I suppose if you're going to write a fictionous story, you should base it in some war-torn, impoverished area of the world where it would be damn near impossible for anyone to verify any details. That's Watchtower Writing Department 101, folks.
Mr. Falcon
JoinedPosts by Mr. Falcon
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90
Stupid not just once but twice, and it is praised
by therevealer in12 the watchtower ?
5 what good results there can be when.
children are trained to keep a simple eye!.
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Taking Notes at Meetings and Assemblies
by punkofnice ini was considering recently the value and content of talks by reviewing notes i'd taken.. it seems i've taken copious notes but the content was naff.
not because i'd missed interesting bits but the talks were bland 'ministry' adverts.. the talks all seemed to be full of 'do more or god will murder you'.
'feel guilty because you don't measure up.
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Mr. Falcon
There is no mention in the Bible of the Israelites having to write stuff down when they were all standing in front of Moses.
Nobleheart - I guess it's yet another exercise in futility. It is the same old stuff, why kill more trees? Tell you what, when/if they start talking about something either new, thoughtful, creative or in anyway different than the pre-packaged manuscripts they have the speaker read, THEN I'll start taking notes. Until then, consider me going "green". You see? I'm already helping the environment.
Yan Bibiyan - I once wrote the lyrics to The Number of the Beast in my Revelation book.
Hallowed be thy convention notes.
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Taking Notes at Meetings and Assemblies
by punkofnice ini was considering recently the value and content of talks by reviewing notes i'd taken.. it seems i've taken copious notes but the content was naff.
not because i'd missed interesting bits but the talks were bland 'ministry' adverts.. the talks all seemed to be full of 'do more or god will murder you'.
'feel guilty because you don't measure up.
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Mr. Falcon
Lost Generation - nice, you beat me to it. I was gonna say that.
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Get to the point!
by Mr. Falcon intwo jehovah's witnesses walk up to a house and knock on the door.
a younger man wearing a t-shirt with all kinds of swirl-patterns on it (think tie-dye, but not quite) answers the door and the first jw goes into his presentation.
he is offering the watchtower on the "occult" (cue spooky music).
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Mr. Falcon
misery - Yeah, nowadays I'm just happy if they politely refuse or take the magazines out of pity. If they take the magazines, then I never write down their names or go back. Sometimes (if I work alone, which is more and more becoming a preferred method of my ministry) I will offer the magazines as if I'm just doing some community service. For instance, say it is an Awake! on Internet dangers. I will knock on the door and go "Hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm stopping through the neighboorhood handing out useful information for families about internet dangers for our kids. Here's your copy. Good day." Then I walk away before they can refuse. Mr. Falcon 1, householder 0.
AGuest - my apologies. The claim about the Bible was actually what I believe, which is obviously not your personal belief, which I respect.
snakeface - I agree with you about how a lot of JWs are oblivious, if not downright rude, when taking up a person's time at THEIR OWN HOUSE. Cold wind all blowing, 2 huge dogs going nuts, baby all crying, phone ringing in background, etc, and the JW just keeps to the script. True determination. And I get so pissed off when JWs will make judgmental comments about the householder based on the most trivial of details. Guy has a goatee? Obviously he is a drug-addict who spends every night rummaging through dumpsters for half-smoked crack rocks. Woman has black-dyed hair? Obviously a witch. Or they assume that people are wholly ignorant and no nothing about the Bible or "spiritual matters." This bothers me perhaps most of all because I would pay CA$H MONEY to see one of these JWs go toe-to-toe with a well-educated "apostate" who has good debating skills. They wouldn't last 45 seconds.
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Get to the point!
by Mr. Falcon intwo jehovah's witnesses walk up to a house and knock on the door.
a younger man wearing a t-shirt with all kinds of swirl-patterns on it (think tie-dye, but not quite) answers the door and the first jw goes into his presentation.
he is offering the watchtower on the "occult" (cue spooky music).
