Field Service is a Farce

by swiftbreeze 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  swiftbreeze

  I touch on this subject in another post but i felt the need to take it further...back in the day JW's went out in FS but i don't know about today...

  I live in a big city....The territory my congregation has is small because there are so many cong. here.

  our bookstudy only had maybe four blocks at the most to work. My ex husband and I would go to the meetings and hear talk about FS and all the wonderful and experiences and the joy oh joy in being out in the ministry. JW's would give comments about how they worked in FS. and encouraged the weak ones to join them...well being that my family was considered weak we decided to try harder now this went on for years...everytime we went out in FS 1. no one ever showed up maybe 6 or 7 people at the most.

  2. the bother would give us our assignments and we would go to the block assigned and wait and wait and wait...where were the pioneers? the people that were assigned to the territory? why they would disappear. we would drive around looking...no one. This happened all the time. After a while i asked what was going on. The answer i was given was "you got to get with people" HOW? what happened to following the arrangement? If it was summer the answer was "the pioneers are on vacation"

  VACATION! who takes vacation from FS? Jesus didnt take vacation from preaching.

  Conclusion: LIES! all LIES! JW's arent going out in FS like they say they do..oh yeah when the CO visits then everyone is out...but in the day to day grind..there are only a few and rarely is it door to door. they claim to have bible studies or return visits...maybe it's just my area... has anyone else noticed this?
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  mormon 4 life

  yes your not the only one it's the same here in new zealand
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  Netty

  Same here, I think they lie on their field service reports. I recently told my elder dad that I cheated on my field service report to keep the elders off my case. He said "oh everybody does that"
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  Quotes

  Yes, there have been many, many threads here at JWD about the farce of FS. The hours are exagerrated, the quality of the actualy hours is pathetically low (passing the time driving around instead of talking to people); pretending to knock but actually not not knocking.
  
  One billions hours per year? GARBAGE!
  
  ~Quotes, of the "never faked hours but now wish I had" class
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  Golden Girl

  I read on a JW site that they do phone field service now. I wonder where they get the names and phone number from ?
  They pass by here once in a blue moon. Never stop. I must be on a do not call list.

  We have an assembly hall right around the corner. They used to come in the neighborhood every weekend. Now you rarely see them.

  Snoozy..of the my house must be invisible class..
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  Evanescence

  Its been a decade since a jw went to my door.

  How annoying haveing jws ringing you up, they probebly have a phone book and cross out names when they get rejected! (poor fellas! )

  Evanescence
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  Ténébreux

  I read on a JW site that they do phone field service now. I wonder where they get the names and phone number from ?

  From the telephone book. Our congregation had a small group (including myself) who met at the KH every Saturday for a couple of months and went through the phone book looking for addresses that were in our territory. Then we wrote down the names and numbers in a book and passed them on to another group who made the actual phone calls. We were allowed to count our time looking through the phone book as field service.
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  Oxnard Hamster

  At my old congregation, we had pretty decent turnouts for field service. True, not everyone was involved all the time, but the turnouts weren't bad.

  I forget the term for it, but what may be happening in the big city is this: There are so many congregations, and thus so many potential witnesses, that everyone assumes someone else will take the job. There is a term for that sort of thing, but I just can't call it to mind right now.
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  Honesty

  One of my old congregations did phone witnessing on Wednesdays. If I'm not badly mistaken they gave it up after about 4 months. Of course, we know Jehovah wanted us to concentrate on the D2D work because that's where we find the most people and also in the street witnessing work because we also meet a lot of people who have regular jobs and don't need Food Stamps and WIC to feed their families. Sidewalks, malls and parks are so open it is easier to chase them down approach them in an informal atmosphere. Christendom doesn't do the work that we do in the Field Ministry because they are too busy baptising folks who can get the sense of the real Good News because Jesus made it so simple a small child can understand it but our Good News brings the message of everlasting death benefits to the whole world. So while Christendom is out there sharing elementary news about Jesus and His love for mankind we are proclaiming how Joe Hoba is going to bring destruction to all non JW's in a wonderful New System on a pair-o-dice earth.
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  Fatfreek

  By the time I bowed out of the Witney picture I could see how the work had deteriorated. Coffee breaks were introduced and from the time they left the field for the cafe till the time they got back to the field, sometimes 45 minutes had passed.

  Oh, and they loved to work the poorer neighborhoods. If any were receptive, those folks seemed the most, many of them for their perception that they may get some material assistance. The high price territory homes were skipped regularly. Those folks seemed more inclined to give you a piece of their mind, and it wasn't a kind piece.

  And they loved to worked the country. Why, five folks in one car and you may get to knock on one door (or fake knocking) because of the great distance between houses. Then there was the unassigned territory where it took some 45 minutes to get there (and get back). Yes, they were told that they could count time only one way -- but that was easy to get around. One of the carload would have a return visit on the way back so time could continue.

  Oh, yes, those favorite return visits, the time sponges some called them. Those people had been called on for years, seemed to listen intently but didn't have faintest idea what was being talked about and certainly had no intention of ever changing. In hindsight, perhaps the smart ones. Who knows that their church didn't encourage them to do that sort of thing in order to tie up the Witney from dragging the more vulnerable ones into the lair. That could easily eat up 30 to 45 minutes of the Witness's time, not counting the ones waiting in the car.

  I suspect that today the GB is finding more and more abuses. How about the ones posting here or other forums and counting their time to do that? A great way to cut down on the face-to-face confrontations.

  What became of the street work that we were encouraged to do at least so many times a year? What ever became of the wearing of placards and parading in front of churches with loudspeakers, yelling nasty slogans?

  How about celebrities? Do you truly believe they go door to door as much as the regular suckers? Prince, the Williams sisters, etc.

  Have most of existing crop succumbed to that human nature thing called cowardice? Has that quality crept into the hearts of even the most zealous of them?