did they need to employ people at bethels around the world to deal with all the the figures from the weekly reports if so they might be able to have less people at bethels around the world that need feeding
Real reasons behind this change?
by Gorb 67 Replies latest jw friends
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Vidiot
hoser - “…They have to bring the changes slowly…”
Yup, to keep from alienating older members, or appearing too willing to change with the (“Worldy”) times.
A longtime JW lifer I once knew even said as much.
And - back in the day - they could do that without significantly rocking the boat.
Now, though?
In the Information Age, with the current shitstorm(s) they’re dealing with?
Not so much.
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Virgochik
And to think I got dragged out in service on Sunday after the meeting to get an hour in, because I didn't have any time to report at the end of the month. It was absolutely critical to report time then. Wow, so now it isn't?
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EasyPrompt
Before, they made money off selling literature. Dangling the title/prominence "carrot" in front of publishers increased the sales. "Sister So-and-So is auxiliary pioneering this month!" <clap, clap, clap>
They don't sell literature anymore. They sell real estate.
Now the push is to get strong young laborers to go "volunteer" building Ramapo/etc. New "carrot".
No need to monitor hours in the ministry because the money comes from a different source now.
Also, they are running out of elders to support their GB-pyramid-power-structure. Before, low-monthly-hour guys were not generally recommendable. Now that's gone, they can promote the low-hour guys to being elders.
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NotFormer
"Now that's gone, they can promote the low-hour guys to being elders."
Low-hour guys, who donate dollars 💰 rather than hours, who then become elders = Simony
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EasyPrompt
Most of the elders I knew didn't really go out in field service anyway. They did "creative" ministry. They'd do the field service group and then ride around with their wife and stay in the car during her studies. Or they'd drive some other people around to their studies and stay in the car. Or they'd drive to the car wash first, then the post office to pick up the Kingdom Hall mail, then swing by the hospital to check if any JWs were in there, then coffee break, then back to the Kingdom Hall, or something like that.
But I remember the COBE talking once about they wanted to promote a couple guys to be elders but the only thing holding them back was that another elder said they only had like one or two hours a month in the ministry. The COBE was trying to get the other elders to see that it didn't matter. Seems he was thinking the same as the GB. (A lot of them just do it - become an elder - for prominence/power. And then the ones that are sincere get poisoned pretty quickly once they get that elder position, because if they don't turn into hypocrites like the other elders, they get a lot of flack.)
The hour reporting was just another fraudulent scam of the guys at Bethel to mislead nice sincere religious people into working to support an antichrist clergy class commune. They didn't really care about shepherding people or comforting people. It was just pretend, a product. That's why they were so quick to stop the door-to-door during COVID but they kept building projects going where they could. Now they have people donating online regular monthly deductions from their bank account that go straight to Bethel, so they don't need the push for literature placements and the old way of donating with people feeling they need to put something in the box to cover the literature placed.
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BelisemDeBelimakom
In addition to hiding the statistics disaster in the first place, I think this new reporting system will pave the way for each publisher (will be required) to create a jw.borg account and submit their reports from there.
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Terry
I had a notion and followed up on it.
I asked Chat GPT4 what legal pressures might have prompted Jehovah's Witnesses to change their policy on reporting ministerial stats.
Insights from CHAT GPT4 on the JW policy changes: " The increasing proliferation of child sexual abuse lawsuits within the Jehovah’s Witnesses has had a profound financial and reputation impact on the Church.
In both Civil and Criminal lawsuits filed against the Church and its members, attorneys for the Witnesses continually insist that their Elders and other appointed men are not “agents of Watchtower”.
By removing the requirement of all Witnesses to “turn in their hours,” the Church distances itself from the month-to-month routine of reporting to local Elders, who in turn report this raw data to the centralized databases maintained by the Watchtower Corporations.
This could potentially reduce the legal liability of the organization by creating a greater separation between individual members’ activities and official church policy."
___ Jehovah’s Witnesses previously offered their literature for a price determined by the branch office in each country, to cover printing costs. However, since 2000, Jehovah’s Witnesses have offered their publications free of charge globally. Printing is funded by voluntary donations from Witnesses and members of the public.
The change in policy was influenced by a Supreme Court ruling on January 17, 1990, against televangelist Jimmy Swaggart that sales of religious literature were subject to taxation. This ruling introduced ambiguity into the formerly tax-free practice of suggesting a specific amount in exchange for the magazines.
In response to this ruling, from March 1, 1990, the magazines were made available at no cost, on a freewill donation basis in the United States.
The stated purpose of this change was to simplify their Bible educational work and distinguish themselves from those who commercialize religion.
As for Jerry Falwell’s ministry, there have been several lawsuits involving Jerry Falwell Jr., the son of Jerry Falwell Sr., who was an American Baptist pastor and televangelist. Jerry Falwell Jr. has accused multiple past and current members of Liberty University’s senior leadership team of sexual misconduct and self-dealing in an amended lawsuit.
He also filed a lawsuit against Liberty University, claiming he’s owed $8.5 million in retirement funds.
Another lawsuit accuses the school of misappropriating “for itself” the name and image of Falwell Sr., the conservative Christian evangelist who co-founded the evangelical university in 1971.
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Chinapomo
chatGPT talking more sense than this religion ever has in over 100 years
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Teddnzo
Our group overseer told my wife how it will work in practice, the group overseers will ask everyone on WhatsApp in their group have they done any witnessing in past month and as long as they give a thumbs up that means they are not inactive