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Mr. Falcon
Lost Generation - The whole "we're not converting you" is one of boldest lies I've ever heard. I could have some respect at least if we just up front told them the truth concerning this.
darth frosty - Your logic is devastating. That's the greatest line ever.
Quendi - Thank you for pointing out this important observation. So many Witnesses that I've gone to the door with have no idea how to assess their surroundings when at a door. Completely incapable of adapting to meet the interests of the householder. It's not that hard; just look around. I've been to the door with elders who regardless of who answers the door, will mumble a 20-second introduction that is completely unintelligible. But yet these men get up on stage every Service Meeting and "teach" how to be an effective minister. I'd sooner learn heart surgery from a blind man.
AGuest - I dig what you are saying. I too feel that a relationship with God is personal, and the Holy Scriptures is His personal message to YOU. Why my belief or trust in God has to be manifested by busily knocking on empty houses and meticulously reporting field service time is beyond me.
elderelite - So many JWs ramble on pointlessly at the door while the householder taps their foot impatiently. "Good morning, do you ever think about whether Adam and Eve were real?" umm, no. I was actually thinking about why someone is banging on my door on a Saturday morning.
snakeface - Their consciences are telling them they are doing something not normal and that they are bothering their neighbors and alienating them. This makes sense to me why I can be sitting in a car group of JWs who actually maybe are intelligent, thoughtful people but who will prattle on about obviously made-up experiences they read about or gush over how generous the Faithful & Discreet Slave is, as if we owe all our salvation to some group of men who own Brooklyn real-estate. They know it's crazy, but have to justify their investment of their lives into it.
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Taking Notes at Meetings and Assemblies
by punkofnice ini was considering recently the value and content of talks by reviewing notes i'd taken.. it seems i've taken copious notes but the content was naff.
not because i'd missed interesting bits but the talks were bland 'ministry' adverts.. the talks all seemed to be full of 'do more or god will murder you'.
'feel guilty because you don't measure up.
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Mr. Falcon
Great topic. I never quite understood this. And make no mistake, days or a week after the convention you will always get some super-zealot JW who will approach you and ask if you want to "compare notes."
I have taken notes until my freaking hand felt like it was going to fall off, only to go home and never read the notes AGAIN. Now I don't bother taking notes. It's nothing that can't be looked up on their CD-ROM in 2 seconds if these computer-illiterate cultists would just take the time to learn how to use the search feature. The last time I took notes, I would jot down a few mindless points from the speaker and then fill in the rest with Iron Maiden lyrics.
Maiden rulz.
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Get to the point!
by Mr. Falcon intwo jehovah's witnesses walk up to a house and knock on the door.
a younger man wearing a t-shirt with all kinds of swirl-patterns on it (think tie-dye, but not quite) answers the door and the first jw goes into his presentation.
he is offering the watchtower on the "occult" (cue spooky music).
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Mr. Falcon
Two Jehovah's Witnesses walk up to a house and knock on the door. A younger man wearing a t-shirt with all kinds of swirl-patterns on it (think tie-dye, but not quite) answers the door and the first JW goes into his presentation. He is offering the Watchtower on the "occult" (cue spooky music). He begins his presentation with a standard, pre-packaged greeting and then proceeds to introduce his reason for waking this guy up. "We see that, uh, in entertainment today, uh there are lots of, uh, things that deal with the occult, uh, like, ummm, we see, um.... vampires and ghosts and stuff on TV.... and, um... do you think this is just harmless fun?"
Serious business, indeed.
Needless to say, these two evangelists were given a demonstration in the operation of this man's front door being shut. They turn around and start strolling down the driveway. The JW who spoke at the door looks at the other one and offers this reason as to why the man was not interested. "He must be involved in the occult." The second JW failed to make this connection so he asked for clarification as to what evidence there was proving this. "Well, did you see his shirt?" The second JW gives a blank stare that should have been accompanied by the sound of crickets chirping.
