Posts by committeechairman

69

Your Experience with Resigning as an Elder

by committeechairman in

i'm considering resigning as an elder.

i'm not planning to fade or stop as one of jehovah's witnesses, just stop serving as an elder.. i have responsibility in the congregation and in circuit, district, rbc, etc.

and i'm completely exhausted.

committeechairman

I'm considering resigning as an elder. I'm not planning to fade or stop as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, just stop serving as an elder.

I have responsibility in the congregation and in circuit, district, RBC, etc. and I'm completely exhausted. i'm so far behind on all the work that I will never catch up. I seldom get to spend any significant time with the family and I basically am working from the time I get up in the morning till the time I drop into bed seven days a week.

My health is failing and I just can't keep up. A lot of what is going on for elders disturbs me, not sure if because I'm getting old and change is becoming harder to deal with or what. However, the bottom line is that I just can't keep up with all of this. I need to stop.

That all having been said, two of my friends stopped recently and basically described it as wonderful not to be in this grind anymore. They both had similar levels of responsibility that I have. However, they don't really get treated all that well. Kind of persona non grata stuff.

So, I thought I'd cast a wider net and see what your experiences were. I'm really looking for experiences, not so much opinions but if you have one I'd be happy to hear it.

Thanks for reading this post.

CC

22

Looking for BOE letter regarding DF'd at memorial

by Dutchdelight in

last year i decided to attend the memorial.

i came in last minute and ended up sitting at the end of the row.

when the symbols were passed out they skipped me and gave to the person next to me.

committeechairman

There isn't one. Several Watchtower references might apply:

I think this is the one that some elders are operating under:

*** w56 6/15 p. 383 Questions From Readers ***
. A disfellowshiped person is no member of Jehovah’s congregation and may not be served the emblems by those serving at the celebration of the Lord’s evening meal

However, more recent references clearly indicate that those who attend and are disfellowshipped should be served:

*** w58 8/1 p. 478 Questions From Readers ***
It is not for you or anyone serving the Memorial emblems to act as the judge, but to allow the emblems to go to anyone in the audience as these are passed along in the normal manner of letting each one have the opportunity to partake.

*** w76 2/1 p. 76 “Keep Doing This in Remembrance of Me” ***
. We do not invite disfellowshiped persons to attend. But if such a one is present, there is no reason to be disturbed if he is seated in a row with others and proceeds to partake of the emblems. Such a one is not counted, in any case, as a partaker.

This implies he would be served, otherwise he would not be able to partake.

Just curious, what part of the world are you in? If in the USA what part of the country are you in generally?

CC

7

Will the Dress and Grooming Guidelines for Bethel Visitors Morph to This?

by committeechairman in

from this: http://tinyurl.com/l7qa77e.

to this: http://tinyurl.com/abhv6yf.

north korea only allows 28 state approved haircuts.

committeechairman

Fixed it. Try again!

4

Juan V2 on the RBCs

by L3G in

i hope juan viejo2 will not mind if i repost his comment from the hot thread on firing the dos being an early indication of a much bigger project the gb has in mind:.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/277270/5/will-firing-the-dos-be-the-first-step-to-a-new-watchtower#.uzcp_f21wxc.

he was responding to my request for more info on how the reported disbanding of the rbcs fits into this overall plan the gb has in mind to reshape the org.. surprisingly, i've been fortunate to meet many former jws who were very active volunteers for the rbc new builds.

committeechairman

I've been working on this one for a while since the letters came out on this.

The deal is that in most of the metro areas of the US Kingdom Halls are very overloaded and the RBCs are very far behind in building new Halls. They seem to do OK with remodels but the new projects can take years and years. Based on everything I've been able to determine, it looks like the way the RBCs work may change, since the direction is to take the way construction works in other countries (where groups of full-time construction servants do all the projects) and the way RBC has worked in the US and that the two operating models will be fused together somehow.

The folks I talked to seemed to think that it was a possibility that the RBC organizations in whatever their new form will be would help with organizing local volunteer help and would operate in more rural areas where there is not as much of a need for new KHs - these RBCs are not as far behind as some of the ones in the US metro areas. It looks like those would come under direction of the new Local Design/Construction department at the branch office. The metro areas where the need is greatest would probably have LDC field offices that the guys who used to be RBC would report in to. It sounds like full time branch appointees would be in oversight - not so much local folks who can't work full time during the week.

The main idea here is that work has to go on during the week - seven days a week - and not just on the weekends. This is the main impetus behind the change as I understand it from the folks I talked with.

