breaking news | highlights of 2023 worldwide service year report.
on november 15, 2023, the service committee of the governing body shared highlights of the 2023 worldwide service year report with the bethel family.
the following exciting increases were announced: baptisms: during the 2023 service year, 269,517 persons were baptized.
5% pioneer increase = 300 million fewer hours spent in the ministry, thanks to the hour reduction.
95% more Aux = hour reduction makes it easier to participate. 2 CO visits & 2 Campaign / year means a single person can be counted 4 times for little more than an average 10-hr publisher
Bible studies up - 7 million, still well below their peak of 10 million
Baptisms up - still 100k below their peak in the late 90s
an elder with half a brain (and they must exist 🧐) is going to see the writing on the wall with the way the wt is manoeuvring them into taking the fall over csa cases.
can an elder in good standing step down with no consequences, official or social?.
You end up sort of a nobody.
Truer words...
No one gets out alive
jw view gambling as a sin and sadly people get addicted to gambling causing them financial and health problems.
but is playing a couple of bucks a week on some lottery tickets actually gambling?
what do you have to lose?
ks91 originally included language to the effect of "Christians do not play the lottery"
new Shepherd book says elders don't get involved in "petty gambling" and has removed any reference to the lottery.
a $1 or $2 ticket is certainly petty. It would seem that lottery is not an excluded item but is certainly one that will still get you side eyed looks
regarding the state dissolving a church organization.... .
as posted in another thread, here is what is happening in japan, filing a court order to dissolve the unification church.... .
https://www.eurasiareview.com/06092023-japan-seeks-court-order-to-dissolve-unification-church/.
i know of NO congregation that has ever filed a tax return. We know WTBTS has.
“a circuit overseer started out by saying that on this last round of the circuit, the one thing he noticed the most...is that everyone is physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually drained...and that cuts across all barriers and demographics within the truth.
he then said that the one common thread that ran among nearly everyone was this: we feel guilty for feeling bad.
he said because we are told to endure with joy, our minds can cause us to feel enormous guilt over feeling this way...and then, my dear brothers and sisters...he proceeded to blow our collective minds.. he asked us to turn to daniel 8:27….
What solutions did he offer for being tired and depressed?
Let me guess; Prayer, bible reading, meetings and field service.
i have been thinking about this in relation to the directive given to elders to destroy any incriminating evidence they may have either on their pc`s ,e-mails , private notes in their possession, or notes in their witnessing bags ,etc.
to do with child sexual abuse they may still have in their possession.. isn`t that encouraging the elders to interfere with the justice system ?.
to break the law?.
its a Records Retention Policy. Every corporation has one.
In the real world, if you delete or destroy documents relating to a crime, it is a crime.
I dont think this is true, unless you've been charged with a crime.
either you think the governing body was correct giving direction to be fully vaccinated and do you will keep getting the boosters, or.... if you don’t think the boosters are safe and you decide not to keep getting them then you are admitting that the direction was wrong.. if the direction was indeed harming brothers and sister who kept going to get these injections because of the covid updates then this is a huge wake up call?.
how could this direction from the gb who are i doubt jehovah give such harmful direction?.
It is completely illogical that god directed the GB to "encourage" everyone to take the vaccine as his direction.
It would have been far easier for god, and more within his purview, to notice the virus, "zap it", modifying its protein string, to make it less deadly on a quicker than normal mutation path. Why wait a year for man to develop a vaccine. Then have your TV division make a series of videos. Then coerce the congregation to take a vaccine which conservatively includes "risks"
basic blood questions for jehovah's witnesses.
where does the bible outlaw blood transfusions?
(acts 15:29 gen.9:4) .
No Bible authorized use for blood
Now we are looking for a statement of positive affirmation? Is there such for lawful sex, alcohol? (I will concede there is indeed for incense). Or are these things simply acknowledge as human things?
mark jones, a witness for over 30 years describes what jws call bible studies offered to the public.. .
"they (jehovah's witnesses) offer you a free home “bible” study - which turns out to be a study of a watchtower publication with the bible brought out as an afterthought to try and prop up whatever current idea the governing body are claiming is “the truth” this week.. i think it’s underhanded.. when my parents became jehovah’s witnesses and they offered people a free home “bible” study, this is what they brought to study with them:.
what, did you think they were going to study the bible with you?.
Go ahead and ask them for a bible study and make clear that you’ll only use the bible and no magazines. They might agree at first (might)… but when its made clear during the first study that you wont use their literature they’ll end the study with you.
My mother was able to do this. In fact she studied with one woman using the New Jerusalem Bible, as she was Catholic. My mother was unique- not many people could do this. This woman and her family ended up being baptized.
basic blood questions for jehovah's witnesses.
where does the bible outlaw blood transfusions?
(acts 15:29 gen.9:4) .
Unlike a kidney transplant or a metal buttress for a broken bone, BT blood is absorbed by the body thereby ingesting it.
Its not ingested, digested or consumed- the individual components continue in the system until they fail and are removed by the various systems, like the liver or the spleen
