Posts by Doubting Bro

118

Losch reveals newer new light at Australia Zone Visit

by Billy the Ex-Bethelite in

okay everybody, grab your barf bag because i just got a steaming shovel full of craptastic notes from gerrit's zone visit to the land down under !!.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ read at your own risk ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~puke.

zone overseer was losch and his side kick was a big black guy, quite a scolar, cant remember his name though.

Doubting Bro

Losch is known for saying crazy things in his talks, so I'm really not suprised. After all, anyone that would say American football is from the Devil is obviouslly insane

However, 2 things caught my eye:

8. Matt 24:14- Now totally fulfilled!!!

Ok, that's not the first time a Bethel speaker has said something to this effect. Remember last year when one of the Bethel "heavies" said this very thing at either a CA or a SAD? Then a copy of the talk made the JW e-mail rounds? At the time, I thought it was a trial balloon. Now, a GB member is saying it? Perhaps another trial balloon?

Then the geographic flight. That's a little scary. They've always said that the flight was figuaratively the flight from "false religion". The theory was that since there are JWs all over the world, the flight could not be literal. However, I could easily see them tying in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (which seems to me what Matt 24 was talking about anyway) and the physical flight by the Christians to the mountains to a physicial flight to some remote location by JWs today. The connection is easy enough to make but selling that to the membership I think would be quite difficult. If this ever makes it into print, then I'd be really worried for family & friends. But, I think it would take either 1) a major world event that makes 9-11 look like nothing or 2) years of conditioning this teaching for them ever to pull a Jonestown off.

78

JWs: Biggest Turnover Rate of Members! "Masked churn" rate of 2/3rds!!

by Seeker4 in

jw
friends

an article just out this afternoon said the following.

note especially the second paragraph about jws: .

for some groups, their relatively steady number of adherents over the years hides a remarkable amount of coming and going.

Doubting Bro

Even on a local level you can see the churn. The congregation I'm "in" over the past year has had 3 baptized (all kids in the 12 y/o range) while 5 df'ed (all unrelated incidents).

I think they're calling members what the WTS records as publishers.

I'll bet in some of the non-English congregations where many of the converts are first generation (both to JWs & to the US) are the ones where there is more being converted than are leaving. It will take a while for them to catch up on the curve. Proof that it will eventually happen to those congregations as well is found in Japan. 10 years ago, all you would hear about is how the Japanese were putting the western countries to shame with their large growth. Now, the growth has slowed to a crawl like the west.

In the not too distant future (5-10 years), the non-English language congos here in the US and western Europe will start taking the same sort of hit out of the back door.

66

HERE'S THE 2007 SERVICE YEAR REPORT

by Mary in

i'm not sure if this has been posted yet, so i took the liberty of scanning a copy.

here is the figures for the 2007 service year report.

interesting that over 9,000 partook at the memorial last year when the numbers should be going down.

Doubting Bro

At last night's SM, the article about JW's being the fastest growing "church" was read(in part of course). But, the SO who was handling the part didn't have any problems about calling JWs a church or religion. Of course, if he did the math, he would see that Catholics have around 67 million members in the US and added about the same number of members JUST in the US as JWs have in total WORLDWIDE.

The increase in baptisms is somewhat interesting. I think the increase in publishers could just be with all the tract campaigns getting the inactive to report something one month. I know there was a strong push in my area. The general trend has been slower growth, so I suspect that 2007 was a blip. If they can put together a couple of these +3% years, then I think we have a trend.

Of course, the LDS are right behind them in terms of fastest growing and I don't think they're correct as far as religious theology either. Just because you grow, doesn't mean that you are Gods chosen channel.

53

Taking predictions for the 2007 memorial partakers!!

by cultswatter in

i'm doing this well in advance so that all the wonderful people on jwd can look back later and see just how close they were to the actual number!

(it is possible the wts might stop publishing the partaker numbers) in a few days, i will duly record the link to this thread for future reference.. remember that there were 8524 partakers in 2005 and 8758 partakers in 2006, an increase of 234 partakers.

so how many remnant will partake in 2007??.

Doubting Bro

Looks like the winner is OTWO with 9103. The official number I believe is 9105.

