I'm seeing more and more JWs hanging around "ministry carts" in city centres. Is there already a move afoot to do less actual door-to-door (in your face) witnessing, and be more like wallpaper, merely in the background?
passwordprotected
JoinedPosts by passwordprotected
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Burglars posing as JWs, will WTS change D2D
by doinmypart inhttp://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/burglars-pose-jehovahs-witness/nblnt/.
in georgia, u.s. burglars are posing as jws, canvassing and breaking into homes.
something similar happened a couple months ago in nevada.
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Anticipating future changes in the organisation - crystal ball gazing
by yadda yadda 2 ini posted the comment below on another thread on elders stepping down.
although i left the jw's years ago, i still hold a fascination for the evolution of the religion and am curious on what future trends and developments may occur.
so i thought i would start a thread on what future changes you think will occur in the organisation as the years go by, either doctrinally or organisationally:.
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passwordprotected
I left the Org in 2008, a few months after the letter re. the abolishment of home book studies was read. Back then the Org was riding a cusp, particularly locally in the Glasgow, UK area; many foreign language groups had been started (I was part of the Farsi one in Glasgow for a while), a few foreign language congregations had been started.
But now I know that behind closed doors the WTBTS was starting to fight fires in terms of the child abuse cases.
How much of a toll have they really had on the resources of the corporation? And with no end to them in sight, I can only imagine further claw backs sanctioned.
Is the WTBTS moving more "mainstream", as high-control religious groups go? Are they trying to draw their head back in, what with no more tract campaigns denouncing all other religions and attacked big politics?
Does the Governing Body intend to keep flexing its control over the R&F, while minimising the religion's already tiny footprint, keeping it out of the news - below the radar, so to speak- all the while gradually lightening the expectations of works on the R&F (ie. numerous meeting attendance and double-digit ministry hours), reinventing themselves as a religion for families who just want a secure, moral framework to bring their kids up in (from the outside, at least)?
The foreign language field, I'd have to imagine, is shrinking, and I'm seeing more and more "ministry carts" popping up in big cities; is the emphasis moving away from actually speaking to people at their doors to just standing on a street, hoping "interested ones" will approach? Such a tactic lessens the public's consciousness of the religion; they aren't at the doors on a Saturday morning, they just blend in with the street architecture in city centres?
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Talk with my parents!
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hey folks...had a skype conversation with my parents (hard-core, extremist jws)...and the cult still has a tight grip on them....like others on here, youre perhaps just watching your parents, growing older, giving to the cult more and more....with nothing in return.. they were happy to tell me how theyre enjoying their new bibles and how this provision is fantastic and show jehovahs blessings blah blah blah.. we then spoke about how their congregation will be getting a new khall, although many persons in the congregation didnt agree with its location.
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Beautiful post, hopefully your parents see sense and happiness soon.
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Videos of a few key moments from the Annual Meeting
by cedars inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imfuiaeg820.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkjbvfpjpje.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iezhj13pun4.
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What a lot of shite Pierce talks, if the summaries of the AGM I've read are to be believed; "new light", "questions answered", "new Bible truths". Bollocks.
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A question for elders and former elders who have served on JCs
by slimboyfat inbased on your experience of judicial committees, how would you advise someone who is due to meet with the elders and has asked for the best way to avoid being disfellowshipped?
is denying everything ever a successful strategy?
does addressing a letter to the elders threatening legal action if they disfellowship ever work?
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passwordprotected
They were given a private reproof, IIRC.
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A question for elders and former elders who have served on JCs
by slimboyfat inbased on your experience of judicial committees, how would you advise someone who is due to meet with the elders and has asked for the best way to avoid being disfellowshipped?
is denying everything ever a successful strategy?
does addressing a letter to the elders threatening legal action if they disfellowship ever work?
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passwordprotected
I should add, the one and only JC I was on was for pre-marital sex.
