Posts by nevaagain

9

Memorial - Most depressing holiday ever?

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

we - as in we jws - say that the memorial is our only holiday.back in my young days when i was still living at home, my mom would buy us (or as we got older and made our own money, make us buy) new suits for the memorial.

my mom would put on her best dress which she probably only bought for the memorial.

she would say, it is our only holiday so we should dress special for it.

nevaagain

For a reason my lest text got cut, so here it is again (this time without paragraphs as there seems to be a bug)

We - as in we JWs - say that the memorial is our only holiday.
Back in my young days when I was still living at home, my mom would buy us (or as we got older and made our own money, make us buy) new suits for the memorial. My mom would put on her best dress which she probably only bought for the memorial. She would say, it is our only holiday so we should dress special for it. I would always (even as a youngling) question that behavior but my mom would say, worldly people have Christmas; we have the memorial of Jesus Christ’s death.
When I was still young (about 5 or so) I was always curious about the memorial. I wanted to see what is going to happen, since it was such a big holiday for us and they would always make such a big fuss about it. Sometimes we even had to find a different hall, because our hall was occupied by other congregations. Once I remember, we held our memorial in a hall fully decorated with Easter motives.
But really nothing exciting happens, every year it is the same boring procedure. There is a song at the beginning and a song at the end, just like at meetings. There is a talk in the middle, just like at meetings. Unless you are anointed, you cannot touch the bread and the wine.
I see many interested ones or unfaithful spouses in the audience, many faders, many who got disfellowshipped, many who have studied for 20 years but still unbaptized. I still don’t get why a single one of those groups would attend a memorial or why I should go out of my away and invite non Witnesses to this "holiday" or special day. Because really, it is nothing special.
I get why it is important for us JWs, but I am not sure if we are doing it right. For me it is a very depressing day and I am happy that it is over, at least for yet another year.
So what’s so special about the "special talk" again?

9

Memorial - Most depressing holiday ever?

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

we - as in we jws - say that the memorial is our only holiday.back in my young days when i was still living at home, my mom would buy us (or as we got older and made our own money, make us buy) new suits for the memorial.

my mom would put on her best dress which she probably only bought for the memorial.

she would say, it is our only holiday so we should dress special for it.

nevaagain

We - as in we JWs - say that the memorial is our only holiday.

Back in my young days when I was still living at home, my mom would buy us (or as we got older and made our own money, make us buy) new suits for the memorial. My mom would put on her best dress which she probably only bought for the memorial. She would say, it is our only holiday so we should dress special for it. I would always (even as a youngling) question that behavior but my mom would say, worldly people have Christmas; we have the memorial of Jesus Christ’s death.

14

Have you met people in the "world" who are more commited to their christian believes than JWs?

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

i met a coworker at my work who was even more commited to his religion then almost anybody i had seen in the jw mids yet.

whenever we went for lunch, he would do a little prayer first, he didnt care if anybody would take notice of him.

he does not curse, never!

nevaagain

i want to ask him if they practice shunning, or what happens if someone sins. if they dont have shunning practices then i doubt you can compare it to a cult. for me it looks like they found a way to make meetings more interesting.

another thing: anybody can contribute songs in his church, they use a beamer to show them on a wall, so not everybody needs a song book. not a bad idea if you ask me, seeing as we need yet another song book for the three new songs

14

Have you met people in the "world" who are more commited to their christian believes than JWs?

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

i met a coworker at my work who was even more commited to his religion then almost anybody i had seen in the jw mids yet.

whenever we went for lunch, he would do a little prayer first, he didnt care if anybody would take notice of him.

he does not curse, never!

nevaagain

I met a coworker at my work who was even more commited to his religion then almost anybody I had seen in the JW mids yet. Whenever we went for lunch, he would do a little prayer first, he didnt care if anybody would take notice of him. He does not curse, never! He is not smoking. He does not watch violent movies and he checks the lyrics before he would listen to a song and ... *drumroll* occasionally he tells me about his preaching activities in front of his church on saturday and how many new people come to his church every month. He says his church is blessed.

At first I thought he was a JW, just felt weird, that he wont use the JW lingo but the worldy church lingo instead ;-) but itturns out he was a member from a protestant free church (not sure how to properly translate it from german to english).

