who out of all you nasty old apostates (tm) will agree with me, that if you take the gb that you dislike so much, and the watchtower that you hate out of the picture, will agree with me that at the end of the day, and on the whole, jw's really are a good bunch of people.
i did my same old rekky last sunday at the gillingham convention, and will have a good look around next sunday at twickenham convention.
i've been in lots of crowds, at stadiums and arenas, but an assembly is something else, it is somehow unique, its somehow different from any other crowds, there is a deep sense of "togetherness" i've not see any where else.
I agree, JWs are basically good nice people. I like them - it is GB policies etc that are wrong
But its the JWs who follow the GB policies... if there weren't 6 million "sheep" following the GB, the GB would just be a bunch of umpteen men, with no power at all.
who out of all you nasty old apostates (tm) will agree with me, that if you take the gb that you dislike so much, and the watchtower that you hate out of the picture, will agree with me that at the end of the day, and on the whole, jw's really are a good bunch of people.
i did my same old rekky last sunday at the gillingham convention, and will have a good look around next sunday at twickenham convention.
i've been in lots of crowds, at stadiums and arenas, but an assembly is something else, it is somehow unique, its somehow different from any other crowds, there is a deep sense of "togetherness" i've not see any where else.
I've never seen that in other group en mass.
May i ask you which other groups you have associated with?...
Could it be that like I've said before you've become blindly condemnating even more so than the group you once belonged to?
There is also such a thing as being blindly accepting... Blind faith is no faith at all... When you see the bad in other organisations and call it "satanic", then see the same in your OWN organisation and call it "mere human imperfection" there is a bias thing going on there. The struggles that you go through are not viewed as struggles by the Organisation. They view you as willfully disobeying God-given direction. And because of that they will treat you as garbage. I am only now learning to love unconditionally, because there are so many barriers put in my head by the WT society. My conscience doesn't allow me anymore to treat people in such a way. You keep telling people off here for being "apostates", but if you were to go back to the Hall and tell the Body of Elders the truth about your life-style and the fact that you visit JWD regularly, and your opinion on their beliefs, they will label YOU and apostate, disfellowship YOU, and reject you completely. I can never understand people who have to go throught things THEMSELVES before they can see the danger. Its like a child who you tell not to touch the fire, but they think its soooo beautiful and couldn't imagine the pain it could cause them. They may not actually touch the fire, but they will not see its anger and will still have the potential to do so. The Organisation is a wonderful thing... its big and beautiful and fast-growing and shiny... but it adds layer upon layer of convoluted prophecy, doctine and regulations upon the simple words of the Bible... Because of this, no matter how wonderful they seem in an en masse environment, they would not be so loving if they get to know you or your "sin" on a personal basis.
who out of all you nasty old apostates (tm) will agree with me, that if you take the gb that you dislike so much, and the watchtower that you hate out of the picture, will agree with me that at the end of the day, and on the whole, jw's really are a good bunch of people.
i did my same old rekky last sunday at the gillingham convention, and will have a good look around next sunday at twickenham convention.
i've been in lots of crowds, at stadiums and arenas, but an assembly is something else, it is somehow unique, its somehow different from any other crowds, there is a deep sense of "togetherness" i've not see any where else.
Although the togetherness and good behavior of most Jehovah's Witnesses is commendable, it must be noted that the composition and purpose of being in a crowd of Jehovah's Witnesses is far different from being in a crowd of other people, particulary sports fans.
Firstly, in a JW crowd, there is a mixture of old and young, families, single people and children, and the purpose is to calmly listen to talks and experiences for hours. Usually at a sports function or other, the crowd consists mainly of testosterone filled young to middle-aged men, who rowdily go to watch a football or rugby match.
At a convention, emphasis is placed on good behavior so as not to give "worldly" people a bad impression of us, whereas at a sports game there is no real effort made to get fans to conform to a set standard of behavior.
Secondly, I think that because of the Watch Tower Organisation's emphasis on unity and conformity, i think a lot of emphasis goes into our holier-than-thou image to simulate a sense of "brotherhood" and "togetherness". In line with the paradox, if Jehovah wasn't watching what you would do, would you strill do good?, i think we need to ask the question, "when you go out of the convention, do you remove your label-badge in order to try and "get away" with more?"...
