DID ANYTHING ODD OR UNUSUAL HAPPEN IN YOUR CONGREGATION?

by badboy 26 Replies latest jw friends

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  badboy

  ?
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  rebel8

  A JW family all died in the same day. Mother and 2 little kids killed by dad, who poured gas on himself and tried to light it. I think he was interrupted by police. Have no idea what triggered all this. They (decedents) were nice people. Kids were really, really cute.
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  PaulJ

  All the time.
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  AlmostAtheist

  There was a brother is his late 70's giving a part on the service meeting about two sisters that went into a restaurant to do business territory. He couldn't think of the name of the restaurant. He hemmed and hawed a bit, then it finally came to him:

  "HOOTERS! HOOTERS! That's the name, it was HOOTERS!"

  The congregation didn't quite know what to do. Here was a brother screaming "hooters" from the platform. It seemed like something you ought to be able to laugh at, but no one did. Until later. And out in service. And at parties. For months and months, and now I guess years. For all the cool things that came out of that guy's mouth, I'll always remember him most fondly as he shouted Hooters from the platform.

  LOL!

  Dave
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  95stormfront

  Well....I always found it odd or unusual to find someone not asleep or otherwise distracted and actually paying attention and commenting during meetings.
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  AK - Jeff

  Depends on what you mean by Odd or Unusual.

  I thought it pretty odd that about 100 people had spent hundreds of combined years preaching a 'different sort of Good News' about a publishing company in Brooklyn bringing salvation to mankind. I also found it odd that I had been part of that for decades.

  Odd indeed.

  Jeff
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  luna2

  If I think hard enough, there was always something odd going on. Some of the bigger scandals were:

  1) Elder Dumbass owned a cleaning business and also provided a service where people came and dropped off their utility payments. Somehow he neglected to send in their payments to the tune of around 80,000.00 (if I'm remembering the story correctly). He also disappeared for a while...not sure anybody knew where he was. I think this was before the stolen utility money came to light. Finally, he was removed as an elder, but he refused to tell where he'd been and denied that he'd stolen that money (must have been an innocent clerical error on his part), so was never disfellowshipped. The moral of the story is to never tell other people your business if they can't prove anything...deny, deny, deny.

  2) Elder Strict had a large family and a very beautiful wife. He ruled his household with an iron fist. The result was that one daughter moved out (or was kicked out) as a teenager, went to live with friends and completely turned her back on her JW family, one son had trouble with shoplifting and drugs, was also kicked out (not sure what happened to him...hope he got help), and the beautiful wife had an affair with her oldest daughter's husband. Something seriously, seriously wrong in that household. Wasn't my congregation, although I knew the family, so that's all I ever knew about it.
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  rebel8

  We had 2 elderly ladies that were a real hoot. They would drink daily and I believe came to the meetings under the influence. They were hard of hearing and would talk REALLY LOUD during the meetings to each other. I don't think they realized everyone could hear them. They'd comment on a misbehaving child, someone's tacky suit, etc. The whole KH could hear them and it was sooo funny.
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  AK - Jeff

  There was an elderly sister in the hall. She had come from the hills of Kentucky, which is where she got the 'truth' I think. In her later years, while in a nursing home, she was disfellowshipped for use of chewing tobacco. So she got to spend the remaining years of her life in a nursing home with no family that I know of, and a cold hearted religion that kicked her to the curb for a habit she learned in the hollars. Oh well, she eas not able to sell many books at that age....

  Boy, when I think of that hatefulness, I don't see how I ever stayed in that organized cabal. I just boil to think of having been a part of it.... I can't say more, I am just so freaking mad at recalling that.....

  Jeff
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  Cygnus

  I came to the book study with 4 beers in my gut and was asked to say the opening prayer and in the middle of it some girl started laughing. She later explained it wasn't me, it was a "noise" that came from an elderly gentleman near her.

  My brother, when he went to meetings, watched the man giving the public talk on sunday drop dead.

  Seems I remember an important organization dude dropping dead while giving a talk in Hawaii.

  One young brother used to just wing his talks. Always volunteered to give impromtus. He never brought notes or anything but his Bible. Once he was rambling and said "Jesus got the shaft." He got mightily counseled on that.

  Interestingly, at the neurology institute that I go to for my hands, a guy who quit the JWs some 20 years ago works there now. I need to say hi to him. He gave a TMS talk and when being counseled he spoke up from his seat, something like, 'Yeah yeah I was trying to do that.. well you know this and that and the other.' I never heard someone talk back to the school overseer.

  Once when I was maybe 17 I showed up to the meeting without a tie. Got lectured. My dad used to wear a bolo tie. He got lectured. Once, a guy, whose whole family quit the Witnesses, would show up a little late to the meetings in his Burger King outfit. he got lectured and said fine, I'll just go home instead of coming here.