by TheListener 28 Replies latest jw friends
At the end of this year's convention, I heard our bethelite unequivocally state that door-to-door work will continue, even as he admitted it has become as obsolete as fuller brush and vaccum cleaner salesmen. But the congregation is to continue because they are to obey the Faithful and Discreet Slave. You know the drill.
He suggested adjustments may be required to visit people when they are actually at home (evenings and late afternoon on weekends), and more phone witnessing.
What, are we in the business of trying to help the Watchtower Society become more efficient? I wouldn't give them any tips on how they could do things better.
Outaservice
Basically a lot of witnesses are lazy. Yes, yes, yes, they work hard doing all that mama tells them to but they do it in the laziest way possible.
Most barely study or study while watching tv, field service is 70% coffee break and driving from one end of the territory to the other or doing the pioneer shuffle, meeting attendance is time to just sit back and realx in a semi comfortable chair. They appear busy on the outside (and feel busy) but in reality they're lazy.
I think printing of member only literature by the local body of elders makes more sense than my original thought of all the tracts and brochures being printed at home.
If the WTS gives the brush off to all non-trustworthy elders and COs they can implement a more progressive pushing down of management duties. Let's face it the WTS is a business. In business you want the loyalist cheap labor you can get doing the most work you can give them. The elders are primed for that position. Throw them a bone of a trip to Patterson for training, or a DC or CA talk and they're yours. Remove the CO from breathing down their neck and make one of their own locally responsilbe and again they're yours.
The elders and the core congregation members provide the peer pressure from within to keep things running on auto pilot. Members may be lazy and they may live double lives but the peer pressure (along with Disfellowshipping) maintains the pressure for outward conformity.
As far as commuter bethelite program goes - I think it will be reinstituted and expanded - but called something else. A call will go forward asking volunteers to apply and to be ready to move NEAR bethel if invited (no in bethel).
Just my opinion.
Here is the senario, you will now print your own literature off the wts site, you will order your printers, paper, ink and other necessary items, with the required donations of course from the society.
drew: They probably could pull in over a billion dollars in a year if they really pushed hard enough.
Not to take the thread in a different direction, but I'm actually surprised that they never pushed the 10% tithe... as a "modern day parallel" to what the Israelites did. They actually have enough scriptural "backing" to push that argument...
TJ,
I am also surprised tithing hasn't been instituted. Perhaps it yet may...
When I first learned a bit about the JWs, I too was quite surprised that tithing is not an encouraged practice. A year or so ago my jw sympathetic wife attended a Lutheran church service with me and the sermon was about tithing and she was really put off by that, even though the practice is taken directly from the Bible. I worked with a hunger ministry for a few years and one of the ways they were able to succeed was to get farmers to plant extra or leave spaces unharvested, which is also a practice direct from the Bible.
If they want to quickly increase the money coming in, tithing would be a method, but how do you spin that with new light when you have so frequently bashed other religions for overtly collecting donations?
Simple insearchof,
passing the plate is greedy
tithing is biblical.
Every witness in the world (minus a small few) would be falling over themselves to tithe (or hide some income).
The aforementioned jw.org website already has the audio mp3 files of the magazines. and a book Congregations download and make c/ds themselves for the blind ones who want a spoken copy of the mag. This saves the Society the cost of doing it. Why not Kingdom Ministries as well? and the internal letters, forms and other stuff they print?
Perhaps they are worried about security ?
