Gwen Shamblin Lara 11: Cloudy with A Chance of the Holy Spirit

[NarcissismKills]

2 hours ago, SuperNova said:

This is disturbing. It's weird that something in her closet would be to a young girl's taste, much less fit. I find it to be an incredibly lazy and condescending gift as well. There's exactly zero effort involved in opening the closet to give away cast off clothing. All Gwen really did was save herself a trip to Goodwill, or rather the RF equivalent because God forbid she give something to people who are actually less fortunate. 

Gwen Shamblin seems to suffering from a severe case of that mental illness that makes grown women compete to be tinier and cuter than their own daughters and, in this case, grand-daughters, all for the sake of attention. Whereas we don't think she's at all cute, it's clear that Gwen values being picked up and tossed around like a child. Given the fact that she never discusses her home life as a young girl, she likely was raised in a sexist or otherwise toxic environment. She may have had issues with her brother being favored over her. She shows clear symptoms of a lack of intrinsic self-respect. I guess I am just trying to say that she's really messed up. 

[ManyGoats]

3 hours ago, formergothardite said:

One thing Gwen did is totally change her devotionals. It went from her being non-stop The Growl and saying you should spend your whole day searching for hunger, to, especially for awhile, dropping all mentions of The Growl and hunger. She has been adding it back in but it is nothing like it used to be. They also removed pictures based on discussions here. They edited a live chat to later take out things that we pointed out made Gwen look bad, like how she admitted to drinking too much. She removed her "What I eat in a day" video after we discussed it. And when members had pictures and videos up that revealed things she didn't like discussed they were quickly taken down when we discussed them. 

It is very obvious they do monitor this thread and Gwen edits how she presents herself based on what is said here. Her devotionals have still not gone back to how they were in the beginning, all about worshiping hunger and how it is perfectly fine to only eat tiny bits every 36 hours. 

But, dang it, she's STILL not combing that rat's nest out of her hair. That's what I want to see!!

[Tatar-tot]

17 hours ago, Xan said:

Gwen's 64 now, I think.  Joe's about 7 years younger.

So, she's in her sixties, wears clothing made for twenty-somethings, has the hair of an abbreviated Cousin Itt, and looks like she suffers from anorexia.  And she and her failed-actor husband try to pretend that they are genuinely in love by fake bull fighting and dancing around their house in front of cameras.

I can understand why she's addicted to the power and money.  What I can't understand is how anyone would fall for it.

She pays for his hobbies:  flying, hunting, sun bathing.  She pays for his hair.  She pays for his clothes.  She pays for his cars.  
He pretends he is Richard Gere and  is starring in  “American Gigolo.“

 

[SuperNova]

4 hours ago, formergothardite said:

It is very obvious they do monitor this thread and Gwen edits how she presents herself based on what is said here. 

They've scrubbed photos of Elizabeth after we discussed how sick she looks. They edited the proposal video as well. 

I agree that the biggest change is the scaled back devotionals. Sometimes I wonder if that's a good thing. We are basically telling Gwen what is unacceptable outside of her insular bubble and this could potentially make her devotionals more palatable for new recruits. 

[WeirdHarold]

2 hours ago, Tatar-tot said:

She pays for his hobbies:  flying, hunting, sun bathing.  She pays for his hair.  She pays for his clothes.  She pays for his cars.  
He pretends he is Richard Gere and  is starring in  “American Gigolo.“

 

I'm curious about the plane.  It's registered to Volare LP, which seems to be in an "active-suspended" state by the Tennessee Secretary of State as of 4/23/2019 due to "invalid agent".  The registered agent shown on the TN SoS website is Brandon Hannah, but no other members of the limited partnership are listed there.

That is, if I have the correct plane.

Edited December 27, 2019 by WeirdHarold
Clarification

[RFSurvivor_2]

13 hours ago, SuperNova said:

I agree that the biggest change is the scaled back devotionals.

It appears that they (effectively) stopped posting updates on Remnant Fellowship News as well. The website itself is still running; however, it’s been over 2 months since the last update was made. 

Edited December 27, 2019 by RFSurvivor_2

[AmazonGrace]

Because the greatest love of all is happening to me, i found the greatest love of all inside of me.....

That was the musical hour. Now for the weather report. Strong winds are approaching from the northwest and may tear some trees off their roots but fear not, it is temporary, and those trees will be back growing in their usual place in no time. 

Spoiler

 

[formergothardite]

Has Gwen ever seen a tree blown "out of position"? Does she realize that when it is knocked down by the wind it is a permanent thing?

[formergothardite]

1 hour ago, RFSurvivor_2 said:

It appears that they (effectively) stopped posting updates on Remnant Fellowship News as well. The website itself is still running; however, it’s been over 2 months since the last update was made. 