A good example of JW "togetherness", is being on holiday and seeing a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses on the street. Usually the instant reaction is to approach them and introduce yourself as a brother. This instantly produces a warm welcome. If however, you introduce yourself as "a fellow Christian", the reaction is cold until they have identified what sort of Christian you are. They are highly intolerant of even a slight deviaion from what is accepted as the norm and there is no diversity of thought. The "togetherness" has expressed itself as dogmatic "uniformity".
I think that a state of "brotherhood" is normal for other high-control religious groups, and i do also think that for all the positiveness that this image of "togetherness" can achieve, it can also be a dangerous factor in visibly excluding those who are not part of the "in-group". I heard a lot of disparaging off-hand comments in the Gillingham car park about certain ones coming to the assembly in plain clothes or without a lapel-badge. As Jehovah's Witnesses, we can maintain a semblance of love and togetherness, but these qualities are conditional. They are conditional upon the recipiant of those qualities being one of Jehovah's Witnesses in good standing, and to be frank, everyone else can go to hell (or gehenna)...
as a child i was raised as a jw as was my wife.
the other day we were discussing some of the things that we were.
taught or discussed at the meetings that scared the hell out of us as children.
Well, just tonight during the book group in my house, my father said that in order to show that we are "determined in our hearts" not to take blood, (just like Daniel and his companions were "firmly resolved" not to defile themselves with the "delicacies of the King"), that we should keep our "blood card" either on a short chain round our necks or in a shirt pocket close to our chest, and NOT in a handbag, purse or wallet. The reasoning was that if we get caught in the next terrorist bombings on London, our arms could get blown off and the card in our handbag could fly off in all sorts of directions with our arms. We need to keep the "blood card" close to us at all times because we wouldn't want the doctors forcing a blood transfusion on us just because the card in our trouser pocket flew away when our legs got blown off.
That could have been pretty scary for the 4 kids we have in our book group.
here goes my stories: .
she looked up at all those stairs to the third floor!
she said she would do the first floor.
Let me preface this by saying that I have a fear of grasshoppers, no other bugs just them. I was working unassigned territotiry and we were at a farm in the middle of nowhere. The "sister" I was with was talking to a farmer in his mid 40's and having a fairly nice conversation when a grasshopper flew down the front of my dress. I started screaming and flapping my dress up and down trying to get the grasshopper out, but it appeared to be stuck in my bra. At first the farmer was startled but then as I ran around the lawn trying to get it out of my dress he started laughing, then she started laughing, and by the time the grasshopper flew out of my dress we were all in tears. Stupid brother in the car tried to counsel me about my actions at the door bringing reproach on Jehovah.
you had me laughing with tears running down my face with that one, slapstick humour at its best... LMAO
Funniest: Two doors in a row gave me something to luagh about... I was once on a door with an elder, and this West Indian woman with a dish-cloth came to the door and i gave her my presentation... She stopped me short and dramatically said something like "I am a memba of di Born Again, Baptist Church of God of Apostolic Faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and i am saved once for all time by the blood of the Lamb!!"... i just burst out laughing in front of her but quickly said sorry and left the door... The elder i was working with didnt find it funny but asked me if i had got back my composure before i did the next door.
The next door, this gooorgeous guy answers in his boxers... He asks us what we think of homosexuals. The elder told him, "i can see we caught you at an awkward moment, could we come back another time to discuss that?"... (Being gay myself and about 14/15 years old at the time, and failing miserably to avoid looking at this man's fantastic body, i took the Bible i was holding, used it as a "fig-leaf" to cover my own "stirrings"). I still hadn't recovered from the hilarity of the previous door, so, not giving the man enough time to accept the proposed return visit, i looked him squarely in the face, blurted out "we love them, but not their practices!!" then again burst out in uncontrolled hysterics. The gay guy at the door thought i was laughing at him, and he slammed the door...
click this link and upload your pics.... http://www.play-analogia.com/cgi-bin/index/u/.
evidently i look like shannon doherty and two asian celebs...!
hurrah... i like the shannon doherty one... (strange about the asian ones i'm aussie as they come!.
Any-hoo, when I put in an actual picture of me, on News Years Eve to be exact...
lol, where did you place the red dots to mark the eyes???
My first picture yielded the following results:
1. Thierry Henry
2. Ryan Gosling
3. Fabien Barthez
The second pic:
1. John Cusack
2. Al Pacino
3. Hugh Grant
.
if so, i'd like to know.. clive (formerly of hemsworth, west yorks cong in the 1970's)
You got a Londoner here
now i got your attention......(i'm gambling on those who remember these) when were you there?
what years?
and what do you remember........ they all seem like such a big part of my history.
