Ha!! In over 30 years a witness I had 4 shepherding calls........even though I was a single lone parent brother who needed support and received none.... many elders are riddled with nepotism....blinkered self serving token care for others....
NEW BOE LETTER - It just got exponentially harder to "fade"
by sir82 91 Replies latest jw friends
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Frazzled UBM
I told my wife after the first visit by an elder to try to rope me in that I didn't want elders in my house and since then not a single visit to shpeherd my wife (thankfully we live a long way away from the KH she attends but if she misses too many meeting sin a row - she will get a call and get guilted into going back. I believe shepherding is a form of subtle bullying.
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quellycatface
Forgive me for being so naive but I never realized how controlling the Borg was, until coming to jwn.it's scaring me even now I've da'd.you gotta have sympathy for the ones that still swallow the BS.
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adamah
lrkr said- I see this as a relaxing of standards.
Interesting, as I see it as the exact opposite: it's setting an impossibly-high demand on all the elders that allows higher-ups to play the power game and target underlings on trumped-up charges 'for neglecting the flock'.
And since part of the letter alleviates the need for documentation of all such sheparding visits (presumably under the pretenses of 'lightening the load' on the elders), the elder under inquisition is unlikely to have any records of what efforts he engaged in to point to as his defense.
But even beyond exercising control at the local level, I smell a rat in the "don't document" advice: I suspect it's an intentional effort by the WTBTS to increase the distance between the activities and decisions of the individual congregations and the "Mother Ship", trying to cut down on the sheer bulk of 'smoking guns' that potentially serves as incriminating evidence showing the level of local control exerted by "Mother".
That factor can play into civil cases, where plaintiffs are looking for any evidence to present to a jury that shows the level of local control exerted by the deep-pocketed WTBTS from afar esp on cases of DFed members. I suspect the "don't record" advice as a liability shield designed to protect the Mother, more than anything...
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Oubliette
adamah: Interesting, as I see it as the exact opposite: it's setting an impossibly-high demand on all the elders that allows higher-ups to play the power game and target underlings on trumped-up charges 'for neglecting the flock'.
It's all about making ALL members of the organization feel that, no matter what you do, it's never good enough!
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88JM
It's sad that the "true religion" needs a letter in writing to tell it's elders to talk to people. Whatever happened to being motivated by love?
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skeeter1
I see smart elders asking their wives to take attendance.
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AlphaMan
This doesn't surprise me. It's a known fact that the Watchtower monitors this site, so they know all about "faders" and the different ways of fading. This religion is a cult that hates anyone not fully in. I would expect that they have a strategy to make it less easy to fade.
P.S. I walked away in 1995, so technically I'm a fader. I only really became anti-Watchtower after learning TTATT of this cult on this site. I've never officially DA'ed, only because I don't play by the rules of their cult. However, I would dare any of them to phone me up and try to talk about that cult like it's the truth.
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LongHairGal
Sir82:
I have been a "fader" from the JW religion for so long I doubt they have any interest in me. Any phone number they have is a disconnected landline. They would almost never catch me home.
If, by chance, they somehow got hold of my current cellphone number and left a message, I'd never return their call. I would listen to their message only once, just to make myself laugh. After that, if they have the nerve to leave another one, I'll press the "7" delete key once I hear their voice and wouldn't bother listening to the whole thing. It would be an exercise in futility on their part.
My attitude is good riddance and they shouldn't waste their time and resources tracking down people who want nothing to do with the religion and are done with it!!
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Londo111
marked