a little respect.

The TFI-WS fiscal accounting to the membership is interesting. I posted an analysis at Exfam. It's astonishing to me that leadership has such a poor handle on organizational finance. It's a very crude accounting, but it's a start. My granny always said, "The poor have poor ways." Small wonder TFI embraced the image of a beggar bride. I don't doubt for a minute, though, that M&P's grasp of their personal fortune is as backward as that of their organizational finance.

Re: Reboot!!!!
Here are the latest in the "series":
- Building Community
- Updating Family Terminology
- Applying the Law of Love
- Membership Accountability
- A Safe Haven for Our Children
- List of Mission-activity Restricted Countries
- Charter of the Family International (v4)

Re: Reboot!!!!
If they are so innocent, why would they address this subject?
http://www.xfamily.org/index.php/Reboot-16:_A_Safe_Haven_for_Our_Children
It's so obvious...
I always thought it was weird that they needed to defend themselves if they were not guilty.

Re: Reboot!!!!
I agree--- they do have things to repent of, as I do and you too! and those in authority have a bigger responsibility to face mistakes. Take Obama. He's opening the doors and allowing the enemy to take over America. he will be forever remembered as one of the great Traitors of the Republic! Makes me so angry, not that I'm so attatched to America anymore but it was nice to be born there and homeschooled and see the churches and good people. I'm in Taiwan now and I hope to ride out the coming great depression that is now mainstream headline news. It's such good timing that this whole reboot thing is happenign now, because now basically everybody I know is leaving, every home in existence around teh world is splitting, and everyone is going to college/getting jobs and having major major crisis of faith and dissilussionment.

It's the end of the world--- for Family members. It's also the End of the WOrld for Americans, for all of us who thought the world was going to continue as it was. This isnt' just a major change with the little Cult. It's every cult, everywhere. Look around you. Do you know any cults? How are they? Churches everywhere are experienceing major major changes. FEMA has been taking them over too, covertly, and that is mainstream news... everyone is leaving church, and finding Jesus on the road. They're experiencing the God Journey ( a really good podcast by the way, you can check out that book the SHACK and the podcast they producers made) ... I don't think it's any coincidence that the whole "Change Journey" thing popped up in Family Literature just recently, leading up to this. The similiarities are too many... very very obviously someone was reading The Shack and listening to The God Journey (ahh, here's the link-- http://thegodjourney.com/archives/) and passing on these very very Spirit Led ideas which Brad Cummings and Wayne Jacobson have been discussing. They are labeled as church busters and splitters... but for all you guys who got kicked out or left but kept your faith, this is definately for you. It was needed a long, long time ago, but at last the fresh breath of air is here. You don't have to worry about anything but just staying close to the Lord. Ahhh!

Re: Reboot!!!!
SeerFax,

This isn't a forum to discuss your political opinions or to talk about "Great Depression" paranoia.
Take a chill pill.
But you're right. The Reboot is a good thing.