i just returned from 18 holes of golf as the phone rang.. caller; hi jeff, this is bruce elder, how are you doing?.
me; hello bruce.
bruce; well [very nervous sounding voice now], i have kevin holierthanthou on the other line.
Deal with them the same way as you'd deal with a telemarketer calling your home trying to sell you insurance.
"Sure Bruce, I agree we really do need to talk. Oh wait, can you hold on just a minute, I need to go get a pen. Thanks, I'll just be a sec..."
...and then go off to play another 18 holes.
in his book "in search of christian freedom", ray said that he once wrote an article in the wt when he was a member of the gb regarding sacred service.
the points he brought out were unlike anything the wt ever published in the past.
in the article, he stated that sacred service did not merely mean going out in field service but other things such as helping others in need, doing good things for people whether they are witnesses or not, etc.
From that point forward they kept putting "part of our sacred service" when referring to preaching or other stuff.
Reminds me of the phrase "Part of your complete breakfast!" (Maybe they could put that on the cover of the daily text?)
proselytizing for jehovah's witnesses during last sunday's vikings game wasn't the smoothest call prince has ever made.
an eden prairie woman, who prefers to be identified only as rochelle, said, "door bell rings.
my husband runs upstairs and says, `prince is at the door!
There's no way he could go door-to-door and not draw a crowd.
If 600 people gather around you and you spend 10 minutes witnessing to them, I wonder if that counts as 100 hours?
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i'll start.. judges 4:21 jeal drove a tent peg through the head of a sleeping king.. judges 19:29 a man cut up the body of his raped and murdered concubine and sent the twelve parts to the twelve tribes of israel.. .
Lot's daughters, Genesis 19:30-38 -
"And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father."
the speaker told us that the end is almost here and the storm in australia is the proof that we are in the last days.
Did they also say that there was no loss of life.?
That's right. A whole lot of property damage, but no-one was actually killed.
sorry everyone, this was so stupid i just had to post it - apologies if it has been discussed before.
this is something that has been doing the email rounds in local congregations - the stone from nebuchadnezzar's dream, as depicted by the wts over the years:1958, "your will be done on earth", page 112. the stone is still quite a good distance away.1999, "pay attention to daniel's prophecy", page 58. the stone is now quite close.2004, "keep on the watch", page 15. crunch.. .
woooooooooo... scary stuff !
Sorry everyone, this was so stupid I just had to post it - apologies if it has been discussed before. This is something that has been doing the email rounds in local congregations - the Stone from Nebuchadnezzar's dream, as depicted by the WTS over the years:
WooOOooOOoo... scary stuff !!
Ha ha.. that's great. Kudos to the person who set this up - Mr Randi would be proud of you. If nothing else, this will make a few people actually look into the matter for themselves after they sit down to type their prize-winning entry and suddenly realize they don't actually understand it that well after all.
this reasoning was recently used to argument why we all should fill out our monthly report slip and hand it nicely to the secretary.
the elder explaining this used the organization book and starts mentioning the bible accounts that include numbers and figures in them!
judges 7:7 - gideon gets 300 men to drink water...
1. Since the WTS uses 2 (and only 2) scriptures from the Bible to condem birthdays because, in neither case, the birthday result in no "good". Why is the same logic not applied to counting?
Because the desired conclusion determines the logic to be applied, and not the other way around.
2. Why do you suppose the WTS is so fixedly anal about FS hours anyway?
Because without numbers they can't have an "average" that everyone must strive to be above, thereby raising the average... [cycle repeats].
could we have a contest when a bunch of unsolved problems start plagueing our society?
get together all the brightests minds around, put them on tv.
give them the problems and see which one has the best ideas?
Get together all the brightests minds around, put them on TV. Give them the problems and see which one has the best ideas?
Unfortunately the people who decide what gets shown on TV profit from a lot of those problems.
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something that always bothered me as a jw was the lack of praise and worship with music at meetings , yeah there were the tapes of dull and uninspiring piano music along with the same songs that noone ever felt enthusiastic about - i actually remeber feeling embarrassed whenever i had invited a bible study or interested person along to a talk and the singing was just pathetic.. singing durring the meetings was never considered a serious act of worship, but an opportunity to visit the bathroom etc.
i also found it sad that those who did have a musical talent could not use that talent in worship - no alternative forms of musical instruments were permitted inside the kh other than the wts piano tapes - no freedom of expression to worship and praise god was ever allowed , it seems that the gb want to rob jw's of the experience of joy in worshipping god.. now that i have experienced worship and praise in a spirit filled church , i can testify just how liberating freedom of expression in worship can be...i recently came across "the psalm drummers" and highly recommend getting the cd.. http://www.psalmdrummers.org/.
Speaking of drums, I always found it interesting to listen for the drums in the orchestral arrangements that they played at conventions. When the drums made an occasional appearance they ALWAYS matched the song lyrics exactly, and never added any rhythm to the music. That's got to be a deliberate thing, it's like they're scared to make the music too enjoyable.
Totally agree with the rest of your post. The dirge-like singing was always my least favourite part of any meeting. Every song left me feeling like "Okay, what exactly was the point of that?"