They also stopped doing the live chats where people could ask questions and Gwen would answer them(or attempt to in her rambling way).Even when they would remove and edit out parts, these chats still showed what Gwen was truly like. She couldn't help but give out dangerous advice that was essentially "Don't eat."

 

[throwaway9988]

15 hours ago, SuperNova said:

Sometimes I wonder if that's a good thing. We are basically telling Gwen what is unacceptable outside of her insular bubble and this could potentially make her devotionals more palatable for new recruits. 

I had the same thought, and I think we should keep doing what we’re doing!
 

With regard to the devotionals, I dont think too much has changed because of us. Gwen has been making content for decades; certain topics will come and go and come back again, and the length will wax and wane, but the crazy cult lingo, illogical ramblings, and awful analogies will always remain. If Gwen ever restrains herself enough to hide the crazy (which she is incapable of doing anyways), then she would lose her claim to being the only true church and become too similar to other protestant churches, which would hurt her recruitment just as much. 
 

Gwen can try to hide Michael and Elizabeth, but trust me, hiding them only makes her cult members more acutely aware that something is rotten within the Remnant Fellowship leadership. When Michael previously “struggled,” they tried to pretend like it never happened and never talk about it...so of course it was fascinating and all the members were dying to know more and secretly talk about it as much as possible while maintaining their typical holy, gossip-free fake decorum. And having leaders clearly be hypocritical while Gwen fails to publicly address it is so much more damaging than anything we could expose on this site. Regardless, Elizabeth can’t be hidden forever since she’s the next Gwen, so that will take care of itself with time. 
 

It seems likely they have deleted some photos or edited some videos based on what we say here, but remember that they are super image-conscious, have people monitoring their own members’ social media, and have a rigid hierarchy that forces most of them to obey the whims of a few. Pictures were getting ordered to be deleted 24-48 hours after being posted long before their cult was ever discussed on this site. So it’s hard to say exactly how much craziness we are helping them hide.

 

Obviously they do monitor what we say here because they have responded in the past and tried to figure out who some of us are. And they have tried to sue people on the internet before (and lost), so they may be reading what we write through that lens as well, although I’m sure they have been disappointed if they have been looking for anything libelous in our threads. We always make it clear when we are speculating, when we are opining/critiquing, and, when we are making factual statements, we always make it clear what our evidence is (personal experiences, quotes from documents or videos we find online, etc).   Since, unlike them, we think for ourselves and don’t blindly believe things without evidence, this really has never been an issue in any of our threads.
 

Ultimately, I don’t think what Remnant Fellowship gains by monitoring this site even comes close to outweighing how damaging to their cult it must be to have their bad ideas critiqued and their hypocrisy exposed all over the internet.

Edited December 27, 2019 by throwaway9988

[NarcissismKills]

3 hours ago, RFSurvivor_2 said:

It appears that they (effectively) stopped posting updates on Remnant Fellowship News as well. The website itself is still running; however, it’s been over 2 months since the last update was made. 

There are probably several reasons for the lack of new content on their websites. One reason seems to be an ever-increasing paranoia...no unscreened visitors, no unscreened viewers of the "assemblies" or of the "You Can Overcome" fake tv show, and no unauthorized contact with strangers. Another reason is most likely the goal of monetizing every possible shred of dubious "content". I predict that the current trend of the Remnant Fellowship becoming less visible online will continue. Even the Live with Gwen and Joe "show" will eventually be hidden behind a pay wall which will serve the dual purpose of both screening and fleecing viewers. At least that's my hunch. 

[throwaway9988]

Good, let them become obscure again. Fewer people will discover their nonsense and fewer lives will be ruined.

[Blue]

On 12/24/2019 at 9:21 PM, ManyGoats said:

They would be hard-pressed to claim they don't celebrate. "Life with Gwen and Joe" has two recent videos about what they do at Christmas.

I see that for this year - I was just curious how it's evolved over the last 10-15 years. There was a time when our family actually pulled us aside to discuss how they weren't going to do gifts anymore for Christmas, because Christmas is pagan and they were focusing on the "Festival of Lights" because that was celebrated by God's people (or something like that - it was a LONG time ago). They still got small gifts for our kids because they didn't think the kids would understand, though to be honest, I told them not to bother - the girls would be fine and unless they were handing out gifts to everyone except them, they wouldn't notice. BUT, like everything else, it's possible that Gwen never said to do that... that our family simply took something she said to the extreme. 

Then this year, our family is exchanging gifts with each other and us, and having a Christmas tree and making a big deal of the holiday like they didn't a few years ago. Just curious.

