The Privilege of Handling the Microphones

by minimus 41 Replies latest jw friends

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  Dawn

  Well...since I was a "gal" I didn't get to carry the mics. Somewhere in the unwritten code of the bible it says "If ye have ovaries ye shall not stand up in teaching nor mic carrying...yet ye are blessed to scrub the hall toilets if ye approved"

  Yea.....whatever........but I did play the piano at our KH when I was a teenager. However, when I was 18 a bunch of us "young adults" got busted for having a party w/alcohol. We didn't get privately approved, but I couldn't play the piano anymore. Actually, as I look back on it I have to laugh. There were WAY too many of us to have individual committee meetings - besides - they'd had to kick out practically ALL of the young people - so the elders just called one big private meeting. 3 or 4 elders (can't remember exactly) to talk with about 15 of us at once. Of course, we didn't stop partying - we were just more careful about who was invited
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  minimus

  I was just looking at this old post and I thought it was quite funny.
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  carla

  You know the first time I heard of this (on a different forum) I thought all the exjw's were just having a little joke on my behalf. I was really suprised to hear that holding a microphone was actually a big deal for grown men. Graham crackers & milk anyone?
• 

  minimus

  Maybe holding the microphone's a big thing for grown men because it's all Freudian.
• 

  zagor

  mmm, I loved doing mike rounds as a young lad. There were many "sisters" with short skirts around, and you often could see quite a lot, hellooooo baby.
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  Darth Yhwh

  This is a sensitive issue for me. When I was a young teenager I was approved to hold the microphones. I was excited to tell you the truth. I thought that I was getting some recognition for all of the work that I had put in. Not that I was spending huge hours in service or any thing like that but my old man isn’t a JW and I felt like I was never taken seriously as a result. Of course I’ve always questioned the things that the WBTS taught, even from an early age, so maybe they were just picking up on my “lukewarm” temperament.

  Any way, after a few months of handling the microphones on a regular basis my name suddenly disappeared from the list. I approached the speech impaired brother in charge of the sound and scheduling and he really didn’t answer me. He just kind of danced around the question.

  Well at about the same time my two best JW friends for several years began shunning me. To this day I don’t know why. I think that it might have been a racial thing because they were both African American and I suspect outside influence from their schools began to have an effect on how they felt about “whitey”. I have since been able to re-establish a relationship with one of them through another mutual friend and although we don’t really see each other regularly; when we do we always have a positive experience.

  But I digress. Bottom line is I was very upset when they took this “privilege” away from me and it just solidified the thought in my mind that no matter what I did I would never get ahead in their eyes.
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  purplesofa

  There were many "sisters" with short skirts around, and you often could see quite a lot, hellooooo baby.

  We had a special needs talk about this..........how the sisters clothes were distracting to the mike carriers.....!!! Short skirts.........low cut tops.....I purposely would pull my skirt above my knee when someone answered on my row, just to liven things up!

  Anyway, I was visiting my Mom over the weekend and we were laughing at how they make such a big deal out of carrying a mike..........and I was saying............oh hhhhhhhh weeeeeeeeeeee

  I got mikes............I can carry the mikes

  well she says to me............I had to do sound and mikes at the last KH cuz none of the brothers knew how to do it right...........!!!!!!

  purps
• 

  144001

  LOL Purplesofa,

  I used to volunteer for mic duty so I could look down certain sister's tops as I passed the mic to individuals in their row. That was even better than the porno pics I glued in some of the Watchtower publications to keep me awake during the meetings!
• 

  Honesty

  One time we were short on 'Mike Handlers' and I mentioned to the other brothers that I was going to 'use' xxxx at the WT Study on Sunday. Boy, did I ever get an education from them about who was and was not 'qualified'. It helped me start questioning the authority given the elders and if Holy Spirit was part of the processs.
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  blondie

  I visited one congregation that had no sound system, just a boom box to play the kingdom cassettes--a 15 year old unbaptized boy had the privilege of pushing the on and off button and inserting the cassette.

  The microphone duty is supposed to determine if brothers will show up when assigned and on time and can follow the directions of the brother in charge.

  My experience showed that many a brother never showed up at all, let alone on time. The elders had a list of "qualified" brothers for each elder so they did not make the mistake of selecting the wrong brother and embarrassing themselves.

  Probably the issue was that they did not ask these brothers if they wanted the "privilege" and put them on the schedule without talking to them about any conflicts.

  So they just didn't show up.

  Several were made MS, and they continued the same behavior, not showing up or showing up after the meeting started.

  Several were made elders.

  Go figure.

  Blondie