Shepherd Book

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Posts by Shepherd Book

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  8

  Need advice on whether to print a book, and how

  by jwfacts in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i wrote an 800 page book when i left, basically for my own sanity, and that is what is contained at jwfacts.com.

  i have just finished re-writing it as a 300 page book.

  i am not sure yet about printing it, as i dont know how many people would want to buy it.

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  Shepherd Book

  If you make it available in printed, bound book format, I'll buy a copy (I much prefer reading a 'real' book as opposed to a computer file).
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  8

  Counting Time?

  by sweet pea in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  reading through the posts it seems to be that many of you put in field service reports that are/were inaccurate for one reason or the other.

  what were/are your reasons?

  what ways did/do you count your time?

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  Shepherd Book

  No, I never threw any in the trash or recycle bin. I wouldn't have felt right counting them.

  When an elder stopped by and handed me about 50 magazines (the result of not showing up at a meeting for months), I put about half of them in a plastic bag and put them in between the walls of sheetrock I was putting up in my basement. Who knows, someone might tear down the wall one day and find some life-saving information. The other half I 'place' with my pet lovebirds. The tear them to shreds - I call them nature's paper shredders. (My two lovebirds are lesbians, so they are particularly angered at the Society's stance on alternative life-styles.)
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  74

  For the men:

  by changeling in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  how many of you grew a beard when you left the wt, just because you could?

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  Shepherd Book

  Becca- You asked what women could do to shake things up a bit. How about wearing pants instead of a skirt/dress? Or do what my wife did: refuse to nurse your kid in a room filled with gossip and diarrhea and just breast-feed at your seat.

  On the subject of facial hair, I would only shave for the meetings and therefore often had a "shadow". While on vacation to visit some relatives, I let my facial hair grow. Before going to my uncle's wedding, my other uncle said to me: "You're gonna shave that thing off, aren't you?"

  I said: "Yeah".

  He said: "Good, 'cause we don't let people into our Kingdom Hall looking like that".

  To which my granmother replied: "Oh, he's a good boy, he'll shave it off for Jehovah".

  To which I replied: "No, Jehovah doesn't care. He put it there. I'm shaving it off for the elders".
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  8

  Counting Time?

  by sweet pea in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  reading through the posts it seems to be that many of you put in field service reports that are/were inaccurate for one reason or the other.

  what were/are your reasons?

  what ways did/do you count your time?

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  Shepherd Book

  I think 10% sounds very conservative. I think the real amount of 'fudged' time is over 25%. Even when I was pioneering, I always felt like I and the other pioneers were cheating a bit. We would stop to get gas, or run in to a convenience store to buy beverages and, to my knowledge, no one stopped their time for those things. After a while I realized that since it was acceptable to count time while sitting in a car for a half hour while someone in the car group was at a door, then it would also be okay to keep my time going in other non-preaching ways. When we'd stop for break, I'd bring in a notepad and continue writing a letter. During the half hour we'd spend on break, I'd maybe write one sentence (one word every few minutes), but my conscience told me this was okay.

  Another of my favorite maneuvers was to drop a letter in my mailbox when leaving for the meeting for service to start my time, then keeping it going by conducting the meeting for service (since their were always non-baptized people in the audience). By the time I knocked on my frist door, I already had 45+ minutes logged.

  One cold morning, one pioneer and I took turns writing letters while the other person slept on the couch. I felt this was okay since it was no different than sleeping in a car while someone was at the door.

  Later, when I was just a publisher, I was very liberal with my time. If a co-worker asked what I did over the weekend, I would say: "I went to a meeting and learned about the bible", and then I would count 15 minutes for that (and a return visit). To keep my magazine placements up, I would often bring two or more magazines to the bus stop and surreptitiously leave them on the bench right before I boarded the bus. Antoher time, some Mormons visited our Kingdom Hall and since I was the literature servant, an elder asked me to grab some brochures to give them. I gave each of them two brochures (there were 8 of them) and subsequently counted 16 brochure placements, which I spread out over the following six months. Another favorite of mine was to drop two or three dozen magazines in the public library's book drop on the way home from service, thereby "keeping my time going" and placing enough magazine to look respectable for the month.