[ManyGoats]

43 minutes ago, Blue said:

I see that for this year - I was just curious how it's evolved over the last 10-15 years. There was a time when our family actually pulled us aside to discuss how they weren't going to do gifts anymore for Christmas, because Christmas is pagan and they were focusing on the "Festival of Lights" because that was celebrated by God's people (or something like that - it was a LONG time ago). They still got small gifts for our kids because they didn't think the kids would understand, though to be honest, I told them not to bother - the girls would be fine and unless they were handing out gifts to everyone except them, they wouldn't notice. BUT, like everything else, it's possible that Gwen never said to do that... that our family simply took something she said to the extreme. 

Then this year, our family is exchanging gifts with each other and us, and having a Christmas tree and making a big deal of the holiday like they didn't a few years ago. Just curious.

Ah, I see. Thank you for all the background information.

[freefromthin]

On 12/23/2019 at 6:39 PM, throwaway9988 said:

So I've been using this soap called Dr. Bronners, and I noticed that every square inch of the label on these soap bottles is completely covered in hyperreligious, nearly-schizophrenic ramblings that are honestly a spot-on Gwen Shamblin impersonation.  I found the label text on the internet in order to share it, since the writing on the label is really tiny (it has to be, to fit this whole whacko religious manifesto on a single soap bottle).  Just imagine Gwen's stupid, grating voice reading the insane cult lingo on the label and her followers telling themselves how deep and life-changing it all is; that's every Wednesday and Saturday in Remnant Fellowship.  Unfortunately, the soap is actually really good stuff, so I have decided to just immediately rip the label off of every bottle that I buy so that the ramblings don't break my brain each morning in the shower.

I used to love that soap (till my skin went haywire), so of course I was quite interested in seeing the label all typed out. I thought I'd read it, but I could not...

[Marmion]

7 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Because the greatest love of all is happening to me, i found the greatest love of all inside of me.....

That was the musical hour. Now for the weather report. Strong winds are approaching from the northwest and may tear some trees off their roots but fear not, it is temporary, and those trees will be back growing in their usual place in no time. 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

21 hours ago, SuperNova said:

They've scrubbed photos of Elizabeth after we discussed how sick she looks. They edited the proposal video as well. 

I agree that the biggest change is the scaled back devotionals. Sometimes I wonder if that's a good thing. We are basically telling Gwen what is unacceptable outside of her insular bubble and this could potentially make her devotionals more palatable for new recruits. 

Nearly all cults divide information into insider vs. outsider doctrine .  The harder "meat " of the message for the insiders , and the easier digested "milk" for prospectful outsiders , and new recruits .  https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch#Usage_by_cults   It falls under the category of information control .  https://freedomofmind.com/bite-model/  What we do or don't do will have no impact in that regard . Remnant Fellowship is ultimately an outgrowth of the International Church of Christ , which has been doing this sort of thing for several decades .  https://freedomofmind.com/international-churches-of-christ-icoc/  

[throwaway9988]

Has Gwen ever stated which sect of the church of christ was so formative to her?

[ManyGoats]

1 hour ago, throwaway9988 said:

Has Gwen ever stated which sect of the church of christ was so formative to her?

I'm sure someone who knows will give you the answer to your question but I'd be surprised if she credits any church. I think she'd say she's gotten all her theology straight from God.

[RFIntrigued]

Her background is church of Christ which is not the same as international churches of Christ. I’m not sure about her theology. 

[AmazonGrace]

Not going to post today's dejavutional  because this exact same thing was there recently. .Or else something that recycled the exact same phrases in a slightly different order. Yay for recycling. 

Gwen thinks all sins are just a component of hate.   God is buidling Castles of Love and a Super Community of Pure Love, separating love from hate,, good emotions that feel good from bad emotions that feel  bad.  Because that's how good and evil work:  you can't feel bad for any reason if you're a good person. God created a hole in your heart so he could fill it.  Pure love is the most influential substance in the world, and God's is building a Kingdom  that is more formidable than any nation known to man.

Anyway, you already know all this. but if you still want to read it here's the link https://www.gwenshamblinlara.com/the-super-community-of-pure-love/

[AmazonGrace]

I lied.  I'm going to post it for comparison.

The reason Gwen feels like she is a parrot that regurgitates the same phrases  in different order over and over again is because she is a parrot that regurgitates the same phrases in different order over and over again. 

Gwen today:

Spoiler

 

The Super Community of Pure Love

December 28, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

Love is a legitimate solution that ends so much suffering that a human can migrate toward inexpressible joy, which of course ends man-on-man crime. It is essential to know that the Genius God created the empty spot in the heart so that He could fill it. But why is He even wanting to fill an empty hole in the heart that He created? It is so He can fill it with love. Why would God do such a thing? Here is the answer: how do you feel when you adore someone? It is the most beautiful feeling in the world. Likewise, hate is the most miserable, disheartening and depressing feeling in the world. It stands to reason that if man recoils from pain, how much more so would the God of the Universe desire to separate out good from evil, love from hate, self-evaluation from projection and judgmentalness—with no in-between.

