Saturday morning field service is a joke

by hoser 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Quendi

  I knew a pioneer who would schedule his service to allow him to patronize his favorite coffee establishments. I'm sure he wasn't the only one who did so. He would prattle on and on about the quality of coffee at different eateries in town. Since I was not then and am not now a coffee drinker, I resented being subjected to his coffee treasure hunts. So I made the point to work with him as little as possible. Other people haunted different bagel places which carried their favorite kinds. To be fair, most Witnesses hate the canvassing work, so gossip, food breaks and idle talk make participation tolerable. Long hours knocking on the doors of empty homes hardly make the activity worth while. I'm glad that I don't have anything to do with this work anymore.

  Quendi
• 

  whathappened

  I always ended up in the third row of someone's mini van with about 8 other people. There would be so many return visits that were not at home, that is all you do is ride from one end of the territory to the other, with a long break at Dunkin Donuts.
• 

  BucketShopBill

  The last time "I threw in the towel" because Field Circus started at:

  9:30 did a few calls

  10:00 after doing two RVs we had coffee and someone said they had a call twenty five miles outside the territory, so we drove because someone said they had a very beautiful garden I was interested in.

  11:40 we stopped for a snack at a Bagel Shop and the brother said (That was a nice three hours of field service, don't you feel good!), I was bummed out, this was what the Pioneers and Elders and Female Elders were doing to, how is this Missionary Work?

  How many perjured their field service report each month, I know people who spend all their time answering some of you on Yahoo Answers trying to get their Pioneer Hours. When told they are talking to Apostates, they don't care as long as they get their time in. I see even Yahoo has lost the majority of Witnesses who argued and tried to make sense of all the posts people were trolling with. The Elders in several of the last Kingdom Halls I was in were worthless at the Field Ministry, they too lied how much time they were getting in the door-to-door Ministry. I counted 1.5 hours which was liberial, the COBE rounded his up to 5 hours saying "Jehovah is Generous and pay's his employees well!" "What the hell does that have to do with giving the Society a accurate accounting of the Field Service numbers?
• 

  smiddy

  This sounds very much like what we were doing 35 years ago.

  smiddy
• 

  skin

  It certainly is a joke, I try not to go out but I get the guilt talk, so to keep the peace I go out. What irratates me is when we are working house over house with another couple or two, these others always seem to walk very slow or stand around on the street talking to each other. leaving us to do about 7 out of every 10 houses. If the others are pioneers then our house rate that I knock on is closer to 4 out of every 5 houses on the street.

  No matter how manys hours or not a month I do, I only report 1 hr. No one else in my congregation have got the Biblical right to judge my spiritually / relationship with Jehovah based only on the field service hours I do. Unfortunately that now appears to be the way we are looked upon (Judged) in the congregation.
• 

  Phizzy

  Yup, sounds like it was when I was in. Weekday "service" was even more of a joke in our very Rural area, we would travel in one vehicle, a different pair of JW's getting out to knock on the door of an empty house (N.H), then we would drive a mile or so to the next empty house etc etc

  I used to insist on working alone if poss, so they would drop me off, move to the next empty house, while I had a long conversation (with myself, my house was N.H too) , I would be ages catching up with the car, and as I approached they could see me writing down the details for a R.V, supposedly.

  Wasted hours this way, we were all seen as very "spiritual".

  Funny thing, in nearly 60 years "in" I never called on a house and started a Bible Study, wonder why ?
• 

  mrquik

  I pass the local hall on Saturdays & watch the usual three cars leave the parking lot. Sure do miss wasting Saturday mornings driving around aimlessly. Even as an elder, I knew this was a worthless endeavor. I still catch a few witnesses at the Tim Horton's in Geneva, NY. At least they know good coffee. Who would have thought those crafty Canadians could make good coffee. Where do they grow coffee in Canada?
• 

  KateWild

  I feel so out of place. I had five students the day I got Df'd. FS was everything to me, I was really zealous and used to approach anyone and everyone. I went on all my return visits and even turned some into regular bible studies. JWs used to just say to me... "I am no good at the ministry". I used to work with all ranges of publishers and did not have regular partners.

  I really believed I was doing a worthwhile work, it was only until I got DF'd I could understand why so many JWs are so apethetic in FS.

  I was converted and was always zealous as soon as I qualified to preach.

  Kate xx
• 

  prologos

  I would be ashamed now, to present these ideas, papers to people, have not been locked into the field service lock-step for years, but really enjoy talking to all kinds of people, cold, an any occasion, just as a human to human, and do not allow such grand occasions to be marred by the crass WT end-spiel.

  I am enjoying a sabbathical from FS every saturday.
• 

  Viviane

  I live in a nice, safe historic neighborhood laid out on a grid with sidewalks in a small town with three congregations and an assembly hall. In the two years I have lived here, JWs have stopped exactly once and even then, all they did was say "We are handing this out to our neighbors" and left. They handed me a tract.