I can't remember any contribution boxes at book studies. But it can be my fault also, I was succesfull in ignoring them at KH too, most of the time.
CP
this may have been covered a few years back but the thought came to me just how much money the wathtower lost in contributions when they got rid of the book study groups in witnesess homes.
my book group was at my parents house and as it was always full, over 30 drones every tuesday night.
this caused mayhem in the road outside with all the cars double parking etc... the jw's at my group always put loads of wonga into the tin on the welsh dresser!
I can't remember any contribution boxes at book studies. But it can be my fault also, I was succesfull in ignoring them at KH too, most of the time.
CP
me and mom was having a conversation over breakfast a few weeks ago, and she brought up the circuit assembly that she just the brothers warned about apostates and going on 'questionable' internet sites.
we started talking about heaven and 'the generation' change.
i told her how could a paradise happen when science prove otherwise.
It is absolutelly correct that almighty God could change science, that's why he is almighty. But I see one problem there, somewhere in the very beginning of the book Bible it states in multiple places that after him creating lot's of stuff he looked at it and it was good (if not perfect, what could you expect from almighty). Changing the science would kind of make me think that the original good was not good enough, including science. Why wouldn't almighty create the goodest enough in the first place, or do we think he was just testing some ideas, like the dinosaurs were some kind of test and not something that would produce huge amount of fertiliser to young earth?
CP
christian congregation of jehovah's witnesses'.
same meeting.
meeting.
I Never ever used the prices in lodging list, and very seldom even the hotels. I always found better deal than convention price if hotel had availibility (In general group pricing is higher in travel industry than individual pricing), and many times there were much nicer hotels better located available in the area, for even lower rate. The latter with one additional bonus, less people looking how you would behave after convention day without your badge on. You really must seek your own personal benefit first.
Yes, organisation will receive some benefit from using the designated hotels for designated prices. It could be in form of monetary incentive, or amount of free rooms and free meal arrangements to organiser body can be related to room nights booked. In general the hotel industry have a problem when calculating reports for nights used, if you do not use the organisation dedicated fare, they are not able to relate your booking to this organisation. This applies even for corporate fares, there is always discrepancy in figures comparing hotel's and ie. TMC's reports as hotel sees only corporate rate bookings belonging to corporation, not if they use another rate. The reporting is basically based on usage of specific rate in hotels, not like in airline industry where code attached to booking relates it to corporation, not the rate used. If organisation is using third party organiser, like Travel Management Company to arrange these, these sales may add up in their yearly volume, enabling in overall lower transactional fees for their other travel arrangements. It's really not about "we wan't to stay loyal to our business partners" kind of thing, there are also other strings attached.
CP
i attended a recent ministerial servant k m school on the east coast and the main school instructor mentioned among other things (part entitled: 'objective of the km school course') that the total number of ministerial servants is seriously less than it should be.
in times past the ratio of m ss to elders was much more than it is today.. in the u.s. apparently the total number of elders is 88,500+ as opposed to m ss 65,000. the numbers show & numbers don't lie: the society is running out of spiritual men.
the instructor stated that this is a new downward trend that has (in so many words) the society worried.. the next speaker (part entitled: 'why we must be spiritual men') added that in his years as a traveling servant the pool of m ss has always been much, much larger than it is today.
DagothUr wrote:
The CO came in 2009 and one of his speeches, directly inspired by the Filthful and Decrepid Slave, had one central idea: field service should be mainly directed towards recruiting men. There was even a demonstration in which a pair of dubs had to pick from one man and one woman who passed on the sidewalk near them. The instructions were to speak to the man first, then to the woman. And the final encouragment was to never miss the oportunity to preach to men while in field service and leave women on the second place. I heard it with my own ears!
No wonder because this was one of the articles in KM at some point, maybe couple of years ago.
Thank you JW GoneBad for sharing this thing that is not available in written format.
CP
i thought it'd be fun to talk about what part of the conventions just made you cringe or be annoyed with.
i can remember a couple things:.
i remember after the tms when they put the list in the back on the announcement board, there were people that would get up while the last song was being sung to write down the info.
