Why dont JW's have a youth group? (page 2)

Scully

We never had anything that resembled your "youth book study" here in Canada. If it was practiced, I certainly don't imagine it was something endorsed by the WTS. Perhaps it was an endeavour by congregation members to address the needs of the children in the congregation, hoping that the WTS would pick up on it and recommend that it be done on a grand scale.

As usual, though, the WTS doesn't give a rat's a$$ about the needs of the members, only the number of hours and placements on the month-end service report. That's likely the main reason it was squashed... it was "time better spent in the door-to-door work".

Just my 2 cents
Love, Scully

expatbrit

during a visit to Australia, J. F. Rutherford, the Societys president, found that a class for children was being held apart from the convention for adults. He immediately arranged for all the children to be brought into the main convention, which was greatly to their benefit.
um.... how?

Less lag-time between yawning with boredom and getting the richly deserved beating with a wooden spoon. That's how.

Expatbrit

NotBlind

The JW org as a whole doesn't really care about the youth among them. But when the GB has an average age of about 75, this is not surprising. If they even did something such as establish a "Youth Department" at HQ, they would be making a great symbolic gesture that they actually care. They could even, God forbid, appoint a few younger people to the GB. (And, BTW, guys in their 50's do NOT count as younger.) Maybe then they would start to make strides in keeping their younger members.

This year's summer convention produced the first publication geared toward young people in 13 years. Thirteen years!! And it was just a tract! And if that weren't bad enough, it was nothing more than a tract plugging various aspects of pioneering and Bethel service (guess the numbers must be down...).

Until the organization wakes up and realizes that publishing a tract once a decade does NOT show consideration for young people - only a lack thereof - they will continue to lose their potentially most energetic and productive members. Until they realize that by banning (strongly discourage = banning) university educations, they bring about a shameful brain drain in the org, the WT will continue to lose its best and brightest.

Oh, I almost forgot! There IS one thing they do for the kids - they write all the mags on a 3rd grade reading level!

neyank

"What exactly is the WT doing to keep it's young ones in the org?"

They are doing the same thing they do to older people to keep them in.

Keep beating them down, telling them that they are not good enough.

That they must door more door to door work.
(selling magazines.)

That they must not dare to think that there is any future outside of the WTS.

That if they leave the WTS, they will be anihilated, desroyed, fed to birds of prey, and otherwise have a really bad day!

Of course with such uplifting words said by an orginization that teaches that to be loved by God, one MUST become enslaved to a man made orginization it's no wonder young ones are leaving.

neyank

RR

I have asked myself that questons too, considering the amount of young people they have.

You know the Bible Students have "sunday schools", "summer camps" and "etirement homes" And with all the money the Society has, they can't even do one thing to help their people out!

neyank

Hi RR,

Many many other religions have different things going on for members and non members alike.

I remember hearing from other JWs how having such things is a waste of time with us being so close to the end.

The bottom line is, the WTS is a publishing corporation.

All other things, such as having the fruits of the spirit, showing love to your fellow man, helping those that are distressed and the like, take a back seat to getting out on the streets going door to door trying to sell magazines.

Sure the WTS uses God to atract people to them, but once a person is in, it's advertise,advertise, advertise what is in the magazines.

Even if the info in them is constantly changing.

neyank

Farkel

Watchtower leadership has no interested whatsoever in "reaching out to the youth." They don't care about the interests of the young or the needs of the young. They are only interested in grooming kids to become good book salesmen and Cult recruiters.

Proof? They made countless hundreds of thousands or even millions of youngsters give up good educations and told them to devote their full-time in selling their books. Or God would kill them.

Farkel

Edited by - Farkel on 4 July 2002 12:36:37

home_and_dry

I know this has been touched on but I reckon a good reason for not doing it is that it would mean a lot of young JW's together in the same place rather than filtering them out amongst all the old ones. If they are all made to hang out with the old JW's, they are not as likely to influence each other to get up to naughty things now are they?

On a similar point, a couple of years ago I went to a family christening in a church. We had to sit through the whole sunday morning service even though we just went for the christening. There were quite alot of us there and had quite a few children between us. The vicar was really welcoming to all of us, and at one point during the service he could see that some of the children were getting a bit restless so he stopped what he was saying and suggested to us that we take them into the creche that was provided, saying 'This must all be a bit boring for them at their age, if you take them in the creche they can do something a bit more interesting.'

Can you imagine either JW's actually providing facilities like this in the first place, or actually admitting that meetings are boring for young children? (not to mention everybody else) No, just take them out and slap them around a bit until they learn to keep quiet. Thats the way forward. Obviously.

Edited by - home_and_dry on 4 July 2002 15:2:41

mommy1

Musky , I asked my Mom about The youth book study we used to have and she said it was just an idea five or six sisters had in order to get the kids together. I asked her why they stopped and she said one of the sisters husband [elder] felt that it was the fathers responsibilty to study with their own kids. She said one sister got very upset because she was a single Mom. They just stopped having the kids study because of all the conflict. It was such a nice little group. Moms got along and kids too. We were all around 8 to 12 years old.

Pubsinger

I had to laugh at the WT reason for disbanding "Watchtower Youth" in the 1930s. First, I was shocked that it ever existed, but to say "what was happening was an organisation was forming within an organisation, which would have lead to disunity"</P> <P>Since when??</P> <P>There are allsorts of clubs and organisations within Christianity which cater for lots of different interests and age groups without any question of "disunity"</P> <P>Actually it is the fact that they are united in their faith, but diverse in their interests which make these organisations work.</P> <P>One which springs instantly to mind is the "Mothers Union"</P> <P>There are countless youth organisations and others which are quite specific like "The Christian Bikers Association"</P> <P>This is just another example of how out of touch WT is.</P>

Why dont JW's have a youth group?

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