Personal Story: Trying to Help the Flock

by OnTheWayOut 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  monkeyman

  You sound like a nice guy. Wish we could compare notes
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  OnTheWayOut

  Monkeyman, I didn't keep any good notes, but I would be glad to add you to my friends. I will PM you with information.
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  garyneal

  Wow, it is amazing to see how far you've come over the years. I know from your personal info that you started fading when the 1995 change in light came.

  Did the others at your old cong really just brush it off like it was nothing? Sounds sad but no sadder, I guess, than my wife accepting that overlapping generation garbage.
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  neverendingjourney

  It's all horse shit. Not your story, but JW politics.

  My very first exposure this type of corruption came when I was 18, a regular pioneer and about as gung-ho as one could possibly be. I bought into JWism when I was 15 years old. I hadn't developed the necessary critical thinking skills with which to fight off faulty JW logic. As a consequence, I believed in JW doctrine 100%.

  My brother (now an elder) invited me to a get-together of sorts. It was at an elder's house, so I joined him. My brother had already told me about his sketchy nature, but I had never met the guy. When I got there, I realized they were gathered to watch a pay-per-view boxing match. The elder was there with his two very "worldly looking" daughters along with their "worldly looking" boyfriends. There were four or five other young JWs in attendance, some of whom were underage. Everybody was drinking, however, so I downed a couple beers myself. Also in attendance were a few non-JWs who cussed like sailors. During the boxing match it became clear that several in attendance had drank to the point of intoxication (or near intoxication). I was shocked. Had my elders gotten a wind of this, we would have all been dragged into meetings and would have probably been stripped of whatever titles we may have held.

  What I didn't realize at the time is that my brother had become desensitized to this type of thing because much, much worse was going on. It didn't register in his mind that I might find this type of gathering offensive. As time went by I heard of things going on among JW teens that would have made a frat boy blush, and much of it was being covered up by elders. Of course, I didn't get exposed to much of this because people knew I was an all-in JW. It was clear, however, that there was a freely-operating subculture of JW youths acting as "worldly" as the real "worldly" kids.

  I became inactive in my mid-20s and that's when I began to get exposure to some of the real corruption in the JW organization. Let's just say that I've personally been in attendance at a 30 year old elder's quasi-birthday party in which various youths in attendance smoked cigarettes, got drunk to the point of vomiting all over the place, and even smoked marijuana. I know it might seem difficult for some of you to believe, and I would have never believed it myself if I were still the same naive 18 year old I once was. But I witnessed this with my own eyes.
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  OnTheWayOut

  Gary, I only realized I might need to plan life independent of what WTS taught me after the 1995 change. I thought I would need to retire and die in "this system of things." I did not really fade much for many more years. I did get a career that they advised against because it would involve missing some meetings. They said I might have to be removed as an elder if I proceeded with my career. I did so anyway and they never removed me. That's the power of not worrying about your title.

  Yes, some of the heavy-study women in the congregation were buzzing about the doctrine change, but ALL of the elders were ho-hum or even hardly aware about it. It was covered in the paragraphs just like any paragraphs of a WT study, someone answered and they moved along. The elders were reminded about it from the C.O., saying we needed to keep up with the changes in our talks. I heard a few people speculating about how this may mean we have longer "in this system." Many went ahead and got married or had children shortly after that. (I think that the post-1995 children are the bulk of the baptisms these days so without that urgency, they would be plunging in numbers.)
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  garyneal

  Thanks, OTWO.

  I remember now your saying in another thread sometime back that you had to plan more for your life and your getting a career after the 1995 change. My apologies for that oversight.

  I could tell from the advise you give to others on this board that you were one of the elders that witnesses probably felt comfortable with. Your story seems to confirm it. I'm sure some people at your old cong truly miss having you around.
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  flipper

  OTWO- I knew elders who like you wanted to " assist " their fellow witnesses by leaning more towards reasonableness and mercy than powermongering judgment. Unfortunately in the JW circles I ran in only about 30 % of the elders were like you. 70 % were either on the take for more advancing positions and enjoyed getting stroked by circuit overseers by taking them golfing regularly to get Circuit assembly parts or bought vehicles for C.O.'s to get special alleged " privileges ". Let's put it this way- being the son of an elder who was City Overseer for 35 years - you see a lot of power plays and travesty's of justice in high places.

  I commend you that you had good, pure motives on really helping people. Needs to be more people like that in the world. My dad had, and still does have pure motives for being an elder after all these years- however at age 84 he admitted to me last fall that he knows lots of elders DO NOT follow the direction from the GB the way they should. Cut corners, put their own counsel first, not the Bible. But he said he's doing it for " Jehovah " not men- that any elder who doesn't carry out their duties correctly will have to answer to God for it. I suppose, but I rather doubt it. Most elders I observed got away with individual nuances.

  I told my dad last fall that the reason I never wanted to be an elder is I was too independent and if I had seen injustices committed against fellow JW's I would have spoken up - even if the body of elders disagreed with me. I told my dad " I would have been deleted for insubordination within months of getting appointed ! " LOL ! He just laughed, he said, " You're probably right , you do have your own mind. " So- Jerry, good on you that you helped as many as you could while you were doing it
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  OnTheWayOut

  I could tell from the advise you give to others on this board that you were one of the elders that witnesses probably felt comfortable with. Your story seems to confirm it. I'm sure some people at your old cong truly miss having you around.

  Circuit Overseers are like visiting rock stars, local elders are the club bands that entertain you between rock star visits. Some are good and some are able to play the instruments. Gary, I volunteered to be the School Overseer. It was work every single week, but the doctrine was important to me. Nobody else wanted that job and I actually preferred it. Because I was the school overseer, some people would not come to me with their problems- they assumed (wrongly) that I would give them a talk on the subject if they had a problem. I did become a favorite elder of many of those with depression or other problems that might require some mental health aid. That was because I knew better than to suggest that they do MORE MORE MORE- the only advice company elders seem to give- more prayer, more recruiting, more meetings, more reading, more involvement in the cult. I told people to relax if they were stressed, take some me-time. I told people to accept overtime at work if they had money trouble and just come to the weekend meeting. I told mothers with small children to minimize their winter field recruiting so the kids didn't get sick.

  Elders typically told depressed people to pray more and read more and recruit more and then they should feel Jah's blessing more. Of course that never worked. They would follow such advice then still feel depressed- let's face it, doing more JW stuff is depressing. I told depressed people to exercise and find hobbies and see their doctor, set a proper schedule of sleeping only at night and eating only at mealtimes (something I need to do more of myself).

  I am not here to toot my own horn. I am just trying to help people understand that this was not the norm, but not so strange either. There are a mix of good people in the congregations. It's typically the organization that ruins the elders or appoints the wrong people to do their bidding. The vast majority of pioneers and heavily involved members are also good people, but got derailed from really helping people by being told that recruiting and peddling magazines and books is the most important work in the world. Elders were trained to keep people busy doing that same peddling.
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  gubberningbody

  I tried to help too, but in the long run I'm not sure that I didn't do more harm than good.

  Being the "good" elder put a face on the organization that it simply didn't deserve.

  I think this is why it takes so long to leave. You know good people, but the organization itself is corrupt.
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  snowbird