I recall reading a comment by keyser soze and although I can't seem to find it, it basically was him making the brilliant observation that "Jehovah will destroy at Armageddon anyone who did not immediately believe The 'Truth' based on a lame 30-second sales pitch." I thought about this observation the last time I was out in service. I studied the JWs giving their presentations to annoyed, bothered and busy householders trying to be polite. The presentations were AWFUL. And some of the worst presentations were given by men who are elders.
Now, my intent here is not to claim that I can do better or to ridicule these bumbling, embarrassing sale pitches (cheifly due to it being way too easy) but to raise these questions: What really is the effectiveness of the door-to-door ministry? Have you ever had to endure an horrifically awkward presentation given to a impatient and irritable householder? If JWs are actively enrolled in the Theocratic Ministry School and participate during the Service Meeting, why are most of them so bad at the door? WHAT IS THE POINT OF ALL THIS???
To quote Reverand Johnson's prayer from Blazing Saddles, "Oh Lord, do we have the strength to carry on this mighty task?....
.....Or are we just jerking off?
I look forward to your responses, my fine-feathered friends.
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Fading vs. D'F'd
by Band on the Run ini don't know the details.
is it true that if you slowly withdraw, you are free to go but if you are active and do an offense, you are shunned.
is their principle whether you are appropriating and blemishing the name vs. severity of the actual offense.
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Mr. Falcon
It really is just a bunch of silly rules written by men seeking to control other people.
Absolutely true, this is. It's quite a bit of double-standard. So if someone stops going and doing everything that a JW is supposed to do, they are still technically allowed to associate with JWs. In contrast, a DF'd person who is trying to get reinstated and faithfully comes to every meeting and endures shame is not allowed to even say hello to anyone. This makes no sense.
Additionally, and I don't know if anyone here has heard of something similar, I have heard from inactive JWs who have "returned to the flock" that the elders sometimes have told them that what they did in the "world" need not be brought up, since all that time that they were inactive, they were basically NOT Jehovah's Witnesses. On the other hand, there are elders who are determined to put you before a witch trial. So it's all over the board. Like undercover said, it's all comes down to circumstance and what elders you're dealing with.
I remember we once had a CO tell us that since the whole point of being a Jehovah's Witness is to PREACH, if you go one month without preaching you are considered inactive and technically you are NOT a Jehovah's Witness. If I had known it was that easy, I would have stopped going in field service YEARS ago.
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Share Your Tales of Annoying Car Group Advice
by DarioKehl inohhhh.... do i ever have loads of these stories!
i pioneered in the mid-90's (mostly out of guilt and fear and hope to pacify my parents before dropping the "i wanna go to college" bombshell on them, but i digress...) and i gotta tell ya, it was the most frustrating 2 years of my life!
at that time, there were over 20 of us as many my age recently graduated high school to "join the ranks" (as the co at the time said).
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Mr. Falcon
If you got a good partner, a friend, then you could have some good private conversations between doors instead of having to worry about every syllable uttered in the car.
Very true. Having a "normal" partner in the ministry was a rare treat, indeed. Made the morning go by faster talking about things that actually mattered like girls, boxing, sports, music, ANYTHING other than made up experiences about how cops in Malawi stopped a bus full of witnesses, demanded to see their field service reports, and then arrested anyone who put in less than X amount of hours. Brutal.
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Share Your Tales of Annoying Car Group Advice
by DarioKehl inohhhh.... do i ever have loads of these stories!
i pioneered in the mid-90's (mostly out of guilt and fear and hope to pacify my parents before dropping the "i wanna go to college" bombshell on them, but i digress...) and i gotta tell ya, it was the most frustrating 2 years of my life!
at that time, there were over 20 of us as many my age recently graduated high school to "join the ranks" (as the co at the time said).
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Mr. Falcon
White Dove - nice! just like Doc Holiday. Then calmly go back to your seat, sit down and say "You may proceed, sir."
