Letter to BOE: Adjustment in process for appointing elders and ministerial servants (page 8)

Magwitch

I have not been able to read all the posts - looking forward to doing this tonight. This is slightly off subject, but here are my selfish thoughts on this.....Please, please, please delete my frail, thin, hunched over, extremely shaky 85 year old father. He needs desperately to rest! The elders in the hall say they need him. I hope the CO will have more common sense in areas like this.

GoUnion

Hopefully the C.O.s will follow the fasting aspect of the scripture most of them could use it.

Oubliette

What I found very interesting is the letterhead and the signature. They are both from "The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses" and NOT from "The Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses."

This is the first time I've seen this. When did this change? In a way, it doesn't surprise me considering how much more prominenty the GB features themselves of late. But it does seem interesting: more focus is on them and less on Jesus Christ and Christianity.

Please comment on this change on this thread:

Letters to the Body of Elders (BOE) - Change in Letterhead

JW GoneBad

or how about this one...

"In accord with this Scriptural precedent, the Governing Body has determined that it is erroneous and disrespectful to use and pronounce 'Jehovah' as though it is God's Holy name. Therefore, effective immediately we will follow Jesus Christ's example of using the expressions: God, Father, Almighty God, Holy Father, Grand Creator, Grand Instructor and the like in our worship."

BroGone

While irregular, really the CO's have always had this authority. They could appoint an elder over the objections of the body and send in the appointment or "recommendation" and the then the branch would make the appointment official. I personally know of situations where brothers getting "vetoed" by one elder and beiing put off again and again until "next time" the CO visits for literally years. Some bodies want to hoard the power with just a few. Some feel if a brother is a poor speaker that he cant be an elder. If the brother can teach on a one to one basis, say on a bible study, the CO would push it through/ I heard of CO's asking about why a brother hasn't been recommended. Certain ones said that he needed work on certain issues. The CO asked if they had talked to him about it. They said no. The CO then told them to appoint him.

I heard multiple times of bodies of elders deleted all at once.

Some bodies have withered down to only a few to no elders with some having only MS's doing all the talks. I personally served as MS were we had only one elder and four of us MS's. With so many brothers stepping down the society had to make some emergency changes. There's a new July 2014 Watchtower article thats on helping new and young brothers reach out.

I see a lot of elders being deleted for spouting off at the mouth about financial matter changes. This change is all about the society consolidating power. At the same time, if the society gets complaints about abusive CO's, I can see a lot of CO removals and new appointments.

bruh2012

I would think the local elders would still have to give a recommendation because they are familiar with the local brother.

CO's barely knows the local non-servant brothers let alone their names from visit to visit.

They spend most of their time with the prominent ones in the congregation anyways.

It maybe that when a name comes up at the elders meeting that after hearing the details he gives his thumbs up or thumbs down on the spot and the announcement is then made the next service meeting.

I guess we have to just wait for the follow up info to see how this unfolds.

Ocean1111

Interesting. It appears while evryone focuses on the DO removal, what is actually in action is a technique merely shifting the top company men down into the CO ranks. So in effect the DO connection level still exists (but not nominally), but the harder to control CO level is what is actually being depleted, and tightened up, not in number, but in key personel - the predator DOs are just moved in closer to the target. (With the "bethel reps").

Part of the target will be elders attempting to advise JW "investors" of the real conditions, of indeed any are capable from the deep JW coma of the company slaves ranks. Just in case now authority is heightened to remove obstacles on the spot, from CO ranks, now invaded by "DO" drones.

In a corporate situation of dratically tightening a command structure in this way, while making it appear otherwise, it means some sort of massive shake-up is expected after the point in time this is in place.

Other anomalies in stats and policy changes, would to smart investors, having them dump the stock. With JWs, some of the most naive "investors" of any on earth, not a single red flag is waving in all these developments, so they can and will proceed. JWs in general do not even detect the org product has lost 10% "market share" in just a couple decades, sold to JWs as "apex growth", another very red flag-a-waving.

The JW "investors" have already, and will continue as long as possible, to foot the bill for what is obviously a "corporate raid" in the making. The ship is sinking and the pirates are being placed for final SOS, and JW lifeboats will not be available, only the sea of Jonah, where JWs will be tossed, lock, stock, and barrel.

IMO

It doesn't look good, and expect more red flags now that the "board" is certain none of the investors detect anything awry. In fact many people wuld have a hard time detecting what is occuring in the JW org, mostly due to partiality, lack of info, or lack of experience. It appears even of those examining the org with a critical eye, few see the obvious. Bethel is literally heading for disaster. The context into which it will develop is what is now even more interesting. JWs are not the only corporate matrix in such a precarious set-up, and I do mean purposeful S E T U P.

Now that the regular HQ is abandoned, and the new one is "under construction", when it does hit, JWs will also have no HQ, just another set-up seen in recent developments that makes absolutelt zero strategic sense if indeed one believe "it can end anyday now". Obviously the Bethel engineers of the plunge know it (Bethel) will end, in a corpoarte sense, and basically deconstructing HQ with a "construction" project sham veneer is the strategic proof things are not what they seem at Bethel expecting the "attack of the Assyrian".

IMO

It looks like the "reap what you sow" proverb is readying on the JW org. It is not Armageddon Bethel needs to try to escape, it is justice, which cannot be avoided in these kinds of spiritual situations of rogue and blatant lawlessness of every sort - except smoking a cigarette.

Vidiot

Ocean1111 - "...drastically tightening a command structure...while making it appear otherwise..."

So that's what it is.

Now it makes sense; it's like the blood ban, which they're trying to quietly phase out without looking like they're phasing it out.

In this instance, they're trying to tighten legal and policy control without looking like they're tightening legal and policy control (probably so as not to tip off any other BOEs like the Menlo Park bunch).

Dogpatch once talked about how the WTS is likely to "fragment" as it declines; this course of action must be an attempt to head that off before it escalates, to avoid losing KH real estate assets in case the WTS needs to liquidate them to stay afloat.

We tend to forget that authoritarian groups will definately sacrifice a percentage of their members if they think that's what they need to do to in order to survive.

Socrateswannabe

Is it possible that this is another change based primarily upon finances? 110,000 congregations worldwide, averaging let's say 1 elder or ministerial servant appointment per year = 110,000 appointments to process. It's true that it is nothing more than a rubber stamp, but they do have to process the paperwork from the CO or congregation who submitted the recommendation, spit out a S-52 and a S-2 form to the congregation, and later mail a stamped copy of it to the congregation, and transfer the appointment to the database on jw.org. Worldwide maybe that doesn't require more than a few dozen people to handle all of this, but with this new "arrangement", the cost to the organization goes down to almost zero. The COs are already on the "payroll", so why not pile as much work on them as possible and make them earn those Buicks they drive?

Rattigan350

In accord with this Scriptural precedent, we stopped following scriptural precedent because those who set scriptural precedent did not have precedent to follow as they did things from originality.

It is like the GB is a bunch of pansies. They can't do anything without being defensive and having scripture to rely on.

Letter to BOE: Adjustment in process for appointing elders and ministerial servants

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