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Tales from Training Centers

Category Archives: Tales from Training Centers

A Long Night’s Journey Through the ATI / IBLP System

24 April 2014, 06:00

Moderator

214

I grew up in Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute of America (ATIA, later renamed ATI) home school program from 1985 through 2005 — twenty years! I worked at five different Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) training centers run by Bill Gothard and his staff, as well as working at IBLP Headquarters in Oak Brook, […]

When Sexual Harassment at IBLP Headquarters Is Acknowledged

17 April 2014, 06:00

Moderator

I attended my first Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) Basic Seminar during my junior year of high school. It was interesting, although I couldn’t believe we were watching a video. My parents had been attending these seminars for years. They accepted Jesus at one in 1976. I did my part at the seminar, paying […]

Sacred Grooming, Part One: A Secretary’s Account of Life With Bill Gothard

20 January 2014, 06:00

Moderator

[Editor’s Note: The young woman referred to only as “she” and “her” in the following account is Meg herself, but she has written it in the third person. The author was twenty years old at the beginning of the events. The following is a true story.] A Beginning The snowy streets of suburban Chicago […]

Life Focus: The Price of a White Polo

21 November 2013, 06:00

Moderator

I could share countless stories of spiritual, physical, and mental abuse from my time spent in the Life Focus program. But one experience that stands out in my mind was when I was confined to the Prayer Room during Life Focus IV. The “scandal” that began a witch hunt started with a young lady from […]

Life Focus: A Sister’s Perspective

18 November 2013, 06:00

Carolynn

I was 13 when my parents chose to send my brother to Life Focus. Josh was the first in our family—at age 16—to experience an apprenticeship program, and the whole family was both excited and apprehensive. What would the Indianapolis Training Center (ITC) be like? (My parents attended a short admissions seminar there several years […]

Examining “Life Focus”

14 November 2013, 06:00

Rachel

A couple of years ago I heard that there was a program for young men in the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) called Life Focus. Apparently Life Focus came into existence right around the time I left ATI. When I heard some of my friends discussing it, I was intrigued and started asking around. While there […]

Why Not Confront Him Personally?

24 June 2013, 06:57

WendyA

So many people keep asking why those who have issues with Bill Gothard don’t talk to him about the problems. Those of us who tried have pretty much given up trying to explain. How do you explain, to a rational person, the dangers and frustrations of discussion with an irrational person? And I am sorry […]

Sonic Bloom: Untruth With An Agenda

21 March 2013, 06:00

Danielle Klueber

107

The author, other IBLP staff members and directors, and Bill Gothard in the Indianapolis South Campus green house

There is no denying that Bill Gothard has a persuasive way of presenting “newfound” products, ideas, and beliefs. Many trust that he is truthful in these things. They assume, as I did, that he would never purposefully deceive. During my time with IBLP (the Institute in Basic Life Principles) I was witness to a very […]

Parents in a Potemkin Village: Six Weeks in the Moscow Training Center

14 January 2013, 06:00

Diana Hall

A panoramic view of the Moscow Training Center assembled from four snapshots taken in Fall 1995

We entered the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) homeschool program when I was fifteen, and not much about my life changed. Our family attended functions here and there and added the Wisdom Booklets to our home school curriculum, but the more unique ATI teachings did not have much effect on us. Before we joined ATI we […]

Life Focus: Isolation Instead of Relationship

11 August 2012, 06:00

Moderator

As a teenager I was sent to an Advanced Training Institute (ATI) young men’s program called Life Focus. Life Focus was not explicitly advertised as a program for the troubled youth or “rebels” of ATI, but, functionally, that is what it was. The young men in Life Focus were regarded as and spoken to as […]