Ultra conservative congregations?

Azalo

anyone belong to an ultrconservative congregation? or ultra liberal for that matter?

I have lived in areas where it depends on the congregation you are in whether you can: 1) Have a mustache if you are a brother, 2) wear other than a white shirt on the platform if you are a brother, 3) have pierced ears or double pierced ears if you are a sister. I been in areas where the congregations share a building and the elder bodies are completely 180 on these issues. People just switch to a less conservative congregation.

Blondie

Matty

I was once in an ultraconservative congregation where if you did less than 10 hours on the ministry per month for more than one month in a row you would get a talking to by the service overseer, labelled "weak" and your name would disappear from the noticeboard.

Wolfgirl

I grew up in a congregation that was very conservative. It was "wrong" for brothers to wear any coloured dress shirts, even if they weren't on the platform, unless it was a really light pastel colour (i.e., pale blue, yellow). I got chewed out in the middle of the congregation (in front of lots of people) for wearing a skirt that had a slit to the back of my knee; the skirt came down to mid-shin level...without the slit, I wouldn't have been able to walk. It was an elder's wife who made her husband yell at me for it. She said it was immodest to show too much leg. This same elder's wife then later on decided that skirts that came down nearly to the ankles (when they were really popular) were also immodest, because 'that was carrying things to the extreme.'

Having your ears double pierced was considered "worldly." Some even said single pierced ears were ungodly..."If God wanted us to have holes in our ears, He would have made our ears with holes already in them."

I could go on and on.

freedom96

The congregation that I grew up in was very strict. I attended 4 different halls alltogether, the first being the worst. But, ultimately they were all the same. Where I grew up there was a group of congregations nearby that were much better. Much more relaxed, not so extreme, and more sincere. Had I gone to those halls, I would have stayed around longer. Still, sooner or later I would have seen the light.

gitasatsangha

I forget exactly where but there was a White Shirt congregation in east Tennessee. You basically had to wear a white shirt if you wanted to give a talk. Men could also not wear any form of jewelry whatsoever except for wedding bands.

It came to others attentions because a cisiting elder for sunday had a non-white shirt. he was shown into a small room where there were laundered and pressed white shirts for him to change into in various sizes for just such an occasion.

Other interesting factoids of that congregation's strange policies:

Hang-Gliding and Skydiving were disfellowshipping offenses according to a conversation I had with one of their Ministerial Servants because a person doing so was "taking their life, which belonged to Jehovah, into their own hands." I wonder if they ever had to use that one.

rocketman

Obviously, this trhead will point out many, many man-made rules and edicts enforced by various congregations.

The ones I have been in have mostly been somewhat liberal, thankfully. But still, "immodest" dress by sisters was often a topic of conversation. One sister even passed me (an elder then) a note one time, complaining about another sister's skirt length.

Shutterbug

Hang-Gliding and Skydiving were disfellowshipping offenses according to a conversation I had with one of their Ministerial Servants because a person doing so was "taking their life, which belonged to Jehovah, into their own hands." I wonder if they ever had to use that one.

I suspect hang-gliding and skydiving, if properly done, are no more dangerous than driving to an assembly. Good thing I'm not attending, there would be a constant battle with the elders. Bug

logansrun

I have been part of a few different congregations: the one I grew up in was an ultra-orthodox dictatorship run by the PO (he basically outlawed going to health clubs and passed legislation limiting gatherings to no more than 20 people), a very liberal hall (elders in neon suits; nuff said) and a hall where nobody cared one way or the other (a real sleeper).