He has to travel 3 hours back and forth to work and I would always tease him why he would not move near or workplace and he would always tell me, that he wants to stay there as to be near his church. They have even more meeting that we JWs do. Other then church on sunday, they have small get togethers (similar to our home book studies back in the day) which are often up to 3 times per week! They eat together and talk about the bible and sometimes the even watch christian movies. He truly enjoys what he is doing. He constandly tries to find new christian activities to do and he feels truly happy.

Hard to explain because some witnesses want you to believe the same, but i feel that his happyness is truly genuine.

So at first I was mentioning him in my friend circle and I was doing jokes about him as how he is even worse then JWs ... but then I thought damn, that how JWs are supposed to be. How can we say that people like him would get destroyed when Armageddon arrives just because he goes into the wrong house for worship? Just because his "organisation" has a different name than ours? His believes might now be accurate, but then again, ours are only accurate until the new light comes, which renders the believes we had one day ago as myth.

When I mentioned the last time to a couple of friends but rendered him as a positive example I only got blank stares, because even the worse JWs are supposed to be better than any world person.

26

Hot topic in congregations: having a beard/goatee

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

i am starting this topic because i was wondering, i see many who leave "the truth" are glad because they can finally have a beard.

is having a beard really a no go in congregations?

how is / was it in your congregation?.

nevaagain

I am starting this topic because I was wondering, I see many who leave "the truth" are glad because they can finally have a beard. Is having a beard really a no go in congregations? How is / was it in your congregation?

I know from a different brother though who has a beard and is (if they chose to invite him) even giving talks in other congregations. He is an MS.

Now I did the start in my congregation (as you have guessed I am still in but I am not an MS or an elder). I approached a younger elder first (without having a beard yet) and asked him how his view is on beards and he told me that is nothing in the bible that prohibits having a beard and if a brother wont do it with wrong motives (like being a rebelious) it should not be a problem. So after a couple of weeks without meeting (we were on vacation) I came back with a goatee :-)

Two months have passed by and I can feel that some brothers dont like, I got a lot of compliments on my look, so the goatee is here to stay. I had talks/prayers/public readings with it, so I guess it is save to assume that I won't have to cut it:-)

so what are you experiences with that hot topic?

41

Counting service time in a creative way

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

couting time and, how to count time while doing as little service as possible is often a hot topic around witnesses.

i even overheard pioneers discussing about it.

they call it "creative time counting" (i translated that phrase from a different language so bear with me ;-).

nevaagain

MissFit: Hi Nevaagain, so are you still in and trying to get your 10 every month?

Yes I am still in but I dont try to get my 10 hours, never did.

Back in the day, when I cared more I felt that I could never compete with the creativity of some of the brothers/sisters. My father was the elder responsible for the reports and submitting them to bethel and he would always tell me to crank up my time. Then I would tell him, that my 6 hours might be as much worth and someone elses 10 hours. Just because the other was creative about the way he counted his time, doesnt mean I doing less then him.

But sadly appeareance is everything, even in the JW world.

I might do a post about my personal JW story but I fear that I might bore everybody.

41

Counting service time in a creative way

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

couting time and, how to count time while doing as little service as possible is often a hot topic around witnesses.

i even overheard pioneers discussing about it.

they call it "creative time counting" (i translated that phrase from a different language so bear with me ;-).

nevaagain

@cappytan

I had that conversation many times with JWs and obviously everybody has his own opinion. Many say like you correctly that travel should count because it is still service related, you don't travel for fun, you travel to go to service.

But what if you travel with a group of four to go to a terrirtory and while you are driving, the others play with their smartphone. Should it still count? So instead of watching youtube videos at home, they watch them on their way to the territory. So thats why I think the official word from WT is that travel time does not count. Thats why some genious pioneers try to circumvent that.

Anyway JWs only have that discussion because they have to write a number on a piece of paper at the end of the month.

41

Counting service time in a creative way

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

couting time and, how to count time while doing as little service as possible is often a hot topic around witnesses.

i even overheard pioneers discussing about it.

they call it "creative time counting" (i translated that phrase from a different language so bear with me ;-).

nevaagain

Couting time and, how to count time while doing as little service as possible is often a hot topic around witnesses. I even overheard pioneers discussing about it.

