AssemblyBoard

Have you ever known anyone who just spoke in a string of Assembly clichés? While they were speaking, it all sounded good, but they really said nothing? Are you rejoicing? Have you put it at the cross? Feel free to donate those tired metaphors here.

Shin,

     There was a great collection of "assemblyisms" on the old "Rest For the Weary" BB.  Maybe if you request it, Arthur can send them to you or post them here...

al

Shin and Al:

disclaimer:  this is a weaving of phrases and anecdotes that I have heard from George Geftakys over the years at his various preaching times:

Now, brethren, you need to repent.  We have never been this way before.  Apparently you've lost your vision.
You need to pray the selfer's prayer before we can talk again.  After all, your actions speak so loudly that I can't hear a word you are saying.

Come on, brethren, do the will of God, or you'll miss out on the inheritance and be standing in the outer darkness.  The Lord knows those who are His, after all.
You know what your problem is?  You're carnal!!! That is why you don't understand this deep teaching, this true spiritual meat---you are but babes in the deep things of God.  

Hallelujah!  I SAID HALLELUJAH!!!!  Where are the "amens"?!  We are the 'amen people', so let's act like it!   Are you rejoicing?   I SAID ARE YOU REJOICING?!!!   Then let your face know it!!!  

Brethren, I have a special burden on my heart.  I got it straight from the throne while on my knees at 3:00 this morning.  I can do that because God gives me messages.
I have preached on EVERY verse in the Bible.   Even when I was so low that I had to stand on tiptoes to touch bottom,  God gave me light.  

Brethren, I want to say something.  Some of you in this meeting are worldly.  That includes some of you workers. You're losing your vision.  You want to compromise with your children, with the meetings.  You don't value the Lord's house, and you even think you are my peers.  Ha!  I HAVE NO PEERS!     I'm old enough to be your father, if not grandfather to some of you.  You can't replace me!  You can't fire me because I'm not a porkchop preacher.    I want all of you brethren to hear this:  YOU'RE NOT IN FELLOWSHIP UNLESS YOU COME ALL DAY SUNDAYS, WEDNESDAY NIGHTS, THURSDAY NIGHTS!!!!!!!!   Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I'm 76 years old, but I'm not winding down, I'm merely winding up.  Isn't that awful....AWFUL WONDERFUL!!!!
Some of you people are still sound asleep...when are you going to wake up?  If I was in Africa or in China preaching what I am preaching here the people would be shouting, weeping and repenting in the aisles.  The problem with you Americans is that you have so much.  And I must tell you, most of you Americans have no idea about history or the world.  But I (emphasis here) grew up in a European home, and I learned who I was.  I didn't want to bring shame to the family name.  Our names meant things to us, unlike the American pioneers who just named their children whatever happened to come to mind.  

All of my life I have been a man of heavy responsibility.  I pastored a boulevard church at 22 years of age.  But I saw all of you in my dreams.   Most of you came from good heathen backgrounds.  When I found you you didn't know your right hand from your left.  Your parents didn't teach you anything.  But you've been sitting under the ministry, and you have caught the vision, and God has illumined you.  

........(disclaimer)  I am about ready to break down laughing, and I'm in the library, so I must be careful.  I can laugh about this now,  because when I look back I see that George Geftakys and most of us were so full of unadulterated and unjustifiable bullcrap that it is surprising that so many people came to the seminars for so long.  Many were the times when I was so frustrated in the seminars because my heart and inner man were not responding with joy to the "messages" from George Geftakys.  Eventually I did not even ask for prayer regarding anything I heard from him, because nothing really spoke to me, except that I saw that this dude was starting to go off the deep end.

One thing that really used to amaze me...how people could smile and even appear to be full of joy when he would say some of the whoppers that he said.

Sorry I've gotten off topic, but here is my contribution.

Matt Sciaini

Matt,

     Brother, you said a mouthful!  I'm having migraine-grade flashbacks-- about 9.5 on the richter scale!

