30+ years of Field Service Observations

by Tulsi Das 30 Replies latest jw friends

Tulsi Das

Some very random thoughts based on 30+ years of field service activity. Would especially enjoy responses by JT, AlanF, Amazing, & others.
Why they do it
1. Guilt. Pure & simple. It is pounded in their heads at EVERY meeting the need to do more, more, more of this activity that really produces few results.
2. They truly believe that by going out in service they are pleasing God, imitating exactly what Jesus did, and earning their salvation. Surely they will die at armageddon if they fail to do all they can in this important life saving activity.
3. A way to establish & prove their spirituality with other JW’s. Go out in service often? That is a spiritual man. Fail to go out often/at all – that is a weak brother
What the average JW thinks of service
No one enjoys the door to door work. Need proof? No one ever says “I can’t wait to go out in field service Saturday morning! There’s nothing I’d rather do.” Need proof that even the most hard core witness doesn’t enjoy it? Ask why does it take 20+ minutes to get a group of 4 out the KH door and into the car to leave for the territory after the meeting for field service. Why do most JW’s feel the need to “take a break” after an hour of door to door work? Do any of them take a break after one hour on their secular job? Why does no one ever want to go back & continue door to door work after taking a break? Why do they always say “let’s go make some calls/RV’s instead”? Why is it you can set your watch with atomic certainty at 12:00 on Saturday at any KH parking lot in the USA when all witnesses quit for the day? If the activity is so important why must they quit at precisely noon?
What Field Service really is the average JW
A social activity. A chance to get together with others in their hall & cruise around town for a couple of hours. The fact that others in the hall saw them engaging in Field Service is enough. They truly don’t care what the results are of their activity. In fact, they usually think the placement of literature is the measurement of success. The average JW never stops & thinks, “OK, they took the magazines. Now what action is the householder going to take as a result of (maybe) reading them? Are they now going to make major life changes & join our faith?” No, they are content to continue making return visits on the person leaving magazines until the end of time. I can’t tell you how many RV’s I’ve gone on with others where the householder CLEARLY had absolutely no interest whatsoever. They just hadn’t reached a point where they said “please don’t bother coming back & because I really am not interested – I just took the magazines from you 5 years ago to be nice. I didn’t realize at the time that you would them come back almost every weekend from then on.”
The last time I went in service a few months ago it was with a 14 year old regular pioneer. (Home schooling, of course) He presented the Awake with a cover article on “Is your food safe?” The householder looked at us & said “are you two with the local PBS station? Because I’m already a member.” That’s how effective his “Kingdom Preaching” work was – the householder didn’t even realize we were witnesses or why we were there. AND YET, God is going to judge mankind, in large part due to their response to this Kingdom message? Sometimes I put myself in the average householders place. It’s Saturday morning, the TV is blaring cartoons, I’m about to take the kids to soccer practice, get groceries, run errands, etc. My doorbell rings. It’s two people in suits talking about world peace & trying to give me two magazines. Am I going to stop all that I’m doing, have a biblical conversation, & change my thinking/religion/outlook on life & the future based on this? Not likely.
Your thoughts???
Xander

Your numbered list is interesting, in that I think it is backwards, but describes the steps a person takes in and out of the borg.
First, they go out in service because they want to be spiritual, and that is what spiritual people do.
Then, they do it because they believe.
Finally, they are only doing it because they have to.
Lastly, they're gone....
As to who enjoys it? Most don't, I think I agree. But I do disagree with your generalization - some do. I knew several sisters who LOVED IT. Not only service, but informally witnessed EVERY GODDAMN CHANCE THEY GOT. Evening service, weekday, weekend - no breaks (or, at least, you couldn't count your time no matter HOW short the break was), etc.
We had a ton of elders like that, too. They honestly, honestly, seemed to ENJOY having doors slammed in their face (and that's about all it was, too - we live in a pretty worked-over territory - our congregation of 200 typically covered its entire territory twice every three years, IIRC).
Xander F
(Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America - Ohio order)
A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
--George Santayana
sleepy

My thought mirror yours.
I remember as time went on more and more i would see the ministry as a pointless waste of time.
We wernt accomplishing much considering the amount of time it took .
And the simple fact is most witnesses are crap at talking to people on the doors about their beliefs.
Witnesses also make fools of themselves by gathering together in large numbers in the streets.What must people think.
The witnessing work does more to put people off the witnesses than bring them in.
Most converts are children and "friends" .
lv4fer