They call it "creative time counting" (I translated that phrase from a different language so bear with me ;-). I wonder how many pioneer hours are real hours in service. They even developed a technique called the "pioneer walk". This is walking as slow as possible while you are in service. They say this is to finally appreciate what Jehovahs did around you, like the nature. But why do that while you in service? Do it on your "own" free time. Not while you are counting hours.

Often when two witnesses go in service, even when they spend the same amount of time doing it. It can still result in writing down a different amount of time because some are more creative than others.

So there was this pioneer in my home congregation where I often would go to service iwth, he would always choose the territories that are outside the city with a minimum driving distance of 30 to 45 minutes. After a field service meeting he would drive to a nearby super market and start there by offering the magazines to a random stranger he then would proceed to drive the long distance to the territory and count it as time. On his way back he would make the occasional phone call to one of his studies (if available) or some other kid in the congregation. So while my concience would only allow me to count one hour, his concience allowed to count up to two hours or more.

Then there was this pioneer brother, still a kid basically and newly baptized. He was the new star in the congregation. So I went with him in service in a territory so after awhile we got hungry and went to a fast food place. So while I was still ordering he chose to sit back as far from the counter as possible. I thought he wanted to make sure no other people where sitting next to us because he wanted to tell me something. Then as I approached the table with the food I saw that he placed a Watchtower magaine on the table. So he STILL counted that as time spend in service even though noone possibly could have seen the magazine!

Then I know many sisters they go street witnessing on streets with a lot of shops. And they call it "ministry shopping". It is the art of going shopping and still squeeze a little bit of informal witnessing to still count the hours as a whole. Not sure if many pioneers are doing that, but I know at least of a former pioneer sister who did exactly that a few times.

I am sure you have your own stories how somebody can as many hours as possible while at the same time doing as a little as possible preaching.

46

How did you get through mind numbing meetings?

by minimus in

jw
friends

as an elder, i used to find a legitimate reason to wander.

nevaagain

When I was a kid I would always use the time to daydream. There was a time where I was looking forward to go to a meeting because I can finally think about stuff without having to do something else in that time (like homework or study). When I was little of course I hated going to the meeting and I got so often beaten in the back room because I was misbehaving.

I was not even allowed to have a pen and paper like some other kids, because I should concentrate on the talks. So it was either developing good daydream skills or got beaten. Thats another point, I still argue to this day with my father (happens to be an elder) that they should have special classes during the meeting (like the do in the 'worldly' churches) for little ones.

As I got older I had to find new thinks, so I started counting stuff. I counted how many lamps our hall had, I counted chairs (even though I knew how many there were) I counted how many bros/sis where wearing something blue/red/green and so on. I was never allowed to sit next to a friend only next to my parents so you have develop stuff which keeps you sane.

When I was old enough to do microphone service or handle the sound and got appointed to do it, i LOVED it. Because finally I could keep busy without having to look left/right even someone else is watching me.

Still to this day I often volunteer for the microphone service so during paragraph reading I can be in standing in the back and play with my tablet or answering emails without someone else looking on my screen. I once finished a personal project on my tablet during a meeting that way.

I often see elders wandering around during a meeting, I can imagine that they are bored as well. Then there is this elder, he never sits with his wife just wandering around the hall pretending to do stuff or sometimes he will walk to his other elder buddies and always gives them a note DURING the meeting, something very important whe he couldnt do BEFORE the meeting starts. He doe that until his studies arrive (sometimes they are 30 or 40 minutes late) and then he will sit with them in the back. Not sure why he does that, probably to count the time while at the same time loaths to sit next to his wife haha.

43

Why do Jehovah's Witnesses churches have no windows?

by Kenneson in

jw
friends

someone asked columnist phillip milano of the jacksonville, florida times union this very question.

you will find remarks of several individuals and the reasons they offer, ranging from deterrence to vandalism, to saving on air conditioning bills, etc.

even j.r. brown gives his two-cents worth and replies to critic paul blizzard.. http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/080106/enm_4104779.shtml

nevaagain

i live in germany and all halls here new or old do have windows, so this might be only the case in the usa