Posts by Journeyman

9

Have 3 buildings disappeared from the new Italian Bethel under construction since 2019? What happened to them?

by LaFrancia in

if anyone knows more, a comment is welcome.

if you visit the official jw website and search for bologna it will take you to some articles and 1 video.

the site shows a building completed in 2020 with 41 apartments, there is a photo with alleged bethelites looking out from the balconies and waving.

Journeyman

I wonder if the Italy branch is also going to end up getting the kind of downsizing that the Britain branch got?

Originally, there was talk of a whole printery and much more accommodation at the Chelmsford complex when it was first announced and the early architects' plans released. But by the time it was completed it had been much scaled down.

From what I can see, the most recent update regarding the Italy branch was in the video LaFrancia mentioned, made in 2022 (from 2:30 to 4:00) - URL broken up to prevent hotlinking:

JW dot org /en/library/videos/#en/mediaitems/VODPgmEvtAnnMtg/pub-jwb-100_11_VIDEO

There are three intriguing things I learned from it:
1) That originally the branch was intending to use volunteer Witnesses in the construction (as is usually done), but for some unstated reason they went with secular construction companies instead.
2) Although COVID inevitably interrupted the work, it is said that it only stopped construction completely for one month. So why has the project taken so long?
2) That the original finish date was to be the end of 2023 (in previous updates of 2019 and 2020), but now the latest finish date is said to be the end of 2024.

So why did they go with the additional costs of a secular construction company?
And why has the project taken so long, with at least a year being added to the completion date?

wannaexit is probably right about money running out, especially as they went to outside construction companies rather than use their pool of free labour. But knowing the lack of transparency from the Org, Italian Witnesses will probably not get satisfactory answers to any questions they might have.

65

WT needs your kids uneducated: CO training video is Master Class in F.O.G. This is jaw-droppingly stupid. Beyond moronic, it's sub-moronic.

by WingCommander in

jw
friends

co training video: link to ex-jw reddit thread discussion.

today is the first time i was made aware of this actual elder body video.

it's training for how a co should handle elder's whose children decide to pursue further education.

Journeyman

KerryKing used a key word earlier: agendas

Any individual, group or government trying to push education with any sort of agenda is going to distort facts and create people whose "education" is limited at best.

Of course, to some extent, we all have what could be called "agendas" or "ulterior motives". A healthy society has to be built on some sort of consensus and agreed norms.

But when these are enforced by fear, threats, and emotional or physical abuse - as is the case in high control groups and even, increasingly, in general society with concepts like CRT, and various political and social theories taught as fact and now being backed up by laws and with "cancel culture" - that's when "education" can turn bad.

Critical thinking - in other words, the ability to analyse and weigh evidence, and apply reason, as freely as possible from personal bias and assumptions - is vital, so as not to be mislead by any intellectual dishonesty, whether it's from religions, politicians, corporations or social movements.

You don't have to be taught at home, or in some kind of separate commune, university or seminary.
You don't have to travel to other parts of the world.
You don't have to be either religious or non-religious.
You don't have to conform either to past views of history, race, gender, etc, nor to the new orthodoxies on these subjects that current "influential" people are trying to promote.

But you do need to be prepared to relinquish your own personal pet assumptions, or at least suspend them in order to evaluate new experiences and evidence you are exposed to. (We all need to have a working model of the world in our minds - you'd go crazy without one. But we should be able and willing to modify it if the facts require it.)

We also need to be prepared to recognise that other people have differing models of how the world works in their minds, and live by those, and that that is fine and not something we should fear or fight against (as long as they are not trying to influence others by force).

Another thing that is essential in clear, critical thinking but is sadly being lost in most communities is being able to assess issues and act in a calm and dispassionate manner: not getting over-emotional or hyped up with rage, nor becoming aggressive or militant. We're seeing increasing polarised attitudes on many issues, leading to aggression and abuse. We're seeing it in all the flashpoint issues of our time: L v R politics, immigration, race, gender, big pharma, anti-capitalism, etc.

65

WT needs your kids uneducated: CO training video is Master Class in F.O.G. This is jaw-droppingly stupid. Beyond moronic, it's sub-moronic.

by WingCommander in

jw
friends

co training video: link to ex-jw reddit thread discussion.

today is the first time i was made aware of this actual elder body video.

it's training for how a co should handle elder's whose children decide to pursue further education.

Journeyman

The Borg has no scripture to base their stance on education

This is a key point to me, and it has always amazed me how adamantly opposed to ANY sort of further or higher education the org is. There are plenty of scriptures that highlight the value of knowledge, of using the "power of reason", and so on.

The apostle Paul was a highly educated man of his time, as were a number of other disciples and apostles. His education actually became a benefit to the early Christians, as the org often points out (whether knowingly or not) whenever they talk about him reasoning with the Greeks about the statue to an "unknown god", being able to preach to "all sorts of men" (including kings and governors), and so on.

All of this points to the fact that being educated in a "worldly" sense is not inherently wrong - it's about WHAT you learn and HOW you use it (as most people would recognise).

