The zeal has gone out of the preaching work , their is no more urgency to the work.

by smiddy 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  smiddy

  This is an observation I have made . Yesterday a group of JW`s entered the street where I live , I`m at the end of a street and they stood around and obviously joked and mucked around for about 10 minutes as a group opposite my house .Their were 3 teenage girls ,1 teenage boy , and 3 older men . This was about 10:30 am on a saturday. ( I did think I was veiwed as an apostate as the last time they were in my neighbourhood they bypassed our house.)

  fair enough the teenagers were carrying on as teenagers do , flirting ? touching , shoving ? and 3 older men in their midst. Remember this is a serious work they are doing , warning the non JW`s of the impending catastrophe that is going to engulf them at armageddon any day now.

  Finally they decided to start working the territory again . Two of the older guys came up my path and knocked on the door , I was really relaxing that morning and was still in my PJ`s , when I went to change and came back in ony a couple of minutes they were gone. As I watched them go out of my home their was no recording of a not at home slip , so they could come back .

  No leaflet , no brochure , no watchtower or awake , nothing to say they were ever their . That is in total contrast to what we went through in the mid seventies , back calls ,return visits , even when you covered the territory and recorded not at homes you went back and called again on the not at homes you previously recorded . I always left some thing to say I called . Do they still use , what do you call them ? tracts thats it do they still use them ? I have never seen one in 20 years .in two states

  smiddy
• 

  jookbeard

  long are the days of the "foot in door " merchants and "yelling down the letterbox" , if any thing these stupid metal racks make their work even less effective and leaves them to just muck around, play with their phones and gossip.
• 

  Miss.Fit

  Do you really blame them? I remember forcing myself to go out. I would hear at the meetings how important the work was. Then when I would meet for service I would always get in a group that just wanted to go on calls. Since I hadn't been out for awhile I wouldn't have any calls. If I was lucky we might work a block or 2. We always kept not at homes because it gave us something to do the next time. I aways felt guilty counting time because I never felt like I acomplished anything. We were told that the angels were directing the work. Also we were told just going in the ministry was a witness.
• 

  Phizzy

  Perhaps a Mod could combine Smiddys two threads on this ?
• 

  Apognophos

  The procedure that many JWs follow these days is to leave something on the last time through that territory. They may have recorded your number a bit later, sometimes I would forget while going door-to-door and catch the numbers on the way out of the street. So when they come back through to do the NHs, they should be leaving tracts or brochures or something.
• 

  Rattigan350

  Has there ever been any urgency? It is a case of branch managers telling sales managers to get their people out to sell and distribute.
• 

  steve2

  Like any boring job, the focus is primarily on home time. Looks like you took more interest in their work than they did. They are not the most energizing group out there. I can unerringly tell a born-JW from a later-convert. The former are so dulled in their approach, lifeless, almost robot-like. But, as a general observation, they are doing the rounds fewer and fewer times compared to the days of decades ago. The steam ain't there anymore.
• 

  Phizzy

  Reminds me of the B.B King song "The Thrill is Gone". Not that there ever was much of a thrill about it. But we did manage to engender enthusiasm and used to do it properly back in the day.

  I feel sorry now for the long time JW's who are aware of the decline, and lack of zeal, but cannot do anything now to turn the clock back, it has gone too far, being made worse by pointless "Trolley" work.

  It really must suck the life out of you being a JW today.
• 

  JustVisting

  At least the older guy wasn't working with one of the young sisters. I've seen where the servant diched his wife to work a street with a pretty 20-something sister.
• 

  rebel8

  Maybe there were pockets of zeal here and there, but in general, I doubht "zeal" and "taking it seriously" existed in any broad manner.

  When I talked to the elders about how much I hated fs as a pioneer, and the other pioneers hated it too, they said jehoopla commanded us to exhibit joy in serving him, so we better figure out a way to enjoy it. We never did, but we sure found a way to make it more tolerable--goofing off.

  The dubs I went in fs with, from half a dozen or so different congregations:

  • planned their RVs so they would spend the most time driving from one side of the territory to the other
  • spent most of the time talking about, planning, or taking breaks in local restaurants
  • knocked lightly so the householder wouldn't answer the door
  • chose their territories to maximize the NAHs (i.e., Yuppie suburbs on weekdays when most would be at work)
  • spent unnecessary time in the car warming up
  • visited inactives or elderly dubs and counted time
  • gamed the system to count more time than was actually served ("starting time" by leaving a ragazine at the laundry by the kh, then driving to a far away territory while counting time; saying a word or two to an unbelieving or unbaptized family member before attending the service mtg to start time and keep counting it through the meeting)