got a link for a zoom meeting and thought id share my experience about the mid-week meeting.. guessing about 100 - 120 in cong.. 50 on zoom, only 8 with cameras on - all elderly.
watching from a detached point of view it's so obvious at how it is nothing but a glorified sales meeting, all designed to promote the org.
inspirational videos about how everyone can/ should do more to help with projects, in particular how to look after the kingdom hall, complete with bar charts showing levels of achievement to aspire to.. interestingly, tonights book study is about alcohol..
In my experience, they don't announce attendance anymore in regular meetings (they only used to do it for the public talk and for the Memorial) but they still do at assemblies and conventions.
What they have is a monthly attendance form on the noticeboard (the org does love forms) where they write the in-person and online attendances separately (with combined total) for each meeting. That's how I know the general attendance rate around my circuit is about a 50/50 split these days.
from the back cover of the july 15th, 2013 study edition.. "look at the artwork!".
how many times have you said that to yourself or to others when you opened a new issue of this magazine?
i didn't use the same wording, but needless to say, i was stunned.
Found this old summary while thinking about the subject of artwork, linked to the proliferation of videos in meetings these days. The same points FadeToBlack made apply - the videos are often used as over-simplified indicators of what you should think/take away from the item.
What I find crazy is when some comments gush about the artwork (including videos, dramas) illustrating Bible scenes from long ago, as if it were real footage from the past. I remember one brother even said when commenting on such a picture in a WT article: "As we can see in the photograph..." I'm not sure if that was a slip of the tongue and he just meant 'picture', or if he really does consider these artist's impressions (or video director's imaginings) as if they were direct recordings of events!
I've never found the artwork that impressive on a 'teaching' level. Sure, it may be (mostly) well drawn/painted, but there are thousands of good artists out there capable of illustrating all kinds of imagined scenes - that doesn't make the WT artists' (or directors') take on Bible accounts the 'gospel' truth, if you'll pardon the pun. Especially when it comes to things like Bible character's hair or clothing colours, or what poses they were in, or how many were in a room, things which are usually total speculation as there is rarely that level of detail in Bible accounts.
Study article should be highlighted in multiple colors.
With the near-ubiquity of tablets and mobile phones at meetings now, at least the days of showing off how studious you were by having your publications highlighted in lots of colours have died out. Although some do carry over their highlighting obsession into the JW app on their devices, it doesn't seem to be such a mark of 'spirituality' as it used to be. At least that's one ridiculous thing that has gone away!
got a link for a zoom meeting and thought id share my experience about the mid-week meeting.. guessing about 100 - 120 in cong.. 50 on zoom, only 8 with cameras on - all elderly.
watching from a detached point of view it's so obvious at how it is nothing but a glorified sales meeting, all designed to promote the org.
inspirational videos about how everyone can/ should do more to help with projects, in particular how to look after the kingdom hall, complete with bar charts showing levels of achievement to aspire to.. interestingly, tonights book study is about alcohol..
With all the push for more brothers to step up, it is almost a joke in that the meetings are now mostly video.
I agree. They even have videos in the CO visit nowadays, the one time when it was supposed to be more in depth and targetted for the benefit of the local congregation. Every week, whole items consist of just showing a video, or having a video and then no more than 3-4 questions based on what happened in it.
D to D starts next monday in earnest
I thought D to D resumed on September 1st 2022? There was an announcement to that effect, and D to D has been back in full here in the UK since then, but support for in-person groups in my circuit has been much lower than before COVID, even for the recent Memorial campaign.
i found out that a uk hospital (nnuh) uses kingdom melodies as hold music, apparently for some years!
i called and heard it myself.
i wrote an email to the complaints team and await a response.
"Thank you for your email, I have registered your comments on our reporting system and forwarded your concerns to our Communications team as feedback to look into and take appropriate action.
Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with the team."
Translation: Go away.
original reddit post (removed).
I actually think he looks pretty good in this picture.