     You might want to be a little less crude in future references to the male bovine fecal matter we were all full of-- we are, after all, the Lord's peculiar people.  God is making silk purses out of sows' ears...

al

He was right about this.  Most of us did not know our right hand from our left re. Christianity.  Most of us were brought up by unbelievers, or in homes where we experienced a hypocritical Christianity, so were were fresh gound for the Geftakys assembly system.  And we learned another hypocrisy:



You know what a rut is, it's a grave with both ends dug out.
It's what you learn after you know it all that really counts.
You don't want to leave your change on the counter, now do you?
You want it all don't you?  And all the lively ones said "Amen!".
I wonder how he would have reacted if we had piped up and said what we were really thinking, "Noooooo!!!" in a groaning voice.

Marcia

How about, "it's better to burn out than rust out"?

Frankly, I would rather not do either.

GG was the creator of many of the clichés Assembly people used, so it's very on topic. They were quite funny in this context. I couldn't get over this one:

"I got it straight from the throne while on my knees at 3:00 this morning."

It sounds so wrong yet people hearing GG say that would say, "Praise the Lord."

Dave,

     Having now behind me some intimate knowledge of both experiences :P,
I tend to agree with you...

al ;)

Funniest line in Lion King 1 1/2 is when Rafiki goes all philosophical and uses one of George's favorite cliches, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Then Timon says he needs to quit reading fortune cookies.

Mo Rocca said on Vh1, "Being in a cult is like bungee jumping--you have to do it once in your life. You just haven't lived until you and 15 other people on the planet think they have all the truth."

It's not how you begin the race. It's how you finish the race that counts.

Royal Overcomers..

Heavenly Footmen..

Heavenly Breezes..

I was raised in dance halls...

We never had a bible in our house...

I am just a brother among brothers...

Oh the shame of it if I call on you to read and you're not paying attention...

There have been scoundrels in our midst who liked to imitate the way I take my glasses off and on...

I have no bank account...

What has the Lord shown you brother?

When I go to the dear saints house no matter what is served I just say "Excellent".

The saints in Greece are so worldly.

Europe is the dark continent now.

We never take a public offering.

The Lord provides for the work.

The offering is for the work of the Lord both here and abroad.

And all the lively saints said PRAISE THE LORD!

When I die I am going to need much mercy...

Sayings I remember.

The heavenly vision

The inheritance

Incorruptible blood (GG theology from seminars)

Satanic! (GG's endorsement of emminent literary critic Harold Bloom)

My odd collage piece where someone has a heavenly vision of clocks:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~evanss/Art/horloge.jpg

How about .."Its in the Book, not on my face"...GG must of been amazed everyday at his following!! He knew eventually he'd be found out. Re: his prophecy that all/ or most would forsake him. you have to remember he was very Charismatic and a Gifted speaker...How about.."when I got off the plane here I thought I'd landed in Disneyland..my indulgent American friends"...many were under his Spell...its got to be easier for people who were Christians prior to joining up with the Assm...It would then just be one of the many dangers, toils and snares and easier to see through...Then again a Great relief to know God is'nt this Task-Master...Gestapo type he was made out to be.

One leading brother in San Diego often quoted this as Scripture:
"Neither a borrower nor lender be. . ."

This it not from the Bible but Shakespeare: Hamlet I.iii.75

It must have come from GG's mouth and filtered down to him.

Oh yeah he really knew his bible well...You shall lend to many and not borrow...and give to him who asks of thee from matthew and what about the Hebrews borrowing  jewels from the Egyptians..thus plundering the Egyptians. BTW...Mercedes is fine for the Gold Lady, but I'd give her a driver in a Rolls and really go in Style!!!

I'm glad you like the Gold Lady. That sounds like an excellent idea, giving her a Rolls. I'll have to give her a few more cars, an Astin Martin, some diamonds, go bling bling all the way.

I have a lot more done than is on the website on this body of work but it isn't too late to add anything. The situation my narrator is in and the things that happen isn't pretty but I probably wouldn't have written this stuff if it wasn't for the messed up things in my lfe. The strange things in life gives interesting material.

There were some earlier posts by someone named Delia who beautifully wrote  a fictitious story based on her her experiences in the Assembly. Is this the same person as Delila? If so, I'd love to see it again. Is it on a website, or better yet, is it in print?

