by sandy 44 Replies latest jw experiences
What the hell is the big deal about the circuit overseer's visit? Why does everyone have to drag their bible students and in active friends and family members to the meeting during that week?
It is so lame and hypocritical. This is something that always bothered me. Everyone makes such a big deal out of his visit like if was actually the second coming of Christ or something.
Suddenly everyone is out on field service during the week and especially on Saturday morning.
i felt and still feel the same way as you sandy.
Suddenly everyone is out on field service during the week and especially on Saturday morning.
i never bothered making any special effort for the prat who was our CO. in fact i never went out any saturday morning, its against my religion, espacially after having a few the night before...lol.
Yeah, JWs' visits from CO & DO, Assemblies, and the Memorial compare equitably with Christendom's Easter & Christmas attendance
Frannie B
The C.O visit is much like the Super Bowl. The hype is much greater than the experience.
Or like a Pope's visit. Just not as many people lining the streets.
In my first congregation there was always a great buzz of activity prior to a CO visit. People were encouraged to take the week off work if possible so they could enjoy the grand privilege of working with the Circuit Overseer and his wife in field service. Some even auxiliary pioneered for the occasion! Everyone wanted to have them over for dinner to their homes, and would line up after the meeting announcing his visit to try to book one of his precious evenings. Then they'd put on BIG meals!!! Nothing was too good for such a man of God! Some who perhaps booked vacations in exotic locations would cancel them, so they wouldn’t miss out on this spiritually uplifting occasion!
There was always a push on to get 100% participation in field service on the Saturday morning, and of course, everyone wanted to show off their bible studies to these spiritual giants! If the CO addressed you by your first name then you felt special – as though you were a part of some inner circle, or “elite” class of people, somehow superior to others.
It just looked like a lot of ass-kissing to me. I think I’m gonna go puke now.
Walter
Even when I was a pioneer it always bothered me how everyone came out of the woodworks for the CO visit. It drove me crazy how brothers would take days off work to go out in the week during the CO visit. I always thought, me and my wife bust our asses to work part time so we can go out in service and just because some higher up comes around, all the "spiritual" brothers had to make their token weekly service. If you can't be bothered to do it when the guy isn't around, then don't bother at all. Now it's just funny.
People, in the absence of a genuine spiritual experience, will do almost anything to fake it - including kissing up to strangers.
They'd have done better to go out into the desert and drink themselves into total stupor and gaze at the stars. Maybe peyote.
CZAR
I'm with amac! I had part-time jobs so I could regular pioneer for 5 years and it would tick me off when the CO came and the elders would suddenly be 'supportive' of the ministry. Then, instead of the CO working with the pioneers, he'd assign his wife MAYBE, or worse he'd have you work with the never-outs. He'd work with the elders and his wife with the elders wives. Us poor pioneers who had no gift money or time (because after service it was time to work) put on a big spread for the CO would end up only getting more discouraged ---- pioneers had a meeting with the CO but it was a group meeting so any situations that were bothering you could not be aired in such a group.
Only one time, a brother told the CO that there was a situation and that he should make sure to ask me out in service. I went to a few doors with him and he asked about my husband, who was in jail at the time for spousal abuse! He asked if the elders knew, I said no, he asked why. I explained that although my husband was df'd, I had no shepherding calls, I always said I was fine when asked casually at the hall and always smiled in service and at meetings.
I began to cry on the street. He got the other elder and into the car we went. The elder said they had no idea that things were so bad. I told him, "Thats because you never ask. You always say, 'how are you' as you keep walking."
I really threw them all under the bus. The CO said that I would have a shepherding call ASAP. Two weeks later, he called me, no shepherding call and no appointment for one. He was so mad. The next day, I got a call and an appointment, but at the meeting I told them that I felt they were 'shepherding' me begrudgingly........it was forced upon them, not voluntary.......It was the same hall that I eventually left to find a better one, my parting comments had to do with the fact that we had no shepherds, no evangelizers.......and that the WT said the elders were to do all of it, including the teaching. The PO said no that only some would be shepherds and some would be evangelizers. I told him I was going to go find some. That was it for that hall!
Everyone makes such a big deal out of his visit like if was actually the second coming of Christ or something.
Ohhhh, never mind. I thought the post read Overseas Visits !
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/22/57615/850293/post.ashx#850293