As some have said, I can understand warning the congregation of temptations from certain types of association, or even certain academic subjects - but to make a blanket ruling against all additional education beyond the minimum, and to "enforce" it by threatening to punish fathers who are elders or ministerial servants is crazy. And those same warnings apply to life in general. In the workplace, or just in your own neighbourhood, you will encounter people who could be "bad association" - you just have to learn to deal with that, not run away from it. Didn't Jesus also say Christians should be "in the world, but no part of it"?

In wealthier and more educated countries, the org has made some low-key concessions in recent years by talking vaguely about "if there is the need to take on further education to earn a living", which is generally equated with vocational skills (which of course are valuable in themselves), and in places like that, it's generally accepted now for youths to go to college for practical courses without any suspicion or accusations, but clips like this show the org are still very resistant to come out and state that being educated in itself is fine, and can (and should) be an honourable goal.

By so strongly discouraging further and higher education, the GB are shooting themselves in the foot in terms of trying to maintain a future for the organisation. This will continue to drive young (and not-so-young but intellectually hungry) people away, and also disillusion more MS and elders who want to see their children develop themselves.

11

Relevant message on Reddit about current elders

by Gorb in

jw
friends

read this relevant message on reddit, about current elders.. https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/1eb0ees/the_changes_are_affecting_elders_the_hardest_in/.

spot on, isn't it?.

gorby.

Journeyman

Don't blame the Governing body because elders just follow along. They need to stand up for what they believe and be their own people.

That's all well and good, and in some cases I do agree (especially up until the recent past) that that might have been the case, but in recent years - certainly since around the 2000s when the current GB began to come together - there are a number of things that mitigate against that.

1) In some - perhaps many - congregations, some elders hold more sway than others. For example, where you have families where two or more men (perhaps father and son) are on the body of elders. In these cases, even if you are an elder trying to appeal to mercy and leniency in a judicial matter, you could be overruled and possibly even brow-beaten into changing your view to accept the harsher outcome because more influential or dominant elders force their opinion on the rest.

2) In areas where the organisation has completely changed the direction - such as the subject of submitting ministry hours, or in some doctrinal matters, you could have been a faithful elder agreeing with, and obeying, exactly what you are told for years, but now you are expected to do a complete 180° turn, yet still hold to the idea that when you were doing the exact opposite you were also doing the right thing. In such cases, that's not the choice of the elder at all - it's the GB that has moved the goalposts by "reinterpreting" the Scriptures and how they should be applied.

Also, bear in mind that in areas where elders had more discretion in the past, that has often been taken away and replaced with more explicit direction. Think for example of all the branch letters these days which give minute detail about how to carry out actions and convey information, along with frequent revisions to the elders' Shepherd book on what should or should not be done in various matters.

Think also of the congregation meetings themselves: years ago, the organisation provided an outline programme in the Kingdom Ministry of how each midweek meeting should be conducted, but local elders could (and did) deliver and emphasise points according to their own discretion for their own congregation. Now meetings are increasingly proscriptive, often with videos which are expected to be played directly, and only limited, pre-formatted questions which must be asked, with no additional time for variation or deviation from the "script". Likewise, the CBS, which has been brought into the main midweek meeting and so now has little variance, and also often has significant video segments (depending on the publication). Even the CO visits can have video clips directed from "on high" from GB HQ itself.

The room for elders to apply their own "Bible-based conscience", knowledge of the local Witnesses, or personal discretion has been severely reduced in many areas, now that everything is provided directly from "mother" online and in videos and broadcasts.

136

List of UK Travelling Overseers in 2013

by soiledumpling in

hi pepeep am attempting to get a current list of uk travelling overseers.

left 4 years ago and have heard rumours of many new ones.

.

Journeyman

Is Andrew Smith still on the circuit?

Was he short and chubby? Quite friendly for a CO? If so, he reminded me of a hamster - small and round with no neck! Seemed decent enough, although I didn't really have any dealings with him.

Last I heard, he was on a foreign language circuit somewhere in London. Arabic I think? But that was just before COVID so he'd be somewhere else by now I reckon.

29

2024--Become a Circuit Overseer in Your Mid-to-Late 20's!

by Atlantis in

jw
friends

become a circuit overseer in your mid to late 20's.

you would have had to qualify as an elder previously.

this would mean the male would have had to have been an elder in his early 20's.

Journeyman

They don't have a choice IMO. The number of older men who are still willing to carry the water for WTC is diminishing quickly, and there is a gap of elders in the 30-50 year bracket. They are actually targeting teenagers, hoping that they will be incentivized to stick with the org instead of leaving when they hit their 20's.
THEY MUST MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE SHEEP - even if they have to use pre-pubescent boys to do so.

You could be right, but if that is their thinking, it's also doomed to fail. Fast-tracking inexperienced, ill-prepared young men into positions of leadership is a sure-fire way to wreck things, both administratively and in terms of personalities and congregation "harmony".

