Posts by neverendingjourney

19

Amway

by bobld in

jw
friends

wt inc./j.w.

are similar to amway,one promosies paradise the other financial freedom.. the top get all the benefits.the r&f do all the work.. amway has rallies/seminars/meeting/etc.. wt inc. has r.c.

(was d.c.)/c.a./tms/etc.. recruitment: amway meet for coffee for a financial discussion only to invite you to a hotel meeting but don't say what it is about.when you get there you say wtf it is an amway meeting.. wt inc/j.w.

neverendingjourney

I've posted this story over the years on many an Amway thread. My brother got recruited into it. A young engineer showed up and convinced my brother to join. My brother bought a "starter pack" of some kind and paid a membership fee. He was very excited about it until he went to one of their meetings. Amway met three times a week. The Witnesses met three times a week. Amway had three annual conventions. The Witnesses had three annual conventions. What put it over the top for him was the religious nature of the meetings and how similar they were to Witness meetings.

My brother is also a big believer in spiritism, the demons and what not, so he decided to quit Amway because he felt a "demonic presence" in the Amway meetings. More than likely it was a voice coming from the recesses of his mind trying to warn him that the Witnesses were just as goofy as the Amway people. He preferred to attribute the discomfort he felt to "the demons" and was able to continue with his life without having to reassess his life choices.

25

AS JW.ORG TRAFFIC GOES UP, DOOR-TO-DOOR TRAFFIC WILL GO DOWN

by steve2 in

jw
friends

here's a hypothesis that we can expect to see robustly tested over the next 2 (2016) to 5 years (2019):.

as jw.org traffic goes up, door-to-door work will go down.

it will be harder to maintain a focus on the motivation and effort required to go "out" into your local territory because the "shift" has started to occur.

neverendingjourney

A point I keep coming back to is how little sense it makes to have a free labor pool involved in activities that don't contribute to the bottom line. It just doesn't make sense from a business perspective. I imagine that if a consultant were hired one of the first recommendations would be to mobilize the labor force in a way that contributes monetarily to the group.

The door to door work used to be profitable. I don't believe it's been profitable for at least 25 years and we're seeing the consequences of that namely less and more cheaply-made literature. I keep looking for signs that suggest the WT will go all-in on the real estate business. Encourage their members to donate their labor to construct buildings, use the buildings for a while, sell them for profit (since the WT only paid for materials), build new buildings, rinse and repeat. I believe we're already beginning to see this shift.

8

Is this the big change?

by Saltheart Foamfollower in

among all of the other changes recently, there have been broad hints that the biggest change(s) are yet to come.

an instruction has appeared on the elders only part of jw.org to set aside 15 minutes on the sept 1 service meeting with further details to follow.

of course it could just be another load of hot air, but it seems a strange thing to do after making a fuss about all of the service meeting parts this month being focussed on the kingdom (all of the parts for wb sept 1 have material - no local needs get out) when i hear more i'll post details..

neverendingjourney

I don't come on here very often. Could someone please catch me up on "the big changes," both real and rumored. I would greatly appreciate it.

34

It's All About Tablets

by metatron in

jw
friends

well, that seems to be the latest hot thing amoung witnesses.

everybody buys a tablet.

even the poor families that eat carb heavy meals are gettin' em.. maybe they can't afford the latest apple product like the maxi/mini pad or whatever they're calling it these days so a trip to ebay or overstock.com fills the bill.. use it instead of a songbook.

neverendingjourney

An advantage to the JW.ORG is ... hopefully, members will stop going to the literature counters.

I suspect this is partly the motivation. Not that they'll stop printing overnight, but if they can transition their membership slowly over to electronic media they can begin winding down their printing activities.

Over the next few years a good portion of Witnesses in developed lands will have tablets. Five to ten years from now the price of tablets will have gone down tremendously and will become accessible to all but the poorest Witnesses. Perhaps in 20 years or so the Watchtower can pull out of the printing business altogether and local congregations can outsource whaever essential printing needs they may have to local vendors.

65

October 1914? Really?

by sylvlef in

km august 2014, page 3 paragraph 6(article for this week's service meeting):.

"the month of october 2014 will see the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the kingdom.

for this occasion a special edition of the watchtower will be on this theme.".

neverendingjourney

2nd Oct 1914 has always been the end of the Gentile times. The Watchtower just hopes people don't notice that WW1 does not sync up with the start of the last days.