Oh the bus, there was a very spiritual sister who always started the singing thing. It never happened before she moved to our congregation, so it really was she only who wanted this, but others followed for some reason (the backstabbing discussions afterwards were funny to follow, she kind of got weirdo status just for this). The funny thing with that was that I remember at least three occasions when bus tyre was punctured slightly after she started singing high and hard. Was it a sign, maybe, so we had to switch to other congregations already filled bus. The good part was that the song did not continue there.
Then we had those ending prayers, which continued at least five minutes. You were already with other foot kind of going out and this brother kept going on and going on, making sure that he told the same things again and again from three different angles.
The Drama, same feelings as mentioned earlier. I really had hard time watching those, I felt ashamed for them for the acting and sometimes for the story. So I sat mostly face down just listening. Other feature I could not stand to watch was those small demos where youngsters were sorting out their problems, first with worldly pals and then with parents, with predictable results. The language used was, ummm, not contemporary.
CP
we were always told how the demons .
we avoided 2 door cars because it was (obviously) not a good service car.. there are plenty of things that you might think of to add to the list of no-nos for jehovah's witnesses.
any others?
Avoiding
Holiday wishes obviously, the Bless You/Gesundheit thing, swearing (still avoid), raising glasses (until there was some flurry explanation), betraying my partner (should avoid anyway, but the decision was stronger), smoking (which I still avoid, gratefully), decorating for holidays and fully participating. That's more or less exclusive list.
CP
i drives me crazy when jw's go on tours of historic churches, the vatican, or mosques .
they go in the church take pics, and oooo and ahhhhh over the buildings.. why the f_ _ _k are they expressing awe and wonder at what they believe to be satan's world headquarters .. don't they know jehovah is soon about to destroy all these architectural wonders.. jw relative has just come back from visiting the vatican.. stupid cult aaahhh !!.
.
I was never thinking there would be something wrong about visiting churches. I just didn't bought the candles as usual tourists. On the other hand I could very well buy cards or guidebooks about those places, without thinking where the money was going, me and my hardened heart.
Regarding the concept of paying to Great Babylon, it's little mixed feelings. I live in a country where majority of hospitals are state or community owned, but how would a concious JW act in US where many hospitals are owned by different churches. On the other hand in some places here graveyards are church property, they need to allow non-members being buried there, but you pay for the grave space to the church anyway. So in one way or another you are sending your money to Great Babylon.
CP
in an effort to increase the praise and honor to jehovah and jesus christ at the time of the memorial, the governing body has arranged for a special period of increased activity during april 2011.
you will be pleased to learn that during april 2011, publishers who wish to serve as auxiliary pioneers may indicate on the application whether they will be working toward a 30-hour or 50-hour requirement for the month.
this is a special arrangement for the month of april 2011 only.
Yes, away are those days when it was advertised that it's only two hours per day, can you imagine just two hours each day in service to run aux-pioneering. Now, even just for one special month, it will be reduced to just one hour a day. It's easy to fill by talking to your co-workers in each coffee break, same in school with your fellow students, or by skipping your daily one-hour surfing on this site and going out for casual witnessing with your dog.
CP
had a brief conversation with by jw father a few days ago, unfortunately still an uber witness and as a cboe he has nothing else in his life.. he brought out that he was getting ready for the elders school.
not sure if he was bragging or wanted sympathy for having to go.
lol.. i didn't press him on the details, though i wanted to ask if they would be covering all 7 chapters in the new manual on how to df people.
For some this might even be a relief. There is valid non-discussable reason to be away from family. It could even save some domestic beating. Holiday times staring eachother for too long can be stressful.
CP
my husband and i faded/mysteriously disappeared from meetings over a year ago.
we've had a few visits from elders (where we said very little but thanked them for their time), the last one being when we had some nice jack o lanterns sitting on our porch.
on saturday, we got letters cordially inviting us to our beheading, i mean, our judicial committee meeting.
Just wondering what religion is the Halloween related to? Is it still existing religion? Is there religious content related to Halloween in similar way than to wedding rings for example?
CP