ak - in answer to your question - it depends on what your goals are - if your goal is to gain the approval & acceptance of yourself by the congregation - then yes pioneer - in fact this is the only way you will gain their acceptance and approval - there are heavenly benefits as well:
you will also be approved and accepted by god, because even though the JW's claim to be a christian faith and despite the fact that jesus died to fulfill the mosaic law and bring an end to the arrangement whereby a relationship with him was entirely dependant upon ones fulfillment of that law - the JW's still maintain that salvation is dependant upon works.
the reason for the wtbts claiming that salvation is still dependant on works is this - no magazines would get sold otherwise and the wtbts would go broke - also the guys that are running the wtbts would lose their all expenses paid life on easy street - and control over their dictatorial regime.
so if you wanna end up living in poverty to ensure that the GB don't - then yes - pioneer - you may at a later date also want to becoma a missionary - you will then be viewed by the brotherhood as a virtual demi god within their ranks - get to travel to foreign lands - contract some rare form of debilitating disease - and generate a lot more magazine placements - hence revenue - for the wtbts - until the disease renders you an invalid and useless to the wtbts.
every month you will fill in your field service report slip - you may not be aware of this but spirituality can be measured and the monthly field sevice report slip is the instrument that measures this.
if your placements are down (ie. wtbts income generated) then so is your spirituality.
all indiviual field service reports are tallied and sent to the guys who run the wtbts - these tallies are logged into their computer system which in turn is networked to the one in gods office located on the planet Pleides.
At any given moment god can pull your record up on the system and check your account - if your account is in the black - ie you've
put in five hours this month - than god owes you various blessings - yes god ends up owing you favours if you go out in the field - he is obligated to then pull some strings for you - get you out of tight spots etc. - you can also trade sins against your account - as long as you don't go into the red your OK - that is - you can backslide as long as you keep your account in credit - by going out in the field god owes you - thats the bottom line.
let me describe this concept to you in another way - it's comparable to when you were at school - and the teacher has this a poster up on the wall with every kid in the classes name on it - every time a kid behaves or is good he gets a star put beside his name on th poster.
god works in a similar way - every time you go out in the field (being good - behaving) - the guys running the wtbts tell god - god then puts a star beside your name on his big poster in heaven - by building up stars for yourself on gods poster - god becomes indebted to you and owes you favours/blessings.
one problem with this system though is that it is non accumalitive - god likes to run his shop on a strictly thirty day account basis - kind of like a commercial activity - funny coincidence that.
so lets say for arguments sake you were a missionary for thirty years
you're credit account with god (what he owes you) is really no greater than the amount of hours you've put in that month.
however you may need to remember that any disagreements with the wtbts you may have cannot be used in exchange for a sin debit against your account. that is despite a potential lifetime of service you may give to generating income for the wtbts via selling magazines for them - this will not in any way gain any sanction for you in a situation where you disagree with the wtbts.
this is probably the most important thing you need to know about being a pioneer.
i hope this helps you make your decision.
I-CHING
Edited by - ICHING on 22 March 2001 15:41:40
Edited by - ICHING on 22 March 2001 15:47:44
Edited by - ICHING on 23 March 2001 0:48:12