A few times a year, the Society REALLY promotes pioneering.They will devote Service Meeting talks and parts stressing the need to regular or auxiliary pioneer. At the assemblies and at the District Convention, they will try to shame you into pioneering. They give examples of 85 year old parapalegics that "made room in their lives" to pioneer. They tell about congregations that got together and made a commitment to have EVERYONE pioneer during a certain month. If the Circuit Overseer was coming, the Service Overseer would stress why anyone that could pioneer, SHOULD pioneer. If last year, we had 125,000 auxiliary pioneer in March, can we "do more", this month??? If you were an elder, you were EXPECTED to take the lead in pioneering. If you didn't, you would be snickered at by many in the congregation. You were even given a schedule, to show you how easy it is to put a few extra hours in "for Jehovah". What's 50 or more hours compared to all the "free time" we possess?..............Do you remember those days??? How did YOU handle this sort of pressure???
Did You Feel Pressured To Auxiliary or Regular Pioneer?
by minimus 36 Replies latest jw friends
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Odrade
How did YOU handle this sort of pressure???
Pioneered. Ugh.
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shamus
Of course! But I still did aux. pioneer... which meant more sitting in a car than anything. What a waste of time... I could have been in school or something!
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Dimples
How did YOU handle this sort of pressure???
They were all stressing to pioneer. I had one sister who always tried to make me feel guilty into doing it. Actually it just went in one ear and out the other, until she finally gave up and started pressuring others. I hated field service so why would I want to pioneer? My mom gave in and aux pioneered for a month and said she wouldn't do it again.
Dimples
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jwbot
All the time.
My father even said he would buy me a (great service) car if I did....He bought both my older sisters a car for them...so he meant it...Problem was, I was not even baptised yet! Then when I moved out, their pleadings changed to just going to the meetings. heh
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Gadget
I never felt presssurised, and even went and asked the congregation secretary for a form once. He just burst out laughing. Guess I wasn't seen as a spiritual person.
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minimus
Most of the people that pioneered did it because of "peer pressure". If everyone else "volunteered" to pioneer because a talk was given "encouraging" the pioneer service, for at least one month, what's one to do when the elder asks for a show of hands as to who wants a pioneer slip at the end of the meeting? Now that's OBVIOUS pressure to conform. If all your friends are pioneering in April, then, obviously, you should too. Of course, there's always someone that gets baptized that can hardly wait to start pioneering.
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Soledad
all the time, however, I just ignored it
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minimus
I believe most Witnesses "just ignore" things if they don't want to do something or if they simply do not believe a "truth". That's why the core of JW's is disintegrating.
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ikhandi
Not at all. I started regular pioneering when I left high school because I always wanted to try it. I remember the presiding overseer telling me to just give it a chance, try it for a year. I ended up doing it six years straight.