Latest Leaked BOE letter to Elders Oct. 4th

by Watchtower-Free 135 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Watchtower-Free

  October 4, 2015

  TO ALL CONGREGATIONS

  Re: New Provisions Announced atAnnual Meeting

  Dear Brothers:

  At the annual meeting of the WatchTower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania held on October 3, 2015, severalnew provisions were announced.

  Teach Us Book: The first provisionis a new 224-page publication entitled What Can the Bible Teach Us? It is basedon the book What Does the Bible Really Teach? The Teach Us book does notreplace the Bible Teach book. Rather, it will be useful when studying withindividuals who need to have the truth presented in a simpler manner. Besideshaving simplified text, the Teach Us book has the following additionalfeatures:

  · At the end of every chapter is atwo-page summary rather than a review box. These summaries can also be used toconduct Bible studies.

  · At the end of the book, endnotes areprovided rather than an appendix. The endnotes correlate closely with theglossary of the revised New World Translation. The endnotes clarify someexpressions that we as Jehovah’s Witnesses use in our everyday conversation butthat may not be familiar to the public.

  · Some of the text and illustrationsused in the Bible Teach book have been adjusted.

  The Teach Us book will no doubt be auseful tool that can be used to help people gain a basic understanding of Bibletruth, similar to the way the Bible Teach book is used. The Teach Us book isthe same size as the Bible Teach book and is similar in appearance but has aslightly altered cover design to differentiate the two publications. Printedcopies of the Teach Us book in more than 200 languages will be made availableto congregations as the books become available. Electronic copies are now availablein selected languages on jw.org and in the JW Library app. Sign-languageeditions will be made available for download and on physical discs. Web-onlyaudio recordings will also be made available for download in due course. Pleasenote that in due course the Teach Us book will be available for download inelectronic Braille format. Requests may now be submitted for copies in embossedBraille format.

  Revised Organized Book: We are alsopleased to inform you that a revised edition of the book Organized to DoJehovah’s Will has been produced. Electronic copies are now available inselected languages on jw.org and in the JW Library app. Before you can accessthe book in JW Library, you must first download the latest version of theapplication. The following disclaimer will appear on the screen: “This book isan internal publication, provided solely for use by congregations of Jehovah’sWitnesses, and is not intended for public distribution.” Because of the costinvolved in producing printed publications, it is preferred that whereverpossible, publishers make full use of electronic copies rather than requestingprinted copies. However, a printed copy of the Organized book will be requestedfor any publisher who desires to receive one. The group overseers will begin tocheck with each publisher after the meeting to determine if printed copies aredesired. Please note

  [Page 2]

  that the revised Organized book isalso available for download in electronic Braille format and for request inembossed Braille format.

  New World Translation (studyedition): For the next announcement, please watch the following video. [Show5:30 minute video.]

  Electronic copies of the studyedition of the book of Matthew are now available in English on jw.org. In thefuture, they will be available in the JW Library app.

  Public edition of The Watchtower andAwake!: Beginning in January 2016, the magazines for the public will bepublished bimonthly, that is, every two months. We will offer one magazine tothe public each month, alternating between The Watchtower and Awake! DuringJanuary, we will offer The Watchtower. During February, we will featuresubjects in Awake!, and so on. This arrangement will allow us to focus on theappealing information in each magazine for the entire month. In addition, anissue date will no longer be printed on the cover. Instead, the magazines willbe identified by a number followed by the year. Why is this helpful? We oftenwould like to offer older magazines because the message is just what thehouseholder needs. However, the date on the cover may give the impression thatthe information is out-of-date. That will no longer be an obstacle. We areconfident that you will offer the life-giving information in the magazines withrenewed enthusiasm.

  Our Christian Life and MinistryMeeting: Beginning the week of January 4, 2016, congregations will have a newmidweek meeting called Our Christian Life and Ministry. This one meeting willreplace the three separate meetings currently being held, namely, theCongregation Bible Study, the Theocratic Ministry School, and the ServiceMeeting.

