Are there any active Elders/MS or higher out there who can advise if one of the requirements for appointment is that the person's FS time is equal to or greater than either the Congregation's average or the National Average? This used to be the case, but may have been relaxed. Also is the Branch still approving appointments? I heard that the Branch is out of it now. It is up to the BOE with the CO's sign-off. Any truth to that?
Is the 10 Hour Per Month Requirement Still In Force?
by Conan The Barbarian 34 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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blondie
No, not the hard core expectation, it is now a suggestion.
The hardcore ended in the early 70's.
Actually, there was a required 10 hour quota for publishers up until 1970 or so. There was a quota of 12 magazines/month, 6 RVs (BCs)/month, and 1 bible study/month. They used to post a large chart up by the platform with each month's congregation totals and averages. Congregations were quite competitive and comparing and judging each other. They finally stopped that about the same time.
So the national average is a replacement for that means of juding others by the numbers. JWs would not be appointed as regular pioneers unless they had maintained this quota for 6 months and were conducting 1 home bible study.
When it changed, the talks centered around the concept that now some publishers would do more than the obligated 10 hours each month and that those who could not make ten hours would not be discouraged. Horsepucky. It was to cover the fact that the zeal of the average was waning and putting that info up publicly in the congo was too revealing.
*** km 2/71 p. 3 A Letter from the Pioneers ***
First of all, before you can enroll as a regular pioneer you must have been baptized for at least six months, and during the past six months you must have been a regular publisher reporting at least ten hours and six back-calls on the average each month. You must currently be conducting at least one home Bible study.
*** km 2/73 pp. 1-6 Branch Letter ***
How about congregation publishers? They are increasing in numbers, from 389,555 for the previous year to 401,519 for the first three months of the 1973 service year. That is good to see. But their report of hours is down from 9.9 to 9.6 per month, on the average.
Some have said: But we have no quotas now.? Though the hour requirements for the various branches of pioneer service have not changed, it is true that congregation publishers have no set goal of, say, ten hours per month. Yet the question might be asked: Is this a valid reason for decreasing the amount of time spent in doing the will of Jehovah God in the field service? Really, in past years we were not going in the field service simply to meet a goal of hours, were we? We were interested in preaching the good news of God's kingdom, to magnify Jehovah's name and to give others the opportunity to hear. And we still are. Now that we do not all have a set goal of hours we are not to conclude that our field ministry is any less important. Our message is urgent. This is something to think about, don't you agree? Jehovah's requirement that our service be whole-souled has not changed.
*** w71 6/1 p. 335 How to Succeed in the Pioneer Service ***
It is not easy to jump from a pace of ten hours a month as a congregation publisher to one hundred hours a month on the pioneer track.
*** w65 9/1 p. 524 What Comes First in Your Life? ***
Surely the suggested minimum goal for this, twenty minutes a day, two and a half hours a week or ten hours a month, is a reasonable one for a mature Christian. Jehovah's witnesses try to devote at least ten hours a month to their field ministry
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DesirousOfChange
10 hours was always the number thrown around as the "National Average" required to be appointed as a MS/Elder or even be used on mics. Since this info in no longer published in the KM, I suspect it has dropped significantly. I never hear "10" spoken of anymore. I think our Congo average is more like "8".
Doc
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cantleave
10 hrs was the expectation for appointing MS's in 2009. I would be very surprised if that was relaxed!
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blondie
I am closing in on 60 and was 18 in 1970 and remember the 4' x 6' charts on an easel in the front of the KH with the monthly congregation total publishers, hours, magazines, books, booklets, rvs, bible studies for the month, with the averages, the average expected to be 10 or more. You could not be a regular pioneer unless you had averaged 10 hours monthly for six months and had a bible study for six months. In 1974 the WTS stopped providing the Congregation Chart to list these stats.