What I found interesting is that most of the predictions were actually on the low side. I though the number would go up this year based on the QFR but honestly was a bit shocked it went up so much/ Locally there has been quite a bit of tongue wagging about this. I spoke with several of the local elders (they brought it up not me) and they were shaking their heads in disbelief. One mentioned that the numbers were at the early 1990s level. 2 have even mentioned the number in meeting parts and said they didn't know what to make of it. Hopefully, it will cause some of them to think, but I doubt it.

I'll bet next year the number is REALLY going to go up.

94

I think the noose just tightened a bit.

by 5go in

we had an interesting local needs.. first it clearly stated if you are not making all the meetings you will not make it in to the new system period no exceptions.

they twisted the story of the red sea to make an example.

saying you can not disobey once, or else you be left stuck in the bottom of the red sea.. from now on the elders will be making shepherding calls on those that are not attending regularly.. also, it was stated that if you know of any not attending regularly.

Doubting Bro

Yeah, me neither!!

94

I think the noose just tightened a bit.

by 5go in

we had an interesting local needs.. first it clearly stated if you are not making all the meetings you will not make it in to the new system period no exceptions.

they twisted the story of the red sea to make an example.

saying you can not disobey once, or else you be left stuck in the bottom of the red sea.. from now on the elders will be making shepherding calls on those that are not attending regularly.. also, it was stated that if you know of any not attending regularly.

Doubting Bro

TJ

FYI, I've not seen anybody else post about how "local needs" parts are determined. I'll tell you how it was in the hall I served at, I'd be interested if other ex-elders had it go the same way. The PO asked us to think of topics of concern prior to our quarterly elder's meetings. We'd then bring them to the meeting, and one of the agenda items was to pick three out of the presented items as the most "needing of attention", and pick who among the body would be best to deliver a talk on that topic, and some discussion of what format (talk, demo, etc.) and what might be covered would be discussed. That being decided, the PO would then have his topics/speakers to put on the SM schedule. Is that how it worked in your hall, ex-elders? I don't recall ever seeing any printed instructions from the Society as to how local needs parts would be selected. That's just how we did it. I suppose in some halls, the PO might pick them himself. If that's the case, ours was more of a democracy in that regard--the PO really did try to encourage participation and input from the other elders.... well... the PO that was in 'office' at the time I served, did. I wouldn't want to serve under the current tyrant.

This is how it was done when I was on the BOE as well. I think the Flock book sets out the procedure which is how you describe it. You know the WTS is going to micro-manage and have a procedure on everything!!

I was usually hesitant to suggest anything because we generally assigned the person who suggested the topic as the one who would give it. We had one guy who was great at making themes and we would often bat around the theme and direction the part should take.

115

My story: "Pop!" goes the Little Circuit Breaker

by TJ - iAmCleared2Land in

jw
friends

i guess it's about time i write my story.

i've put this off for a long time... primarily becuase, while i thought my story was bad, i've read so many worse and heart-rending stories here.

i think, though, there is some therapeutic value in 'letting it all out' with others who know what 'it' was like.

Doubting Bro

(((TJ)))) - No one should ever have to deal with half the things you've dealt with. I read your story with tears and gasping.

You'll be proud of her, as I was.... she looked in the box, saw what was there, shook her head, said "They are such CREEPS!!!!" and closed the box. She saw right through their "gift" and saw it as the "stab at her Dad" that it really was.

You must realize how lucky you are to have such a caring daughter! Despite all that happened, you've been able to break the cycle and create a REAL family. I really hope that you find peace and healing.

283

News from Mother ship

by jefferywhat in

1. bethel in ny suspect high level apostate, cant identify it but know its there.

2. major organizational changes about to start rolling out, one is changes to the "service committee" and titles, po to be done away with, thats all i know for now.

was told that if you are the sort of person that cant handle changes, you wont stay in the org for long.

Doubting Bro

Recently, they had to pay out millions for pedophile cases. They lost the clergy client privileges. The only privilege they managed to maintain was lawyer/client privileges. They want to distance themselves from the congregations. How? by allowing the elders in a congregation to run things autonomously to a great extent. However, there will be one person, who will be appointed by the legaldepartment of the WTas their representative, and all correspondence from the congregation will be handled by this person and forwarded to the legal department in Brooklyn or wherever. These special hired hands will be working solely as legal assistants of the legal departments. All the correspondence will be covered by lawyer/client privilege and will not be opened to scrutinization of any court. These strong armed heavies will be called in from time to time to receive special schooling and instructions, all under the name of the Legal Department.

