Thank you for posting this letter. I would agree with several here that it is simply the requisite "do your job" letter. No elder that I know of will actually do anything different...why? What for? There is absolutely nothing inherently valuable in serving as an elder except for the prestige that comes with the title and the "privilege" of having a captivated audience who are forced to sit there are listen to your drivel.
In other news, from a fairly reliabe source, there is another letter that directs the same BOE to assign brothers to their respective groups and post the group assignments on the information board. They are only to assign "active" brothers and sisters. I haven't seen this yet in my hall, but I would imagine that it will simply disenfranchise or marginalize those that have gone inactive quietly. Now, if this is the actual direction of the GB to the elders, every single person in the congregation will know who has gone inactive and those people will be outed. It is, again, a contradiction. On one hand, "reach out to the inactive" on the other "make sure everyone knows who is inactive." When the congregation knows just who is inactive, then the shunning will begin, the looks, the comments, the rumours....it is all an attempt at control.
I simply wonder what Jesus thinks of all this....He must be scratching his head, "where did they get THAT?"
SOP