JW Lifestyle

XBEHERE

Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to me, all YOU who are toiling and loaded down, and I will refresh YOU . 29 Take my yoke upon YOU and learn from me, for I am mild-tempered and lowly in heart, and YOU will find refreshment for YOUR souls. 30 For my yoke is kindly and my load is light.?

Is the JW lifestyle refreshing, kind, and light? Afterall they do claim to be christians and follow christ correct?

Lets break it down: 5 meetings a week (generally 3 times a week), Field Service Saturday morning (Sundays too if you want to be an Elder or not looked down upon), 2 assemblies per year, 1 district convention. If you are an elder or MS add to this various additional meetings, shepherding calls, quick builds or other KH construction projects. If you are married, especially with kids, you have to find the time to spend with them, study with your kids (this is also a JW requirement for family heads), mow your lawn, clean your house.... basically normal things that your "worldy" neighbor does while you are out knocking on empty doors on Saturday morning. So he is waving at you sitting on his deck with a beer while you mow your lawn at 1PM in the hot sun after service. Finally the constant pressure from CO's, elders, the magazines to actually do more!

Ok... sorry for venting. So refreshing? Kind? Light? Comments anyone?

Gopher

As a JW, you are not rewarded for faith.

You are rewarded for "faithful service", or the amount of work you do to promote the Watchtower version of "Bible based doctrine". As in any sales organization, the attitude of the leaders toward their members can be described as "what have you done for us lately?"

As has been noted on this forum, everlasting life depends on faithfully turning in good "field ministry" reports each month.

ithinkisee

Both of your comments are dead on the money. Unfortunately, it is often not until you are knee deep in this sh*t that you realize it's all ... well ... sh*t.

-ithinkisee

upside/down

No no no, you're confused....

The JW Lifestyle isn't a burden, it's a busy theocratic schedule that keep you busy on spiritual things and allows no room for the Devil.

All I can say is Tom Sawyer must have been a great Dub... "don't you wish you could paint this fence like me... it's so much fuuun."

A con job is a con job... once you realize what's happened you can either continue to be taken advantage of or quit and learn from it.

u/d ( of the old dog learning new tricks class)

XBEHERE

"..knee deep in this sh*t ..."

So true, and for some, chest deep and its very difficult to pull yourself out too.

whyamihere

So refreshing? Kind? Light? Comments anyone?

I never had that refresging feeling after I went to the meeting I was just glad it was over with! If I want that refreshing feeling I will take a shower!

Kind? Yeah DFing someone or Marking or Shunning that's kind. I never ever seen anyone who was kind to others in our congregation. I remember one WT that was going on and on about taking care of the elderly. I didn't go to that meeting I thought it was more important making sure my husbands grandma know I wanted to help her out with the house cleaning and whatever she needed done. I kept on asking her finally after some time se said this spring I can help her out.(she has alot of pride) It's what you do in this world not what you say. They say all these things do they really do them? I think not. My husbands grandmother can't really make it to any meetings anymore so what did they say? She should do some phone witnessing???? She is like 93! Yeah that's kind!

Nothing was light it was all a game. Its like trying to win 1st place in all of their stupid events. The load was never light it was heavy and you could never get ahead!

Brooke

Doubtfully Yours

JW life is a royal drag, quite the heavy load really.

DY

trevor

In my own experience some members have a tendency to develop illness, as this is the only acceptable reason for missing meetings or door-to-door activity. After many years of offering illness as an excuse, some come to believe they really are unwell.

Living in anticipation of such a frightening event as the Witnesses vision of Armageddon and longing for a better world - just around the corner - is a recipe for mental strain and frustration. Coupled with this is the totally negative view a Witness develops towards the present world, believing it all to be a giant failure, too bad to be evolved into a better world. Rather the people of the world are beyond hope and the best thing that can be done with them is to destroy them all and start over again!

A proverb in the Witnesses own Bible explains:

?Expectation postponed is making the heart sick, but the thing that is desired is the tree of life.? (Proverbs 13:12 ? NWT)

mustang

"All I can say is Tom Sawyer must have been a great Dub... "don't you wish you could paint this fence like me... it's so much fuuun." "

Argghh!!!! I?ve actually heard very nearly this same thing said by a pIONEER brother plying the favorite JW trade: Janitor. I had pIONEERED in the past; I was "new in town" and looking for work. So, I followed him around a little.

He paused on his buffer and I stopped on mine: He gave me the line about how enjoyable this was and how much he liked it. As I looked over his shoulder, all I could see was the next mile of hallway tile floor to be buffed.

The next day, I took the first job loading freight that the agency could send me to. (I actually did enjoy that, compared to Janitor-itis!!! And there were no JW?s and I didn?t report to a pIONEER )

A few weeks later, something turned up in my normal line of work. I took that with gusto. About 4 or 5 months later, I went on night shift. But first, I ATTENDED MY LAST MEETING, EVER!!!

Light burden, my beep-beep!!! The only things JW?s & Jesus have in common is the capital "J".

Mustang

Whiskeyjack

I agree.

As kids, you could never really "measure up" to young Jesus' example (and I was a goody two shoes) and you could never just be like all the other kids at school (even double-lifers). The self-esteem issues are horrid especially during adolesence (all teenagers are a little crazy IMO).

My father was an MS and got constant condescending (?) apoloqies from our cong.'s elders that they "couldn't make him an elder unless he could get more service hours (even though the hours he did put in were of the highest quality I've ever observed, including CO's) . The poor guy had a low paying job (putting Kingdom first) and five kids and was always trying to help other poor relatives and other low status members of our cong. with real help.It was a real slap in the face.

He wasn't into the elder status/power trip as an emotionally sensitive man (who could not stand bullshit) and he was often a burr under their saddles when they tried to make their own lives easier (you the type of thing -you ignore my kids sins and I'll ignore your kid's). They were a little leary of having him in the club.

Things eventually came to a head and he had to move away to keep his sanity. An increadibly pious man (even jesus would have thought a bit of a stickler), he and our mom did their training work a little too well (hence we all left).

I feel maybe 10% of JW's (and I'm being generous) follow the official lifestyle day in day out.

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JW Lifestyle

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