The only reason they love it is because they have nothing better to do, and they like the social aspect of it. You get to spend time with your friends. You don't have any other friends because that would be wordly association. You can't watch T.V. because during the week its only soap operas and talk shows which you are discouraged from watching and you won't watch if you are "spiritual". You don't have a job(mostly women) because you are discouraged from working secularly and you don't want to be seen as too materialistic. If you do have a job it's something like cleaning houses because you don't have an education because you were discouraged from getting one. I'm sorry to ramble this is just my observation and experience.
Xander

Thought I'd break this down some from my experiences in service (22 years in the borg, was born in though, maybe about 12 as a publisher)
No one ever says “I can’t wait to go out in field service Saturday morning! There’s nothing I’d rather do.”
They're called 'pioneers'. Our hall had a dozen of them. (Actually, up to 20 including regular auxies - it was a proud thing for our hall that 1 in 10 publishers were regular pioneering)
Need proof that even the most hard core witness doesn’t enjoy it? Ask why does it take 20+ minutes to get a group of 4 out the KH door and into the car to leave for the territory after the meeting for field service.
Oh, no. We weren't finished saying 'amen' to the closing prayer before we were in the cargroups. And the time didn't start until the first door - didn't matter HOW far out it was.
do most JW’s feel the need to “take a break” after an hour of door to door work
Really? Never met one who did - even in several congregations. We might stop for a drink after a couple hours, and you may rest assured, after a couple hours of work, I MOST CERTAINLY DO get a quick drink and go to the restroom.
Why do they always say “let’s go make some calls/RV’s instead”?
Well, that was because our hall had a thing with making magazine routes. Studies were low, but there were lots of people in the territory that took the rags (and, I'm 100% sure, most threw them away as soon as we were off the stoop)
If the activity is so important why must they quit at precisely noon?
??? - again, several halls, never saw this. Service was from 8:30 - 12:30 with a short bathroom break somewhere in there. Lunch (if we took it) was at 12:30, followed by afternoon service meeting at 1:30 (which then ran till 3:30).
I think I agree with the rest of your statement re: 'regular j-dubs'.
Xander F
(Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America - Ohio order)
A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
--George Santayana
sleepy

Xander ,
I think I've heard of your congregation before , isn't it on Mars?
Seriously , there must have been something in the water.
spender

I think it depends on where you live. Everyone in the borg says that the further you are away from Bethel, the stranger the halls and their practices get. I hear it's a joke in places like California. I know here in PA we used to take breaks at actual restaraunts...like an hour break! They weren't so much into breaks in Maryland though.
Pathofthorns

I think your comments are right on with what I have seen. I think the Society must know the realities of the ministry and that it is hardly about results and more about control and occupying the members time in the routine. If you took field service out of this religion, would you have anything left?
Path
NameWithheld

I have to agree for the most part. The typical person dreaded knocking on doors. We made FS 'as fun' as we could. Doing the typical drive from one end of the county to the other, making RVs that you knew would never be home, etc. This was 'typical'. There were those however (that you avoided FS with at all costs) that made FS a chore - spiritual nazi's I called 'em. No breaks, get up and out of the FS meeting as fast as you can, not stopping until 12:30 or later, etc. Ugg!
If 90% of the JWs really thought this was 'a life-saving work' they would be much more urgent about trying to actually teach people, not just throw a couple of mags/brocure in their hands and move on.
I totally agree re: the general population having no idea what JWs believe or why they're at their door. Most people, if they are even aware JWs exist, think they're just those kooks that knock on their door selling mags. I have yet to meet one person 'in the world' that knows anything about JWs. Most are shocked when they hear the belief structure of "Jehovah's" (as most call them ).
Room 215

Hi all,
Tulsi, right on. I've observed it for more than 40 years; and increasingly, the ones who really like field service are at the margins not the mainstream. For the majority,it's an unpleasant but necessary exercize in discipline that validates their perception of being Christlike.
So, it's a palliative, not much more than a feel-good gesture that assuages the guilt that the organization remorselessly slathers on them. Then too, many if not most ``publishers'' regard the hours they squander in their desultory walking about while counting the time as installment payments in advance for their idyllic New World homestead.
Xander, frankly I'm astonished that so many in your congregation actually relished the field service. I'm sure that's extraordinarily atypical. Most JWs privately wish it would go away and pray for Saturday morning rain when they go to bed Friday nights.
Tulsi, you also hit on an interesting point when you mentioned the ``talking points'' JWs use that are usually based on front cover article of the Awake! magazine. Just review the subjects treated on thusly and ask yourselves how often do these bear any direct relation to the purported objective of door-to-door work; i.e. dissemination of the Good News of the Kingdom?
Is it any wonder then, that JWs have been so ineffectual when its comes to delivreing to the public a clear idea of what JWs are all about, despite their squandering of hundreds of millions of hours on public preaching? Where's the ``Good News of the Kingdom'' in all of this?

30+ years of Field Service Observations

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