ANT TAKERS
WERE THERE ANY AUXILLARY/SPECIAL PIONEERS IN YOUR COMGREGATION?
by badboy 5 Replies latest jw friends
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freetosee
Yes, my congregation had the "pioneer spirit", so we were told. Since it is an English-speaking cong in Germany we had special pioneers serving in our hall in preparation to their Gilead training. We had about 10-12 reg. pioneers and quite a few auxiliary pioneers. The instructor for the German Gilead branch is a long-time DO who was also assigned to our cong in order to improve his English. Brothers who have graduated from Gilead and were assigned to branch work also spent some time in our hall. Due to that we had lots of brothers passing through our hall. In the early days of our congregation we had mainly English and American congregation members, but this has changed over the years due to the change of service territory (US UK military moving back home after the wall came down). Today the vast majority of cong members is African. fts
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blondie
Why the differentiation between auxilliary and special pioneers.
Auxiliary pioneer usually for short periods of time, one month or a few months (regular auxiliary pioneering is that signing up for a certain period of time) but this is all through the elders (service committee: PO, secretary, service overseer), the WTS and GB are not involved in the appointment
Special pioneers are appointed by the WTS/GB and are assigned to congregations by them. They used to report their time directly to the WTS/GB too
Have seen many auxiliary pioneers in my day; only one special pioneer. I wonder the the people from the Minsterial Training School count as?
Blondie
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Mysterious
We'd get auxillary pioneers every few months or so, and always at least half a dozen during special service month (april?), maybe a couple near a CO or DO visit. I don't recall having special pioneers at all regularly, maybe a couple times in my lifetime.
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Alligator Wisdom
My congregation was a very similar reflection of freetosee's congregation as quoted above. We had 20 regular pioneers and 4 special pioneers. Among the other publishers in the congregation were about 6 or 7 who would auxillary pioneer during the course of a service year. Since my congregation was a foreign language one, we had many "elite" sent to us from the branch office or had some who was proficient with the language and was sent by the branch under special recommendations.
I know of one sign language congregation in the southern California area with 70 pioneers. That's right! SEVENTY! That must be a record. (Yes, you may be wondering as I did; how many in that congregation are actually deaf? From what I know, most of the members in the congregation are hearing and learned sign language and desired to pioneer where the need is great).
Alligator Wisdom (aka Brother NOT Exerting Vigorously by WTS standards) -
badboy
THSANKS EVERYONE FOR YOUR REPLIES!