by Funchback 20 Replies latest jw experiences
One time the elders cancelled a meeting because a big snowstorm was predicted. Worse, they made the decision so late that everyone had already left for the meeting before they called (it hadn't actually started to snow yet). So all of us were standing in the (perfectly dry) KH parking lot looking at each other for a while till the word got around, then we got in our cars and went home.
The storm subsequently veered out to sea and we never got so much as a single snowflake.
I remember one service meeting that ended early. So did we all get to go home early. No young elder know-it-all had to get up on the platform and talk ad nauseam about some impromptu subject that nobody cared about. Well you should have seen the fidgeting in that hall. No one was paying any attention to what he said (I can't remember what it was about). They were all looking at the clock or at their watches, others were looking in the Kingdom Ministry at the schedule to try and determine where this talk was coming from.
Finally the meeting ended, and with song and prayer it was actually a few minutes over. After the meeting another elder, a practical man, came up and said to young brother holier-than-thou, "Where does it say if the material has been covered we can't go home early?" Many in the hall heard this.
Well years later, the young brother pious moved to another congregation where he made their lives a living hell. Brother practical stepped down as elder, moved to the coast, became inactive and happier. There must be a lesson in there somewhere.
Tammy
Wimps around here, if there's a hint of slick they cancel. Canceled one not too long ago because of scheduling conflict with one of the other congregations that use the hall.
Cancelled? Hardly ever, even though we lived in Wisconsin and the place had blizzards all the time. I think once the place was flooded and it got cancelled. But otherwise they did what they could.
I think at one of my other halls, they were remodeling and arranged to share a different hall.
Ah, the late/cancelled speaker. Usually, they did the Watchtower first. Sometimes the speaker showed up and they did the talk afterwards. Other times, somebody else volunteered to give the talk.
On rare occasions, they did let us go early. Boy was I happy. Until my parents decided that they'd spend the extra time in field service instead. Can't get a break.
There were days when the snow came down in rush hour and while you hated the drive home, you were hopeful the meeting would be cancelled. I think everyone wanted the meetings cancelled and there are usually a couple days or more when they are every year.
But it was funny to see JW's end up at the movie theatres on half-price tuesdays or at the liquor store so they could hole up with their bottle of booze. Yeah, we could go out if we really wanted to.
It is also funny that JW's couldn't think with their own heads and decide FOR THEMSELVES that it was too dangerous but they had to wait for some elder to make the call.
And what about those JW's in some African country that had to cross aligator infested swamps with their clothes and bibles on top of their heads and walk 5 miles to get to their meetings?
Path
We had several meetings or Book Studies canceled due to typhoons here in Japan. But of course, they would cancel these meetings only if there was a Typhoon Caution Warning given "two hours" before the actual hit. They would wait until it's that close () before any of us would have to leave our homes to go to the "House of Jehovah". {Geez!}
Alligator Wisdom (aka Brother "NOT Exerting Vigorously")
I knew many who thought that the Kingdom Hall was the safest place to be during a tornado warning, thunderstorm, etc. That it had God's protection.
I remember several years back a meeting being switched up a bit. The elder that was supposed to give the talk didn't show up and they held the WT study first. Then a volunteer elder went back and studied the notes of the talk during the WT study and came back and gave a reduced talk, but still a talk. I loved it, I got out 30 minutes early. I remember that elder's extemporaneous abilities being pretty good.
I remember going to the meeting during a bad lightening storm because I had to give a talk. Very few showed up, the weather was quite severe. The brother opening the meeting said, "I'm glad to see we are not ALL fair weather christians" being we showed up.....unlike the other unappreciative pansy JW's. We all felt pretty smug
My experience was that with very few exceptions, everyone loved it when meetings were cancelled. I know that it took courqage to be the first elder to suggest cancellation, but generally, allreadily agreed once it was proposed.
I felt sorry for those poor saps who were assigned parts on the meeting on nights when it was bad but judged to be not so bad as to cancel.... they felt compelled to carry out their assignment, whereas 80-90 percent of the flock, invoking their ``spirit of a sound mind'' stayed home anyway.
