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.
)
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.
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..
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.
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..
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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
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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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...
do they still say so and so is df'd or da'd or is it more politically correct with a new way for the announcment?.
abr.
I tend to believe that the 'consolidation' of the disfellowshipping announcement and disassociation announcements may lead to something else down the line. I can see the day when the following blurb will appear on the Announcements page of the Kingdom Ministry:
When a publisher becomes inactive and has not shared in the field ministry for six consecutive months, the following announcement will be read to the congregation: "So-and-so is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses."
from awake!, january 22, 2004, pages 19-23.. "why i believe the bible - a nuclear scientist tells his story".
read how a nuclear physicist reconciled his knowledge of science with his belief in the bible.. -- page 19. .
why i believe the bible.
Let's just say I know this guy.
Alton Williams is an elder (P.O., I think) in the Spanish congregation in Huntsville, just like the article says. He's not a bad guy, but from talking to him, he doesn't come across as the kind of person who would have a Ph.D. in nuclear physics.
He doesn't talk about his work much around the Witnesses, and he is pretty outgoing. He seems to be the kind of person who will see the light sooner or later and join us on this board.
check out the news on this recent press release from the us census bureau.
here's the google news listing for it (so you can see all the places this story has been covered): click here.. .
lest anybody think the society is taking a softer stance on this issue, well, they're not.
The last thing the WTS wants around is people who can think for themselves. They desperately want (and need) people who need others to think for them. The average rank-and-file JW in 2006 is good at running to the elders for permission/advice as to whether a certain movie, sport, situation, or activity is 'appropriate'.
Thanks to the aliteracy common even in JW households, fewer JW's than ever know how to use their own WT Library CD-ROM or Index.
One benefit of a college education, often overlooked by many, is the experience one gains in locating information in a library, internet search engine, or a scholarly journal. Most JW's do not know how to locate information, even on their own WT Library CD-ROM. When an individual learns how to locate information, especially if that information is found on an internet discussion board, such as, oh, I don't know, www.jehovahs-witness.com or www.reexamine.org, the repercussions are dangerous for a group such as the JW's where information is so tightly controlled.
