Shepherding Movement

So William Branham had many campaign managers as he changed his stage persona from time to time to time, and one of those was Ern Baxter.

Aaron Baxter, one of the Fort Lauderdale Five of the Shepherding Movement.

In a previous podcast with Jenny, I went through some of that history.

I wanted to talk to you today, based off of your experience with Youth with a Mission, about discipleship.

Because for me, this is critically important when you think of discipleship as it relates to the youth.

For those who are unaware, the shepherding movement was this discipleship program that was really structured like an authoritarian pyramid.

You had shepherds shepherding the shepherds, and then those people would go all the way down to the rank-and-file member, and people were submitting full authority to these people who were their disciples.

i hate to use the word but it was overlords they had overlords and so i'm trying to picture a world where that is safe for children to be in that type of environment youth and especially in the moldable years up until about the mid-20s how that would impact them because what happened in the united states is it got exposed as very destructive and this turned into a mess that John Wimber and a few others tried to unravel and bring the charismatic movement back into unity, but it really didn't quite work because it was so destructive.

This was bringing in people like Derrick Prince, Don Basham, A.A. Allen.

If you go from the 1960s into the 1970s, this is about the time the shepherding movement starts to form.

And the shepherding movement had William Branham's campaign manager, Ern Baxter, who Four others were joining together to create this authoritarian structure, and they were claiming spiritual authority, not only over the spirits, but also over the people, which was a little bit disturbing.

Well, this eventually transitioned into around the 1980s through the 90s.

now ordinary believers have that same authority.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.

I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at william-branham.org. And with me, I have Kim McBride, former member of Word of Faith, New Apostolic Reformation, and the Shepherding Movement.

Kim, it's good to have you on, and that's a mouthful, word of faith, the Apostolic Reformation shepherding.

I went to a picnic one time, and I talked to this guy who, I think he described himself the same exact way, and he had some very good memories, fond memories of being in each of those things, and he had some very triggering, troubling memories of being in each of those things.

They would have meetings every several months that were nationwide.

People had moved from all over the United States to be there from this person that used to be on TBN and I did look it up and it was a fact he had been on TBN and very charismatic.

He was into the shepherding movement big time.

Anyway, me and this new husband that I married, we went down there.