The Preaching Work: A Colossal Waste of Time

by Scully 17 Replies latest jw friends

  • Scully
    Scully

    Many people who post here have had similar experiences to my own: X number of years going door-to-door, informal witnessing, placing books, magazines, doing return visits, but having no one ever Come Into The Truth? by virtue of their efforts.

    Members of my own family who are still JWs similarly have nothing to show for their trouble of regularly engaging in the ministry over many years (decades, actually).

    Any guesstimates out there as to how much of your life you wasted participating in the preaching work?

  • Big Tex
    Big Tex

    When I was a senior in high school, my school counselor called me in and told me she could get me a 4 year scholarship (based on my grades) to "nearly" any college I wanted. I had talents in writing and psychology. Instead of developing those talents, I pioneered for 3 years. After I married Nina, I auxiliary pioneered probably a dozen times over the first 2 years of marriage.

    I wasted not only time, but a helluva lot more. Waste Waste Waste. I hate looking back and seeing how much was wasted on what is in reality nothing more than a schill for a publishing company.

  • czarofmischief
    czarofmischief

    Well,

    It was a "spiritual" thing even if I never talked to anybody. I could comfort myself thinking I had done what Jehovah wanted me to do.

    I mean, I was a regular publisher, intermittent auxiliary from my birth. I mean, I'd been auxiliary pioneering every year for ten years at the time of my diffing. And I was never irregular before that... heh heh heh... I still pride myself on my regularity, as I head into my middle age. Poop poop poop.

    Um, anyway, back to the other kind of crap I was spewing out. Thousands of hours, not to mention a lack of a effort / reward ethic.

    I think that is a great tragedy for a young person, to not learn that more effort = greater success. All I learned was how to do nothing for hours at a time. It's hard to even get motivated to learn to play the guitar because in my head it's still kind of like, why bother? Greater effort won't lead to Jehovah's approval, or even succeeding at the guitar? Does this make sense to anyone? Or am I just raving (don't speak, Bradley, don't speak... )

    Finishing what I start is hard as well, partly I think because I'm used to just wandering around not accomplishing anything and getting a cheap thrill (spiritual satisfaction, holier-than-thouism) as though I were somebody useful to society instead of a pest knocking on the door on a winter's morn gibbering about my delusions and lies I'd been fed from infancy. Why do anything when you can do nothing and still feel like you've done something and made something of yourself?

    Damn it. Now maybe I'm a little more ticked off than I was before... maybe the WT took more from me than I've previously realized.

    CZAR

  • Special K
    Special K

    I'm not even going to try and figure out all the wasted time....that would be really depressing. I did bring two people to baptism. that was rewarding until I found out the truth about J.W. and stopped going.

    I also found it very stressful going door to door...It always felt an unnatural thing to do.

    And I have always resented the fact that, jesus on the mount was talking to all his men disciples when he talk to them on the mount.. He told them to go forth."..

    I could not see how this meant me.. as a woman was to go out from door to door. How did they make that big switch a roo.

    I felt .. you men always want to run the show.....let you guys do all this going out in service thing.

    sincerely

    Special k

  • minimus
    minimus

    Truer words have not been said! It;s a sham, a scam and a sham. If they REALLY wanted to spread the life saving good news, they would've chosen a more modern way of making sure the message gets out. The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society SUCKS.....(How's that for an opinion?)

  • dustyb
    dustyb

    heh, my g/f has went out in service for YEARS and YEARS. guess how many converts. first one to guess ZERO gets a beer...

    but seriously. when i went to the kingdom hall a few years ago, then went back this past fall, i seriously seen no NEW converts. i seen people that moved congregations, but nobody new. i remember seeing one kid there for one night. then i also remember a guy who wasn't all there (he couldn't find books in the bible and such) and i was THE ONLY person to help him find his way through the bible. i kinda feel i did my good deed for doing that. nobody else would offer to help him find his way, and when i did he was almost in tears. i felt sorry for the guy

    but in the meantime, field service is just a lot of wasted time anymore. i think they changed it from getting new potential converts to just "preaching the name of WTS God"

  • Celtic
    Celtic

    777,822 hours to be precise and diddley nowt to show for it.

    My mother too. Since yonks back, a stanchion within the congregation, a real beaut, with the most ticklish of senses of humour. She did bring this lass in once with serious problems dear of her own. I did tell my mum that she was not qualified in the counselling sense to help this girl, young lady. Of course, by them, I don't know what I'm talking about. Streuth. 3 Years later the lass tries to commit suicide and ends up getting herself sectioned. Fat lot of good that all did her then.

    Thats just it though. The worse they do, God bless em, they take it as even more reason that satan is persecuting them, which means that even by the most common sense, they still blindly lead the blind off the ruddy rails, sometimes, with dire results. It's bad, it's not good, but don't get me on the subject cos I'll only fire off on one, an' you lot don't like me doing that, cos I can be too much at times.

    These days, I've learn't with great difficulty, to quieten down and chill.

    Love you Scully and miss you heaps, more than you'll ever know. You were one name, that while back, without probaly realising it personally, did me heaps of good, and, I hold you in very high esteem, just like all the ladies here.

    Love & best wishes

    Mark Celty

    Corrected formatting due to a celtic grammattical error

  • Black Sheep
    Black Sheep

    Not a lot, thankfully. And I never started a study with anyone.

    The local cong. seems to put in a fair bit of time, but I am only aware of one non-born-in baptism (and that was an import) in the many years I have been here. I think there are only two JWs from the whole cong. who were born here. (I might be wrong about that, one of them may have died.)

    I know many people here who have studied and stopped and quite a few born-in kids who have drifted, so the only increase here has been from imports. They could have had the same increase sitting on their butts, probably better actually, as some of the kids might not have left.

  • cyberguy
    cyberguy

    Oh come on Scully! It?s not really a waist of time! Why, if JW?s didn?t ?place? magazines and books, Watchtower would have to go out of business, and send over 10,000 Bethelites home! Now, we don?t want that do we? So no, it?s not a waist of time (lol)!

  • galaxy7
    galaxy7

    If they send the 10.000 bethelites home can they collect unemployment??

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