  In connection with this change, OurKingdom Ministry is being replaced by a new four-color, eight-page monthlypublication entitled Our Christian Life and Ministry—Meeting Workbook (mwb).This publication is intended for Jehovah’s Witnesses and for those whoregularly attend our meetings. It outlines the weekly meeting schedule andfeatures artwork designed to make your personal reading of the Bible moremeaningful. It is a workbook that prompts you to make personal notes. No doubtyou will enjoy reviewing the January 2016 issue of the Life and MinistryMeeting Workbook when you download an electronic copy from jw.org or the JWLibrary app or receive a printed copy through the congregation. Since theworkbook will not include a section for announcements, congregations will beinformed of monthly literature offers by means of letters from the branchoffice.

  Each Life and Ministry Meeting willbegin with an opening song and prayer followed by comments from the Life andMinistry Meeting chairman. His opening comments of no more than three minuteswill generate anticipation for the program to follow. Thereafter, the chairmanwill introduce the first section of the meeting, called Treasures From God’sWord. The first part in this section will be a ten-minute talk based on theweekly Bible reading and artwork from the work- book. When the scheduled weeklyBible reading begins a new Bible book, a brief video introducing the book willbe shown at the start of this part. The second part in this section, entitledDigging for Spiritual Gems, will be an eight-minute question-and-answerconsideration based on the weekly Bible reading. Questions for considerationduring this part are found in the workbook, and the audience will answer thesebased on their research. The Treasures From God’s Word section will concludewith a brother reading an assigned portion of the weekly Bible reading.

  [Page 3]

  The next section of the Life andMinistry Meeting is entitled Apply Yourself to the Field Ministry and is 15minutes in length. Three student presentations assigned to brothers or sisterswill help us develop our ability to teach on an initial call, on a returnvisit, and on a Bible study. During the first week of every month, in place ofthe three student presentations, videos of model presentations will be shownand discussed to help us prepare for the ministry that month. The printededition of the workbook is designed so that you may write your own presentationon the front page. We encourage each of you to take full advantage of the ApplyYourself to the Field Ministry section of the meeting. Doing so will help youto become a more effective preacher and teacher of the good news.—2 Cor. 3:5; 2Tim. 4:5.

  The final section of the Life andMinistry Meeting is entitled Living as Christians. This section begins with asong. The next 15 minutes of this section will consist of one or two partsdesigned to help us apply God’s Word. Then there will be a 30-minute CongregationBible Study. Thereafter, up to three minutes may be used by the chairman toreview the meeting and preview material to be considered the following week.Any necessary announcements may also be made at this point. Expressions ofpraise to Jehovah in song and prayer will conclude the meeting.

  The entire meeting will be 1 hourand 45 minutes in length. A video has been prepared to help you to becomefamiliar with the format of the Life and Ministry Meeting. It is now availableon JW Broadcasting in English. Please watch it if you are able to do so. Thisvideo will help you to become familiar with the format of the Life and MinistryMeeting. Also, please be alert to provide assistance to any publishers who mayneed help to download our videos and electronic copies of our publications.

  We are confident that you will beeager to prepare for and participate in this new meeting. It is our prayer thatthe variety of teaching methods used will enable all to benefit from theongoing education that comes from our Grand Instructor, Jehovah. (Isa. 30:20)We send our warm Christian love.

  Your brothers,
• 

  _Morpheus

  Much better :) defiantly deserves its own thread
• 

  pixel

  This is the warm-up of the letter posted by Watchtower-Free:

  
  Dear Brothers:
  On Saturday, October 3, 2015, after 3:00 p.m. in New York, a letter to all congregations
  will be posted in the “Letters” section of jw.org. A related video will be posted in the “Event
  Media” section of jw.org. It is our desire that, where possible, the letter be read to the congregation
  and the video be played for the congregation at the first congregation meeting after its receipt.
  In many cases, this will be at the conclusion of the Watchtower Study on October 4, 2015.
  Of course, in some parts of the world, the next congregation meeting will be the Service Meeting
  during the week of October 5, 2015.
• 

  freddo

  Title says to BoE but letter actually addressed To All Congregations.

