Saturday morning books study & Field Service combined

by JH 24 Replies latest jw friends

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  james_woods

  Just an observation from the 1960s and 1970s - this Saturday Morning book study idea was completely unheard of. It was tuesday night or nothing.

  Believe it or not, some of the elders (my dad was one of them) who had lakeside vacation properties lobbied and got passed the amendment to move the service meeting/school to Thursday so that they could leave for the lake on Friday. Not popular with the CO, but it got done anyway.

  Also, way back in the early sixties, it seemed that almost every cong in Oklahoma City had the Public Talk and WT Study on Sunday evening rather than in the morning. As I recall, the reason was given that we needed to be out in service on Sunday mornings, and also that having "church" on Sunday morning was just too much like christendom. This got moved to Sunday mornings pretty much on a district basis when a new DO came to town and suggested that more people would be home if we bothered them on Sunday afternoon instead.

  Of course, in those days the circuit assembly was always 3 days, and I guess that got changed too.
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  undercover

  Also, way back in the early sixties, it seemed that almost every cong in Oklahoma City had the Public Talk and WT Study on Sunday evening rather than in the morning. As I recall, the reason was given that we needed to be out in service on Sunday mornings, and also that having "church" on Sunday morning was just too much like christendom. This got moved to Sunday mornings pretty much on a district basis when a new DO came to town and suggested that more people would be home if we bothered them on Sunday afternoon instead.

  I remember when the Sunday meetings were during the afternoon. I think they started around 3pm. In the winter, it would be dark when we came out.

  I remember playing sick one time so I could stay home and watch the Super Bowl (before they moved it to prime time). My dad offered to stay home with me so my mom could take the other kids to the meeting. He was sneakier than I was.

  It seems that I also remember a long time ago in a galaxy far away, when I was just a jedi youngling, that they even had an intermission between the public talk and the WT study.
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  Leolaia

  Super glad we never had to face this dilemma. Yick. For me, the book study was the best meeting to go to since it was half the length, more informal (sitting on sofas rather than hard chairs, you could get away with less dressy clothes), fewer people, held in a home closer to where I live, and sometimes even had snacks!

  The Field Service was held in the same home where we had the book study for many years, but fortunately never had it scheduled on a Saturday.
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  Leolaia

  Where I lived, two congregations shared the same hall and alternated when to have the Sunday meeting, but most of the time our congregation was stuck with the suckier afternoon meeting. I preferred the morning ones because then you have the rest of the day off. So sometimes we went to the other congregation's meetings when we wanted to go somewhere in the afternoon. And they were sure glad to see us too! LOL
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  blondie

  Actually, Sunday evening meetings were the rule rather than the exception during the 1920's, 30's, and 40's. My grandparents used to talk about how they went out in field service all day, inviting people to come that Sunday evening. Back in those days, people went to church Sunday mornings and would not have been home much but they went anyway, hoping to catch the "heathen." This way too people could go to church and the KH on Sunday and no one would be the wiser.

  Bible Students met on Wednesday evenings for testimony, and on Sundays to study the Studies in the Scriptures...if you have ever seen an older WT, there are no study articles.

  ***

  km 3/81 p. 1 Congregation Meetings—Part V: Benefiting from Public Talks ***

  Were you in attendance when the first organized series of public talks, as we know them, began in January of 1945?

  Well, I'm going off topic.

  Blondie