Shin,  Delila's Story is in the  Assembly Experience section. Theres part I,II and part III. and possibly on Geftakys site, although I hav'ent checked for it there I thought I saw the Title on the article list.....Summer.

Shin, Please when you add cars,make them convertibles its so much nicer with the breeze in your hair...Is the Gold Lady a 13 day blond or ala Natural??? Yes and add lots of bling!!! Very shiek...I thought I might be treading on hallow grounds with the GL nice to see your so open!!! I like that.

Thanks for the tips. She's neither blonde nor brunutte, but elegantly bald (with a halo to boot) and gold skinned. She's the archetypal diva with many manifestations : Josphine Baker, Marlene Dietrich, Audrey Hepburn, Nina Simone, Alek Wek, Grace Jones, etc.

Al:

Thank you for your response to my cliche-strewn post.

In reference to my use of the word "bullcrap",  I was intending to use a more direct term, but I guess what I used was direct enough to convey what came out of George Geftakys' mouth.  

The reason for such directness is because for YEARS I wanted to throw my shoe or hymnbook or something at him because he was saying nonsense and then he would turn to Scripture to attempt to legitimize it.  We did not feel the liberty to call black black, or white white,  and had been ever so subtly trained to doubt even our own minds when it came to the preaching of George Geftakys, or indeed, of anyone in leadership in our local assemblies.   The things that would have constituted unacceptable behavior for a garden-variety assembly member (and I am not saying they shouldn't) were OK for George Geftakys.

Let me give one example.

I remember sitting in a missionary convocation a couple of years back on some Sunday afternoon, when George came up with the bright idea of calling Nigeria so that Samuel could partake of the glorious convocation with the rest of us (never mind that while it was 4:00 pm in Fullerton it was midnight in Nigeria).  I found this rather strange.

Later on I spoke with another garden-variety brother like myself (though older and having two grown daughters) and we came to joking about calling each other at 2 or 3 am.  Eventually we came around to where we admitted that we wouldn't do that to each other unless it was really an emergency.  And THEN I said, "But brother George called Samuel in the middle of the night in front of several hundred people with seemingly no shame whatsoever.  How is that any different than you or I doing it?"  He said,  "Nice try, but it is not the same."    I don't think he would say that now.

Matt

Thanks Marcia!  :)

Matt,

     I hope you realize that my remark about "male bovine fecal matter" was posted tongue-in-cheek.  While I, myself, am much too spiritually mature to use a term like "bullcrap"  (indeed, I cannot even bring my fingers to touch the keys in a sequence that would produce the word "bullcrap"), nonetheless, I'm sure that no one will fault you for using "bullcrap" as a term descriptive of the old maestro's words.  But out of respect toward those of a more tender disposition than yours or mine, you may want to consider referring to his message as being composed of meadow muffins, road apples, or buffalo chips...  Your call.

al  :)  ;)  :D  ;D

Sermonettes for Christianettes.

All:

Not only were there ways of speaking, but ways of acting as well.  These are not, properly, cliches (sorry, am not sure how to make the accent) but TRENDS.

For instance... in the late eighties...

I had my Franklin planner....

later I got my JW bag....

These, I think were the only two trends I can think of in which I partook.....

but now, for more cliches......

The saints and the "ain'ts" (on ANOPs)

It's what you learn after you know it all that really counts... (taken from Harry Truman, 33rd president of the United States)

Odious and Soon-touchy (corruptions of the names of fine Christian women Euodias and Syntyche, in the New Testament)

Did you know that Paul was a southerner?  He was reckoning a lot, according to the KJV.

If you throw a rock down a dark alley and you hear a scream, that means you've hit something (courtesy of Tim Geftakys).

fallen by the wayside (not continuing in an assembly endeavor)

The secret to an afternoon meeting is....the joy of the Lord or a light lunch, depending on GGs whim.

I'll be lecturing to the angels for ten thousand years on the attributes of God (supposed to encourage us during seminars).

jaspers (referring to people that are not supportive of the old Geftakys ministry)

....oops, some more footage coming

.....check the mike........and.......