To this day I still kick myself over this. I actually figured that out before I was baptized. There was some older publication I was reading that specifically referred to October 1914. Most of the newer publications don't use the month and year preferring simply to focus on 1914 as the start of the end time. I have always been interested in history and knew WWI had begun in the summer of that year. I remember bringing this up to a young, zealous JW who was a few years older than me and between the two of us we couldn't figure out an explanation. I remember dropping the subject since in my naive opinion there was so much truth I was being exposed to and this subject was nothing in comparison to the great truths the Witnesses possessed.

I wish I had looked deeper into this subject, but this was happening in the mid-90s when the internet wasn't widely available.

33

I think this is closure for me.

by quellycatface in

well, i have finally got rid of my baptism cards.

the congratulations cards....the wt ones, the ones with sheep on etc.... all gone.

they dated back to 23/09/2000.. has anyone else "purged" their witness past this way?.

neverendingjourney

I have an almost-new deluxe bible I haven't been able to bring myself to throw away just yet. I've dumped a lot of literature, but I've held on to a few items including a few bibles and my pioneer school book. I'll eventually get around to trashing it, but I can be a bit of a pack rat at times.

34

It's All About Tablets

by metatron in

jw
friends

well, that seems to be the latest hot thing amoung witnesses.

everybody buys a tablet.

even the poor families that eat carb heavy meals are gettin' em.. maybe they can't afford the latest apple product like the maxi/mini pad or whatever they're calling it these days so a trip to ebay or overstock.com fills the bill.. use it instead of a songbook.

neverendingjourney

Up until three years ago, my father didn't even know how to turn on a computer. We bought him a PC and he now spends almost his entire day playing with it.

He most recently wanted an Ipad and my brother who is still a Witness bought him one. My dad has been inactive almost since the day he got baptized. He only occassionaly goes to meetings, but after my brother bought him the Ipad, my dad started going again so he could show off the Ipad.

I think he's over that phase now, but I never ask my family about anything having to do with the religion. My mother occassionally passes along tidbits here and there, though.

31

stupid statement in watchtower about appointments of elders

by hoser in

after going through all the processes of how they appointed elders in the past they say this:.

"the elders in turn would inform the newly appointed men of their appointment, asking them if they were willing and actually qualified to accept the assignment.

so after qualifying the man you ask him if he is qualified.. .

neverendingjourney

DoC - Damn, I provided too many clues. lol.

It was an issue for me, too. I was a 17/18 year old regular pioneer and I had good reason to believe that I would be appointed around the time I turned 19 or 20. But I kept ratting myself out for buying a dirty magazine or touching myself where I shouldn't. As silly as it now sounds, the guilt was too much to bear. The elders always had a pained look that suggested they wished I had just kept my mouth shut. It kept me from ever being appointed, which in hindsight was a very, very good thing.

13

jw logo vs people who wear a cross. IDOL WORSHIP IS STILL IDOL WORSHIP

by goingthruthemotions in

last week out in service i saw an elder wearing a jw.org pin.

and thought.....hmmm isn't this idol worship?

what a double standard.....it's ok to promote the borg with a pin...but not ok to promote jesus by wearing a. cross?.

neverendingjourney

I made this point many years ago in the context of Watchtower lapel pins. It was a fad some 15 years ago in my area. One of those Witness field service supply companies was selling them.

One long-time MS took it upon himself to buy a pile and distribute them only amonng elders and COs. There was a crowd gathered at the hall patting themselves on the back about it and I bluntly asked them what he difference was between those lapel pins and a wearing a necklace with a cross. One of them got red in the face he was so angry at me, but he held it back.

46

You should meet Brother Smart Engineer

by garyneal in

jw
friends

my wife, who now thinks i am not competent enough to discuss spiritual matters with the kids, thinks that i could really benefit from discussing matters of the bible with this nasa engineer who attends meetings at her kingdom hall.

apparently, he is quite knowledgeable in the bible and has a good grasp of their doctrines.

at least according to her as i never actually spoken with the man at length but i do know that he is an elder.

neverendingjourney

What is with so many NASA engineers joined up with this cult?

Not to get too off topic here, but a NASA engineer once tried to get my brother to join Amway, which is something of a business/financial cult. The young man was convinced he'd be a millionaire "soon." My brother was eventually put off by the similarities between Amway and the JWs and decided to cut his involvement in Amway short.

It could be a coincidence, but maybe you're onto something.