Development of the 'meetings'

by cyberdyne systems 101 12 Replies latest jw friends

  • cyberdyne systems 101
    cyberdyne systems 101

    I was wondering if anyone knew how what became the 'meetings' came into being. Say from the time Russell printed the Watchtower, to congregations forming and a particular format being followed.

    I guess this question arose in my mind because to become a member of a religion/organisation you have to comply to a set of rules or guidelines that make you more unique to that particular religion. The JW's have specific meetings, and this is one area I was curious to see the development of. What i'm saying is that if you accept the Bible to be from God, thats one thing, but to belong to a religion is to take their unique interpretation of the Bible, to follow the idea's of men, in other words. You can only get to God through us kinda thing, you see what i'm getting at.

    CS 101

  • garybuss
    garybuss

    After the great disappointment of 1844, the end timers met to console each other and grieve that the end of the world didn't come as expected. These were called "consolation" meetings.

    These were different from a church worship service. They weren't worship services, they were group grief meetings to talk about the longed for end of the world and to grieve having to live on this earth.

  • Honesty
    Honesty
    After the great disappointment of 1844, the end timers met to console each other and grieve that the end of the world didn't come as expected. These were called "consolation" meetings.

    These were different from a church worship service. They weren't worship services, they were group grief meetings to talk about the longed for end of the world and to grieve having to live on this earth. Gary

    Yes, those meetings were quite different than what Christians were doing back then... worshiping and praising Jesus

  • VanillaMocha73
    VanillaMocha73

    The Proclaimer book has a brief history:

    Russell encouraged regular meetings in 1881. Some Bible students make the mistake of using the Bible at the meetings and not the publications, but the traveling ministers of the time readjusted their thinking. In 1895, they got all straightened around to using the Milennial Dawn books and it looks like the Book Study was born.

    Then, Russell wanted another meeting to be an "expression of devotion" called Cottage Meetings and these included hymns and testimonies. However, there was too much emphasis on self and not enough on the Watchtower, so it "became apparent that meetings designed to equip each one to share in the evangelizing work was more beneficial." In 1923 the KM was born and by 1932 those worship meetings started by Russell were completely switched over to the Service Meeting. No more worship or testimony, but rather dictated "help" in the Christian ministry.

    In 1916, some brothers set up Schools of Prophets by themselves to become better public speakers. It was attended only by males and brothers privately compiled a textbook. However, they were not sufficiently under the WT rule so they were discontinued. Because the time was so short to the end, a special school began in 1943 where everyone attended (only men participated) that would equip publishers to offer Bible literature. In 1959, sisters were included in the training. Hence, the TMS was born.

    Sunday meetings made the mistake also of starting out discussing the Bible, but people had differences of opinion on the Bible, so by 1905 outlines for proper congregation discussion were published in the Watchtower. There you have the WT study which was mandated in 1922.

    The Public talk seems to have started in 1911 where sufficiently talented speakers would travel out and give six discourses in some town and then see if they had enough people to start up a group. In the 1920s the radio was used, and in the 1930s, recorded talks by Rutherford were broadcast. By 1945, the TMS school had turned out enough qualified men to give public talks.

    There were no Sunday Schools because in 1883, there was only a short time left until all JWs would be in heaven, so there was not time for Sunday School for children. They changed their mind around 1918 when they all found themselves still here. Sunday school started, but by 1936 it was discovered that they were too well organized and not under the WT thumb, so it was discontinued. In 1938, it was pointed out that people were staying out of field service in order to train the young in these classes, so any and all separate classes for youth were discontinued. And there you have the loss of Sunday School and child classes.

  • cyberdyne systems 101
    cyberdyne systems 101

    Wow thanks for the research there!

    There does seem to be a common theme of directing things to a unified (controlled) format. Its now become the norm and another area where an unwritten (at least biblically) law is held up as determining whether you are of good standing or not. I was surprised how early direction was being given to those that followed the watchtower, I guess a lot of that history wasn't common knowledge to the r & f dubs like me, though we could have looked it up i suppose - in between all the other information we were bombarded with. In fact if you took in all the spiritual food your supposed to, you'd be a glutten!

    CS 101

  • Mad
    Mad

    It goes all the way back to Christ himself- who, immediately after begining his ministry, started organizing others to carry out the work of preaching!

  • Bonnie_Clyde
    Bonnie_Clyde

    VanillaMocha said

    In 1923 the KM was born

    When I started attending the meetings in 1955, it was called the KM was the "Informant." Don't remember the exact time frame, but later it was changed to Kingdom Ministry, then Kingdom Service, and back to Kingdom Ministry again. I doubt if it was called Kingdom Ministry in 1923, but I'm sure they had something similar.

  • zack
    zack

    Mad:

    Surely, you jest.

  • journey-on
    journey-on

    Mad...

    I guess Jesus made his apostles turn in their time, too, uh.

  • badboy
    badboy

    SO USING THE BIBLE IS A MISTAKE.

    HOW COME THEY HAVE A NWT TRANSLATION?

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