in salem, alabama a kingdom hall and a methodist church were targets of vandals.
satanic graffiti were scribbled on the walls.
law enforcement believe the buildings were selected because of location--in remote areas.
Bah boring article I was hoping for pictures.
I think they blow things out of proportion for being such a target. I know here other churches get windows smashed and such but there isnt such a hew and cry about being persecuted. The KH here has been egged on halloween and had litter strewn around etc but nothing really large scale.
did any of you ever write a letter to the wts regarding an article, and it got published in the back of the awake!
mostly, they only print letters that are in full agreement with their articles.
' from enland?
I think they use the reader pointed out corrections as a way to look "humble". But you will notice in their replies they always gently correct the reader and show how their point of view could indeed be perceived as correct..
has it happened in your congregation?
an elder is going to be late, stuck in traffic or lost, and dosen't show up at all!.
according to the society's guidelines, ( yes!
Yeah they always did the WT study first here. We never went without the talk. I always figured might as well get the most boring part over with first..
i have got into the habit of checking this forum and then going out on the deck (which we call the church of flow, it's a perch about 30' up) and playing my guitar for an hour or so - particularly on nice days like today.
then i come back in, look a bit of tv, eat, read and stuff like that.
i consider my sunday's sacred, i won't go anywhere unless i have to.
Sleep
.
we all know that the wts has a web site at http://www.watchtower.org but i was wondering if we find this on the awake and watchtower magazines, or on any other litereature that they produce?
i ask this because we all know that they don't want to encourage too many witnesses to go surfing on the net looking at religious information out there, but they do want to have a web site to attract worldly people.
I believe the url is also in the front cover with the printing distribution information that appears in the watchtower at least, cant remember about the awake and I certainly dont feel like looking for a magazine to check.
here's a thread for all of you to thank those who helped you make your way out of the org.
i'll start.. i'd like to thank my ex-fiance for the support that she had given me when i needed it the most.
when i was faced with the elders coming to give me a shepharding call, she had given me the encouragement to stand up to them, and tell them truly how i felt.
The internet! Starring JWD with special cameos made by other sites, pro with their ridiculous tv evangelist attitudes, and anti with their calm and rational points instead of bitterness and ranting.
let me explain.
i have been inactive for about 3 years now, i just walked away.
i was quiet at first but as i began to find out more and more about the deceptions of the wt, i have been more and more vocal in my viewpoints to my parents and former jw friends.. this past month has been very busy for me.
I have heard experiences of them leaving people alone not to make waves if they think it might push their family members out and when it is clear that no one in the community really views that person as associated with the congregation.
seeing it from the outside is scary.. recently a jw relative here confided that she was going to go live separate from her husband for a while because she needed to sort out some of her personal issues and had to be alone.
of course the elders are in there like a dirty shirt every other day telling the poor woman what she is doing is unscriptural (um really =/ it's not permanent no worse than husbands who live somewhere else to work for a while) etc etc.
she is seeing a counsellor which i am very glad and just wants some time to work things out.
I am hoping her depression may keep her away from enough meetings that the doubts she is having help foster an attitude to think for herself. That or the everday details about how my life is going when I chat with her will make her realize the big bad world isnt so big and bad anymore. The phrase used here is "if you miss a meeting you'll fall out of the truth(tm)". It was so true for me at least. I milked an illness for several meetings longer than it was worth because I knew I was leaving and I never wanted to go back again.
didnt you love being dragged door to door as a kid in the wind and snow, sub zero temperature wearing a skirt and you were told to smile and inform the householder you wanted to be there?
(dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn on one of the few days you should have off from school) .
and then there is that wonderful service car.
All these people slacking off in service and having fun <_< I'm jealous. I snuck the instruction booklet for a new video game I bought in my service bag once to look at..I got lectured about keeping my mind on spiritual things. If I got in the car with another youth and we started talking about entertainment or hobbies or anything not service related we got a lecture that we were too noisy and we should be having a theocractic conversation.
the society has many doctrines and practices which are plainly wrong.
nonetheless, little dogma is, from an organizational standpoint, in serious need of change -- except one.
for the society to continue any form of credibility with it's followers it will have to change it's understanding of who can lead the organization, in other words, who can become members of the governing body.
embarassing, unaesthetic, dangly + often unsymmetrical (true beauty lies in symmetry as you know....)
Boobs!
Err on topic didnt they already resign a few years ago as being in charge of a lot of day to day affairs. Supposedly this was to provide more time to work on "spiritual food" but obviously since there are so few of them a lot of that garbage is put out by the rank and file anyway.
