The excerpt below completes Part Three of my Way story.
This is the fifth installment in the "Excerpt Series." When I posted the first excerpt, I wasn't planning on a series. It just kind of happened.
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In September, 1984, almost one year after moving back home, I married my current husband who was involved with The Way on a local level and had been one of my spiritual partners when I was in The Way Corps. He provided a stable anchor for my life for which I am eternally grateful. (Way Corps trainees financed their training by soliciting funds. Contributors were called "spiritual partners.")
Our lives revolved around The Way, raising our children whom we chose to home school, managing the challenges of me living with chronic illness, and helping to care for my quadriplegic father. Our first child was born in 1988 after a very rough pregnancy due to asthma. Our second child was born in 1990. After the children were born and through our home schooling years, I earned part time income through in-home childcare and later through sales with a few different multi-level marketing companies. For a number of years I worked part time at a large science center and then as a preschool music instructor.
When a believer sought counsel from their overseers the believer (in most cases) was expected to obey, not just consider, the counsel given to them. The Way taught, or at the very least strongly inferred, that to disobey leadership was to disobey God. So, my husband and I did not regularly approach Way leadership for specific counsel on personal matters. Rather, for the most part, we made our personal decisions in private and informed leadership if we deemed it appropriate. One example of that decision process was our choice to home school. Most Way followers did not home school, and it was not encouraged. We did not counsel with leadership regarding our decision, but we did get their unsolicited opinions from time to time.
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Between 1987 and 2000 there were four major crossroads when my husband and I were faced with whether or not to continue with The Way. Three of those crossroads coincided with three major Way exoduses when followers left in mass around 1987, 1989, and 2000. The other was in 1995.
At each crossroad we considered the possibility of an ex-Way splinter group, most of which continue with basic Way doctrine. Each time we concluded that "there is nothing better out there;" that is, outside "the Household of The Way." It never occurred to us that we could walk away from all Way-related structure and doctrine. Due to our deeply held beliefs we were blind to any other alternatives. (Click here to access links about some of the splinter groups and about The Way's decline.)
The 1995 crossroad was our most difficult. Our local Corps leadership, a married couple who were early Way Corps grads and much loved by the believers, were made "mark-and-avoid."
"Mark-and-avoid" was The Way's practice of shunning or excommunication. The phrase is condensed from Romans 16:17 in the King James Version of the Bible. The practice was a key factor in "keeping the Household pure," which was one of Martindale's obsessions. Oftentimes a believer was put on "probation" prior to the mark-and-avoid status. During probation the believer worked with their direct overseers to address the believer's offense(s), could not attend any Way functions, and was expected to tithe. Personal contact with Way believers outside their overseers was limited, if not prohibited. After probation, leadership decided if the believer would be allowed back into the fold or be made mark-and-avoid.
Prior to being designated mark-and-avoid in latter 1995, our local leadership were put on probation for about a year. For about ten months during their probation, my husband and I oversaw the local Fellowships. During that time our state leaders, a married couple who were also early Way Corps grads and well respected by the believers, became our direct overseers.
Throughout the ten months, one or both of our state leaders visited our home one to two times a month. We prayed together and ate together. They were always kind and uplifting. We trusted them. Furthermore, in 1994 and 1995 due to depression and chronic illness, I saw the wife regularly for professional counseling. She had her master's degree in psychology. She was whom I called when I went through a suicidal episode. Since she lived a two-hour drive away she immediately contacted the wife of the couple, who were later put on probation, to physically come to my aid in that moment. (Click here to read about that episode.)
In latter 1995, after about a year since the probation began, the couple who had been our local leaders were designated "mark-and-avoid." When my husband and I received the news via a late night phone call, I felt a sense of gloom. It was like a dark, hazy cloud descended. Up until our local leadership were put on probation they had shielded the Western Piedmont area of North Carolina from Martindale's most extreme dictates. The news via the phone call felt like a cancer had finally spread its tentacles into our once-shielded, happy Way bubble. The cancer had to be eradicated.
My husband and I had been in Fellowships with the couple for twelve years. We had shared many meals and prayer together. They had provided child care multiple times for us and us for them. Theyhad helped with my chronic health issues and had provided non-judgmental support when I AWOLed the Corps and after Dad's wreck. The he wife had come to my aid during the suicidal episode. The husband had officiated our marriage in 1984, our wedding was his first after he was ordained.
Yet, we chose to follow our state leaders' and our new local Corps leaderships' decisions to abide by the mark-and-avoid sentence. By that time, we had been serving with the new local Corps for a couple months. It was a heavy decision mixed with complex loyalties and emotions. A choice we later grew to regret. A choice which caused my heart to become crusty around the edges. (Click here to read a memoir piece that shares a bit about that time in our lives.)
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