Just got done glancing at live kingdom hall site and I thought of how smugly Jehovah's Witnesses brag about how they don't have a paid clergy. I saw KHs and assembly hall's with built in apts for visiting overseerers, special visiting dignitaries, caretakers. . .Then I am reminded of all the bethelites supported by JWs, the assessments to provide cars and insurance and support for overseers. . .and I know the elders are unpaid and overtaxed with responsibilities and often their own finances and I wonder if JWs wouldn't be better off with a self supporting church like the local baptists, whose congregations are self supporting in spite of paying a pastor and staff. They still support charities, missions, food banks, reach out in real ways to the community. . .all that humility and the JW leadership lives without worrying about their bills while the ranks are CONSTANTLY pestered for more money. The leadership has no organised efforts to help the JWs even. Even the first century Christians managed that! They lived in tents and dirt floored houses. In fact, charity in times of need is the only thing I remember anyone collecting money for in the NT. Except taxes, and that was the role of rome. The wtbts seems more like a tax collector than a charity. None of the options for helping was to help their brothers, it ALL came back to sending money to Brooklyn bethel. Or the Cayman islands or where it goes these days.