Crystal Palace had always been my all time favourite DC venue, but the earliest convention i have a vague recollection of was the 1988 "Divine Justice" Convention at Twickenham, i must've been 5 years old at the time. The smell of the cooked meals, the little brown food tickets which were so precious i was never allowed to hold, the costume dramas with those strange american accents... I had been to Dorking, but the memories are very vague.
The first assembly which i actually remember sitting up and listening was the 1990 "Pure Language" Convention at Crystal Palace, when i was about to turn 7. I saw the flamingos at Crystal Palace zoo at lunch time, tried in vain to look for them all the other years, lol.
The 1993 " Divine Teaching"Convention at Crystal Palace. The giant Bible used as a stage. Seeing the scoreboard used to announce the name of the talk and the speaker. Seeing my cousins for the only time each year. Fighting with them for the binoculars to look at the drama. The last ever time we would smell the scent of the convention food drifting across the stadium. The last time we ever had a 4 day convention. The last time we had 2 dramas at one assembly. 1994 "Godly Fear"... age of 11. Crystal Palace. The last time tea, coffee and biscuits were served at a convention. Mum really annoyed throughout the assembly because of having to wake up early to prepare the sandwiches. Jotted down on my programme all the names of the brothers who gave the talks. Ticked off, on my programme, how many talks to go till the end. Filling in all the p's, o's, q's b's and d's on my programme... Sat in Block 29 Row N Seat 7 on the Friday, and Block 28 Row R Seat 21 on the Saturday. (All marked on my programme) An attendance of 10,997 on the friday and 12, 802 on the saturday... was too tired on the sunday to take notes. Darkness coming over the stadium just at the very time the brother was giving a talk and mentioned the sun moon darkening... and thunder and lightning striking at the very moment he says dramatically that the stars fell from heaven...
1996 "Meesengers of Godly Peace" First assembly at the London Arena. Upset at having left Crystal Palace after all these years. First day, no air-con, second day freezing cold... third day, just right.
1998 " God's Way of Life" International Convention at Twickers... 44, 262 peak attendance... Watching the deaf, signing brothers and sisters "sing"... *beautiful*... Having to wait until the different languages had finished their prayer before we could clap. Different worldwide costumes, african, oriental, indian...
1999 "God's Prophetic Word"... It being announced that there was a new prophetic book, the first one released in over 20 years... Recieving the "Daniel's Prophecy" book and reading it in 3 hours, before i even got home. The Esau and Jacob drama, with the brother playing Esau wearing two strips of huge black carpet on his arms to demonstrate his hairiness.
2000 "Doers of God's Word"... Getting boring coloured badge and programme for the first time in my memory, and hoping they wouldn't stay monochromic (they did)... Recieving the "Isaiah's Prophecy" book, volume 1 and starting to read it but not understanding a word. Ended up not readin it till the book group. Hearing for the first time a loosened up version of the Kingdom Melodies... Volume 9. Irish music, jazz, waltz, lullaby...
2001 "Enseignants de la Parole de Dieu" Convention in Paris (Teachers of God's Word)... 100,000 brothers and sisters in one place. Funky, french style hired toilet cabins with a hole in the middle of the floor and no seperation for males and females. Thousands of Japanese delegates waving their red handkerchiefs to say goodbye.
After that i haven't really had anything notable happen apart from a friend being photographed at the Cardiff Convention last year 2004, and her pic appearing in the local newspaper...
At Crystal Palace you could always eat your lunch outside as a picnic on the grass or on benches next to the animal preserve, but at Twickenham you were confined to your seat, because there was nowhere else to go... and there were never any funny birds on the central green at Twickenham.
I got baptized at Hayesbridge, got lots of memories there too... the mad rush for food and seats at lunch times... If it was a sunny day, a more relaxed attitude to lunch time on the green outside. As a kid walking up to the baptismal pool and trying to climb up. One year i found a spider and a dung beetle in the pool, ewww...
They are now in the process of renovating Hayesbridge (aka "Godstone" or "Surrey Assembly Hall") after more than 20 years... It used to be a boarding school you know?... They only started the renovation last month... all the spotted red and white seats and the red carpet on the lower walls are going to be gone by the next SAD, to be replaced by cool blue... Next time you go there it will be a completely different hall...
I got council for talking about Jehovah's fantastic promises... Apparently they aren't fantastic, they are real
"Gobsmacked" means surprised or shocked. Your gob is your mouth, lol.
