District Assemblies Not All They are Cracked Up to Be

by WTWizard 32 Replies latest jw experiences

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  legalchickie

  What a pleasure it is to be able to now speak of how I really felt about DCs. I hated them!! I remember how I would always shop around thrift stores to find suits for my boys. Since I was divorced even doing that was stretching the dollars. I detested the stupid conventions but was very careful not to express that to anyone else. Just having those thoughts made me feel guilty.

  My husband at the time I joined (1982), left us because he hated the religion. If it hadn't been for being "in the truth," I would probably still be married to him! When I finally stopped going to meetings (2 years past), even though I am not DFS, my sister will not have anything to do with me, but it has been worth it.

  When I found this forum recently, I was estatic!! At last I have found online friends that truly can understand how wonderful it is to be out of the grip of this horrible organization.

  No more boring service meetings, no more book studies, no more field service, no more boring conventions, no more literature!! I AM FREE AT LAST!!!
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  rogerdodger

  This was my first year not to attend. I did miss not seeing friends that I really only saw at conventions but since I'm DF'd I couldn't talk to them anyway. I live in a large metropolitan area so there was always plenty of female scenery and it was always nice! And since there was usually 4 or 5 conventions, you could see a lot if you could put up with the heat, the long drive, craptacular parking, cramped and uncomfortable seating, BYOLunch, screaming children and that annoying, reverberating voice or voices coming from the 2 speakers pointed at your section....well, just bring binoculars and tune that out. There was plenty of entertainment to be found... The morbidly obese that would waddle to the bathroom and you wondered how they could even walk ... People falling down the stairs... The family of 12 that would come in 2 hours late with the full size cooler and a pillow for everyone to sleep on (really what's the point?)... the people that would come in off the street and the attendants would surround them and watch them like they were terrorist apostates... and of course the occasional person that would stand up during one of the talks and start screaming and be escorted out..
  
  I would bring a notepad sometimes to take notes, but always felt that I had heard that same info every year before. Then there were the BS, half-fiction 'experiences' from the stage. My sister had a couple of opportunities to relate some BS, and she even admitted that her story wasn't very compelling so the brother told her to embellish it a bit. I knew quite a few that were on the program and knowing the actual story as compared to what was said on stage made me question every single person that went up there. There were the families who were supposedly exemplary, but in reality were just like everyone else, they were just told to say they had a regular study and went out in service and maybe one of the teens said no to drugs or sex. One brother that was always giving experiences and seemed to be very exemplary was actually mentally deranged and was probably lying about half of what he said. He was on the platform every year from his teen years up until he went to Bethel.... he thought he should be in the writing department and refused to accept the grunt work. Needless to say he was asked to leave and when he came back he said the GB was racist and corrupt.. Now he might have been right about some of that..
  
  Can't say I really miss it that much along with all the other BS associated with the JW life.
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  jgnat

  It's laughable when a congregation member tries to pump up the glories of the assembly to me. You know, to encourage me to come. The highlight is always the drama. Pffft. Do they think I'm dense? That I've never watched television, gone to a movie, or seen a live play?

  If the drama is the highlight of the assembly, they have major problems.