barbara anderson has already mentioned that she is swamped with emails.
she also needs date information on the 2011 annual meeting.. many thanks!.
nevada.
Gayle,
I agree, it's always about the money. But, having missionaries in 3rd world countries bringing in recruits does keep the numbers up and provides encouragement to the rank and file JWs in the mature JW countries where growth is almost at a stand-still.
I saw Terry's post that was cut and pasted from that 6 screens site that mentioned the same thing and I'm now very suspicious that they're making this change at all. If "Johnny the Bethelite" claims it, it must be false!!
barbara anderson has already mentioned that she is swamped with emails.
she also needs date information on the 2011 annual meeting.. many thanks!.
nevada.
Wow, this is quite a change. So, if I'm reading this correctly, Gillead will be used not to train missionaries but to have folks provide support to local congregations? Sort of like the MTS was used for? It's really strange because I thought the School for Couples was basically going to be used for that. School for Single Brothers was the direct replacement for MTS right?
I wonder if this is somehow tied to the long rumored replacement of the CO position?
Given the amount of growth from nations where they send Gillead trained missionaries, this makes no sense whatsoever. It almost sounds like they're de-emphasizing the door to door work, but that makes even less sense because DTD is about the only thing JWs are known for (maybe no holidays and possibly no blood are the other things). Plus using it to keep JWs busy and as a guage for "spirituality" is very valuable .
I'm sure the GAM notes will be out soon enough but this is very interesting.
in case you haven't heard, the november 15, 2011 watchtower, page 5 made this comment.
"today, no servant of jehovah uses physical force against opponents of pureworship.
"vengeance is mine," god says.
Marking for later.
BTW - what did the cat do in the picture posted to be destroyed? It's owners were "worldly" so it gets destroyed? Collateral damage? Community responsibility? LOL
since leaving the organization 8 years ago, there have been more significant changes in the actual, physical activities of the organization than occurred in all the 40 plus years i was 'in'.
bethel closings.
bethel layoffs.
I'm with the slow decline crowd. I think number reported will still go up a little but their average age is getting older and older by the day. They have pressures on many fronts that have been brought out (low youth retention, not enough men to take low level leadership positions, reactionary changes to doctrine, apathy among members, media issues). But, historically, they've been able to overcome such things.
I believe they have enough wealth to withstand the slow shrinkage. Combining congregations and selling the KHs is going to keep the cash flow going for quite awhile. I don't believe they're losing money on literature because if they were, they'd stop.
Short of a black swan event, they will follow the path of many non-mainstream religions before them and slowly fade to the outer fringe. But, I don't think it will happen in my lifetime (I'm in my early 40s).
just recently the org has changed the literature distribution to the congregation members.. the changes are:.
1) publishers are to pick-up their mag's weekly in preparation for what they think they will use that week.
2) group conductors shall now distribute the study article of the wt, and the km.. wonder why they have changed this?.
Sweet Pea - they're called service groups now. They still meet in publisher homes for Sat service like they did when there was a CBS. Each publisher is assigned to a group and the elder does the same thing he did (cleaning assignments, KMs & WTs, feeding speaker, etc) before just doesn't conduct a CBS.
CoC - They're distributing them in the same way they distribute KMs(at least they're supposed to). I generally receive ours at the same time (KM is placed inside the WT with our names on them).
I agree with man oh man, it's not to keep the Kool-Aid version private (they post it on their website) but rather to save money. I still believe there will be a time in the not too distant future when they will combine the KM with the WT "study" version. They could save a ton of paper doing that. As it is, they struggle to fill up the 4 pages and sometimes have huge print to take up space.
letter dated 09/16/11 to all boes about city overseers being discontinued effective immediately.. this is from a very reliable jw anonymous source.. .
I'll bet Circuit Overseers all over the world are jumping for joy! In my limited experience, the City Overseer (at least in my area) had much better connections with Bethel than the CO did and any CO that would go up against him on an issue would be overruled.
The city overseer I knew would also work with the local assembly hall and was generally a coordinator between the local circuits. There was nothing that he did that the District Overseer couldn't do.
Maybe it's part of the rumored realignment of the DO/CO job?
To me it's similar to when they got rid of Bethel Elders a few years ago. What did they really do anyway, right? So why not eliminate the position. It's one less thing for local elders to fight over.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/war-of-words-breaks-out-among-jehovahs-witnesses-2361448.html.
Well done Cedar's & Can't Leave!!! I love the direct quotes from the article. Even without the coded speak, it's clear they are using hateful language. I hope other papers pick this up.
following on with the austrian zone visit post.
just some info that the visits are to a number of european branches.. they are also at the french bethel around the 15th of may before heading on to other branches including the austrian and german branches.. it seems that it is the overseer of the personnel committee who is loesch i believe and also a heavyweight "helper" of the publishing committee.. the branches are expecting quite a few changes, it does seem strange to my source in france that all the travelling overseers have been left in place for a 4th year this september, which is unheard of in europe.
the then yet unknown changes will take place in sep 2011.. waiting here to see what these announcements are.. .
I attended a CA a few weeks ago. They announced that all the COs were being rotated next year (in the US) rather than 1/3 every year as has been done in the past. I seriously doubt they make any significant changes but those rumors from a few years ago may end up panning out.
i just saw this on the morning tv news - and did not get to hear enough of it to make sense:.
but, they were saying something about a patron sneaking a taser into the sunday game and using it on another fan.. they also said that one of the guys (i assumed the victim) was "a devout jehovah's witness who does not believe in saluting the flag or standing for the national anthem".. anybody know what happened here?.
Don't make me taser your ass...
LOL - Can't wait until the 26th when my skins go off on your boys!!!!
i just received an email from the ex-jw meetup group coordinator in phoenix.
she stated that the jws are putting credit donation machines at the assembly halls.
is this true?
I saw them last weekend with my own eyes!!! The CO reported that donations at the DC increased by 1/3rd from the previous year's DC due to the ability to accept credit/debit cards. I figured the machines at the DCs were a test run in the US. Given the result, no wonder they're putting them into Assembly Halls.
I agree with Gayle, KHs are next.
This wouldn't be such a big deal but look at the other thread where there are WT quotes about other religions doing the same thing and the WT blasting them for doing so.
