by Band on the Run 38 Replies latest jw friends
I did get some benefit out of it. I always had to prepare my own talks and they were generally well recieved.
Like other Witness "pseudo-intellectual" practices, they only served to challenge me while I was a child. As I aged I quickly found no room for growth so I looked to other sources.
When I was in the cult I thought the TMS was the reason I am recognized as our company's best public speaker. Now that I am out of the cult I realized that something would be drastically wrong with me if after 50 years of practice I was not an expert! I could hhave spared 45 years and gotten a diploma if instead I went to college to acquire the same skills.
I didn't mind them too much. I was shy and it helped. But to be totally honest, it was my favorite meeting. You never knew what may happen. Once an older sister lost her slip walking onto the stage. Another teenager always got a red strip on his forehead from nerves. Kids were great, when they smiled and waved. Once I gave a talk and only did the intro and conclusion. LOL. But most of the time I couldn't tell you what the talk was about.
I once condensed the best main points on public speaking from the book onto a handout for when I was teaching senior English. It was tips on posture, stance, eye contact and that. It was the book without all the crap. I put it onto one A4 page. That was the benefit I got from it, or rather my classes did.
I learned to not fear speaking to a large group, and , as we had no Sound equipment in the early days, I learned to project my voice so that everyone can hear, even if I have not got a microphone, oh and I learned how to use a mike, when we did eventually get a steam driven sound system.
All things one would pick up pretty quickly anyway if forced in to Public Speaking.
Certainly the "benefits" of the TMS do not compensate for the many hours I devoted to it.
One poor brother I knew was so shy he used to cry during every talk but they still made him do it. It was hell for him and hell to watch.
I've never seen anyone cry up on the platform!, its an absolute fallacy that the TMS makes people wonderful public speakers, all of the very worst public speakers I've ever heard have all been JW's with decades of experience, with the tiny exception of a the odd flamboyant DO or CO, David Carter was a good speaker
The trouble with the TMS is that Elders are rarely counselled in a proper way, that would improve their skills.
The average guy giving a Public Talk in a Kingdom Hall should quite simply not be doing it.
And of course, up the pecking order no advice is given to C.O's and D.O's, they are just surrounded by sycophants who persuade them that they just gave a good Talk when they did no such thing.
I joined the ms and gave my first talk at the age of 8. I gave my first presentation at the door at the age of 4.
I do feel it has benefited me in some ways. When I interviewed with my present company, the job description involved cold calling on Architects and conducting seminars. My interviewer asked if I was intimidated by Architects.... I said no...explained my jw background... and said if I could go from door to door selling religion from the age of 4... then what could possibly intimidate me about Architects? He laughed and said he had never thought of that. I got the job.
Coffee