  I never felt guilty for any of this as I felt I had reasonable explanations ('excuses') for all of it. The thing I felt bad about was when I started to slip below the congregation average. The first time this happened, I had only 8 hours for the month, so I 'borrowed' 2 hours from the following month. I reasoned with myself that this was okay since it was not much different than when we were told to carry over any 1/2 hour increments (as time was to be reported only in whole numbers). But then the next month I didn't make the average again, so I had to borrow even more, and so on and so on... After five years or so of that, I probably got 'in debt' by 50 hours. But I didn't feel guilty about that, either, becuase, by that time, I felt time counting was against scriptural guidelines.
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  10

  Great Post on Cognitive Dissonance

  by Shepherd Book in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just thought i'd share something a friend recently posted at his site.. here it is: http://ryansutter.net/wp/2007/07/25/539/#comment-699.. it's about cognitive dissonance and the role it plays in the lives' of witnesses and ex-witnesses..

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  Shepherd Book

  Parakeet- Hey, how's my favorite species of bird doing? Glad you liked my friend's post. Yes, life is better away from the core planets...so much more serenity now!

  Uninformed- Wow, that's an amazing story. Glad to hear (most of) your kids have followed suit. You wrote to the Society and they didn't answe your questions? Hmm...sounds fishy to me. Did they just not respond at all, or was their response vague or evasive?

  I enjoyed reading your examples about organizational changes. So, essentially, if I had claimed back in 60s that the "Truth" book contained errors, I would have been counseled for saying such things. Yet, by the 80s, the Society had to update the "Truth" book. So, I would have been correct all along. Crazy.
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  54

  Bridge collapse in Twin Cities, MN

  by frozen one in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  christ almighty!

  the whole i-35w bridge fell into the mississippi river!

  cars and trucks in the river.

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  Shepherd Book

  Gopher-

  Thanks for the kind words. Yes, I'll PM you soon.
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  54

  Bridge collapse in Twin Cities, MN

  by frozen one in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  christ almighty!

  the whole i-35w bridge fell into the mississippi river!

  cars and trucks in the river.

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  Shepherd Book

  I was in Minneapolis today, but I was never on 35W, so I and the other poster here who was in the car with me are fine.
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  35

  KM 09/07

  by Philippus79 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  does anyone know or have a scan of the km 09/07.

  in the german edition the question is raised and answered if the "faithful and discreet slaves" encourages biblestudy groups who study "deeper" topics.

  obviously the answer is "no" don't do that the slaves feeds you more than enough.. i could do with an english copy.

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  Shepherd Book

  My German is quite poor, but a loose translation of the question is:

  Does the "Faithful and Discreet Slave" approve of independent clubs/groups to find understanding on and debate Biblical themes?

  The very first word in the answer is "nein", which translates to "no".
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  10

  Great Post on Cognitive Dissonance

  by Shepherd Book in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just thought i'd share something a friend recently posted at his site.. here it is: http://ryansutter.net/wp/2007/07/25/539/#comment-699.. it's about cognitive dissonance and the role it plays in the lives' of witnesses and ex-witnesses..

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  Shepherd Book

  My pleasure, everyone! (p.s. If you go back now, there's an interesting thread of posts made my various commenters.)
• 
  10

  Great Post on Cognitive Dissonance

  by Shepherd Book in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just thought i'd share something a friend recently posted at his site.. here it is: http://ryansutter.net/wp/2007/07/25/539/#comment-699.. it's about cognitive dissonance and the role it plays in the lives' of witnesses and ex-witnesses..

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  Shepherd Book

  nvrgnbk- Hey, no problem!

  I haven't read the book he discusses, but I have got to get a copy and read it.