We pray for the governing body

by StephaneLaliberte 30 Replies latest jw experiences

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  StephaneLaliberte

  Since when has it become cool to pray for the GB? I noticed that at the begining of my fade back in 2015, it had already been there for a good while and was already getting on my nerves. I don't know if it was always there, or was it?

  I means, I grew up in it, but can't remember much further than the 90s and I don't remember this being always in the payers. "We pray that you help the GB as the give us food at the proper time".

  I remember, towards the end, I was hearing it often, even at weddings and funerals. was it simply because I was more alert or was it not as bad as it has become?
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  Vidiot

  I think it started right around the time they became semi-public figures.

  JWTV comes to mind.
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  Magnum

  I remember hearing it a lot, too, my last few years as a JW, and I, also, don't remember when it started.

  I wonder whether it's just a U.S. thing. You're in the U.S., aren't you?
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  blondie

  We can pray for the GB publicly, but not individual jws who are having challenges such as severe illness. If it is done, the COBOE has to approve it first.
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  The Fall Guy

  USA JW's commonly use a term which those in Europe don't - "The friends." Always sounded like cult-speak to me when I was in.

  In the UK, this phrase is never used. The phrase "brothers & sisters" is always used to describe fellow JW's.
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  Diogenesister

  FedupJW USA JW's commonly use a term which those in Europe don't - "The friends." Always sounded like cult-speak to me when I was in.

  Yes they never said it in the UK that I remember back in the day.

  Always "Brothers and Sisters."

  That's another thing I've noticed, that nowadays 9 times out of 10 they just say "The Brothers" even when they are not specifically speaking about just brothers - like the elder body. They will say " The brothers in Russia are suffering persecution...." instead of " the brothers and sisters in Russia...." etc.

  Or like OP is it me just being more alert to it?
  
  
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  sir82

  I've noticed it more recently too.

  It's really very creepy.
  
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  blondie

  As to saying brothers when the WTS means brothers and sisters:

  This has been an old, old problem that switches back and forth. For awhile the WTS was more diligent putting "brothers and sisters" and other double gender groupings.

  My mother told me about an "anointed sister" who would sit in the front and every time the person on the stage said "brothers" when they meant brothers and sisters, she would say under her breath "and sisters." Everyone could hear her, that that was over 60 years ago.

  Part of it that men from a certain era were trained by the vocabulary used by others around them. I could tell when a male member of the WTS would say men and women, he or she, brothers and sisters that he was from a generation that was used to hearing both genders mentioned where that was meant.

  Checking the WOL with search, I still see frequent use of the phrase "brothers and sisters" now. But occasionally one slips through perhaps because an older male jw was in charge of the writing.
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  Vidiot

  I always wondered if the phrase "The Friends" (my mom uses that one) might be a holdover from JWs who - in the past - may have been former Quakers... otherwise known as "The Society of Friends".
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  hoser

  My mom uses “the friends” also. Came in”the truth” in the 1960’s