I not sure
how popular it is in other parts of the world but in my part of the world, it
is not popular at all. If you had to climb a ladder to get to it you would have
to climb over steak, ham, fish, chicken, tuna, bologna, and a few others meats
before you get to Spam.
I have not
seen a spam commercial since the 90s. And if I mention I’m buying a can of
spam, I won’t get a call from my friends for a couple of weeks.
Yet, it does
not matter if it is a small convenient store or a huge supermarket, they all
stock up with plenty of Spam. And despite all the bad publicity and jokes, Spam
Lives.
I was talking to a few JW friends
that still talk to me. And from what I am hearing, most use field service as a
coffee excursion. Very few are going in service door to door. It’s all
telephone, email, carts, stands at universities.
In the old kingdom hall I used
to attend they now have phone witnessing and emailing, Monday thru Friday from
10am to 3pm. According to some of my jw friends, for a whole month no one went
out in door to door Mon-Friday, except to do RVs. Now my neighbor who is a jw,
age 76, told me no one is abiding by the blood doctrine in the stickiest sense
anymore. She said it’s a matter of
conscience and people are more balance. She said, “You can always repent if you make a mistake” An
elder told me the same thing, "Take and repent"
There are very few meetings now,
only twice a week and very few attend the mid-week one. No one makes a fuss
anymore. The elders take turns missing meetings during the week. And
conventions are only one day, and very few attend the broadcast. And a lot of
jws use the 3 day regional conventions as a means for vacation. I found out
several families who attended last summer and only attended one day and spent
the rest on vacation. Lots of brothers I knew who were elders in other
congregations are now only attending the meetings once on Sunday every few
months and the memorial just to keep the family intact. They have no problem sending
their kids to college anymore and if the kids join sports, no one cares.And they are picking up things that I never would have thought of back then. Golfing, motorcycling, learning to fly, etc.
What’s interesting is that they have
12 persons in my old KH ready to get baptized at the next assembly and they are
adults. But the way I see it, what's the big deal? They don’t have to go door to door, just telephone
witnessing a few hrs. a month. And it’s actually fun to do telephone witnessing
at the KH during the week. They order
pizza, drinks, pastries. The young ones
especially love it since other young one visit each hall to meet other single
guys and gals. Meetings are not really a big deal anymore. They really don’t
have to worry about the blood issue. I would have loved
this arrangement when I was single and young.
What’s funny is that when the
Circuit Overseer visits, the telephone witnessing for the week is cancelled. Everyone
keeps quiet until he leaves and then it’s back to normal. No one says a thing and rocks the boat.
I believe
the WT is dismantling all by itself. Their priority now is to keep their loyal
customers who will continue to buy their product. And if they can entice new
customers who can’t afford to buy anything else but their SPAM, then why not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6LDpYeTb0o
