New announcement from the 1st time zone in the world. (page 3)

Bonnie_Clyde

Clyde thinks that there will be more pressure on family heads to have a regular family Bible study--with the idea that it will help prevent so many of the young ones from leaving.

pseattle2

Family heads can now spend more time with there familys.

But with the end so close, who has time to spend with our families???? We gotta start building rafts!!!!

(I think we should start a meme, in which we excuse ourselves from normal every day duties because "the end's so close." I.E., "But with the end so close, what's the point of taking out the trash?" Maybe I'll just do it. I'm frisky this morning.)

TJ - iAmCleared2Land

"But with the end so close, what's the point of taking out the trash?" Maybe I'll just do it. I'm frisky this morning.

lol! you owe me a new monitor and keyboard...

truthsetsonefree

Actually this "change" shows up so many of the problems with that organization. They still have a book study, still want people to study for one, and still expect an elder to conduct one. While I admit that the extra night at home is nice and they may have cut down on BSOs (we haven't seen the correspondence to the bodies yet), they are so stuck up on their "cooking" of spiritual "food" they can't for a moment see that the real benefit would have been to scrap the whole meeting entirely.

If there is anything that this does say it is something that most JWs will probably miss entirely. THIS IS A CLEAR SIGN THAT THEY DON'T EXPECT THE END TO SHOW UP ANYTIME SOON! I say this because the whole rationale for book studies was in large part future persecution, and the need to have small clandestine meetings. The GB may not be feeling that pressure anymore in the free world.

I also wonder how all of the COs who advised my elder body to push the book study arrangement will feel now. The downturn in the congregation was always attributed to a lack of following the book study arrangement. That was one reason for the change not so many years ago from Book Study Conductor to Book Study Overseer. In a place like here in NYC it was very hard to have service groups at book studies. We struggled hard to make this work. Now the "best" arrangement for shepherding is now gone. What does that say? Was it ever good to begin with? Or is a matter of a group of inconsiderate men asking people to do too much?

Isaac Carmignani

http://isaaccarmignani.blogspot.com/

truthsetsonefree

This MAY cut down on the amount of work the elders and in particular the Service Committee does. Especially in a large congo such as my former one many hours were spent assigning the publishers to groups. Further renters in my area move a lot and our congo was very transient. Therefore it was a full time job tracking constant changes in assignments. Admittedly this is not true organization wide. But for elder bodies like my former one, this may be a relief provided that the GB does not replace the old arrangement with something just as complicated. The letter does mention keeping service in smaller groups.

Isaac Carmignani

http://isaaccarmignani.blogspot.com/

pseattle2

Does anybody else find it peculiarly fascinating that the gas-price crisis is being used as the smokescreen here?

In moderately dense urban and suburban areas, the "students" were assigned to certain homes on the basis of proximity. We never drove more than 2 or 3 miles to whatever house we were meeting up at. The net gain of gasoline per month from this change can't equal more than a quarter of a gallon to most people. Rural areas might be different, but still.

This is also the first time I recall the GB publicly basing a decision on world(ly) events. There was a gas shortage in the '70s, but they still had book studies. The fact that they're claiming that forces outside the WTS are influencing their policy is against their isolationist tradition. As another example -- they now claim they're selling the Brooklyn properties because they're afraid of "terrorist attacks"? Why'd it take them 7 years to finally do that? Why didn't they start trying to sell the facilities in 2002?

This is a level of worldly influence that should be noted; they've run out of rationale for themselves, so now they'll cite worldly events as an impetus for these policy changes.

This kind of thinking would've come in real handy during the Malawi persecutions of the '70s. Death and torture doesn't sway a religion to change its belief about purchasing national ID cards, but when gas hits $4 a gallon, they'll eliminate 52 hours of meeting per year. There's integrity for you.

Plus, since they're not starting this change until 2009, I guess they're not exactly planning for the imminent apocalypse, are they?

Burger Time

This just more evidence that the JW's are slowly and probably in a kicking and screaming way becoming more main stream. As the older more fundamentalist GB members die off and younger men take office it's just going to be a natural change over in to a more liberal type atmosphere. Does this mean that it is going to be a complete and free religion? No, but it is going more main stream. The next major change I see happening is the blood issue.

rache31

So they're worried about gas prices??? What about the riding around out in field circus? Why don't they stop wasting gas and annoying people. I just got a call from my pioneer mom yesterday for money. Every month she runs out of money towards the end of the month. Her social security shouldn't be spent on gas riding all over the place. I help her out because she's my mom and I love her. But it does piss me off...

golf2

Awesome excuse. Why didn't they think of it decades ago? How many families have suffered due to soooooo much time spent at meetings, ministry and servce and not with their families?

Golf

Ruth Eeker

I don't know if this as been said already and if I missed it I'm sorry.

I was thinking about timing of this announcement.......last week was the "new Light" revealed...do you think
this announcement was convenient so as to change the topic and/or possible research or questioning into
this new light aka Bull$hit?

Just a thought.

New announcement from the 1st time zone in the world.

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