The Society has given up on "holiday witnessing"

dothemath

Up until a few years ago......every Dec. KM had a part encouraging everyone to go in the ministry on the holidays.......Christmas day, etc.

No one ever got too excited about it in our cong. .........it was pretty much a joke to everyone even when commenting on it during the meeting part.

That no longer seems to be the case..........haven't seen any parts like this for a few years now......I guess they've given up completely.

The meeting part usually included some "fine experiences"......but I have heard exactly the opposite from some who actually tried it one time.

Have any of you ever went in service on Christmas Day?

Joyzabel

yes

but thank goodness, will NEVER do that again.

Enishi

*Sighs in relief*

Great, I was worried that the elders were going to try to get me to go out on Christmas day...

I have. It was the one time that I really had to cringe and kind of agree when people would say, "You can't leave us alone for this one day a year?" And of course, they were none too happier when we smiled and replied' "Well, we think that of all days to talk about Jesus, this one would certainly be appropriate!" Then we would go back to the car and make cracks about how worldly people didn't even want to talk about Jesus on their own dumb holiday for him, while secretly heaving a sigh of relief that it was over.

smurfy

my fiancee has. he said he felt like a complete tool! Tool

freedom96

Always had to go out on the holidays growing up. Hated it.

But, we had to set the right example, right? Gag.

starfish422

Omgosh, even my parents didn't make me do that!! EEK! I can't *imagine*.

czarofmischief

Went out on Thanksgiving day once that I can remember, although I'm sure that over my twenty years in the borg I did it more than that. Frikkin most retarded thing I've ever done. Oh, yeah, have some magazines about how much your holidays offend God and He'll kill you for it someday soon, don't know exactly when, but sure enough it's any day now, see the (1975/peace and security/generation of 1914/space rockets)...

It's about time they quit. Maybe they can try letting their poor saps enjoy themselves on these days. It drives me crazy how they beat up on their poor followers and don't let them have even the smallest amount of fun.

Oh, instead of exchanging presents and celebrating the birth of Christ, let's go out into the door to door work in the freezing cold and give away magazines and tracts.

Absolute rot. On the particular Thanksgiving day, we were offering magazines about AIDS in Africa to the comfortable, white, middle-class neighborhood, surrounded by beautiful scenery and gorgeous weather. That was when I started to have serious doubts about whether or not my religion really was relevant to my life. I mean, I care about AIDS in Africa and wish we'd done more about it years ago, but good god, there's a time and place to bring this to people's attention and just when they are about to pop the turkey in and watch the football game is NOT the time, yes? They have other things on their mind, yes?

If my religion had really trained us to be ministers, like they claimed we were, we would have been running a soup kitchen or something, not berating people for not feeling guilty enough.

Idiocy. Absolute idiocy.

I need a beer just thinking about it all.

CZAR

garybuss

I visited mourners at grave sites on Memorial day and offered Watch Tower Publishing Corporation produced literature for sale per instructions from Corporation headquarters in New York City. That's about as low a thing I have ever done. Wow!

I went in "service" on every holiday there is. I'm glad it's all in the past. GaryB

Mysterious

Yeah they had a big announcement here. "good opportunity" since these "worldly holidays" give us some time off. "easier to find people at home" etc etc. I've never been big on harrassing people when they are obviously pre-occupied. Fortunately we seem to go away on holidays a lot, or do stuff as a family, and mom always hated calling on veterans on remembrance day so we never went then.