Posts by HappyHappyHappy1914

66

Do you think the general public cares about former Jehovah's witnesses?

by Christian Gutierrez in

jw
friends

i was wondering if you guys think if the general public cares about our stories or if they even care what the watchtower does to people??

?.

HappyHappyHappy1914

The wider public doesn't really care about much for an extended period of time. It seems like, at least with American media, we jump from one scandal to another. I think the only real way that the wider public is going to care is if there is some large salacious scandal that the media can talk about for ratings. If, for example, there is an egregious lawsuit that has all the right elements to get blasted on the news.

I've thought long and hard about this topic, and from the perspective of JW activism I think we need to be focused on how the public views witnesses and from their perspective the only time they interact are those sleepy Saturday mornings every six months. I think the biggest thing, then, that activists could promote is that the person knocking on your door could be a child preditor and you would never know. The witnesses could be sending unreported sick pedophiles to the doors of the public when often the parents aren't home and a small child opens the door. I think that is the biggest lever to push in my opinion

67

Recent mistakes of the Governing Body contributing to the decline of JWs

by slimboyfat in

they have made so many strategical mistakes it's hard to keep track.

some changes within the last decade or so that are contributing to declining numbers of jws:.

1. elimination of book study groups, the most informal, enjoyable and sociable of the jw meetings, contributed to loss of sense of community among jws.. 2. policy of consolidating kingdom halls.

HappyHappyHappy1914

Great comments but I would like to add a few.

-The new songs and song book are terrible. No one likes them and, while maybe not a huge deal, made the meetings less enjoyable for alot of people.

-Over a decade ago, the organization could have done what a number of other evangelical groups did and adopt technology to court younger people's attention. Instead, the WT warned everyone about the dangers of the internet. Fast forward to 2012, WT abandoned that notion and threw themselves into technology at a rate that made the biggest technophiles scratch their head. The transition would have been much softer if they gradual rolled out these changes, instead of suddenly doing an about face. Congregations are frantically trying to set up TVs in all the halls and older ones are desperately trying to figure out their tablets.

43

Kids continue to leave in droves - so what is the organization's grand plan? This

by sir82 in

jw
friends

jws have one of the worst, if not the worst, retention rates among their kids.

i've seen numbers from 65% to 88% who leave, never to return.. you'd think this would be a priority amongst the leadership, right?

where do tomorrow's leaders come from, if the vast majority of kids leave the organization?

HappyHappyHappy1914

I think the organization has actually done alot to retain younger ones, all of which will ultimately fail. So much of the push to digital in the past few years, the largest transformation I have seen in the past few decades, is aimed at those youth who no longer see the org as dated, or simply the religon of their parents.

As far as reaching out for "privileges," there have been a number of recent WT articles that discuss how elders can "encourage" young ones. As you probably already know, their main tactics are to buddy up with those young ones and then engage in guilt pushing, "reminding them of their dedication" Dedicating your life to the org via baptism no longer just entails go to meetings and services, but essentially means you have to give every last ounce of your time and energy. If you are a young one with time one your hands and aren't reaching out, you essentially are going on back on your promise to God. You know, that one you were pressured to make when you were 11.

As much as they may try to keep youth with clever videos and fancy websites, today's young people are way too educated for that to work. They are bombarded at an unprecedented rate with information and entertainment opportunities. They are the instant gratification generation, who are not going to endure hours long boring meetings. No matter how much lipstick they slap on the pig that is this organization, meetings are still boring, the elders are still unreasonable, and service is still unproductive and terrible. Those things don't change because you have a tablet and the young people understand that.

44

Honeymoon over for the carts

by Deltawave in

speaking with inlaws i another congregation today who said exactly what is being said in our own hall.

the trolly work is long and boring and no one even notices they are there anymore but walk right on by.

jehovah really is speeding up the work lol.

HappyHappyHappy1914

I think we've seen this for a long time. However, it remains that the trolley work is still promoted heavily in magazines and broadcasts and sold as a super efficient way of ministering. However, it simply serves as a very easy way to get time.

Everytime I ask people who have done it how successful it is...they always get quiet and mumble something about how important is just for people to see it. They make it clear that people are not interested in having a conversation or even grabbing a book.

And I must add that this is another example of setting to lofty expectations. They are constantly told how amazing the work is and makes everyone who doesn't find success feel terrible about themselves. They must be doing something wrong. Its much like any other presentation.

13

Just realized this recently - as a JW, I never "owned" any of my accomplishments or talents & abilities....

by Muddy Waters in

just realized this recently - as a jw, i never "owned" any of my accomplishments or talents & abilities....we were always told how we are nothing, just specks of dust, grasshoppers, worms.... lowly, despicable sinners in need of redemption, born into sin & misery, constantly facing temptations that we could never handle on our own but only with "jehovah's help"... so we were continually marginalized, all our abilities and talents... they would even quote scriptures that said things like "why should we boast as if we didn't receive these abilities..?

"it was a weird mentally psychotic dichotomy -- being told we were worthless sinners, undeserving of god's kindness -- and on the other hand being the only ones who would survive the great day of jehovah the almighty god at armageddon.

(well, probably, maybe, if we did enough and *kept* doing enough...)so we didn't "own" any of our abilities and accomplishments.

HappyHappyHappy1914

I really appreciate what has been said in this post so far. One of greatest instruments of control the organization has is to make sure all the young ones only feel good about themselves for accomplishments inside the organization. You could cure cancer at 16 and the congregation would eye you suspiciously for not pioneering. They want your self worth to be determined by how many hours you put in each month or what "privileges" you have. Academic accomplishments are treated like nothing.

