Another New Rule-----You Can't Record Prayers at the District Convention

by minimus 54 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  undercover

  I actually hated to listen to recorded talks. I hated it when someone loaned my mother so-and-so's "fine" talk....

  Worse than that was written notes read aloud at JW gatherings. I remember some Bethelite elder super-dub type that visited our cong. and brought notes from the Gilead graduation(I think) and everybody gathered 'round after dinner at one of the friend's houses while he read page after page after page of the notes that he had taken. I think he wrote down every word spoken. It was one of the dullest nights of my life.

  When I was Sound Nazi, we recorded song, prayer, everything. The brothers usually made it a point to try to include the elderly and sickly ones in the closing prayer, knowing that it was being recorded and would be passed on to them. We recorded every meeting and one audiophile brother would take it home and make multiple copies for whoever wanted a copy. He kept a highly organized filing system of every meeting and talk. Talk about obsessive compulsive.
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  blondie

  Just a note, ozziepost, the KM was just referring back to a 1978 WT QFR for support. The KM was not the origin of the info but the WT.

  Blondie
• 

  refiners fire

  A thought. The prayers are the only thing that are relatively spontaneous and individual.The only thing not completely planned and pre directed by the org.
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  minimus

  I put $100 on Blondie for the win! I luv easy money.
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  blondie

  This is not a competition, minimus! Verbal directions very often contradict those in print as far as the WTS goes.

  Blondie
• 

  ozziepost

  Blondie,

  I think we should note at this point what Ray Franz well highlighted in his books and that is that there's a big difference between what the R&F read in the WT magazine and the instructions given out by Service Department by way of letters to BOE and the aforementioned parts of the KM.

  Elders over the years have themselves been confused at times because what they were reading in the KM did not harmonise with what they were being instructed by letters to BOE. A case in point was the so-called new light on higher education. At the very same time that we were studying this believed new stance allowing it, the elders were receiving a letter to BOE modifying (in inverted commas) the position and in effect maintaining the status quo. It's happened time and time again. There's this tension always over the years between Writing Dept and Service Dept. which we're aware is overseen by Ted Jarasz. The points that Ray makes in his book about this are so real.

  Cheers, Ozzie
• 

  refiners fire

  Its not a new command from the org, its just some organizational dip####s personal interpretation.

  I have spoken.
• 

  wannaexit

  That's an old rule. When I was a kid my dad always recorded the assemblies minus the prayers. Recording the prayers was a real no no. Never did figure out why.
• 

  minimus

  Unless there's something more recent in print, the rank and file are told in the publications that you could record a prayer. Some opinions might be that you cannot. But, the rank and file only can read what the the publication state.......And Blondie, I do love you.
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  Pistoff

  As long as I have been a dub, some thirty years plus now, it was considered "improper" to either record prayers or depict prayer onstage; i.e., if a family was demo'ing a study, they skipped the prayer part as it was "improper" to listen in on their prayer. I bow to blondie's research, though.

  pistoff