NotBlind

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Posts by NotBlind

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  23

  anyone from the St. Louis, MO/ SW illinois area?

  by SnakesInTheTower in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  illinois circuit 6 or 7 and mo 5, 1, 2, 10?

  (southern iliinois/se/ne missouri) especially.... snakes (.

  ps i have ties to the area.... pm me if you dont want to post publicly.

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  NotBlind

  Three congregations in Southern Illinois recently folded and were made into one due to lack of elders and attendees: Carbondale, Anna, and Murphysboro. All three KH's are currently for sale, with the intent of building one KH to handle the new cong.

  If you're from that area, you may remember Melvin Branam, CO from the 80's & early 90's. Really long-winded, but seemed like a nice-enough guy. He served MO#5 (I think), IL#6, and IL#7. Whatever became of him?

  Ted Jaracz is from Southern Illinois. The house where he grew up still stands. I've heard of a few JW's from the area stopping by to take pictures. Crazy if you ask me....
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  20

  HAVE YOU WONDERED? Pubic WT of Oct 1.2008 page 31

  by bobld in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "you may have heard that jehovah's witnesses do not accept blood transfusions.this scriptural stand is often misunderstood.their stand is based on the fundamental law that god gave to mankind.just after the flood of noah's day.god imposed this one restriction.they were not to consume blood.

  (genesis 9:3,4)it was never recinded.

  over eight centuries later,god reaffirmed that law to the nation of israel,explaining that the blood is sacred, representing the soul,or life itself.

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  NotBlind

  I knew the WT had stooped to an all time low... They have now instituted a pubic edition :D
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  8

  2008 Distric Conventions..... Dates announced yet???/

  by still_in74 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  maybe this just pertains to southern ontario, but have any dates been announced yet for 2008 district assemblies?.

  my cousin asked me the other day if i had noticed that we still had not had an announcement for 2008 but that we have had an announcement for 2009 international convention.

  after our last dc the accouncement was made that there was nothing to announce as of yet for 2008 dc.

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  NotBlind

  That letter is usually read the last week of December at the Service Meeting.

  If you don't want to attend the Service Meeting, the assembly dates and locations have been published in the March 1st Watchtower the last few years.
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  5

  Do elders take vows, and what are they?

  by rebel8 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  more specifically, do they have to repent of past wrongdoings, and do they have to make amends to those they harmed in the past?

  (i know, this question sounds like aa.

  )

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  NotBlind

  The night one is appointed as an elder, two elders simply meet with him in the back room and ask him if there is any reason why he shouldn't be appointed. No question is asked regarding former child molestation, etc. The 'encounter' takes all of two minutes.

  Technically, the 2001 KM School instructed elders to do this 45 minutes before the beginning of the Ministry School the night he is appointed to speak with him at length about his 'new role', but in practice, this seldom happens.
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  20

  Secret elders website?!?

  by icyestrm in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was chatting with an elder a few months ago and he spoke of a secret elders website that only privileged elders knew of.

  it is used to submit the monthly field service reports and other letters in.

  that is the 3rd time i heard about this and want to verify if any of you know about this..

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  NotBlind

  Initial passwords are given out by the Society, but when someone logs in for the first time, they have to change their password to something of their choosing. I bet there are lots of '1914' passwords out there, just like '1914' will arm/disarm lots of KH security systems.
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  20

  Secret elders website?!?

  by icyestrm in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was chatting with an elder a few months ago and he spoke of a secret elders website that only privileged elders knew of.

  it is used to submit the monthly field service reports and other letters in.

  that is the 3rd time i heard about this and want to verify if any of you know about this..

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  NotBlind

  This website, located at http://www.ccjw.org, is nothing more than an 'enhanced' way that congregation secretaries (in the USA anyway) turn in service reports for the congregation.

  I think they also send in literature orders online now, as well as Memorial attendance reports via this website (or a similar one). Nothing really exciting, and you have to have a password to get in, of course.
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  68

  Assembly Hall shakedown - Columbia SC

  by sir82 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  from someone who attended:.

  there was a big elders meeting in columbia sc on saturday june 9.. around 240 congregations, 2000+ elders.. the society wants to build a brand new assembly hall in columbia, sc, to handle the huge influx of jws moving to the us southeast from up north.. they expect to have it done in 34 months (finished by april 2010).

  total cost estimated to be approximately $8 - 9 million.. they want to have the whole thing paid for by the time the building is done - no long term loans.. they "strongly suggested" that each of the 240 congregations commit to supporting "their share" of the expense.

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  NotBlind

  Assembly halls are such a bad deal for local congregations that have to use them. The WTS charges the circuit several dollars per publisher per day (can't remember the exact figure), but back in the 80's, it was something like 3-4 bucks per pub.

  The circuit I was in had something like 700 publishers, so for a 2 day assembly, that's close to $6000 rent, which goes right back into the coffers of the WTS!

  By comparison, I later moved to a circuit that had to rent a facility for its assemblies. The same two days cost about $3000, and it was really just as nice as the ASSembly hall.

  The WTS would much rather get a free $10 million building built courtesy of the average window-washing members, then charge said members $6000 a weekend to use the same building they supposedly already paid for.

  What a racket!
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  7

  Has anyone had to miss school for an assembly?

  by WTWizard in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  usually, the district assemblies start past the middle of june, but i have heard a number of people that have had them start already.

  granted, that is in the south where school usually lets out in may and starts in august.

  on the flip side, some southern assemblies might be running in late august and school already in session.. i have seen a district assembly that ran june 16-18. and school didn't let out that year until june 23. this is the week when final exams are commonly given in school, and any children that missed them for the a$$embly got a zero on the biggest test of the year and likely flunked or did poorly as a result.

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  NotBlind

  School in several states now starts in early August, and I mean August 2nd or 3rd. The conventions in this area are sometimes held in in mid-August, so those JW kids have to miss at least a Friday (and usually a Thursday) to go to their district convention.
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  15

  Timothy And His Secular Education

  by Justitia Themis in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the following quote appears in a may 1 watchtower study article.

  does anyone have any information on the greek educational system?

  when did education begin?

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  NotBlind

  As usual, the WT is picking and choosing its examples, and completely making up others. For all we know, Timothy's father could have been completely supportive of his son's decision! Entire paragraphs are based on the imagination of some guy in the Writing Department.

  Anyway, the WT has no business preaching the evils of education out of one side of its mouth, then complaining that their followers aren't donating enough out of the other.

  NotBlind
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  74

  WTS Has Lost +35% of Elders in US Since 1994????

  by Seeker4 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  zack, on another thread, said he heard this figure from the platform at both the 2006 elders' school and his recent pioneer school:.

  that there were 93,000 elders in 1994, and less than 60,000 today, in the united states.. i thought these figures deserved their own thread, as they are shocking to me, and to see if anyone else has heard anything similar.. i'll post a link to the other thread as well.

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  NotBlind

  There are 12,390 congregations in the USA, according to the 2007 yearbook.

  Many of the congregations I know may have 5 or 6 elders, but there may only be 1 or 2 MS, and those MS are often up in years, 60+ years old, men who may very well never become elders.

  A tell-tale sign of trouble in the org is not only when elders start dropping out, but also when there are few 'future elders', for lack of a better word. There are not as many 20-something MS as there used to be, as far as I can tell. What shocks me more is that the elders I know are oblivious to the fact that there are no future elders in the congregation. I think they are so caught up in their paperwork, talk preparation, and just getting by in life that they pay little attention to what's really happening in the congregation.

  I know one thing for sure - anybody trying to live on six bucks an hour washing windows isn't going to have much time for being an elder...