New meeting format

by ExBethelitenowPIMA 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  TonusOH

  Notice what they say in that book/pamphlet:

  Jehovah's people do not beg for money. They do not pass collection plates or send out letters of solicitation. Neither do they use bingo, bazaars, or raffles to raise money.

  They are very specific about what they mean by 'beg.' They are not referring to any other approaches, such as videos about how they are facing shortfalls. Or instructions to congregations to send money each month. Or instructions to congregations to ask members to dedicate a specific amount each month as a donation.

  In other words, there is a lot they can do to pressure the membership to donate more while still claiming that they do not "beg" or "solicit funds."
• 

  enoughisenough

  dropofyourkeylee wrote: "There was lengthy discussion of tithing in Israel, with a buildup to the extent that I almost thought they were going to suggest 10% donation or something like that. But no, they left donations voluntary. I predict they may return to the subject in future years. Loesch just went on and on about it; surely there will be a followup sometime" .....this made me wonder if there was a subliminal message in there that if you aren't going to pioneer and turn in time, then you need to be breaking open the piggy banks. I mean why would they consider the two subjects ( tithing and pioneering/counting time) in the same talk. I remember seeing annual meeting clips where they were in the same discussion.
• 

  NotFormer

  When hours worked in field service translated into sales of WT and Awake!, counting hours could be roughly translated into spirituality, WT style, that is, dollars earned for the organisation. Perhaps they will have to become more direct in equating dollars with spirituality. Maybe different tiers of donation. Everyone at the Kingdom Hall gets to wear a badge (purchased from the WT, of course!) displaying what level of "generosity" they demonstrated that month through their giving.

  They could, of course, resort to outright Simony and just sell appointments.
• 

  Diogenesister

  DropofyourkeyLee and set yourself free...They made a distinction of different requirements from regular Israelites (giving the 10% tithe) and Nazirites, who are compared to present pioneers and special servants. This seemed to be their justification for requiring pioneers, etc to continue to report hours, while regular publishers simply check a box

  Aha! Thank you! Always got to have their theocratic rationale. You've discovered it👍
• 

  NotFormer

  I want to see long-haired JW Nazirites going door to door! 👍🙀
• 

  ExBethelitenowPIMA

  I see the JW schedule ap is getting slowly updated for January 2024.

  Most congregations use this ap now, and everyone in the congregation has the ap. they can see who has which assignments and will get reminders etc in calendar.

  The people who made the ap are making a lot of money from as each congregation pays for out out of donations.

  The developers really have to earn their millions now that the gov body have changed the midweek meeting format 🤣

  they only just got all the bugs sorted on the old way.

  it’s designed to look back over the last years and see who hadn’t given each item in the longest time and make the schedule the most fair. But now it’s back to square one with the new meeting format
• 

  dropoffyourkeylee

  I've never looked at the app. Does it record monetary donations? If so, I wonder if they are heading towards using the record of donations as an indicator of spirituality.
• 

  ExBethelitenowPIMA

  It’s not an official ap. I would guess it was made by brothers but I don’t know.

  they started it for free got everybody using it then started charging

  it used to be called jw schedule

  now they changed the name to new world schedule

  https://nwscheduler.com/download-jw-scheduler/
  
• 

  blondie

  DOC

  PIMO friends tell me that their Cong just asked all Pubs to complete a written form that commits them to a monthly contribution.

  Do they have to put their name on it, or is this like when they ask for people to submit it without their name on it to see how much possible funds to use for Watchtower building projects, or local projects? If they have to put their name on it, it is not voluntary, it is making agreement to give that much money, maybe monthly. Then if name required, it would be tithing as I see it. I guess charging the congregation $8.50 per publisher is not generating enough funds for WTS expenses. And the WTS uses its normal pressure tactics, to GIVE MORE, like the DO MORE tactic. As long as jws can give anonymously, they will give what they want, if tithing starts, I wonder how that will go over?
  
  
• 

  Ron.W.

  About 10 years or so ago a cong I was in asked us all to do the same thing about proposed donated funds.

  I felt VERY unhappy about it so forged the amount I proposed to contribute.

  A few weeks later an elder apologized from the platform and said what they had done was WRONG and promised that would NEVER happen again...

  Seems times have changed.