New Kindumb Halls in a neighborhood near you
Notes and highlights from today’s meeting
· Opening statement about this meeting being a historic event, over 100k elders under the US branch together live from NYC.
· Robert Luccioni asked, Why the need for change? He read Isaiah 60: 17-22 with emphasis in verse 22 “The little one himself will become a thousand, and the small one a mighty nation. I myself, Jehovah, shall speed it up in its own time.”
· Things are happening so fast that is hard to keep up with all the changes.
· Showed a video with a map of USA and reviewed stats of issues with “overcrowding”
· Showed a graph on how the RBC and LWLR were successful programs but it was time for a change
· Jehovah has provided a “master plan” and to achieve his goal we must be (PATIENT=GENEROUS)
· Mention of need for donations
· We need to reduce cost to 20%
· We cannot be like the Israelites that complained about leaving Egypt, WE MUST ACCEPT THE CHANGES. During the 1st century the Organization accepted change, the result was what we find in (Acts 16:5) Therefore, indeed, the congregations continued to be made firm in the faith and to increase in number from day to day.
· The GB does not want elders to dwell on the past, read (Ecclesiastes 7:10) Do not say: “Why has it happened that the former days proved to be better than these?” for it is not due to wisdom that you have asked about this.
· Elders were told not to point out the flaws about this new arrangement. (Ecclesiastes 7:21, 22) Also, do not give your heart to all the words that people may speak, that you may not hear your servant calling down evil upon you. 22 For your own heart well knows even many times that you, even you, have called down evil upon others.
(2 Corinthians 13:11) Finally, brothers, continue to rejoice, to be readjusted, to be comforted, to think in agreement, to live peaceably; and the God of love and of peace will be with YOU.
· After reading 2nd Corinthians, the brother stated “We have to be ready to obey fellow workers”
· Leon Weaver started his talk with Isaiah 2:3 and said that our growth was prophesied in this verse. (Isaiah 2:3) And many peoples will certainly go and say: “Come, YOU people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For out of Zion law will go forth, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem.
· Jehovah will give us prosperity
· There is a need to standardized all KH’s
· The US branch committee had heated discussions that lasted overnight going back and forth about building in a traditional residential model or go with a commercial model
· They prayed without being in agreement and at the end all voted in favor for a commercial model (Yes, the new KH’s will have WINDOWS)
· They spoke about budgeting, legal department, accounting, etc…
· Introduced new positions, FIELD REPRESENTATIVE, MAINTENANCE TRAINER, too many other boring titles for brothers to fight for.
· The new headquarters is 1.6 million SQ ft, we need to build 5.9 million SQ ft of new KH’s and if we add the renovations, the total comes to 7.4 Million SQ ft
· If we can just extend the life of all the KH’s by one year, the branch will save 80 million dollars
GB Lett ended with a delusional talk where he said, “We are mightier than all the nations”
To summarize:
The GB is focused on expanding there brand of JW.org, interesting how they are not concerned about expanding Christianity but filling all the places of worship with their blue JW logo. One comment that stood out, was how they want to have a self-serve literature stand with a similar setup of the metropolitan preaching. This is to help visitors connect with the street preaching and make them feel comfortable when they enter the KH.
New KH’s will have big screen TV’s where the yearly text goes, the sound will have video, internet and a computer monitor. The conference room will be small and next to the entrance for elders to meet with “an individual” we all know what that means.
David Splane closed the meeting with a prayer where he summarized the entire event.