I can see something like that. The main problem would be that you still have too many of these reps of the legal department. The CO already performs similar functions, especially in the meeting with the elders where the CO will read letters from the WTS and review an outline provided by the WTS that gives instructions to elders on how to "handle" things. Many times,the elders were not allowed to actually see the letter or make a copy of it, but had to write down the instructions in the Flock book.

I could see a position below CO but above the BOE in the local congregations. They could assign one man to "handle" either 1 KH (usually 2-3 congregations) or perhaps have as many as 4-5 congregations in which this person would be responsible for.

The problem (as I understand it which is probably not correct) with clergy privilege is that if more than 1 clergyman knows about the confession, then privilege is deemed waived. So unless this rep would hear all confessions, then you've still got that issue. But, as is pointed out above, atty-client privilege was held because the legal department is an in-house law firm in a seperate corp. I'm just not sure that these appointed "legal assistants" giving information and advice to local BOEs would be an extension of the legal department. I would argue that they have no legal training and that they were already serving (and perhaps would continue to serve) as elders in the local congos, therefore are still reps of the WTS.

Maybe if they deleted all the elders and held elections in local congos and any reps of the legal department refused to be elders, then perhaps that would work.

I completely agree that any organizational changes that are coming are being made by the legal department and are an effort to stem the tide of lawsuits. Money makes the world go round. Also, any changes will be a crackdown, not a easing of bethel control.

283

News from Mother ship

by jefferywhat in

1. bethel in ny suspect high level apostate, cant identify it but know its there.

2. major organizational changes about to start rolling out, one is changes to the "service committee" and titles, po to be done away with, thats all i know for now.

was told that if you are the sort of person that cant handle changes, you wont stay in the org for long.

Doubting Bro

I agree with some of the other posters who said that even without the title "PO" the duties would still need to be carried out. They used to(before my time) rotate the positions on the BOE and that was an utter failure. I could see the tasks being split up and delagated to various elders. One person chosen by the BOE could serve as chairman during the meetings, draw up the agenda, and call meetings and have a term limit of 1 year. Another could be in charge of the Service Meeting again with a term limit. I'm just not sure what that would accomplish. The PO is chosen by the local BOE with the CO having final say. I don't think the PO is anyone or less a rep of the WTS than any other elder. By the way, I think all elders, MS & regular pioneers are reps of the WTS since it is the WTS and not the local congregation that bestows that position on them. The local BOE "recommends", the CO (a middle manager of the WTS) adds his 2 cents and then the WTS does the actual appointing.

I don't see how this change could lessen the potential liability to the WTS. Even if local congregations were to hold elections, the semi-annual CO visits and the myriad of BOE letter still make the connection back to "mother". I must be missing something.

As for the other part, I don't doubt that some high ranking members have "doubts". But, color me cynical, I just don't buy into a schism at this point. Certainly not an organized revolution! I know it happens, even in high control groups like JWs. I think if something like that were to happen, a mole would get in and the dissenters would be picked off one by one. Especially if they were in bethel. I'll live up to my nickname on this rumor. Not saying its not true, I just wouldn't bet any money on it.

38

With every breath that I took, I wanted the JWs to be right...

by cognac in

jw
friends

i wish i could not think its so wrong when everyone i know and love thinks its so right.. i'm so mad... i wish i could run to my husband and tell him how angry i am.

tell him and my family that i don't ever want to go near a kh again.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doubting Bro

cognac,

I didn't get a chance to respond to your intro thread, but first - welcome to the board!

Please understand that you are not alone. I felt exactly the same way when the light bulb first came on. I read that your husband also has doubts. At this point, I would make sure to only talk to him about what you are finding out. It doesn't sound like he'll rat you out.

Feeling like you've lived and put all your energy into a lie is probably one of the hardest things to deal with. Make sure that you have a plan if you want to keep contacts with your family & friends.

This board has been so helpful to me that I honestly can't describe it. Just knowing that I can vent away has made the last few years bearable.

Your feelings of betrayal will eventually fade. Please don't make any rash decisions.