as you may remember, i have a jw window cleaner, one who likes to whistle kingdoom melodies while he works.
drives me crazy!
so i put music on while hes here and it stops him.
As the window cleaning is not taking ages for a specialist, I would hold my playlist short
Depeche Mode-Blasphemous Rumours
Bronski Beat-Smalltown Boy
Depeche Mode-Personal Jesus (in refrain lifting your arms towards the sky, like you would be begging)
CP
silly stuff i have wondered in the past .
genesis 1:27 makes it sound like god created man separately and/or first.. then in 2:7 it sounds like he created adam first on his own.. in 2:18-22 it would seem to corroborate the adam first and eve second as a separate act.
plus in 2:18-22 it seems to infer in 2:18 that it was a separate notion on gods part that adam would be better off or happier with a helper or mate.
If Eve would have been there prior naming all the animals and stuff, do you really think Adam would have had much saying. This was wisdom from God, otherwise we wouldn't have any names for animals and plants until this day.
CP
i ask this question in harmony with deedub's swan song thread which i linked below.. http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/members/private/205902/1/time-to-say-good-bye.
to some degree, i think i understand where she's coming from.
just speaking from my own experiences since stepping into the world of anonymous apostacy, i went through a few different phases of personal outlooks.
This is very interesting question indeed.
I think I could adjust my thinking, it is much easier for me as my issues are truly on personal level. The teachings and theology whether right or wrong, or something in between do not matter for me in that extent. Actually I adjusted my attitude for decades, knowing that this is not my thing, but I better stick to it. Realising finally that my self-deceit do not lead anywhere, neither in this world or in world after Armageddon, was the tie-breaker for me. I understood clearly that I would not cross the gates to the new world the way I lived, and honestly I did not really even wanted to. For me it is really question about if I am decent enough not to lie to God or to myself. Adjusting my attitudes, as I see it today, would be just that, continuing the lie just to please some people. They don't deserve it, neither do I.
So I could really adjust my attitude, if living a lie would not matter to me. Today it matters, tomorrow I have no idea.
CP
here is a recap of last years service year.. 116 branches down from 118.
236 lands reporting same as last year.
107,210 total congregations up from last year total of 105,298.
Thanks for collected stats
Funny detail about memorial attendance
Attendants +2,96%
Partakers +3,18%
Which btw is also higher than increase in publishers
I just love to hate the statistics
CP
i noticed two of these guys (losch, and the one to h is left) both have rings on their right hand ring finger.
i have known several co's and do's to wear rings on their right hand.....david biegler i think wore one.
i don't find many r&f male jw's or average "worldly" men wearing rings on their right hand.
It doesn't apply to men, but in my youth when hot sisters wore a ring in their right ring finger it meant that they were already reserved or had chosen at that time to pursue a life without marriage. It made the distric convention games so much easier with these symbols.
CP
so i get the call a couple weeks ago from the secretary concerning my time for the month.
he called on a thursday and said that he is looking forward to seeing me at the meeting tonight and to make sure i turn in my time for the month.
" all the while thinking, yeah right, i'm not even going to be at the meeting let alone turn in my fake time!.
I sent zero reports for some time, no questions asked, nothing. Obviously it was more important to report in overall than what you reported. Funny actually, those zero reports I remebered to always send in due time, those faked 1-2 hour things had to be pulled from me.
CP
in mine that would be a big fat zero.. there have been a handful of teenage baptisms of jw children.. one that really was a foreign language group transfer.. but in the last ten years - there has not been one single convert from the d2d ministry.. btw - my congregation has had over 10 pioneers (real ones that actually do d2d, including elders) for the last decade.. not one.
10 x 70 hours a month x 120 months = 84,000 hours ... results = 0.. also most of our pioneers are pretty good at the door - some half way decent teachers.
one is sub co and another often is called to teach ... wait for it ... pioneer school!!!.
Quite a lot OT but when I've visited Romania I always admired the way how telephony and datalines were drawn in the air. There were massive interjunctions in road crossings where thousands of wires met and were rerouted to next interjunction. I just can't forget that view.
Thinking totally irrelevant things at this moment
CP
last year the 3 congregations that share our kingdom hall decided to add a fourth congregation to join .
that means that our sunday meeting was pushed back to a 6:00 p.m. start and end around 7:45 p.m. not only is that too late of a start but all of our sunday's will be wasted.
you will now need to leave around 5:00 p.m. and get home around 8:30 p.m.. i hardly attend now and find it even harder too make this new time slot.
I once visited KH in Spain. It was intrigueing place. There was two halls in two stories and meetings went on simultaneously starting with 30 minutes interval. My memory might be playing games but as I remember foreign language congregations had sunday meetings on saturday and spanish ones on sunday. How many they were per day I do not remember but for some reason there was a need to run them at the same time.
Pulling out fond memories from his filled brain
CP
last year the 3 congregations that share our kingdom hall decided to add a fourth congregation to join .
that means that our sunday meeting was pushed back to a 6:00 p.m. start and end around 7:45 p.m. not only is that too late of a start but all of our sunday's will be wasted.
you will now need to leave around 5:00 p.m. and get home around 8:30 p.m.. i hardly attend now and find it even harder too make this new time slot.
Technically five should be the maximum per KH as there are just five working days available for evening meetings. The "sunday" meeting is possible to arrange on saturday also, so they could split it ie. two on saturday and three on sunday. Ofcourse if the congregations would be built based on segmentation, you could also start daytime congregations for retired, unemployed and similar groups. If we consider four meetings per weekend-day as practical maximum (10-12 13-15 16-18 19-21), you could actually squeeze in eight congregations to one KH, just you would have sufficient amount of people for three daytime congregations.
Today again in speculative mode
CP
in mine that would be a big fat zero.. there have been a handful of teenage baptisms of jw children.. one that really was a foreign language group transfer.. but in the last ten years - there has not been one single convert from the d2d ministry.. btw - my congregation has had over 10 pioneers (real ones that actually do d2d, including elders) for the last decade.. not one.
10 x 70 hours a month x 120 months = 84,000 hours ... results = 0.. also most of our pioneers are pretty good at the door - some half way decent teachers.
one is sub co and another often is called to teach ... wait for it ... pioneer school!!!.
a half, this person has been going to all meetings faithfully for years. Not however been progressing to unbaptised publisher or towards baptism. There is no end with studybooks for this person.
CP
