What famous "Talks" do you remember that you heard as a Witness?

by BonaFide 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  BonaFide

  My favorites that I heard in person or had on tape, well they WERE my favorites:

  Are we really in the Last Days? - Br. Ulysses Glass, 1984. This is the talk where he gives the illlustration about being lost and since we have one leg longer than the other one, we go in circles. So we need the Organization to guide us. He said Armageddon is coming today, that is the way he looks at it each morning.

  Are you cultivating Wordly Desires? - J.R. Brown, 1988 He really used to stretch out the words and make you squirm. Probably one of the most imitated speakers I bet in the U.S.

  Can you Sleep on a Windy Night? - Can't remember speaker

  The last few hours of Jesus' Life - Can't remember speaker

  Ability or Dependability-Which? - K. Suen

  And you? Remember any? Did you ever collect talks and listen to them at home or in your car? Ha ha, I did.

  BF
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  Satanus

  The talk on how the holy spirit works. I got a tape of it and listened to it a few times. In a nut shell, it is dynamic, it comes, does it's thing and then F$%^s off.

  S
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  Confucious

  Back in the day... before Internet - being a JDub was part of a movement.

  It wasn't perfect... but people could use their God Given skills and inspire. Motivate.

  I remember a lot of those talks that floated around on cassette tapes.

  A lot of them were very good. Very inspirational.

  But then in the mid 90's - I think there was even a Watchtower that said that you can find all the illustrations you needed in the Societies literature.

  Talks became more structured and you had to stick to outlines.

  But yeah... before that - there were some really dynamic talks out there.
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  BonaFide

  Confucious, I remember that. I also remember when we used to have Special Events, that some of the more influential brothers put on, and they made their own talks.

  Even in the congregation, we would have slides sometimes when I was a kid, the brothers would put their vacation slides in a talk.

  BF
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  Mattieu

  Can you Sleep on a Windy Night? - Can't remember speaker

  The last few hours of Jesus' Life - Can't remember speaker

  We have both those tapes on cassette at home somewhere, used to listen to "The Last Few Hours" before every memorial....
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  Confucious

  BF...

  Most of the good talks carried a common illustration throughout the whole talk.

  Like if the brother was talking being industrious - he would bring out illustrations about "ants" - but keep tying in into different characteristics of ants.

  It made listening to the talks real enjoyable.

  I think that's why in the late 90's - everyone loved to hear the C.O. come to town because he was the one that had the most latitude to create his own talk.

  I think after a while - certain brother became "personalities" and got repuations as fantastic speakers.

  And I think it didn't sit so well with higher ups.

  And then in time - it got all streamlined.
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  darth frosty

  The last hours of jesus life I believe was a service talk called did he do more than die for you. Cant remember the bro's name either. can you sleep on a windy night i thought was mainly a illustration that opened a bunch of talks. One I would like to add is a service talk from a bethelite called do you appreciate sacred things. Its main thing was a contrast between esau and jacob.
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  darth frosty

  Cunfusous you are right about it being like a movement. I think two things happen that really broke that feeling from those of us who looked at it that way.

  The 1st is the fact being a JW meant serving with a finite date or time period in mind. We were told that the gen will see that last days and a gen was 70-80. every body had calculated that out to the 90's or 2000 at best. When they started to make changes and shift away from that, it caused a crack to come in a lot of peoples 'spiritual armor.

  The 2nd end to the 'movement' was them reigning in control over every little thing. I remember when CO's gave their own service talks. R.L.Jones used to call it family night. When they started making every little thing according to the societies script, whatever sense of family or growth you thought you had in the BORG was gone.

  This went down to even a congo picnic or the special service talks bethelites used to give.
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  compound complex

  The title I don't recall, but it was about 'the great earthquake' [something to do with the destruction of Babylon the Great, I believe].

  Floyd Kite's dynamic delivery.
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  donny

  The one that I will not forget was the talk at the 1988 Disctrict Conventions given by John Barr of the Governing Body regarding the destruction of Christendom. I remember several "We abhor......." statements where he was talking about Jehovah executing billions of mankind who failed to heed the warning. What creeped me out was when he said "those who agree say "aye" and thousands in attendace yelled "AYE". That convention began a downturn that would ulltimately lead to my exit some four years later.

  Don