More likely he'd be the kindly old uncle who lets you sit on his knee... then starts touching you in non-consensual ways.
got a link for a zoom meeting and thought id share my experience about the mid-week meeting.. guessing about 100 - 120 in cong.. 50 on zoom, only 8 with cameras on - all elderly.
watching from a detached point of view it's so obvious at how it is nothing but a glorified sales meeting, all designed to promote the org.
inspirational videos about how everyone can/ should do more to help with projects, in particular how to look after the kingdom hall, complete with bar charts showing levels of achievement to aspire to.. interestingly, tonights book study is about alcohol..
Guessing about 100 - 120 in cong.
50 on zoom, only 8 with cameras on - all elderly.
That tallies with my anecdotal experience, and shows another problem the org has created for itself.
About 50% of the congs I know of are still not coming to meetings in person, and that's definitely more than the number who are genuinely housebound or who have debilitating conditions that prevent them from attending regularly (usually no more than 10-15 people in any congregation). Of those who do attend on Zoom, hardly any turn their cameras on now.
The number of items at the midweek meeting promoting the org, it's own internal policies and procedures, and/or the GB have increased too, making it much less about Bible characters and principles as such, but more about worshipping an organisation and a body of men (even more than it used to be). Couple that with the dumbing down of the content from a few years ago when they scaled back any pretence at actually having a 'School', and you have a programme of content that few are likely to be motivated to come in person for, especially if they have to travel some distance, as they do in some countries, like the USA (not so much an issue here in the UK).
I've also noticed that the Announcements section at the end is becoming longer, often with several letters from the 'branch' to read out, meaning the last item gets cut short and rushed through for the sake of reading them all. So much for the "spiritual food from Jehovah's table" being so important - obviously not more than procedural documentation coming from NY or Chelmsford!
original reddit post (removed).
Hmm... would you want this character coming down your chimney on the night of Dec 24/25 and emptying his sack?
Ho. Ho. Ho.
can watchtower really continue with cart preaching?
it has become like zoom.
we're people attending zoom not wanting attend halls.
I personally felt the cart was more effective than driving around knocking door where people were not interested or not at home. At lease at the cart, those interested will engage with you.
Just as long as they ''legally can'', the carts will continue.
I agree. It keeps witnesses occupied, is an easy way to count time, and it's easy for the org since they make it clear that individual publishers do it at their own risk.
However, if that were ever successfully challenged in a court and a ruling made that the org were liable for what happens with the carts (trespass, nuisance, etc, for example) they would probably drop it - but possibly only in the jurisdiction where the judgement is made. That's the pattern they've shown in other cases, for example banning house-to-house records in the UK and EU due to GDPR, but not elsewhere.
original reddit post (removed).
So what has happened to https://lloydevans.info?
Has LE had it taken down by complaining to the ISP?
Was it hacked or was there some kind of attack made on it?
It was a useful repository documenting the whole saga, so hopefully all that data is still available from other sources if it doesn't return.
ever since the annual meeting last october and the letter to bodies of elders stating that "exceptional young men perhaps in their early 20's could qualify for appointment as elders.." it even states this in the updated elders manual!
have any of you pimo's, pimq's, or those on here with family/friends still in hear of any young men being appointed as elders yet?
i am talking 21, 22, 23, 24 etc.
From what a friend of mine told me, many of the current older elders are still hesitant about it but CO's seem to pushing for training of younger ones. The GB wants this to happen.
It's a strange choice. I can understand wanting a generation younger than 70s-80s to replace the ageing elder bodies, but trying to appoint a lot of "elders" from age groups as young as 20s (or even early 30s) to take the lead is a big risk. Not only do they not have much life experience and are more likely to lack spiritual (or any kind of) maturity, but they are also much more likely to be susceptible to slipping into 'wordly' ways, as they have grown up surrounded by modern attitudes to politics, higher education, religious criticism, gender and sexuality, entertainment, etc.
Look at the current thread on here about Nicolas King, for example. Supposedly "exemplary" younger men who are still finding out who they are and exploring the world are more likely to stray from the path the GB would want than are older, more settled ones who tend to be vested in staying with the congregation especially if they have a wife, kids, etc. So if the current bodies of elders do cave in and start appointing a lot more very young men it could come back to bite the org in many ways, not just in alienating the more aged members of the congregations.
But then, as some have said here before, the GB tend to be their own worst enemies, and shoot themselves in the foot a lot.
