Posts by lilybird

29

Two types of elder?????

by chuckyy in

its my experience after actually being an elder for a number of years that there are in fact...two types of elder.. type 1....genuine, actually cares about the people in the congregation and wasn't actually bothered too much if he became an elder or not.. type 2....very legalistic, cares more about organizational laws rather than people and lacks compassion and empathy.

this type is more of a spiritual policeman.

he wanted desperately to be an elder and now that he is, he loves the sense of power and prestige.. this has been my experience and if there are more type 2 elders on a body, the results can be disastrous.. what has been your experience???

lilybird

well we had one elder who ran his own business, drove a cadillac. He missed a lot of meetings and he was supposed to oversee the Tues night bookstudy meeting but he always stayed late at work, He covered himself by having a young ministerial servant take the study. His kids were involved in "worldly" baseball leagues and hocky leagues, No one said anything, because he had lots of money and contributed a lot. He also employed witnesses and they always defended him because he looked after them financially. Finally, he got too carried away with making money and lost his money and his business in the early 80's. Not sure if he lost his elder privileges though, I was not in his congregation at that time.

72

Anyone like me where you still believe in MOST of their doctrines?

by inquirer in

like i don't like that un involvment, record keeping.

i don't know what to think about the paedophile stuff, because you could accuse the catholic church of that too.

but apart from those things i still believe that god's name is jehovah, his son is jesus, no trinity, and he died on a torture stake... i love reading the new world translation, i believe it's the best one, but i love reading other translations too!

lilybird

I think the apostle John was eatin' magic mushrooms when he wrote Revelation :)

4

The 'Thinking'

by GetBusyLiving in

before i had disassociated myself i went through a period of missing meetings (go figure) and i was lurking around sites like this for quite a while, reading ex-witness books, and doing a lot of reseach into the bible itself.

i got an email from my best friend that was in my hall who was wondering what was up and if i was 'discouraged'.

i told him that i had been reading up on the wtbts and that i had been feeling like shit because i wasn't sure what i was doing with my life, still hanging onto some dream my parents had that was demonstrably messed up.

lilybird

Yes I agree that we don't need organized religion to find or love God. So many terrible acts have been committed against other ppl in the name of religion. I believe that God , if there really is a god and Im not convinced of that totally, only wants us to acknowledge him , live a good life and treat others like we would like to be treated. That means not having our minds controlled by others, We were meant to be free-thinking individuals. I have no desire to live in a paradise earth living as JW clones. Life is only interesting because everyone thinks differently and we must strive in our life to exist, Just my thoughts anyways..

3

Blood Brothers

by lilybird in

i watched an interesting and inspiring story last night on a canadian show called fifth estate.

it actually takes place in britain and the story is about a british couple faced with the posiblity of their young son dying of a rare blood disorder.

they are not jw's and obviously i don't think a witness family would be able to take on this treatment for their child.

lilybird

Hello rebel8, life is so difficult already without all the health problems like you have to endure. Im sorry your mother involved you in a life where you had no control. As you say, the only bright spot was not contracting HIV. Hopefully your life is back on track, and a healthy one for you. At least now, you have options to make your life a healthy one.

55

Declining Meeting Attendance-CO visit

by TheListener in

so we have our circuit overseer this week.

we're getting the crap kicked out of us (figuratively) for our meeting attendance.

we have attendance in the 70% range for some of our meetings.

lilybird

I had forgotten about that .. outoftheorg... when everyone travelled to assemblies they put Watchtowers in their back windows so other witnesses could see them and also so they could witness to others as they drove. It is funny and yet pathetic isn't it???

8

Have any of you experienced a spiritual 'dead end'?

by truth_about_the_truth in

let's face it...most of us were or still are a part of this org.

because we felt a need to bring some meaning or purpose into our lives.. at the beginning there are lot of things that catch our attention, seem to make sense and feel ourselves progressing as individuals.. upon studying, meditating, pioneering, reaching out for privileges, etc.