*** km 2/74 p. 7 Announcements ***
The following forms and tracts are no longer being printed by the Society:
Congregation Chart
*** km 7/71 p. 2 Announcements ***A supply of monthly report cards, magazine distributors’ order blanks and congregation field ministry charts is being sent out to each congregation.
*** w62 3/15 p. 174 par. 24 “Keep Proving What You Yourselves Are” ***Collectively, the congregation can check itself and its progress, its strong and its weak points, by reflecting on the congregation chart where the monthly activity of the congregation is posted.
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In the early 70's they dropped the 10 hour "required" monthly average and gave a talk saying that publishers now would try to get more than 10 hours a month go beyond that to even 30 or more.
*** w63 2/15 p. 109 par. 22 Walking with God ***Is Jehovah’s service indeed the most important thing in our lives? If so, then we will not content ourselves with merely token witnessing but will strive to reach at least the minimum requirements of the congregation quotas.
*** w61 6/1 p. 328 Your Time or Your Money? ***Each congregation has its hour quota and each Witness strives to meet or exceed it. The average minister in a congregation spends some ten hours monthly in such evangelizing. They believe in “buying out the opportune time” for themselves.—Eph. 5:16.
(Did you know back in the day congregations had to meet a quota of new publishers?")(Also there was a quota of 12 magazines and 6 rvs a month)
*** w60 6/1 p. 343 Pursuing My Purpose in Life ***It was encouraging to see that year after year we were able to meet our quotas of increase in Kingdom publishers.
*** w55 12/1 p. 733 Part 1—The “Triumphant Kingdom” Assemblies of 1955 ***When a congregation meets its quota of increasing its publishers ten per cent in number, there is no need to raise the quota, with a possibility of not attaining to that number of publishers and thus depriving the successful congregation of its elation of reaching a quota and even exceeding it. The real need is to train the ten per cent increase in the number of publishers to become capable dispensers of God’s Word.
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NeonMadman
The "national average" concept always struck me as a bit of a scam, even when I was a JW. The definition of an average requires that half the people fall below it. If everybody made the national average, the national average would increase, at which time the publishers would be encouraged to strive for the NEW national average, thus driving it up more and more. If it worked the way the WTS would like it to, it would result in ever-increasing demands on the publishers that they could never manage to keep up with. Oh, wait, the organization is already like that. Never mind...
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warranpiece
Hey everyone,
The 8-10 average is neccesary if you would like to be appointed a ministerial servant or maintain that post. It may not be sufficiently documented in the literature, but the language in the OM book leaves it open for interpretation that direction. In fact, to go a step further, they encourage the elders now to only use MS to run mics and act as attendants, witht he caveate being that someone on the rise can be introduced into those jobs. They must however by the CO's direction in our circuit, have 4-5 hours of service a month.
The branch still approves appointments, and removals. Really though they just rubber stamp the BOA and CO's recommendation. The letter you receive when you are removed, is a form letter with maybe one or two unique sentances, that reads like a human resources termination letter.
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Weana
No, it is not in force anymore.
Circumstances are different. Of course, it is possible that a brother expresses love to Jehovah and to the preaching work in word and deed and that he is well-respected by the congregation, although his hours are below national or congregation's average.
Think of a hard-working head of a family, maybe engaging several weekends per year in some kinds of "holy service" like KH construction work. Maybe he is serving in a congregation where there are several healthy retirees, wealthy part-time workers and childless house wifes, all contributing to quite a high congregation's average. No CO I know would expect such a brother anymore to do more field service than any "average" before you could recommend him as MS or elder. And most COs I know do not even expect a national average as a compulsory requirement.
Usually, texts like Matthew 22,37 ("all YOUR heart, all YOUR soul, all YOUR mind"; Not: "more than national average") are used to convince any hardliners in such cases.
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Conan The Barbarian
Thanks to all for the input. I know for a fact that as late as 2006, MS/Elders/Pioneers wold not be appointed if they had less than 10 hours per month in FS, or had somekind of extenuating circumstances. I think that this has been relaxed in recent years to get more of the bystander men involved.