sometimes, comparing raw numbers provides a more clear-cut numerical picture of growth or otherwise than percentages.
below are the numbers for peak publishers (rounded off so that 4,1 represents more than 4,100,000) for each year throughout the 1990s and those for the last ten years.. year: peak* baptisms.
* peak publishers abbreviated - simply to show annual baptisms in relation to peak publishers.. the main point: .
Unless something fundamentally radical happens.....
For just a moment I am going to put on the ol' JDub hat and say that something fundamentally radical is going to happen...soon...the Big A! The proof is that the preaching work and the in gathering of those in line for a life of petting pandas is obviously drawing to a close.
Okay, now that I have parroted the JDub line that I think I will go be sick...
june 28, 2017 to all bodies of elders re: important reminder—volunteers.
.
.
Can't you just feel the love???
if memory serves me, when it was first introduced elders had to fill out a form to grade a jw, and only those who made the grade could do the carts.. i didn’t realize until sir82 said something on another discussion that the process had changed.. what is the process nowadays?
.
"Should be willing to cooperate with the body of elders"
“more than material assistance, refugees need spiritual and emotional support.
(matt.
4:4) elders can help by obtaining literature in the language of the refugees and by helping them contact brothers who speak their language.
So refugees who have lost everything should not try to replace these things?
Lord, no! How can we expect them to keep a simple eye if they are replacing "things"? Birds of the heavens, put kingdom "interests" first and all that other clap-trap? Throw a WT at them as you scoot on by, gawd will take care of them.
so i went to visit my jw aging mother this week (i've been df'd for 40 years) and she told me she needs to give the people who are taking her to the convention $10 each day of the convention to cover gas?
my uber elder cousin told her she needs to do this!!!
wtf?
Many years ago an elderly, disabled sister needed finances to get to the scheduled convention.
My dad and one other elder furnished the money. The rest of the elder body had multiple excuses why they couldn't afford anything to help her. That included the one who came tooling into the KH parking lot two weeks before the convention with a BRAND NEW luxury vehicle!
My dad is now treated like he is DF'd because he is old, infirm, and no longer a useful tool, and the other brother got so fed up with life he ate a bullet.
Loving bunch of hypocrites!!
maybe you guys got on to this right away, but i've just noticed something about the remember the wife of lot video.. we all know the scene where the judgmental jw dad gives that disapproving look to the girl who has lesbian parents:.
this look actually appears again throughout the video - but on other jws.
in the scene where the new brother is out in service with the former co. look at the new brothers reaction to when a "worldly" person knows the former co from work:.
Or walking through a busy street filled with nightclubs at night - oh no!
Yep...had to explain that one myself. Parked in front of the local live music nightclub when I was sitting in with the band and the local JW snoop/gossip complained about seeing my vehicle there. Told that I should park a couple city blocks away. Asked what would happen IF I did and my vehicle was seen and it was in front of some single woman's home that late at night?
IDIOTS!!
.
.
tell me me more about your just & loving god..
I once proudly proclaimed to a field serve us group that I was reading a real good book. It had the stories that Hollywood movies are made of. I said it had stories of women seducing men and stabbing them in their sleep, rape, incest, adultery, murder, child sacrifice, humans being thrown into fires to be burned alive, etc. The entire group was horrified. The next meeting I was asked to "visit" with a couple elders in the back room. They informed me that they had been told of my literary interest. Was it true I was reading about those unscriptural subjects? Yes. Then I dropped the bomb. It's the Bible! I love messing with their feeble minds!
i realize that prayer is a really personal thing, but representing a group in prayer has become so full of cliche's that i just want to vomit sometimes.
co week almost every prayer has the phrase "special week of activity" in it.. then there's "please look after the sick and afflicted.".
not so much anymore, "please bless this food and the hands that prepared it.".
"Please guide us and direct us as we make our way home from the meeting"
Actually this is a very logical request...at least for the level of intelligence most of the JDubs in my area display. They need all the help they can get making their way home from anywhere.
i realize that prayer is a really personal thing, but representing a group in prayer has become so full of cliche's that i just want to vomit sometimes.
co week almost every prayer has the phrase "special week of activity" in it.. then there's "please look after the sick and afflicted.".
not so much anymore, "please bless this food and the hands that prepared it.".
We had a brother in my old congregation who would implement the word "father" in his prayer as often as he could
Just the last meeting that I endured I counted the word "Father" 17 times in the last prayer. And then there is "Jehovah", or as they say here Chee-HO-vuh, repeated at the end of EVERY sentence.
Or the idiotic "Please, Jehovah, we know that there are MANY who are not here with us due to many difficult circumstances, Father, and we ask that YOU help them know how much we miss them Father, and we ask that YOU give them the strength to return to meetings with us Father Jehovah."
WTH about YOU, the moron braying (intentional misspelling), how about YOU do something to assist the ill, the poor, the distressed?
Sorry bunch of HYPOCRITES!
did any of you attend the old school week long conventions?
i have heard stories and it seems like these were mostly in the 70's and 80's before my time.
i couldn't imagine.
1969
Vancouver, B.C. Camped out nearly 80 miles away. Started early, ended after dark, then a long drive just to sleep for a few hours. I remember the big rumor was that singer Glen Campbell was supposedly baptized. Everyone barely containing their "joy" at someone famous getting dunked. Of course it was just that, a rumor.
Miserable a55 times for sure.
