Are Public Talks Really Public? (page 2)

blondie

In days gone past, there used to be handbills with the name of the local speaker and the title that you could share with students and people at the door, inviting them to come on Sunday. With some talks there would even be a campaign going door to door just to hand out invitations. Now if they have handbills, they are generic ones with the time, date, and location of the meetings and few JWs use them.

The public talk also used to not start with a song an prayer so that people from other religions did not feel uncomfortable. There used to be a 15 minute break between the talk and the WT study to allow for convenient exit by the "public."

The public talks used to be topically designed for the public; now the coordinators pick talks for the "encouragement" and problems of the local congregation.

Blondie

BluesBrother

Blondie is right on the button again.

I recall when the Public talk had no Religious song or prayer and was separated by a 5 min break before the WT study so anybody could leave without being embarrassed by an act of worship . The older Bros used to tell me when they used to take the talks out into the Public, it that case down on the beach and then they would deal with hecklers (sounds like fun!)

Come to that the Circuit Assemblies used to be local and strongly advertised to get new ones in - now they are cloistered away at an Assembly Hall out in the countryside where you only get to be invitation

But Beep Beep is right. They do like new people to attend and the talk is usually the first meeting that they introduce new 'studies' to.

minimus

I think that if a person off the street came to a Public Talk, "designed for the publc", they'd have no idea what the hell the speaker were tallking about. It's all about supporting "The Organization". A guy off the street would need a code book to figure out what Witnesses were really saying.

Bonnie_Clyde

I remember the public talks also when they were truly "public." We did not own Kingdom Halls in those days, and our congregation would often target an outlying village, rent a room maybe above a police station or township hall, and they would canvas the area passing out personalized handbills with the location and the name of the speaker. I heard that once they actually had a meeting at a park.

I was young then, but I do remember that we actually did get people to come to the public talk.

Blueblades

When I was assigned to give a Public Talk as an outgoing speaker to other Congregations the brother who invited me to talk would ask me to address the area where the congregation needed some help. So I had to spin some parts of the talk toward that particular need. Hence, the talk would be geared for the most part to the congregation not the public.

I was assigned to give a couple of special public talks to my own congregation. All together I had worked up about 15 different talks outlines covering a variety of topics. Before the internet I did it old school, legal pad and number two pencil. Then used an old type-writer to finalize it.

Blueblades

James Free

Sorry the door is open to everyone the last time I was there

The WT do like 'interested ones' to attend, but it is not true that the door is open to all. Kingdom Halls are private places, not public, and the body of Elders can deny access to anyone they want. On occasion that's what they do.

As for the contents being for the public, the outline is designed that way. However, the speaker will usually treat the talk as a larger 'Instruction Talk'. This is because he knows that 99.9 pecent of the time there will be no members of the public in attendance. He is usually preaching to the converted, and soon slips into 'theocratic speech', so much so that a genuine member of the public will not understand. 'faithful and discrete slave'? what the f... is that? (Actually the rank and file don't know the official answer to that one!).

inquirer

Virgochik

If the public was really welcome at the talks, the local Kinkdumb Hells

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Kinkdumb Hells -- LOL!

inquirer

drew sagan
If they where REALLY public talks, why not a sign in front of the hall telling the public what the talk will be each week?

The reason is of course that they prefer the "trickel in" method, where individual new members are coached into attending the Kingdom Hall. There is nothing EVER done to let the anyone know that the Hall is a public place on sunday morning.

Our hall invited the pubilc down after it was built to come and see the new building, but that was one day. How many thousands of days have passed since then? It's just NOT an inviting place, it's not designed to be.

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inquirer

(CAPITALS IN THIS POST IS NOT SHOUTING, BUT SHOWING EMOTION)

Yeah! Thanks for all the input your people! NEVER THOUGHT OF ANYTHING LIKE THIS!!!

YEAH, IF THEY SAID FAITH AND DISCREET SLAVE -- WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Is that BDSM or what? :) Why would a slave be descreet? I should research on that term "slave." Other Bibles use the word "servant." Slave sounds so archaic...

The private meeting talk (:D) is too hard to understand because JW's always rush through the meetings. I think a "worldly" person would have a heart attack looking up all those Scriptures the male public talker would be dictating to look up. Even I had trouble doing that at times, particularly in the New Testament with those tiny books like Philemon. I wonder with the home churches in Apostle Paul's era, how they would have done it. I bet they would have been more casual. The scrolls were probably to expensive for everyone to have copies, and they probably would have shared. allthewordswouldhavestucktogetherlikethiswithnopunctuationatall

KW13

At our hall the elders were in panic cos a man came in and sat at the back who no one knew. In the end an elder walked over and asked what he wanted and by the end of the conversation the man left.

Are Public Talks Really Public?

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