And this has a hugely traumatic affect on a person growing up, particularly teenagers who are have a natural tendency to please people. Once your self-esteem is tied to the organization, they have you were they want you. They can use guilt to make you do more and reward you for accomplishing everything by love-bombing and other carrots.

It is an absolutely cruel and horrible thing to do to a child to not celebrate their accomplishments. To punish them for pursuing anything other than a narrowly defined path. To relegate them to second-class citizen for not parroting WT thinking or fitting into some bizarre circuit assembly demo mold.

I think it is incredibly important to have discussions like these because sometimes we forget how controlling the environment and how manipulative the organization can be.

17

Ex elders vs. Current elders

by dothemath in

in our congregation there are now more ex-elders than current ones.

(probably very common).

what i notice most of all, is that the ones who were the best speakers (we actually had some good ones) are the ones who have all stepped down.. i'm of the opinion the better teachers recognize its all a joke, and can't be bothered to reach out again.. so the ones left who are taking the lead are the most boring ones available.

HappyHappyHappy1914

My hall has over a dozen former elders, although I doubt many of them would be considered "awake"

The trend seems to be that these brothers either get burned out or feel guilty about not handling a specific situation properly and have stepped down.

I made a similar thread on reddit a few days ago that linked good speakers with those "woken up"

It seems to me that a number of you on this board were circuit and district speakers or, at the very least, viewed by the congregation as a good speaker. I think this is because good speakers are ones that aren't content parroting exact phrases and thoughts from the WT. You guys know exactly those kinds of talks. Those brothers seek to "get through" their talks and often try to mimic a particular CO or DO, but often without the charisma or gravitas that those brothers typically bring.

91

Is the Watchtower organisation facing the biggest crisis of its history?

by slimboyfat in

recent developments make me think they might be.

the problems they are facing are not just lack of funds but also draining authority, and the two could be a heady and explosive mix.

one of the best analyses ever written of the watchtower was a book called "trumpet of prophecy" by sociologist james beckford in the 1970s.

HappyHappyHappy1914

I can't speak to the wider issue, but this is exactly why I woke up one year ago. Growing up, I took pride in the fact that most of us couldn't even name the governing body members. These humble men were not interested in promoting themselves. No matter how crazy someone was in the hall or how strange a talk might be, I found immeasurable comfort in the watchtowers and how reasonable they appeared at the time. I love research and I was totally impressed by the mountain of literature, the rows of neat bound volumes, and the "scholarly nature" of both the insight and reasoning books.

But the changes have been a shock to my system. Any attempt on appearing deep or well researched has been abandoned. Those in congregation I was most embarrassed by now seem to be the ones that are most catered to. All the publications are now either geared towards children or people with little to no reading ability.

The broadcasts may just be the most damaging thing. Many of the more reasonable have chosen to not watch them at all for fear that their faith may be weakened. Some sit with eyes glazed and mouths slightly ajar as they gobble up everything said like it was from God himself.

times they are a changing

14

Chapter 1 My Bethel Experience First Posted 9 Years Ago A Walk Down Memory Lane

by new boy in

part 1. i when to bethel march 21,1970. at the time you had to be a pioneer for two years to apply, by the time i left in 1974 they were calling people in who had never pioneered..........average stay was 5 months (they had signed up for 4 years)..........the reason they left was......well, it was hell.. one of the reasons was, knorr hated bethelites, but he loved the gilead students and why?

because when they screwed up they were thousands of miles away!........just before i got there, they had kicked out over 30!

homosexuals (at one time) ....the would kick out 1-2 bethelites a week.

HappyHappyHappy1914

I've heard alot of stories about bethel in the mid 70s. Really sounds like it was a bit of the wild west. And they have all commented on how if, for any reason, they fell into disfavor, they were sent to do laundry as punishment.

11

Ever wondered which country in the JW Annual Report is most likely to reflect overall decline/progress of the WTS?

by besty in

a bit of spreadsheet fun - trying to ascertain which country is the bellwether for the wts.. my methodology was as follows:.

take the individual ar's from 2010 - 2016 and calculate an accurate (.00) ave pub increase/decrease for each country.

sort the countries into descending order by this value with the grand total row included in the mix.. assign the countries 5 places above and 5 places below the grand total 1 point.

HappyHappyHappy1914

The big change this next year will be in countries that relied heavily on a dense special pioneer population. The growth rate in some of those smaller countries in south and central america will be dramatically different in 2016. Most of those special pioneers cannot find work in their assignment and will be forced to move towards larger cities or leave those countries entirely.

30

What are the economics of cart witnessing?

by slimboyfat in

on another thread shepherdless sketched out the past business model of jws and its demise.

until 1990 they were a straightforward publishing business with the tremendous advantage of free labour in production and free distribution agents.

since then they've been relying on donations for literature to keep the old model going.

HappyHappyHappy1914

I tend to think most on this board tend to overstate how much cart witnessing is done. It is easy to feel that the organization is going almost entirely to carts because they are much more visible. In my area, the carts are only manned by pioneers. And not even all pioneers. You have to be specially recommended. So cart witnessing is more of a status symbol and another class distinction.

I would argue that the main purpose is to keep people pioneering and motivate other to pioneer in a way that appears effective. I know many in my area who have stopped because they can recognize how unproductive house to house is. With cart witnessing, even if no one stops, you can argue that you made a witness simply by being seen.