Do you remember your last meeting?

by freedom96 34 Replies latest jw friends

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  Athanasius

  The last meeting I attended as a JW was in Sept. 1984. It was Thursday night & I was the Theocratic School Overseer. At the close of the school I told the congregation that I would not be conducting the school anymore because I had to go back to college to finish my education. I really wanted to give them a brief sermon like John Henry Newman's "A Parting of Friends." But with the JWs this is impossible. Besides my fellow elders would have canned me on the spot, causing my JW family to shun me. So no "Parting of Friends" sermon. Many years later I attended JW meetings as an Anglican for the fun of it. In fact I attended the Memorial this year and partook. Don't think they counted me though.

  Athanasius
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  Loris

  My last meeting was a Ministry School/Service Meeting.

  I had been visited by the PO and my Book Study Conductor at my house for a four hour chat a few days earlier. The subject of the chat was my letter to the editor of Newsweek about child abuse among JW's.

  I was shocked and insulted at that meeting when the "local needs" portion on the Service Meeting turned into a talk by the most prominate elder, Brother " son of anointed, personal friend to several GB members". The talk was Beware of the Snare of Apostates. I was always the quietest most unasuming person at the KH. I have always been painfully shy. Imagine my horror when I realized that the talk was being given in my honor! After the meeting I was given the most horrid ugly looks by several women I had counted as my friends. So much for confidentiality of the elders.

  I have not been back. I know when I am not welcome.

  Loris
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  Emma

  I remember sitting there with my teenage daughter. The previous week or so we'd finally been talking about doubts we'd had for a long, long time but had never voiced them to each other. We sat and listened to a couple of the elders lie to the congregation outright; the longer we sat, the more we felt as though we were being suffrocated. During the meeting, we plotted our escape from the KH. We would go out the back door (as it was closest to the car) the instant the final prayer ended. At that point we bolted for the door as if demons were after us! Neither of us has been back. I wish I remembered the date - it would be something to celebrate!
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  blondie

  This year, Saturday of the circuit assembly, last day for me. It was the worst ever and not just because mentally I was on the way out. The CO compared the brothers and sisters to elephants that were conditioned not to stray by being chained to a post since young. I guess Jesus analogy of sheep wasn't good enough for him. Non-jws were called "corpses" and being married to one was like kissing a corpse. I knew it was time to leave. No more abuse in my life.

  Blondie
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  Gordy

  It was Thursday August 19th, 1999. School and Service meeting.

  After researching the Watchtower and its teachings for nearly 2 years. I was sitting there when sudden;y after hearing the same message to "do more" on service, practically word for word for every other time I have heard it.

  I thought "What the hell, am I doing here! I don't believe this rubbish anymore."

  That night I said the usual goodbyes and never returned.

  I waited for the "Elders visit" after not attending. Nothing!! No visit, no phone calls.

  I didn't DA at that time because I have a wife (separated) and two daughters who are JW's. The wife stopped having contact with me by December 1999 when she discovered I had stopped attending.

  Then in September 2001, two years later !! Two elders came to see me, I wasn't home at the time. But they left a message saying they would return. I was mad about it. Two reasons, 1) One of the Elders lives about a 5 minute walk up the road from me, he was also my book study leader, never in two years had made any attempt to come and see me. 2) I knew that instructions had gone out from Bethel for Elders to visit "inactive ones" to get them back because numbers had fallen. So the visit was not based on any concern for me.

  I took it as a sign to finally break free of the Watchtower. I wrote to the Elder, saying if he couldn't be bothered to walk down the road to see me in the two years since I had left and that the only reason he had called was so they could get the numbers up, I didn't want any part of them any more. So wrote them my letter of Disassociation. Also enclosed about 20 pages of stuff on the Watchtower teachings etc.

  The odd thing is that this particular Elder at one time went "out of the truth" for about 3 years and KNOWS all about the Watchtowers false prophecies, changes in teachings, etc. How he lives with it !!