by Dogpatch 375 Replies latest jw friends
Randy - do you think you could send me the original emails in Portuguese? I'm assuming you've translated them using Google Translate - this makes them VERY confusing to read. If someone like TJ Curioso could get a hold of them and translate them into decent English, it might tell us much more.
I'll email you about this.
Cedars
"Expansion of its wind graphs" NOW I'M INTRIGUED!
If this is something these idiots really plan on doing then they might try to gather up df members who are still believers and grow internally rather than from recruits as the field is drying due to available information out there. They definitely can spin this new approach that the field has been completed and this is the last chance for the df/da member before the imminent end ;) - diamondiiz
This. The past few years, they've been inviting disfelowshipped ones to come back, something that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. They can do the math, 6 to 10 thousand hours preaching for a new convert, vs a couple saturdays visiting a few ex-members probably resulting in at least one or more coming back. And the ones that come back are grateful for it, feel they have to prove themselves by their actions > more zeal and bigger offerings.
As for knowing how much disfelowshipping costs them financially, that's not hard to get. CO just need to take note when looking at a congregation's accounts (mandatory during each visit), and connect it to some mass disfellowshipping (gross fornication, apostasy...) occuring at the time. Then you get an average per disfelowshipped. The WT already knows on average how much money each single publisher gives to both the congregation and the company, probably down to the cent, so the CO input isn't even necessary. It doesn't need to be accurate on a publisher level, when your branch deals with dozens or hundred thousands of publishers, averages gives a really precise result for your bottom line. If they're run like any decent business, they already know how much money a new book brings, a brochure, a DVD, a new talk about offerings during the Service meeting, one more reading of the expenses at an assembly, etc...
If they think that softening the rules for "wrongdoers" will help them grow I think they've miscalculated.
Strict churches grow faster, everyone knows that.
http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2008/05/strict-vs-lax-c.html
Thanks Black Sheep - I've emailed TJ Curioso. Maybe TJ can come to the rescue!!!
Cedars
Translated from Portuguese:
I would bet my chips on a general change in the rules governing judicial committees. There is a consensus among some men in front here in Brazil, as in other parts of the world, especially among European brethren, that these standards need to be revised. Overall, they lead the elders involved in the judicial committees to develop a spirit of punishment rather than correction and help. It turns out that many who are disfellowshipped, for example, fornication, would be better helped if they stayed within the congregation, receiving attention and love.
Recently, the Governing Body commissioned a worldwide survey on the impact that the rates of disassociation have on fundraising volunteers. He then joined the average donation by siblings in each country, we took into account the amount of dissociated in each country, the values ??rounded down, and even then, the amount of money that the practice of disassociation makes the organization is losing really considerable. (At least here in Brazil was so) Also, the number of hours of service that is lost with the practice of disassociation also bothers.
The challenge is to find a way to balance things, a way that does not require the congregation to lower their moral standards, but it also does not require the congregation to lose so many members.
The growth of the mass of disassociated and decreasing number of readmissions are also worrying. In the long term, the organization loses much. In days like ours, religions hardened in their ways, inflexible and adaptable little suffering. See example of declining Catholic.
I think that the Governing Body may not change its policy of expelling the practitioners of what they consider sin, but maybe soften their policies very judicial hearings. This may be a truly historic moment and definitive for Jehovah's Witnesses. It's just my guess. At bottom, perhaps as just a small thing.
Translated from Portuguese:
In a recent letter to all Sup District, the Governing Body announced that Brazil will be visited in January 2012 by a Zonal Sup. The visit will be especially focused on the issue of inactive, whose number in Brazil is high compared with most countries with large numbers of Tj's. The outline provided to the speeches of service of this visit, to be relayed to the entire national territory, contains a section dedicated solely to this subject by retirees. Financial support for the Work World TJ will also be relevant matter. The letter does not announce the name chosen for this visit, but there are among the travelers of the District is the expectation that a member's own C. G. All Sup District, Instructors Special Schools theocratic and selected members of the World Order of Servants of Full time were invited to a special meeting to take place in Betel Brazil. Interestingly, members of the Legal Department of the Bethel Brazil were invited to attend a part of this program specially prepared for them. Be reminded that this department is currently facing an unprecedented flood of processes in the Brazilian courts. In a phrase of doubtful interpretation, the letter mentions that there will be some major changes in the arrangements that involve visits by Circuit Overseers. Apparently, the Bible School for couples will have a great impact on the circuit arrangement. It is not clear what changes will be made. In addition, three members of the Branch of Brazil were invited to special training in the United States during the months of July and August 2012.
I do not know exactly what use is this information, but I think most here like to be inside the universe TJ. Here, then this information as my gift to you.
Ray Franz received letters from Branch Committee members that displayed thoughtfulness and breadth of viewpoint that were in sharp contrast to the rigidity and narrowness of several members of the Governing Body:
What was the effect of all this? Remember that any decision made would affect the life of thousands of persons. The existing policy had already resulted in imprisonments representing tens of thousands of years. Again, I believe the way the matter was handled is remarkably revealing. It illustrates the way long-standing, traditional policies can exercise overruling power on the thinking of men who have declared their determination to let God's Word be their sole and supreme authority. [ISOCF, Ray Franz, p. 266.]
The Governing Body met and discussed the issue in four separate sessions extending from September 26 to November 15, 1978. In all these four days of discussion the letters submitted received only cursory attention; none of the arguments or questions received careful analysis or point-by-point discussion, and this was equally true of the fourteen pages of Biblical and historical evidence I had personally supplied.
The meetings were typical of most Governing Body sessions in that there was no particular order of discussion, no systematic consideration of one question or point of issue before moving on to consideration of another point at issue. Discussion could jump, as it typically did, from one aspect of the problem to another entirely different and relatively unrelated aspect. One member might conclude with the question,
"What Scriptural basis is there then for saying that because a service is 'alternative' it therefore becomes the equivalent of what it substitutes for?"
The next member recognized by the chairman might take up a totally different point, leaving the previous member's question hanging in midair. [The question of substitution equalling equivalency had been raised in the letter (from Belgium) that initiated the whole discussion. The writer, Michel Weber, was an elder who had visited Witnesses in prison in his country and realized their inability to grasp the reasoning behind the Society's policy. Among other things, he asked why, after receiving a blood transfusion, we did not consistently also refuse any SUBSTITUTE given in PLACE OF blood? Should not the reasoning apply in the same way? (emphasis: RF.)]
