Former Elders? What did you not like about serving as an elder?

by JakeM2012 22 Replies latest jw friends

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  Sofi

  I wans't and elder (of course, I'm a woman!) but just wanted to say I loved what DJS said "The second thing I hated most was the extreme egos amongst the elders. Most were uneducated and their only claim to fame in life was their eldership.... in reality almost all of them were nasty, dark, egomaniacal little men who thought they and their families were somehow better or more priviliged than the rank-in-file.

  Sounds like the exact description of one of the elder we had in my ex congregation. Great description of the profile! I just feel sorry for the elders that actually were decent and tried to be compassionate and caring... I just remember the nasty one talking during my commitee and the nice one just tearing and staying quiet...
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  daringhart13

  I absolutely HATED field service in any form. It was so incredibly stupid and impractical...dated.

  But the thing I hated most was the way people were treated. Like one of the other people above, I served on hundreds of committee meetings. To see the way people were spoken to or the innuendos stated by fellow elders....made me sick. I stopped more than one meeting and excused the 'publisher' so I could rip the elder a new @sshole.

  The lack of education among elders is staggering. The MAJORITY have never read the Bible or could even have an intelligent discussion about Jesus personality. I was the youngest elder in every congregation I was in....and I couldn't believe the ineptitude with the scriptures.... not to mention their man-made WT policies. Massively stupid and made no effort to improve. Why should they? They were 'appointed by holy spirit'.... and averaged 10 hours a month in field service. This made them 'godly'

  The negative, insulting talk about publishers behind closed doors. That sister is a 'whack job'..... those people are 'poor'..... 'maybe they shouldn't eat so much'.....

  And last but not least: GROSS HYPOCRISY. Almost every BOE I served on had massive....and I mean MASSIVE drinking problems. Flat out drunks......especially their wives. Notorious drunks. Most of these guys were overweight and bombed on weekends.....until Sunday when they would give a talk on gluttony. I would literally look up at them on stage and just shake my head.
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  life is to short

  As an elders wife I hated the way it was just expected that I would wait in the car for hours and hours on end for a surprise elders meeting knowing I had to get up at 5:00 in the morning to go to work. They way it was just expected that I had to use our car in field service and put in more people in it then the law allowed because no one else wanted to use their cars. Never having my husband home when I needed him because he was out doing some elder thing to help some one else.

  Listening to other sisters going on about the fun date nights they had with their husband and when I planed a date night with my husband it was always canceled because of some elder thing coming up. Being told by the CO that I was selfish because I wanted time with my husband when I was newly married, the CO told me 'I could have my husband in the new system as Jehovah needed him now.

  Never having a family life, being told by others that my husband owed it to them to be at their home to help them when I was dying inside because I had no one, no friends and no family. Having ones ask for money, and rides to meeting and help to pioneer while they were on welfare and I worked. Having to have everyone in the book study over when it was our turn to feed the speaker, with no one else ever offering to help.

  The list goes on and on.

  LITS