Door to Door Witnessing Anxiety

by NotFormer 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  NotFormer

  It's not only the JWs who do door to door witnessing. The Independent Baptists for the most part have "soul winning", mainly door to door witnessing and leaving tracts, as a tennet of their faith. This discussion is interesting:

  https://onlinebaptist.com/forums/topic/21149-door-to-door-soulwinning/?do=findComment&comment=374657

  When you were doing the door to door work, could you sympathise with the anxiety a lot of these posters seem to feel? If you had been able to discuss the issue freely with fellow JWs, without fear of being disfellowshipped or at least cautioned, do you think that those discussions would have looked very similar to these?
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  titch

  NotFormer: Well yes I can sympathize with their anxiety. Personally, for many years, I've felt that it is NOT humanly "Natural" for people to go from door to door. to present their personal religious "belief system" or "belief structure" to other people. It just isn't. That is an activity that human beings just "naturally" don't do. Best Regards.....Titch.
  
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  Vanderhoven7

  There is no real support for the idea that early Christians went door to door.
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  Vidiot

  You… you mean this… this wasn’t real???

  
  
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  NotFormer

  Vidiot, I actually laughed when I saw that image! 😸 I've often wanted to have that conversation with JWs at the door: that even if the early disciples actually did go door to door, there was no magazine that they were peddling.

  That they actually published that image is in reality a little disturbing. Do JWs really believe that there was a Bethel like factory, a scriptorium, that was churning out scrolls to be sold door to door?
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  Vidiot

  I can’t shake the feeling that it was originally suggested as a joke, one of the stupider higher-ups thought it was serious, and thought it as a good enough idea to give it a green light.
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  BluesBrother

  I certainly suffered anxiety going door to door. …It was ok if you were with a good partner and you got along well. The conversation with him/her kept your mind off it . Calling alone was difficult.. I think I felt too much for the people, knowing that I was interrupting their morning. The worst was when you had waited a while and heard the thump of a zimmer frame making its way painfully to the door and you knew that some old person had struggled to get there. I felt awful…
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  jhine

  Vanderhoven, that's right . Scripture says that Paul preached in the homes of believers but there is no record of going door to door preaching.

  Jan from Tam
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  stan livedeath

  consider door knocking as a test.

  If any outwardly normal person can be persuaded to go out door knocking to preach their beliefs to strangers, then getting them to decline blood or shun their family is easy.
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  TonusOH

  In territory that was overworked, there definitely was stress when you went out in field service. You knocked on doors knowing that the people inside knew it was JWs, and knowing that they were probably quite tired of it. You hoped that the worst of it was just people saying "no thanks" and that was it.

  The reporting requirements, and the pressure to post sufficient hours each month, made for a very unpleasant experience for both JWs and households that did not want to be bothered yet again by a knock at the door on a weekend morning. So it was both stressful and unrewarding. I don't recall any particular brothers or sisters who looked forward to it, but I can remember how happy we were when the hour or two was over.