(doing everything the society pushes).

lilybird

I have been disassociated for 18 years now. It was tiring to me spiritually to always having to prove my devotion to the org. By time spent in field service, by how many meetings I attended and whether I was doing as others felt was right. I don't think a caring God really cares about these "showy displays" which JW's were always saying was wrong anyways. Just because you put in time in field service and gave talks, came to all the meetings, didn't make you a better Christian than others. Just showed you were a sucker for recongnition from ppl. as far as I am concerned.

3

Blood Brothers

by lilybird in

i watched an interesting and inspiring story last night on a canadian show called fifth estate.

it actually takes place in britain and the story is about a british couple faced with the posiblity of their young son dying of a rare blood disorder.

they are not jw's and obviously i don't think a witness family would be able to take on this treatment for their child.

lilybird

I watched an interesting and inspiring story last night on a Canadian show called Fifth Estate. It actually takes place in Britain and the story is about a British couple faced with the posiblity of their young son dying of a rare blood disorder. They are not JW's and obviously I don't think a witness family would be able to take on this treatment for their child. The link to this story is www. cbc.ca/fifth...Its amazing that this technology exists today to save young lives.

55

Declining Meeting Attendance-CO visit

by TheListener in

so we have our circuit overseer this week.

we're getting the crap kicked out of us (figuratively) for our meeting attendance.

we have attendance in the 70% range for some of our meetings.

lilybird

Yes but the big excitement was when they put on the dramas in full costume, That was the only time you could stay awake, Also you had to volunteer to help serve food. I used to hate that. My friend and I just wanted to cruise around looking for other teens(mostly guys) to talk to.

28

Suicide

by Rico El Vato in

my 30-year old daughter committed suicide on 11-13-2004. we had both been jw's who had left the borg.

she had been diagnosed as bipolar.

i did a search from the top of the page to see if this topic has been covered but it did not work.

lilybird

I am sorry to hear about the loss of your daughter, My mother was diagnosed as schezophrenic. She struggled for years since I was a child. What made it harder was in the 1960's and 70's, ppl didn't understand mental illness and it wasn't spoken of. When she was put on meds, she funtioned normally. But some "well-meaing" sisters told her not take the meds as it would encourage the demons to enter her mind, So she was on and off meds, It was a struggle, at one point the elders wanted to disfellowship her as she was "bringing reproach on Jehovah's name". I had to plead her case saying that would cut her off from all the sisters she enjoyed fellowship with( when she taking meds and functioning normally). She also took her own life a year after that. Its mostly sad that it was such a loss of a wonderful person. But the witness organization is not equipped to deal with such matters. I feel the religion did her more harm than good. Its painful to lose a love one this way.

12

what a difference 6 years makes

by Goldminer in

jw
friends

.

summer 1998. my wife and i, along with 2 other couples and a single sister spent a week-end at a cottage.we had lots of fun;swimming,hiking,telling jokes,playing music,enjoying meals together.all in all a very fun week-end(except when a few had a panic attack on sunday morning and absolutely had to leave to go to the meeting).anyways the rest of us cleaned up and went back to town for lunch.. fast-forward 6 years-summer 2004.

6 of those 7 are now inactive(the 7th might be,i'm not sure),2 are disfellowshipped,one couple is divorced,the other couple are having serious marital problems(separated for a while),the single sister got married and is now living a life of hell(married to a complete power-hungry freak).the only couple still together are my wife and i,me struggling to fade away from the jw's and her struggling to do more for the "truth".. anyways,my wife and i were thinking about that week-end at the cottage and saying how we could never be us 7 again there to enjoy another week-end like that.and to think,jw's are supposed to be the happiest people,you'd think this would have become an annual thing,not people leaving each other or just becoming more miserable as the years pass us by.. thought you might find this story interesting,and if you think about it,how many jw's can tell a similar story?

lilybird

When my husband and I were newly married(at 20years of age...yikes) we were invited by a witness friend of ours in another city to a house party his parents were having , His father was a ministerial servant and so the party was filled with others and elders. We were young and naive and shocked to see heavy drinking and the husbands with arms around everyone else's wives. We were thought it was disgusting at the time as we thought these ones were spiritual leaders. Older and wiser ,,after being out of the or for 18 years( we both left together), we see that they were just miserable in their lives and trying to spice it up a bit.. In other words.. no different from all the wicked worldly people we are not to associate with...