The young guy involved wasn't showing any repentance, in fact he was very straight faced and almost sullen. However, bear in mind that one of the elders on the committee with me had interrogated his wife as to what they'd done sexually together, how her then boyfriend (now husband) had touched her and whether she'd enjoyed it.
What the fuck? They'd already admitted "wrongdoing".
So it was understandable that the young guy probably wanted to rip our throats out for reducing his wife to a sobbing wreck, the arseholes that we were.
Once she'd left the room I pointed out to the guy that we were looking for repentance and that he'd need to help us out as he wasn't really showing us any.
What a dick I was.
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A question for elders and former elders who have served on JCs
by slimboyfat inbased on your experience of judicial committees, how would you advise someone who is due to meet with the elders and has asked for the best way to avoid being disfellowshipped?
is denying everything ever a successful strategy?
does addressing a letter to the elders threatening legal action if they disfellowship ever work?
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passwordprotected
It depends on the person and elders handling the JC. More importantly, though, it depends on what the JC has been called for.
The #1 thing they're looking for is repentance, and that can be "proven" through a variety of ways.
If the charge is apostasy, the #1 thing they're looking for is prove that the person believes the WTBTS is Jehovah's one true organisation on earth and that the person believes that the FDS is being used by Jehovah on earth.
Get the person the Flock book so that they can review the sections on how to handle JCs. This will equip them with exactly what the elders will be looking for.
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My JW best friend is bringing a 'heavy' around to my house to talk some sense into me.
by Julia Orwell ini agreed, if only because i want to see my friend of many years.
the 'heavy' is a large, imposing man with a booming voice and is a creature of the gb through and thru (eg only visited his dfd dad on his death bed because it was a 'good witness' to the hospital staff) and i'm feeling stressed about seeing him.
i so badly wanted to see my friend though, i agreed without thinking and now wish i hadn't have.
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passwordprotected
Write a letter of disassociation and start living life. These people aren't worth the stress.
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Suspicious
by Suspicious ini guess i'm new here.
born in and an ms. things just hasn't been making sense the more i think about it.
i'm starting to get suspicious.
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passwordprotected
Hi Suspicious.
Like you, I was a born in. Progressed through the ranks, married in the "faith", had two kids and was raising them as good JWs. Eventually I was appointed as an elder.
My waking up process is documented on this very website, if you're interested.
I wanted to hold on to the idea of a loving, heavenly "Father" god, and wanted to hold onto the Bible as being the way to learn about life, morals, the condition of the dead etc.
After leaving the Watchtower, my wife and I joined a local church and were baptised. We threw ourselves into our new faith.
However, I began to struggle with the notions of an all-powerful god, the accuracy of the Bible and the idea of faith itself, namely faith leads people to claim to KNOW stuff, which is the exact opposite of what faith is supposed to be.
My research eventually led me to being very comfortable to state I DO NOT KNOW whether there's a god or not.
I DO KNOW that the Bible is a collection of books, poems, fables and history collected together in one volume many, many years after it was supposedly written.
I DO KNOW that the Gospels were written decades after Jesus is supposed to have wandered Galilea.
I DO KNOW that there's virtually no evidence outside of the Gospels that Jesus even existed.
I DO KNOW that losing faith is a great thing, not something to be feared (as I once did).
My advice to you is not to pin your future decisions on the Bible being true and reliable or that there is an all-powerful creator god, but to find a path that brings you happiness in life, without having to have all of life's questions figured out (the way religion often promises).
Enjoy.
[edited for spelling]
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Survey: Who here is an atheist? Who here still believes in God?
by Christ Alone ini just wanted to take a survey.
let's not let this get into the same old same old debate of atheism vs belief.
just respond with "atheist" or "believer" or "maybe god exists".
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passwordprotected
I don't believe in any anthopromorphic notion of a all-powerful god guy.
Intellectually I'm an atheist. Culturally I'm agnostic.