Not only is He separating out love with all of its glorious components and hate with all of its miser-able components of judgmentalness, pride, debauchery, lust and greed, but God is taking the love and building a Super Community consisting of Pure Love that will be way beyond our imaginings and more formidable than any nation known to man. Think about this: God is building a Kingdom based on Pure Love—the most powerful, influential substance in the world. But more importantly, He is separating out the beautiful, positive, warm, endearing and delightful emotions that feel best, and severing them from the worst hateful emotions in the world.

God is preparing a castle of love for each of us who choose this love and righteous life with Him! Here is a most foundational Truth…the eternal purpose/plan of God: God is separating love from hate and building a Kingdom of Love, so that His Kingdom can come on Earth as it is in Heaven, according to Jesus’ prayer. He will destroy hate in the end and leave only love behind, so it is what is in your heart and soul and mind that matters. What have you filled this empty hole with?

 

Gwen in August:

She's like a child who cuts out words and sentences from articles and glues them on paper in new combinations. 

[RFsurvivor]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

She's like a child who cuts out words and sentences from articles and glues them on paper in new combinations. 

I really enjoy this mental picture. Gives me a good laugh

[formergothardite]

21 hours ago, throwaway9988 said:

With regard to the devotionals, I dont think too much has changed because of us. Gwen has been making content for decades; certain topics will come and go and come back again, and the length will wax and wane, but the crazy cult lingo, illogical ramblings, and awful analogies will always remain. If Gwen ever restrains herself enough to hide the crazy (which she is incapable of doing anyways), then she would lose her claim to being the only true church and become too similar to other protestant churches, which would hurt her recruitment just as much. 

While Gwen repeats herself, something @AmazonGrace showed in today's devotionals, she has absolutely not gone back to how her first devotionals are. They have changed significantly, even when her current ones mention her dieting, it isn't like the old ones. 

When we first started discussing her daily devotionals it was easy to go back and read the old ones, I did that and almost every single one I read was some variation of this. This is all she posted about.

Quote

All I want you to focus on is the growl. The growl is God speaking to you. You can literally find God Almighty with a growl, and that is why you will want to wait.

and this:

Quote

You were so excited wait­ing on that growl. You were so focused on finding the growl and finding the full, that suddenly you looked up and you had lost weight, and it was the most exciting thing you had ever done in your life

and this:

Quote

You take the Way of Escape, push the food away, and you are immediately back into waiting for the next growl.

Quote

Waiting on the growl is like finding God, meeting up with God every day, several times a day. 

Quote

You wait for the growl…all day long you are focused on finding the growl.

Some of this stuff was from her FB page which she immediately deleted and from what I can tell she doesn't post stuff like this anymore. Gwen can absolutely contain herself enough to keep from posting her tips for starvation.  Within a matter of a week or so Gwen dropped these non-stop worship The Growl devotionals. She stopped posting her daily devotionals for a bit and then came back minus teachings about how starvation is really God. How she justifies doing this to her minions, who knows? But they seem to mindlessly follow no matter what. They were completely thrown for a loop when they showed up here. 

Even Gwen's WD posts are now super bland and lacking her love of hunger. Absolutely nothing like the old stuff. 

Quote

As we go into this week, set your mind to make the next few days totally focused and pure. Think thru every possible test and be content with less.

Skimming the old threads my favorite things I had forgotten is how Gwen totally didn't understand the poem The Road Not Taken, to the point where she couldn't even get the name correct, yet claimed it was significant for RF. And that she claimed to have predicted 9/11 and that it wouldn't have happened if she was president. She only made her claim of predicting 9/11 AFTER it all happened, yet anyone who questioned the idea she had predicted it was silenced. 

 

[ManyGoats]

>>>You wait for the growl…all day long you are focused on finding the growl.

Ugh! How depressing is that? Not to mention contradicting the idea that your focus should be on God. And might I add, you don't have to focus on "finding the growl." You don't have to find it at all. When your tummy growls, you know it. Focusing on waiting for it just reinforces your obsession with food.

I do find it interesting that, of all her followers, only Elizabeth is unhealthily skinny like Gwen is. The rest of them look normal. The Martins seem to be her right hand couple and Jennifer looks healthy and beautiful. And she has great hair! 

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by ManyGoats

[throwaway9988]

Ah, I didnt know she had immediately deleted those things. What a snowflake! But I do expect the posts about the growl and starvation tips will be back eventually though. Those topics are just too fundamental to her diet and her cult to be discarded. She seems to make runs of several devotional posts on the same topics, and it all depends on whether she is using her many years of weigh down books or her later books as source material for that run of posts.