PO was begging for dollars at KN school tonight! (page 3)

carla

As a non jw, I remember when I was very young our church got rid of our minister because he had two kinds of sermons, fire & brimstone and the $ sermon. The next minister was wonderful, he was there until his retirement. I guess the jw's are more like some of evil Christendom than they like to think.

purplesofa

i was raised going to catholic mass

every sunday a collection basket was passed through the entire congregation.

I loved it when it was my turn to put in some money. I was proud. My dad would give me whatever was going in the basket that week. Sometimes all us kids got something to put in the collection basket.

I never thought of this until now, but I never had that same feeling giving at the KH. I dont know if other parents teach their children about contributions. I know we hear about stories how someone sold their only chicken for a new kingdom hall, etc etc.

I am not at all sure that the way they handle contributions are that good. I dont ever recall as a child hearing about the accounts of the church.

I find it difficult now, as I think about it, to know each month that our accounts at the hall i went to was never enough. But they are making and stowing away megabucks in Brooklyn. I think I used to think of it as security, but then we saw how the downsizing played out on the people that were asked to leave Bethel.

They ask and bleed so much from members, just asking for anything makes my cringe.

purps

WTWizard

And I remember an article in the 1988 Puketower some time in summer (the exact issue, I forgot) that had its title: Are the religions feeding or fleecing the flock? That was an actual subject that I remember being asked to place with many a householder during my early ministry, sometime in spring or summer of 1988.

I think this thread, along with so many others, shows that the Watchtower Society needs to examine its own literature. They lambaste the other churches for fleecing the flock, even making up horror stories about how the pastors locked the exits until a certain amount of money was donated and multiple passings of the collection plate (as a Catholic, I do not ever remember the collection plate going around more than once in the 1970-71 era). And here they are doing the same thing: not so much locking the doors, but hounding the flock. They use guilt trips, repeated pledge forms, and admonishment from the hounders to get people to put more money in that donation box.

I have noticed that our congregation never seems to accumulate much money. Every time they get up to about $3,000 in the funds, they find something to bleed the money to. They will make a donation of $1,000 and up to the Worldwide Work. Or they will pay for the hounder-hounder fund. Anything that will siphon the "excess" money off and create a crisis of having barely enough money to get through the month. And then they tell us we're not donating enough and we are going to all get destroyed at Armageddon because God hates stingy givers. I even saw one Puketower study article around 1993 that had toward the end that stinting or giving grudgingly amounts to robbing from Jehovah.

As of now, I don't give a crap what pickle they get into. They can foreclose the hall. They can have the utilities shut off. They can be in arrears of municipal bills. They can be in hock with the Worldwide Pedophile Protection work. And I am not going to give them another penny. I am offended by all the poor people putting in $20 bills into the boxes at the hall on a regular basis--if I had that kind of money to throw away on this, I would be able to replace some of those Christmas decorations that they had to get rid of. $20 will buy a set of LED lights, or a set of 4 surprisingly high quality ornaments that will last for years and years on end. Or, it can be given to some poor family that barely has enough to survive and no fun items--$20 would buy them a nice toy or two. But I refuse ever to waste any more money donating to the Kingdumb Hells, no matter if they are in a pickle from bleeding the money to the Mother Organization.

DJK

toilet paper as facilities are not available.

Does that mean you have to go behind a tree?

blondie

I might point out that for a time some congregations were siphoning off the worldwide work (www) money to pay the electric and phone bill and were told in the km to stop doing that.

*** km 12/03 p. 7 Announcements ***As a reminder to the brothers handling the congregation accounts, donations placed in the boxes for the Worldwide Work and for the Kingdom Hall Fund are to be remitted monthly and should not be used for payment on a Kingdom Hall property loan or for any other congregation expense.

Blondie

WTWizard

I might point out that for a time some congregations were siphoning off the worldwide work (www) money to pay the electric and phone bill and were told in the km to stop doing that.

And the Worldwide Work fund is often donated to by congregations that siphon "excess" funds on hand to donate toward it. I'm sure the Mother Organization would be really pleased if the congregations started having more than $100,000 on hand for such incidents as loss of members, and started stinting on donating to the Mother.

I hope this means more congregations are going to have trouble paying their utility bills. And I hope more of them start getting their utility services shut off. There is a limit on what the publishers can donate, and with the ban on college and independent research, that limit is going nowhere but down (if you want that limit to go up, then you need to set them up for better jobs). Hopefully this means the congregations start going belly-up, the work implodes in those regions, and money to the Mother Organization dries up totally.

darth fader

The handbills used to say "No Collection"! It was such a huge point of difference between the Witlesses and false religon. Any fool knows they need money to support the efforts.

I always resented the tactics the last afternoon of the conventions... "we're short x amount of dollars". Only to hear 2 hours later we're sending thousands of dollars to Brooklyn to support the worldwide work. I feel much happier now when they pass the collection plate during service. No secrets.

Brain Dead

Not all surprising being that the WTS. was a commercial venture started by some New York businessmen

Religion does make every day men powerful and rich if you play your cards right, especially in the land of the free, America

PO was begging for dollars at KN school tonight!

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