Elders who dislike other congregation elders

by RULES & REGULATIONS 37 Replies latest jw experiences

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  sir82

  XBEHERE,
  LOL! So when were you on my BOE?
  
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  XBEHERE

  Sir82....maybe we were. Never know ;-)
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  OnTheWayOut

  I was on BOE's that got along, but we had this one elder who really did what he could to sabotage the appointment of a particular M.S. because he didn't get along with him. It finally came to the point where we had to tell him to examine himself and his own qualifications, and to step aside if he couldn't accept the inevitable.

  Other than that, I saw plenty of differences between different congregations that shared a hall. They would try to manipulate schedules and financial matters in a way that benefits one group over the other, to the suffering of all congregation members.
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  Beth Sarim

  An elder trying to sabotage someone trying to become an M.S. Doesn't surprise me. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it for brothers/men to reach out. The mental toll and emotional damage done.
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  Johny Franco

  @ XBEHERE

  Too funny, been a lurker for a while. It's interesting to read perspectives from people that are out about processes and behaviors specially if they are right on, either they are good guessers or they are still in and serving in positions of responsibility just like I suspect you are. Your description is too funny and accurate. There are ranking elders within a body, The COBE is the shot caller, when there are new elders he will make sure to give a speech at the first meeting with the new appointees and will guilt trip them into being reasonable, humble and accepting of decisions, basically setting them up to be "yes" men to him. The right arm is usually the secretary, most likely this is not assigned to the most qualified individual rather one who the COBE has a great relationship with, in congregations with clans, it is given to the family member. Same with the service overseer, but this position can go either way, because of the work involved in being the service overseer a lot of elders if given a chance to defer would, but then again there is a struggle because accepting it bumps your rank to the number 3 spot. The school overseer position is just a position that allows an elder to have a title within the BOE and congregation and sets you up to a soft number 4 spot, technically this should be the most important position because you need to be able to build others with speaking and teaching qualities to spread the good news but there is little power that comes with it, other than being able to scold people from the podium. Sadly in most congregations the school overseer chosen is the least qualified individual for the task but because literally everyone takes a step back during the process the poor idiot that's distracted or too afraid to not be humble gets assigned by unanimity. In alot of cases you might think the rest of the elders are fodder while this might be true because usually power, adulation and self sense of righteousness moves the more dominant personalities to purse positions 1-4, I've noticed that sometimes the real smart elders tend to avoid said ranks because it usually means more work. sorry for the long post it's just a conversation that caught my attention. I think the worst congregations are the ones ran by clans, horrible horrible environment to work in.
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  Socrateswannabe

  I agree with all of the comments so far. I've experienced an incredible amount of infighting among every BOE that I've been associated with along with tons of fighting between BOEs that share a Hall. In every instance, the R&F and the elders themselves say, "Jehovah will take care of it in his own time." If you consider that there are over 100,000 congregations worldwide, the big J has one hell of a backlog to clear out if he is going to do anything about this stuff. In the meantime his precious organization is crumbling from the inside out.
  
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  sir82

  In our congregation "WT conductor" is a highly coveted spot.

  It is prestigious in the sense that you get an hour of "face time" in front of the congregation every week, where you are the star, and all attention is on you, you, you, and you can pontificate and speechify on and on and on and everybody has to (well, is supposed to) listen to YOU.

  Yeah, there are some seriously inflated egos here.

  The other great advantage to being WT conductor is there is not a lot of work involved. Sure, maybe you have to prepare your WT a little more than usual, but that's it - no other work at all during the week. No one "under" you, and no one you have to report to. Just do your job, be a "star", and go home. Not like secretary or service overseer or even TMS overseer, where you are scrambling around trying to get a lot of busywork done week after week.
  

  Yeah, there are some seriously lazy elders here.
  
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  Johny Franco

  @sir82 you are right, there are some congregations where there are enough elders to assign a single elder to the WT, a lot of congregations at least the ones in my area with a small BOE the WT defaults to the COOBE, since he usually interprets being the COOBE as having the most qualifications, the curious thing and I'm not sure some of the friends notice...how some of these guys really use this assignment as a platform to attract attention to themselves, specially when you have a comedian among you.
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  RULES & REGULATIONS

  Johny Franco said:
  a small BOE the WT defaults to the COOBE, since he usually interprets being the COOBE as having the most qualifications, the curious thing and I'm not sure some of the friends notice...how some of these guys really use this assignment as a platform to attract attention to themselves,

  Yes! That's Elder # 1 you're describing! He was the Watchtower conductor for the longest time since he was the COBE. His whole objective was to show how smart and self-righteous he was. The Watchtower meetings always ran 10-15 minutes late every week since he talked so much. One time (an elderly sister who didn't read that well and read too slow) was told by Elder # 1 to stop reading mid- sentence because they didn't have enough time. ( Actually,he didn't like the fact that she was uneducated and he was so smart )
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  millie210

  Johny Franco, you nailed it!

  As the daughter of, sister of, wife of, mother of ELDER(s) at various points in my life I have seen it exactly as you laid it out in your post.