.....I'll tell you, friends, saints of the most high God, that the greatest testimony to Jesus Christ is to the God of changed lives......most of you I met when I was between the ages of 38 and 42 (uhhhh.......he's forgetting his audience again).......and God has been doing a great work all these years (I actually heard him say this on a tape FROM 1975, when the ministry had only been around four or five years).......let's pray that God will raise up testimonies in every community (as if He was not already working...this was a big issue for some people..there was doubt on the part of many as to whether God was working if the Assembly was not in a locale)......that God may get His increase.  Some of you here think that one church is as good as another...but God has established HIS TESTIMONY in Fullerton and wherever His people meet;  we're not just playing church(some of us were, but it was hidden from us).  

.....Is there a little cobweb in your life, or a little "cupcake" that is keeping you from truly surrendering all to God?  You don't want to miss out on the kingdom for those things, do you?  (yes, he actually said, "cobweb" and "cupcake")

Now I want to tell you something, brethren.....I have secrets that God has given me...and I don't share them with just anybody......brethren have to be faithful to know them (appealing to desire to be in the inner circle, wouldn't you say?) .....I know one time I told a brother some of the secrets that God had given me and he was really unfaithful....(I wonder what that means)...it was so sad......

...But I've been laboring in the kitchen of heaven, preparing a meal for you dear people.....

....and the Lord gave me a poem while I was at the throne (OK, I've combined a few things here).....

the poem is about "this-ness" (yes, he actually used that term once or twice)

...emptied fulness always full....(kind of a combination of Gertrude Stein and e.e.cummings sprinkled with holy water)

OK, more footage later...over and out....

no thanks for the memories????  ;)

Matt Sciaini

[size=20]UGH!!![/size]

...must...
              ...remember...
                                    ...not to eat...
                                                          ...before...
                                                                          ...reading...
                                                                                            ...here...

 :-\ :P :-X

Matt,
I remember seeing people at seminars in the mid-90's with their Franklin planners. I also remember George using the term "eucatastrophe," the joyful turning to the good, as he defines it, at another seminar (1996?). During another seminar, he mentioned that when he was younger, he wrote a Christian play and God did not want him to put it out. It seems to go with his oft repeated saying that he was raised in the dancehalls.

Al:

Holy bulimia!!!

I do also remember at one of the more recent seminars that GG said, "In that day, the day of the Lord's coming, will you be ashamed of me, brother?  Will you be ashamed of me, SISTER?  This before I or many of us knew that a few sisters had anything to be ashamed of concerning George Geftakys.

Matt

I tried using a Franklin planner when in the assembly.  It was always just frustrating.  Now, I actually use one regularly.  Once I figured out that I should plan based on my priorities, rather than GG or someone elses, it became a useful tool to me.

Of course, Franklin is a Mormon run company.

Yeah, let's start a list of things that were actually good ideas until Betty got ahold of it:

Franklin Planners
Accoutability
Life Together by Bonhoffer
Holistic Cancer Therapy
One Minute Manager
Christians living together
Youth Prison Ministry
Christmas Projects
Natural Foods and nutrition
Household chores
Books by M. Scott Peck
Child Training and Discipline

It's amazing how someones deeper life philosophy can suck the joy right out of something, if you let it.

David:

I actually "got a promise" for getting a Franklin Planner back in April of 1988.  Imagine what a complete rube I was!

I remember that I was excited about doing all those chart pages and making up all these high-powered lists for which the Franklin company provided the template.  When I shared this with a brother at the old Fullerton assembly, he just said to me, "why don't you just try to be a normal guy?"  If you knew me back then, you would know why he would say that.

This coming year, I will get some sort of date book to keep track of things, but I won't be doing the Franklin planner thing for a while if ever again.   It was indeed another item which spoke of assembly lemmingism and the herd mentality par excellence.

Matt

What was so funny about the planners is that I never saw anyone use them correctly.  They usually put in some events, and might even have a list of things to do, but I never saw anybody do the goals and that type of stuff, or even prioritize their TODO list.

Shane, on the other hand, used his planner in the most fascinating way.  He would write diagonally across the pages, just using it for notes (no correspondence to the dates).  He did make good use of old planner fillers that other people hadn't used.