7

Will the Dress and Grooming Guidelines for Bethel Visitors Morph to This?

by committeechairman in

from this: http://tinyurl.com/l7qa77e.

to this: http://tinyurl.com/abhv6yf.

north korea only allows 28 state approved haircuts.

committeechairman

From this: http://tinyurl.com/l7qa77e

to this: http://tinyurl.com/abhv6yf

North Korea only allows 28 state approved haircuts.

Couldn't help thinking that this is a logical outcome of the current direction.

What do you think?

CC

EDIT: link broken

8

Governing Body and Security

by NeverKnew in

i was told that unlike christendom's pastors of mega-churches, members of the governing body don't require a security team and that you can just walk right up to them and talk to them.. is this true?.

.

committeechairman

This is not true. Until recently it was. Now in most cases there is escort to prevent open contact, especially at conventions.

23

Are You Comfortable With Who You Now Are?

by minimus in

jw
friends

many jws are misfits and many that were raised as jws find it difficult to be "normal".

are you comfortable with yourself at this point in time?.

committeechairman

No.

46

War over preparing for WT study

by cookiemaster in

i know that title sounds weird but so is this situation.

with the following information i'm about to desconspire myself a little bit, but i don't really care since i will simply deny it if any of my elders are lurking here.

anyway the situation is the following.

committeechairman

To the best of my knowledge, an arrangement like the one you describe is only sanctioned in the US Branch territory for a foreign-language group. The days of having a remote group start with the WT study is generally gone. Is this going on in the US? I may have missed it if you said so in previous posts.

In any case, the MS' behavior here is unacceptable. Most elders I know would never dare treat brothers and sisters in the way you describe. Folks that act like this don't qualify and should be removed. You should talk with the CO directly to explain what is happening to him. You're within your rights to do so.

58

New congregation accounting system

by thedog1 in

i'm sure i read a thread here about the new congregation accounting procedures.

i ask because i handle the accounts in our cong and in our part of the world the new accounting system has just arrived whereby local congs do not have their own account any longer, but all funds outside of basic monthly costs is forwarded to an account controlled by the org.

this is causing huge confusion in our cong as we have to work out how much we need to keep back for monthly costs and the new idea is that you send all your extra cash to the org and if you need it back you can ask for it but we don't know how easy or hard it would be to do that.

committeechairman

This isn't happening in the US...yet. I'm fairly confident that not only will the arrangement for accounting and bill payment switch to the branch office handling routine expenses but as it is in many countries, ownership and management of Kingdom Halls (build/operate/remodel/decommission) is handled more directly to the branch office and out of local hands.

An arrangement of this type does cut out a huge amount of complexity for the branch in dealing with the local brothers...but the local bodies of elders will really just be told what will happen with expenses and with KHs. This will be a monumental shift for most all the brothers. Very few will be comfortable with this.

I expect this move in the US to occur within 18 months.

29

When you bring your lunch, bring along extra's to feed others

by Quarterback in

last week's service meeting had brought out the experience in the 2013 yb about sharing their lunch with someone in the audience, who didn'y have anything.

although i beleive this to be a good idea, but, i couldn't help but think how things had changed.

the society wasn't playing by that same principle of hospitality, when they had the food arrangement at the assemblies.

committeechairman

I think the comments from LongHairGal and DATA-DOG are right on. This is exactly where this is all leading. What I don't know is precisely what the income to the branch offices and HQ is being used for. While it is true that there is some construction cost to the Warwick/Tuxedo project, that is a small expenditure compared to the income generated from the sale of property in New York. The only costs there are for material, a small bit of contracted work, and property/permits. Everything else is a massive amount of volunteer labor - and the volunteers have to get themselves there and back with no expense relief except for (maybe) room and board (not sure if this covers everyone who comes from RBC to help).

The actual contributions that come in for congregations is fairly miniscule and comes from a small number of congregation members. However, at circuit and district/international events, the contributions are more significant. While at circuit events the donations are directly remitted to the assembly hall or venue rented with some donations going to Worldwide Work, for district conventions all contributions are remitted to the branch office and the branch office handles venue expenses directly. A rough back of the napkin calculation for district conventions in the US would yield roughly $12m after venue expenses so the income from those is not as much as you'd think. The large proceeds from the real estate sold might approach $1b, but I suspect that this is a hedge against drastically dropping Worldwide Work contributions - which are about a 1/4 of what they were 20 years ago. Investing those funds won't gain them much but the run time will be significant in the face of drastically reduced income.

In the end, if we expect the organization to provide general relief when the next big financial collapse occurs, I think their direction from them is going to be that the few employed people share everything with everyone. And that is going to be extremely difficult for most folks to do. Very difficult.