The death of the Watchtower pre-study

by slimboyfat 29 Replies latest jw friends

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  unclebruce

  Elders™ often get a touch paranoid about lowly publishers™ studying™ together without oversight™. A few Elders™ in my old congregation™ were openly upset that pioneers™ recieved their own info from the pioneer school™.

  This friction between pioneer™ and Elder™ has always fascinated me. Pioneers are the 'blue eyed boys' of Watchtower land wereas Elders are always a bit sus. District and Circuit Overseers™ are much tougher on Elders™ than Pioneers™.

  I guess few become Pioneers™ for power whereas it's a prime motivator in striving to become an Elder™. Power really is the only game in town Hall™.

  unclebruce
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  XBEHERE

  This friction between pioneer™ and Elder™ has always fascinated me. Pioneers are the 'blue eyed boys' of Watchtower land wereas Elders are always a bit sus. District and Circuit Overseers™ are much tougher on Elders™ than Pioneers™.

  Unclebruce this is so true... pioneers are put on pedestals by the CO's especially. Our body always gets our a** reamed by CO for not working with the pioneers in service enough. If you are an elder and a pioneer you are all but guaranteed a part on the assembly. One other thing I noticed, its ok to be materialistic if you are a pioneer. At least in my area the pioneers have new, nice cars and dress to impress but nobody ever accuses them of being materialistic. F*cking double standards!!!
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  stillajwexelder

  Think of the Bethel family -they had to pre-study for the family study of the WT which itself was a pre-study for the Sunday meeting

  THAT FOLKS IS MY DEFINITION OF TEDIUM
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  JH

  I didn't need a pre study, I just underlined anything to look good.
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  blondie

  Think of the Bethel family -they had to pre-study for the family study of the WT which itself was a pre-study for the Sunday meeting

  When they canceled pre-study groups for most JWs, I pointed out that they still had the Monday night FAMILY STUDY.

  I was told it was a family study.........right, they were all related and lived under the same roof????

  They assign out the questions to brothers about 18 months in advance (usually only MS or elders) to give on the night of the family study.........before they even got the magazine. Only men answer..........

  Blondie
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  minimus

  Yes, the "pre-study" was considered something that had to be stopped because getting into groups before the official Watchtower study could possibly turn you into a Ray Franz type of an apostate! We used to do it in our Hall in the 70's and then suddenly the elders told us that we shouldn't do it but rather wait to study it together as a "united" congregation.
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  sweet tee

  I recall a few pre-study meetings we attended in our area. It was so much more fun and open than that drool that goes on at the kingdumb hell ... they wanted to kill the competition .

  sweet tee
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  daniel-p

  My favorite quote from a cartoon here on JWD: "The paragraph is telling us that we must trust in the paragraph!"
  This is the reason why no one pre-studies their WT anymore - because the articles are dumb.
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  Bumble Bee

  I remember in the early '80's when the new Canadian Bethel was being built, we had alot of the workers assigned to our hall. Several of the brothers got together and organized on Sunday evening a WT study for all the young people in the hall (maybe 18 and under). We had it at various houses and sometimes at the brothers that lived off site in rented houses. They made it fun - we'd always have goodies afterwards and just hang out. I don't remember if they were told to stop - or the building projects finished up and they moved on.

  BB
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  MerryMagdalene

  I remember pre-studying the Watchtower in the 70s on Saturday nights! My mom, a new "sister" she brought into the bOrg, her two kids and I would go to the home of an elderly widow and all take turns reading the paragraphs aloud, look up the scriptures, and underline the answers together, then have snacks. We even got to ask questions that weren't printed at the bottom of the page, and look up scriptures in different Bible translations

  If we kids were good, we got to watch the Wonderful World of Disney afterward. So we learned quick not to watch the clock or try to rush things along cos that would get our Disney movie cancelled real quick.

  ~Merry