Before Betty discovered Franklin Planners as the solution to why everyone couldn't keep up without getting sick, we used to be required to fill out scheduled.  It was a much simpler plan where we had to fill out a grid of how we spent our time during the week.

We would fill in work.
We would fill in meetings.
We would fill in making dinner (an all night affair), stewardships, etc.

In the end, we would be left with, perhaps two to three hours of discresionary time where we might, say, do our laundry, run to the store, or prepare for the meetings.  It was always kind of silly because when working full time and living in a training house, there was just no time left to schedule.

It's interesting you mention schedules.

I knew it was time to leave the Champaign group when one of their newly minted "responsible brothers", a person loathed by practically everyone atttending there and a notorious puppet of Betty Geftakys, asked me to give him my schedule.  I looked at him as if he had completley lost his  mind.

Can you imagine the unbelievable hubris?

This guy would come to my apartment which was next door to the then brother's house and spend countless hours on the phone comlaining to Betty about the decisions Bill Bradbury was making in the "work".
I always wondered why he never took matters up with Bill himself instead of running to complain to Betty.
It got to the point that whenever he showed up I would take take the opportunity to absent myself from the scene. It was quite amusing listening to his alternate wheedling and whimpering.

( I am now starting to wonder if he ever did pay me for those calls to California... ;D)

These kinds of fellows took the concept of assembly "leadership" to startling new lows... :)

(Last I heard this guy and his family were still having meetings with the kids "bringing minsitry")

The other responsible leading brother at the time really came to a sorrowful state. I felt quite sorry for him as I think inside he was really a decent guy. They really ruined him.


I guess it was common back then for grown men and women to have surrogates telling them how and where to spend their time. It was pitiful... ???
Verne

Matt, Where are the mispronounciations??

It's not tiptoes, it's tippytoes...
And not mischievous, but mischevious
etc. etc.

Sharon:

Thank you for reminding me!

Here are a few more:

"somewheres else" for "somewhere else"

pronouncing the "h" in herb

"Morales" for   Morelos (the state in Mexico of which Cuernavaca was the capital

"Otupko"  for Otukpo, Nigeria (actually, when I've checked out atlases for this city, it is generally listed as "Oturkpo")

Frankly, though these things bothered me, they bothered me less than the stories that GG launched into at convocations.   He would go on and on about people whom he knew and all that.  You were probably present for the infamous call to Nigeria during one Sunday afternoon convocation.  There was no way that I or probably almost anybody else in the old assembly could have gotten away with calling someone at midnight their time just so the dear saints could hear his voice.   But old GG did it.  

Matt

Matt,

Remember, "two snaps of a gnat's wing"?

Thomas Maddux

Oh yeah!
I remember thinking:
"I wish you could finish your sermons that fast!"   ;D
How about his admonition to us, in the midst of his tiresome and interminable tomes, to:

"not leave our change on the table"? ::)

I know what yer thinking...
Verne

Tom:

Yeah, how could I forget it?  

Not that the phrase itself is evil, but I guess it helps to relive the lighter side of Geftakysland.

I can remember one seminar where it was quite warm and that old GG made a big deal about taking off his tie during a message and thus giving carte blanche for the other brothers to do the same.  (Wow, what liberty!)  ::)  I left mine on and caught some ribbing for it.  I was told that I was a "rebel" (it was from a brother famous for joking, so I took it somewhat in stride). This was not very long before the event (01-19-03).

How about....

I'm not winding down, but merely winding up!

This brother is now saying what I've been saying all along.

Most of you were good heathen...(aside)  I think he was full of it on this one for sure.  Many of the people that got involved with the assembly were already saved, albeit mostly newly saved.  Some were from Protestant if not evangelical backgrounds.  

...Over the years GG forgot his audience, and kept repeating the same stuff over and over again.  I wonder if he was simply frozen in time in his mind, or if he had long ago lost contact with reality due to his cover-up of sin.  (or both)

I can't think of any more cliches at the moment.  Maybe you can supply some oldies but baddies, since our times there overlapped by only three years or so.  

Matt