I just saw it, and I agree the house was over the top. It is ridicilous to live in such a big house...
Few people in general do and even more so among JWs that in general have other priorities and possibilities.
i managed to catch the new dvd on youtube last night before the inevitable takedown.
as a film i felt it wasn't anywhere near as good as the prodigal movie, the story wasn't as dramatic, the characters much less interesting and developed and the direction weaker.
i found the prodigal relatively entertaining (all things considered) this one was just dull.. here are some of my random thoughts anyway [spoiler alert - ha!].
I just saw it, and I agree the house was over the top. It is ridicilous to live in such a big house...
Few people in general do and even more so among JWs that in general have other priorities and possibilities.
listen ... obey ... and be blessed!
has this become the official cult watchtower theme song?.
here is a video making the rounds on facebook.
No wonder this interview is popular among JWs. And for them it is a truly big event and I guess this talk show sequence really makes them genuinely proud.
just wondering to those that have gone to one of the international or rc assemblies what's the attendance been like.
wondering if people are still willing to spend so much money and travel to go to a convention or if more people are just saying no??
?.
I went to two international assemblies, one in Europe and one in Africa. These experiences were great :-) . I got friends with several people at both assemblies that I kept in touch with for years and even visited later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/religion_in_the_democratic_republic_of_the_congo#kitawala.
a much more radical product of the synthesis of african and christian elements is the kitawala movement or so-called "watchtower movement", which appeared in katanga province during the 1920s.
influenced by the black american missionary activity in south africa of the watch tower bible and tract society (jehovah's witnesses), the movement converted miners who then spread elements of the movement northward from their south african base into the katangan copper belt.. the british "reverend" james booth and his african associate elliott kamwana, both black, used watch tower publications but did not limit their preaching to the bible students message of charles taze russell (it does not seem that russell understood this at the time).
I have read about this movement in the Yearbooks...
i just got back from the district convention and watched the new video.
can't remember what it is called but the main family live in a million dollar home and there teenage daughter drives a red convertable sports car.
probably worth about 50000$.
In e.g. my country you can have a good living even without a degree or a white collar job. I think the "fare" of JWs has a lot also to do with how the economic/social structure of life are med up which actually differs a lot from the US to e.g. Scandinavia where I live. Of course quite a few JWs are windowcleaners here too, but more so in the past.... Most I knew had regular, ordinary jobs. And I‘d say the general standard of living differ very little from the general populace. It is mirroring it.Also most witnesses own their own homes, just like the rest of the population do. I have been quite a few times to the United States and see how poor people live in substandard homes... We hardly have anything like that here.
i just got back from the district convention and watched the new video.
can't remember what it is called but the main family live in a million dollar home and there teenage daughter drives a red convertable sports car.
probably worth about 50000$.
I retract the word nonsense. That was not called for. Sorry about that. However was a witness for several decades, and also an elder... BUT not in America.. Please remember that some JWs in the US tend to be somewhat more extreme than in many other countries... That goes both ways... Sometimes when we read examples in the Watchtower about e.g. grand weddings with examples of exagerrations it was always in an American context and far away from reality in our own country.... I agree there has been a change somewhat though. Witnesses nowadays seem very auto-pilot.
before i dive into the actual write-up of this experience, let me put some things straight.. i have thought long and hard if i should write more about my experiences during the 10+ years at different branches.
during these years i worked from financial department, service department, home office and different it assignments.
as you can imagine one sees and hears and reads a lot of stuff going through different stations in different countries.
Most elders never get across these issues, as they are relatively rare compared to other acts of actual or alleged wrongdoing.
i just got back from the district convention and watched the new video.
can't remember what it is called but the main family live in a million dollar home and there teenage daughter drives a red convertable sports car.
probably worth about 50000$.
What is this nonsense that JWs live substandard and have mediocre jobs all the time??? Must be more of an American phenomenon... If you go any assembly or KH the cars parked there just resemeble rest of society, so does housing etc.. Witnesses travel, work etc as most people do...
i just compared the latest data provided by the german wt and data i found searching for the same page in archive.org.
congregations 2011: 2232. congregations 2014: 2210. kh 2011: 1075. kh 2014: 1034. source: http://www.jehovaszeugen.de/statistik.18.0.html - this is a oficial site for germany.
.
interestingly, the German branch maintains a huge national website. Also Austria and Russia maintains such ones.. does anyone know of any other countries having it? Finland used to have one and also France.
They also list their religious celebrations/holidays.
Apart from memorial and assemblies, this is listed:
Weitere religiös-feierliche Handlungen bei Jehovas Zeugen, die in der Regel von einem Ältesten der Religionsgemeinschaft vorgenommen werden, sind beispielsweise:
i just got back from the district convention and watched the new video.
can't remember what it is called but the main family live in a million dollar home and there teenage daughter drives a red convertable sports car.
probably worth about 50000$.
Perhaps mainstreaming upwards?