At the Assembly... Did you catch that talk about encouraging young ones to pursue a career in the ministry? ...and what about that 'murmuring' (page 2)

WTWizard

Pious-sneering is not something you should do. What are the benefits to you for doing it? And, what are the costs? If the costs exceed the benefits, you should not do it.

Most young people should be preparing for employment of the type that helps them pay the bills. While they are unable to find it, they might be working on developing a skill. College may help--presuming the debt is manageable. Other ways young people can prepare include learning to do something they enjoy. If they enjoy it and it has marketable value, they can use it in barter situations. If you enjoy something, don't worry about being good at it--you WILL get good soon enough if you truly enjoy it and keep at it.

Some suggestions: Repairing things. People are looking for ways to save money, and fixing things instead of replacing them is one way to do that. You could, for instance, invest in rebuilding or repairing computers (this will be in demand for a long time, and the U-Fix means you only pay for the parts), cars, electronic equipment, appliances, and even buildings and fixtures within them. People enjoy saving money on a U-Fix, and it puts less in the landfill (for instance, I souped up the RAM to the maximum my motherboard would take, souped up the hard drive to 1 TB from 200 GB, and put a better power supply in my own computer, along with installing my own copy of Windows 7 on my new hard drive in place of XP).

Other things you could do include gardening, building things, and landscaping. Cleaning is not reliable since people skimp on that when things get tough (besides, the U-Clean system is too easy for anyone to use). But, wasting your time pious-sneering is going to waste resources, plus prevent you from getting any skills you can use to barter with later.

Kool Jo

I'm thankfull that I did go to college despite what the WTBS said...it allowed me to be promoted at my job. A young sister in a neighboring KH was extremely smart and was offered a scholarship to study something in the medical feild....could you beleive she had one more year to go and quit college to go pioneer? She married an elder who is twice her age and they're out "where the need is greater"...the last time I saw her, she didn't look so happy...what happens later on when she has no income to support ailing parents ect?

keyser soze

It sounds like a talk that's been given a thousand times before.

blondie

Lots of young male jws pioneered when I was in my teens and twenties. Need I say there was a draft during the Vietnam War and they were less likely to be a minister deferment if they had not regular pioneered. Maybe the WTS should have the US bring back the draft....of course those were also the pre-1975 years.

http://www1.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/10389/1/Vietnam-War-Pioneers

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/207511/1/Older-Guys-did-you-pioneer-during-Nam

garyneal

When I heard that there were so many more pioneers, elders, and MS's amongst the older ones than the younger ones, it made me think that this religion is in decline and it needs to either adapt or die. In regards to encouraging the younger ones to forego college and pursue an education and a career in the ministry, I think Liz Weston's article says it best when it says, "Not everybody can, or should, attend a four-year college. But if you want a decent economic life for yourself, you should get at least some training beyond high school. Anyone who tries to discourage you from getting that doesn't have your best interests at heart."

I could not have said that better myself.

Disillusioned Lost-Lamb

You wanna know something worse than not furthering education, most devout witlesses home school their kids so they can start pious-sneering early; this is a growing trend.

In my conned-green-nation we have 9 children under 18 and NONE of them got to public school. They are all being pushed to peruse the ministry and, when you speak to them, you can tell that they don't possess the same basic knowledge and ability that even a public school attendee, of the same age, has.

This makes the future pretty bleak for most witless children because the suitable education, experience and skills, both social and metal, that civic instruction provides is being purposely withheld so when they become adults, and need income, they’ll essentially be unemployable.

When was the last time a job application asked how good of a minister you were?

NEVER, they ask about experience and education!

LongHairGal

garyneal:

It makes perfect sense that there would be more older people pioneering as opposed to young people. In many cases, older people may be retired, etc. and can have the time to pioneer whereas a younger person had BETTER be getting an education or job training. What a mistake if they don't! Young people have only to read the many stories on this forum about older people who are playing a game of catch-up in regard to their finances and retirement savings. Truth is, very few can ever really catch up.

In many cases a lot of lucky older JWs got their education, job w/pension before they got involved with the JW religion. This is a fact that the religion is either clueless about or does not care to mention. There is no comparison between the circumstances of many older people and most of the younger people today. Younger people today face hurdles that the older generation never had to deal with (much fewer jobs, crappy economy and deteriorating world conditions), so they had better get their education and skills in the small window of time they have while they are young.

The religion isn't going to support you and is not the least bit concerned about anybody but itself.

At the Assembly... Did you catch that talk about encouraging young ones to pursue a career in the ministry? ...and what about that 'murmuring'