Are Circuit Overseers 'Toast'?

by metatron 9 Replies latest jw friends

  • metatron
    metatron

    If you are a lurking Circuit Overseer, or you know a
    C.O., you might want to think about updating
    resumes - or getting help with a career change.

    Why?

    Because the authority, privileges and employment
    of Circuit Overseers may be in doubt over the next
    few years.

    Please consider that the Society is likely to be
    deluged with legal woes for years to come. These
    lawsuits are likely to portray the organization as
    a unitary structure, a hierarchy, a neat chain of
    command stretching from the lowliest publisher,
    thru the elders, thru the C.O. upward to the Society.
    Thus, just like McDonalds getting sued for coffee
    that's too hot - the liability travels to the top,
    where financial rewards can be greater.

    Now, the Society has been doing a legal dance over this
    issue for years. For example, when the Circuit Overseers
    secretly READ VERBATIM the instructions for filling
    out a disfellowshipping form to bodies of elders,
    it should be apparent to anyone more than brain dead
    that they are trying to stop any chain of legal
    responsibility from getting to them. ("Never refer to
    the Society, or its legal counsel....).

    However, the Society is now confronted with a mountain
    of legal trouble, growing worse by the day. They don't
    have deep pockets like Catholics, so what can they do?

    How do they sever the chain of liability?
    Circuit Overseers!

    They may reduce their number, their visits, or limit
    them in other ways THAT ARE REAL AND DEFENSIBLE.
    Otherwise, the threat of local trouble moving up the
    ladder to the top never goes away.

    And their old methods of trying to maintain control
    by depending on the discretion and confidentiality
    of countless local brothers isn't going to save them,
    like it used to either. Why?

    Welcome to the Internet, Brothers

    metatron

  • TweetieBird
    TweetieBird

    Of course the phasing out of CO's will indeed be "new light" or "because many of the present CO's are aging and unable to keep up with the demands of the road, therefore, they will only be visiting each congregation once a year."

    Or they will appoint 1 elder locally to oversee the activities of 10 or so congregations, thereby eliminating the expense of traveling overseers. The poor elder will not only have to work fulltime to support his family but will now have the additional headache of hearing, not one congregations problems, but 10. I think they use to call them "city overseers." Anyone remember them? I don't think they still have them do they?

    Anyway, interesting thought metatron. I know several ex-CO's being cared for by the Society. When the lawsuits hit, and the money starts getting low, I wonder if they will put the care of the ex-CO's onto the congregation.

    Maybe the CO's and DO's should band together and file a class action suit for a pension/retirement benefits package.

    "By doubting we come at truth" -Cicero

  • Pathofthorns
    Pathofthorns

    I think this is highly unlikely. The Circuit Overseer arrangement is their greatest medium of control to keep all congregations as uniform as possible. It also is the medium by which the people in control get feedback from the grassroots level.

    Besides, the congregations care for the COs expenses for the most part so the cost to the Society is minimal. Maybe getting rid of DO's would be a more likely scenario. Same with Bethelites who become deadwood with increased outsourcing.

    Path

  • metatron
    metatron

    Well, maybe they made C.O.s sign a form like Bethelites
    pledging themselves as members of religious Order -
    to escape liability, of course.

    Whoever started the thought that the Society is like
    Jesus' illustration of the wineskins, hit the nail on
    the head (mixed metaphor??).

    They patch and patch and patch until the whole thing
    bursts.

  • Pork Chop
    Pork Chop

    Recommendations have been made that the Organization drop the 'traveling work' arrangement. Whether those recommendations are acted on remains to be seen. The Legal liabilities are pretty high.

  • JT
    JT

    TB :

    I don't think they still have them do they?
    ###

    they are still being used by the wt- in any city with usually a number of congo -

  • sf
    sf

    HA!

    Just this morning in yahoo I said "I smell Toast". Wow!

    sKally, i cant believe it's not butter though

  • anewperson
    anewperson

    About 1-2 years ago the German language website of Stephan Wolf (sewolf.com/infolink) noted in "Geruechte" (Rumors) that the WTS was considering dumping the COs but increasing control over rank-and-file publishers by training then sending in special elders to lord it over the rest who would report directly to Brooklyn. If this will actually occur or not who knows but what you say is a possibility. Already Brooklyn does this to some extent. For example if a congregation has major problems they'll sometimes send in usually 2 elders who do just that, elders some have called special agents for the WTS.

  • bluesapphire
    bluesapphire

    Metatron, the CO in my old circuit stated to the congregation that he had pledged a vow of obedience and one of poverty just like the Bethelites.

  • Amazing
    Amazing

    Hi Met: Certainly reducing or eliminating COs will have impact on organizational to local congregational connections as far as the oversight and monitoring --- but, the Elders are clearly the only link necessary to connect local actions to the Governing Body and the Watch Tower corporations.

    The Society/GB encourage and exhort men to reach out to be MS then Elder. The GB through the Society sets the qualifications, trains, monitors, and has ultimate appointment authority over each and every Elder. They continue directives, guidance, training of Elders, and remove them or delete them according to their organizational control. The Organized Book and Flock Book manuals make it very clear who is running the show --- the Watch Tower Society and its GB all the way down to the Elders.

    Now, if COs are moved out of the way in some attempt to break the chain of heirarchy --- then the appointment of Elders will no longer be through the CO when he visits, but directly between the GB/Society and the Elders --- and this will make the Elders even more direct agents of the GB than ever before. Amazing

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