  @_Morpheus

  Defiantly or Definitely?

  Actually either will do.
  

  Who reckons there will be a shit-storm at the GB meeting this Wednesday as they make changes to teach them damn 'postates a lesson? Go on Tomo you know you want to!
• 

  PaintedToeNail

  Wow, lots of changes! The old KM was hideously boring anyway. Funny that the magazines will be bimonthly with no date, surely a cost cutting measure. Almost no one reads them anyway. Also one less meeting a month the subjects the attendees to do a 'talk', there were so many cancellations for talks before I left, that I'm betting the school overseer will be thrilled he doesn't have to figure out who to ask to substitute.
• 

  Tornintwo

  dont you just love knowing this stuff before your super zealous JW spouse... tee hee hee

  now to tantalise him with 'big changes' coming up or not?
• 

  sir82

  So they shuffle the meeting names & themes around a bit, it's still 1:45 long on a weekday. In the grander scheme of things, pretty tame.
  

  I think the most significant thing is, that the letter was leaked at all, more than a week in advance.

  There can't be more than a dozen or so guys who have access to the letter, all pretty high up there.

  Whoever it was, he seems to be taking a pretty large risk, with not very many people to pick from, regarding who the "mole" is.

  We know the WTS monitors this site, so if they don't already know the letter was leaked, they soon will.

  Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall at the next Service Dept. meeting?
  
• 

  antes8080

  Thanks to all involved in the leak.

  My taughts, first of all the teach book is already water down. I could imagine how bad the second one will be.

  Magazines, about time, like many here think magazines will be done with in a couple years. It's mostly recycled material.

  New meetings, I think there trying to get more publishers. Many elders don't let you become a publisher if you are not in the TM school. So any kid 3 and over can become a publisher with not having a TM school anymore. So publisher will go up, if your kid is 5 and not a publisher your bad parent.
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Another thought on the bi-monthly literature:

  Many have long speculated that they would drop the public watchtower since the name carries so much baggage from all their failed predictions over the years that they want to separate themselves from it. Theories have ranged from things like a new jw.borg magazine or just to using only the Awake! moniker for the public. Well they're one step closer to that now. They get the R/F used to offering only one magazine at a time, and every other month they'll be using only the Awake magazine by itself. They're one step away from eliminating the watchtower completely and just using the Awake magazine, and all done at a slow enough rate that no one will notice.

  When they downsized the awake, they said it was because they were going to focus more on bible topics instead of current events and this created an overlap with the public watchtower. Well now they've got one hell of an overlap - there's essentially no difference between the two magazines now. The road is paved for them to announce in a year or two that they're either discontinuing the WT altogether or replacing both magazines with something by a new name.

  This puts them in a much better position for the future. JWs are conditioned to expect to find "apostate lies" all over the internet, and if they stop using WT and awake names for the magazines, it'll require one more step of explanation before people will be able to see that sites like jwfacts are presenting accurate information from the cult's old literature. Instead I suspect there will be many that perhaps stumble upon it and then only have their preconceived notions confirmed when they see that most of the references are from magazines they don't even recognize the name of. They'll assume it's made up by apostates who can't even get their facts straight.
• 

  konceptual99

  If this is true then there is no 2nd school. Which means no need for the space for extra classrooms. Which means more space for a main hall. Which means more space for larger, combined congregations.

  I know some halls have foreign language groups but not all. Perhaps the hiatus on KH building is so they can re-jig some of the designs and get more people in one building.

  Cue yet more hall closures and enforced moves as congregations are merged...