by Open mind 84 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I love the parts they have that say, basically, 'if you are bored at a meeting, it is because YOU haven't prepared by studying in advance', as if anything aside from a few rotten tomatoes being thrown, could help some of the people giving their droning parts, become interesting.
Some of the public speaking brothers are so boring, they could be used by the CIA as torturers, just sitting through one of their talks is enough to make anyone willing to do or say anything to stop the torture.
CJ
CO to the audience: So I got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that only 75% of you are getting indoctrinated. The good news is that were going to ramp up the indoctrination for the 75% that are still here. Things should even out in the end. Praise Jah.
-Sab
After the eighties with the paranoid anti- group rules, anti-picnic rules, ant- humor in meetings rules and "control rules" meeting just got more and more BORING. Even if someone is a TERRIBLE speaker if you feel close to them you listen and root for them. If they are a stranger..you just nod off.
Gosh I had friends with speach problems.I listened intently..because they were friends.
If I know someone is an Self Righteous Pharasee or a cold fish...I don't care how well they speak..I tune them out.
Maybe it's proof there is a God and the real truth is out --- they lose.
If they want to know why people aren't going to meetings that need only to look in a mirror. When they make meetings worth going to, people will go. As it stands people are voting with their feet.
The quality of public speakers is abhorrent. Many years back, there was a directive from HQ to remove poor quality speakers from the Outgoing Public Speaker' List. Now, they evidently just send out anyone who is MS/Elder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8LOLswfTkQ&feature=related
DOC
Thanks for all the comments everyone. Sorry I wasn't able to stick with this thread earlier.
I have one opinion to add re: the growth in the "foreign" language field. If you're a relatively poor immigrant to a wealthier nation, there's going to be a certain extra appeal to joining the JWs. It's an automatic social group that in many cases helps out newbies. If you're trying to get employment in a relatively unskilled field, connections are important and JWs can provide those. (I know it's not perfect by any means and there are plenty of stories of JW contractors taking advantage of cheap labor.)
Anyway, IMO, there's a much stronger feeling of community among the foreign language JW congregations I have visited. It's a lot harder for someone to leave when that element is there.
om
Another thing that has hurt the meeting attendance count is a rule they're increasingly enforcing to get more people to the Kingdom Hall.
People who don't go to the meeting but who are connected by the telephone line are counted as being in attendance. BUT, the Borg doesn't like empty chairs at the Kingdom Hall so they made the rule that only people who are known to be elderly or ill get to call in to the meeting. People who are just tired or a little under-the-weather can no longer do so. This rule was made so that those tired/under-the-weather people would HAVE TO go to the Kingdom Hall. LMAO at the backfire. They're just not going OR calling in, and the count numbers go down even further.
A friend of my parents tried calling in to the meeting recently when not feeling well. Since she isn't on the list as one with an illness or being elderly, they turned her down and wouldn't connect her. She not only stayed home, she was pissed at the body of elders.
The Borg is going to destroy itself.
By the way, isn't it a little late for yearbooks this year? I want to see the worldwide report.
Sorry about the blank post, fat finger, I wanted to say, Mad Sweeney , that the Booker prize winner is a better work of fiction to read than the WWReport !
I do not think that the attendances are any better in the U K either....From what I see and hear the same reasons apply.
The cancellation of the Group Study has been a disaster because it means that the flock no longer believe that attendance at all 3 meetings is "vital". After all if they can cancel one, then it never could have been so important....If one misses the only midweek meeting then it only leaves Sunday..Also many older ones that I know of have a job to assimilate all three-in-one in one night. They get discouraged and stay home..
Yes, the meetings are as boring as watching 2 teams you don't care about play out a nil nil draw (football metaphor )...Whatever personal enthusiasm and creativity the speakers used to put in has been strangled out by orders to stick to the text..
BTW the number counting has nothing to do with publisher names . They just head count - and I guess that they compare with active, if irregular, publisher numbers
