by professor 9 Replies latest jw friends
One of the congregations I attended had a rule of no joke-telling in the KH. Did anyone else get this rule?
At another KH I went to for years an elder told me this joke:
Q: Which stretches further, skin or rubber?
A: Skin because the Bible says Moses tied his ass to a tree and walked twenty miles.
I guess certain people in certain halls had a stick up their hind quarters, and thus failed to see the humor in anything.
However one presiding overseer told me a joke regarding a Jewish salesman, while downstairs at the hall.
I know that jokes or humor in talks from the platform are discouraged.
School Guide Book study 31 p. 193 Respect Shown to Others
Resist the temptation to make witty remarks just for the sake of making the audience laugh. This detracts from the dignity of the Bible’s message. True, we should take delight in our service to God. There may even be facets of our assigned material that are somewhat humorous. Yet, to reduce serious matters to laughing matters betrays a lack of respect for the audience and for God.
But in several KHs I attended there were elders known for their "gross" jokes and nothing was ever said to them.
Blondie
Nice to see ya back prof!
I think meetings have got much more serious in the last 20 years or so. When I was a small child I remember Service Meetings in particular being real knockabout, gag-a-minute affairs when speakers and the people who did the demonstrations used to dress up and play to the audience and the brothers were more inventive in putting their points over.
I think there used to be much more preparation involved in those days - after the Tuesday book study people were always chatting about some item or other - much more of the congregation were involved. Those days are gone forever, meetings are real dull monotone affairs now.
play to the audience
I always played to the audience. I have mentioned some of my "talks" here (which really aren't talks, being as I am a mere woman); I used to use two "householders" and would do things like have the householders get in an argument. One time I had one of them storm off the stage because she was so pissed off at what I was saying. The "crowd" loved it (not trying to brag here, but let's face it, anything other than the usual boring fare is going to go over big time at the KH; they are all so bored and have heard it all a million times over).
At my final c ongregation, I made my first and only real JW friend. She and my younger daughter and I would laugh our way through the meetings. Maybe it wasn't a very kind thing to do, but we all have a great sense of humor and used to delight in making (what we thought were) pithy comments about the talk or the information.
Since, by that point, I was labelled a "nut case", no one bothered to "counsel" me. As for my friend, she was just too physically beautiful and men were in awe of her to begin with, so none dared speak to her about it. And my daughter is famed for being fiery; that young woman will verbally tear a person to pieces if she is challenged. So we got away with all the sarcastic comments.
My daughter left the "truth" before I got DF. As did my older daughter. My friend is still a Witness in very good standing.
Rosemarie
I think there used to be much more preparation involved in those days - after the Tuesday book study people were always chatting about some item or other - much more of the congregation were involved. Those days are gone forever, meetings are real dull monotone affairs now.
Amen to that!!
Anyone who knows anything about public speaking is that you should start the talk or speech with some humor. The audience will lighten up and be more interested in what you have to say, and they will like you sooner. When the audience likes you, they will listen more, and be more receptive to what you are talking about.
well, i don't know how funny i was, but i did try to be inventive. one time while doing a demonstration on the valley of dry bones (try bringing THAT up in a conversation casually), i led into it by cleaning up dinner while a neighbor dropped by. i actually did bring our picked off pork chop bones from dinner that night to hold up while i talked....
another time i had 2 sisters dress up as hippies in sandwich boards, one saying "flower power", the other, "make love not war"!!
but i haven't given a demonstration for oh, probably 28-29 yrs. sounds like things have gotten very dull. does that really help them? no? oh good.
When we attended elder's meetings with the CO, his outline basically mentioned that humor should be very limited. "We are not entertainers" he would say.
On the otehr hand, some brothers seemed to be so given to humor that one might see why they did post such a reminder. Also, some public talks, especially by more experienced brotehrs, amounted to nothing more than story-telling.
Bad spelling day...well, I am a bit drowsy.
Anyway, humor is needed to break the monotony, and I guess the WTS doesn't think their meetings are monotonous.