Again, look at examples from the "real" world - when too many young and newly-promoted people rise to the top in the police, military, skilled trades and industry, and so on, the quality of output, workmanship and reputation all suffer. You need a balance of youthful energy and creativity from new members along with maturity of experience and thought from older members to get the best out of a group dynamic (and to be more representative).

Tight pants told us, if you're not a MS in your early 20's who would want to be around you.

Yeah, and whatever happened to him? I wonder if he ever reflects on the old adage: "It's not where you start, it's where you finish".

As BluesBrother hinted at, I would bet a lot of these fast-tracked young men will fall away (their beliefs will be too weak and untested or they will just change their mind and be drawn to other things - and people - outside) or they will burn out due to lacking the maturity to pace themselves and balance their lives. And on the way, they will mess up a lot of other people who actually try to follow their "guidance" as "older men". I think any older people - married couples, parents, etc - will just nod at their immature "instruction", stop listening and go and do what they think is best - which will be exactly the opposite of what the Org wants.

25

Not going to say a word

by berrygerry in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-0p-5x2g4w.

Journeyman

It's part of the reason why I've always thought the Bethel environment an unhealthy one.

Self-contained (and often rigidly enforced single-sex) environments like military bases, youth camps, religious seminaries and so on have all proved to be perfect environments for the proliferation of sexual deviance, excessive mental and social control, power trips, violence and other unhealthy behaviours.

Jesus encouraged his disciples to live relatively "normal" lives within their own communities ("In the world but no part of the world", etc), not shut themselves away in private communes.

11

Why the term "disfellowshipped " was removed

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/ags07jlopcy?si=g9ra1jqksuuauyax.

Journeyman

This is yet another example of the rushed and muddled thinking and lack of proper advanced planning in the Org these days.

Major changes like removing the phrase "disfellowshipping" - even if only semantics in the end - will have huge implications for all the videos, webpages and print publications already released (as Jeffro indicates above).

So once again, the Org is going to have to throw time and (more importantly for them) money at changing all that stuff again. Ok, you could argue that the electronic materials will not really cost them, as it's only the time of their IT staff, and that's free labour.

But reprinting all those Enjoy Life study brochures and books? And what about the current book they're studying at the Book Study? They've only just reissued that again in 2023. And of course, yet another edition of the Elders book and the Pioneer school book, among other print materials. What a load more waste, with no proper planning.

And of course, no guarantee they won't change something else that's pretty major in another 6 months or a year, as they stumble from one legal challenge or doctrinal about-turn to another. And the more fancy material they propagate - videos, animations, etc - the more they set themselves up for having to change later.

For all it's flaws in the past, at least the basic theology appeared to have some sort of internal "logic" and integrity. Now it's just change and tinker about with whatever you want to, from year to year, even if it messes up other stuff in the doctrine.

I think, as someone has said before, they miss having a Fred Franz character who at least had some kind of "big picture" idea of what to believe. Now it's just make it up as you go along.

1

What do door-to-door Jehovah's Witnesses do when someone speaks another language than is common in the community?

by JenovasWitness in

don't mind me, am new.

the lemm.ee jw community (where i'm shinigamiookamiryuu) died so expect more questions.. i have a question.

what do door-to-door witnesses do when someone whose door they knock on speaks another language?

Journeyman

They used to have a handbook called Good News for All Nations with a potted introduction in multiple languages which could be shown to the householder (if you could find out from them what language they speak) and which enabled the publisher to go back with literature in their language and pass on their details to an appropriate language congregation. If permission was given (or often, even if it wasn't - in the UK and EU this was the days before GDPR) the details were then written on a yellow slip and given to the relevant language congregation.

Today there are two other options, both of which require a mobile device: Download/playback a relevant video in their language from the JW Library app or the JW website, or if you really want to make the effort, use the fairly new JW Language app to find out some sentences in that language to make basic conversation. It is a kind of Babelfish tool, which enables the publisher to have some handy preaching phrases.

Of course, you can also just have a few basic items like tracts with you in other languages, if you know what the main ones are. In the UK, apart from the main European languages, it's mainly going to be Polish, Romanian, Albanian, Arabic and some South Asian languages like Urdu, or Punjabi. Then just hand someone one of those to read and direct them to the JW website to find their own language for themselves. That's the lazier option.

2952

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

by Simon in

jw
friends

uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

Journeyman

It’s a shame really, how things have ended, as his work was to a very high standard. [...] He is also the only guy I know of who has been able to make a living on the back of watchtower, and I think in his prime, quite a successful one.

While it's true he was successful at making a living for a while, and I did used to enjoy watching some of his content for a period of a year or so up until he imploded, it now seems clear that even during that seemingly most successful time, he was really leeching off the work of others (for example, Mark O'Donnell, Covert Fade and other contacts doing the actual legwork, Dijana and Tibor doing video work and admin, Kim and Producer Bob, and so on).

He had a certain way of fronting and presenting which appeared at least semi-professional, with his extensive JW library and the bunker, but we now know it was all just for show, with no real depth.

His decisions since being forced to go solo show that the real creativity, knowledge and skill did not originate from him but from the people he gravitated towards and kept around him.