Posts by XBEHERE

A free Lunch and a round of golf goes a long way.

I have seen this in my former congregation so much. If the CO is a golfer and you are an elder and are too you are in during his tenure in the circuit. Parts, mentions to the branch office, your voice and opinion gets heard above non-golfing elders, etc. etc. Holy Spirit?!?! LOL Yeah right!

Here is the ORG's problem with zoom, attending this way does not fit with their "scriptural definition" of a christian gathering. At least not anymore, One thing my PIMI wife is fine with is attending on Zoom occasionally, even 2-3 times a month or so.

If some of you recall, during COVID there were break out rooms setup for people to stay on and associate. Many would also stay in the main meeting and talk over each other trying to say hello, etc. People had their video on during the meetings and many, many people commented.

Now what happens? As an example, yesterday we attended via zoom. There were probably about 40ish people attending with only about a handful with their video showing. Of these I'd say 3 or 4 of them actually commented. As soon as amen was said.... 95% of the people logged off leaving, you guessed it these maybe 6 connections, mostly elderly ones still logged in and talking to each other. Then I logged off.

There was no association, no participation for probably 35-40 of the zoom attenders and they immediately logged off as soon as it was over leaving virtual tire marks as it were because it so abrupt and quick after the meeting ended. So did these people attend a meeting? Sure. But again there was no participation or "interchange" of encouragement at all. Not a "real" meeting according to the JW standards. This is the problem that they do not how to fix.

However you can't "put the genie back in the bottle" They have a real problem here I think.

All excellent points and these points reveal how confusing the whole thing is. They kept highligting "we don't know...we can't be dogmatic!" etc. So what are we to conclude now? I see OP's point as well as Vanderhoven's: Do we need to be baptized to survive? WE DON'T KNOW.. Do we NEED to be a JW to survive? "We trust that the alimighty will always do what's right" WTH????

The more I try to wrap my head around this the more confused I get.

If I remember correctly, if there is a 2/3 majority on the elder body vote, the minority elders must support the majority decision, thus it becomes unanimous. Probably same with GB

Yes. Depending on the CO often they "prefer" certain things to be unanimous such as appointmernts. Otherwise we've been told in the past to submit a letter explaining why. Honestly though this was all B/S since the CO made the final call regardless. I felt like he was trying to root out disenters by exposing their viewpoints. My opinion anyway

this could really apply to absolutely anything the JWs say from now on, and going back the things they have said

This is true, I have not really thought about it in the terms you are putting it here. I also was raised a JW, pioneered, went to Bethel, and served as an elder for decades so we have a similiar experience, at least in these ways.

Since I am also PIMO, I am just waiting to see how this new lite sinks in to the R&F. I am very curious to see the results of this major change not just the no time reporting but also the things you mentioned. The "Jehovah will do what is right" in regards to resurrections and last minute repentance is even more major in my opinion. Going to be fascinating going forward.

In my area of the Mid Atlantic east coast of the US, attendance is down noticeably but not too drastically. This is how its been sincce resumption of in person meetings so not a direct result of the AM new light.

My friend who is near "Jerusalem" said that meeting attendance is rather inconsistent. Some meetings its decent then some, usually the mid-week meeting, attendance is maybe 60-70% of what it should be. Whats interesting about this is he said he has several bethelites in his congregation and even their attendance in person is spotty. he says they claim they have duties and can't leave the site but my buddy is skeptical and he feels like many times he thinks they just don't feel like making the drive to the KH. Even the chosen ones are geting tired of the routine.

ew. so disturbing, yet realistic.

bearing in mind jesus said those that have love among themselves this is what I based on the claim that JWs are the closest

If you mean "conditional" love among yourselves then I agree with you. Lets face it, as soon as you start questioning or even give a hint that something is amiss you are under the microscope. Not so with many other religines I think.