Are they going to keep lowering the bar to be appointed an MS or Elder???

by karter 36 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  blondie

  My husband says they need people to do the chores behind the scenes...accounts, territories, magazines, literature, sound, stage, attending, etc. They don't need elders so much so far. But as the elders keep getting older 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and very few men come up the ranks to be elders, the elder shortage will be more apparent. Ten years ago, the CO then told the BOE that the organization lost 25% of the elders every year.

  In one congregation they had two MS who could not read and even after being made MS made no attempt to learn and the elders made no attempt to teach them.
• 

  Quarterback

  Wow, 25 % is a big drop. The elders are so different from when I served a few yrs ago.
• 

  steve2

  And the JWs used to loudly scoff about the Mormon elders who were "appointed" by their church when they were "only" in their mid-20s. Makes me wish I'd recorded all the derisive comments witnesses made about these young 'boys' having no life experience but being expected to handle troubled church members' problems.
• 

  agonus

  Don't be surprised if they start appointing "mature" teens as elders soon. If late teens is now considered a ripe old age for baptism, can the day when the rapidly growing baptized-by-age-7 demographic has a shot at making elder status (while still technically minors) be far behind? I doubt it, especially considering the preschool level the new literature is aimed at.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Apparently, in the U.S., they have a huge need for Ministerial Servants now to do the work in the Kingdom Halls.

  I know this is a serious thread, so this photo of one who will soon meet the standard is just a joke, but a sign of things to come:

  The MS of the next "generation" will be a baptized brother who gets out in field service at least once a month and makes "most" of the meetings.
• 

  agonus

  OTWO:

  Don't give Bethel any ideas. ;)
• 

  jam

  When I was A elder I always felt uncomfortable counselling

  someone the same age as my parents. I was appointed as

  A elder at 29. Appointing men so young will come back and

  bite them in the butt. If you are A man and some young buck

  come up to you and counsel you on , how you should handle

  your family. Me I would think, what the hell, here,s A kid the

  same as my kids or younger and he is going to tell me the

  facts of life, please.

  When I came into the borg. all the elders were around

  40 and above, so it was easy excepting their counsel,

  and all of these men were not born in, they had come from

  the world so I felt they new what they was talking about.
• 

  steve2

  It's like looking at a field of white fluffy sheep and saying where's the stern ram to lead them? The Watchtower is Bible-blind to finding a whole new source of elders among the sisters. Talk about shackled to scripture.
• 

  TheOldHippie

  I was 25.

  Blondie claimed that "the organization lost 25% of the elders every year", and that clearly is an impossible claim. Not that many new ones are appointed, and with a 25 % annual loss, within a few years there would be close to none left. I know it was a quote, but the one making the claim was not quite up to his math, it seems.
• 

  WTWizard

  When you drive all the ones with a brain away from the cancer, you are left with the idiots. When you drive away the ones with any merit, you are left with the scum. And, when you are recruiting from prisons and mental institutions, you are not going to get anyone of any significant quality. A sound religion would be as able to draw a well-educated group, and hold onto them. Not this one.