by JW GoneBad 113 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
Let me point out what should be an obvious sign that they can't get brothers to do much of anything:
Handling the microphones!
Decades ago, we had plenty of young MEN to handle the mics - there was no problem! Today, I see congregations in which men over 30 or 40 or more handling the mics - sometimes the elders themselves!
metatron
:In the U.S. apparently the total number of Elders is 88,500+ as opposed to M Ss 65,000. The numbers show & numbers don't lie: The Society is running out of Spiritual Men. The instructor stated that this is a new downward trend that has (in so many words) the Society worried.
The reason for the Society being worried about this problem is obvious. What if a typically large Corporation had more upper-level management personnel than middle/lower management personnel and couldn't find a way to increase the lower management ranks? What would that tell you?
In many business environments, people work their way up from being grunts, to supervisors to upper-level management. The process can take years and it requires retention of personnel for that cycle to continue. Now a typical Corporation can just go and and hire people to replace those at all levels of management.
A religious printing Corporation cannot do that. EVERYONE has work their way up through the ranks, and in the congregational world, the elder is king shit. But even a MS has to have been a hard-working and loyal member for a number of years before he can get that rank.
There are only a very few and obvious possibilities for this situation:
1) Dubs drop out of the religion before they can be groomed long enough to be promoted.
2) Dubs that do stay are not loyal or bright enough to be promoted.
3) Dubs that stay are bright enough, but don't give a shit about being promoted and in fact, don't even want to be promoted.
THAT is why the GB is so worried. Their religion is becoming irrelevant even to its own membership. Remember, those who are now elders are mostly long-timers and probably born-ins, not recent recruits.
I'd be worried too, if I was on the GB.
Farkel
marking....
What a DELICIOUS turn of affairs!!!
I have a sying & it goes like this:
"sis on you pister, you aint so muckin fuch".... i would love to share that with the WTBTS !
Maybe they'll come up with a different strategy Farkel, considering that they don't model themselves on worldly corporations. ;)
The long serving elders would be getting very downhearted in face of the lack of interested from the younger men. The brow beating should work wonders.
It has always been my experience in the organization that when the Society puts a call out for men to be groomed, it has been for the most part the older men (the Elders) who have been the ones recruited to do the recruiting & grooming.
It was different this time at the KM school for M Ss.
There was a part entitled....'Encourage Young Men To Reach Out'.
In this part it wasn't the Elders being urged to assist young men to reach out. Nor was it M Ss being urged to assist the Elders in assisting other young men to reach out. This talk was focusing on the M Ss themselves, to take it upon themselves to groom younger fellas in the congregations to reach out for more responsibilities. That was a first for me to hear!
This to me was another indicator of how disparate the GB are in trying to fill the gaping hole of dwindling 'spiritual men'.
I remember when the Society years ago was reporting & hinting in the Awake (AW 3/22/75 pg 16 'An Open Letter To Catholic Priests and Aw 3/22/91 pg 28 Watching The World) & in some Watchtower articles how the decline in priests in the Catholic Church was a sure sign that her days were numbered.
Well guess what? No sooner had the Society pointed the finger at what seemed to be the beginning of the end for the Pope & The Vatican when the GB started to experience what seems to be the same demise.
The difference in the outcome is more obvious for the WTBTS. The retention rate (as recent studies show) of young ones is much, much lower for the WTBTS & JWs than it is for Catholicisom.
So I would say that the Society has enough to worry about without having to find fault with other religious institutions in this area!
The more I review my notes of the KM school the more it occurs to me that one thread that is woven thru out this KM school program is the decline of priestclergy 'Spiritual Men' in the organization.
I guess that is the price that is paid when an organization such as the JWs has such a harsh, mean spirited, unloving and cruel policy of disfellowshipping and shunning. You wind up driving qualified good men & their families away!
This is the price the org is paying for not showing Christ like love!
Things seem to have changed somewhat in 30 years!:
- in the congregation I was with then, young fellows were climbing over themselves to get used in any way in the Kingdom Hall; just so they might one day be considered for appointment as ministerial servant.
Bill.
So, they want more elders and Ms's? Forget using existing brothers for 'encouragement' - go after the wives! Many of them lust after becoming elderesses.
Another problem they have are congregations loaded with ex-elders and servants! There are many congregations in which various brothers can't fade away - so they 'hang out' in the congregation just enough to be visible but nevertheless exist as a negative example for younger men. They have learned NOT to 'reach out' the hard way - and that lesson is being quietly transmitted.
The job of being an elder is very draining but requires no depth of intelligence (just look at the meetings!). Indeed, the dumb ones survive better. However, having the Governing Body lead thousands of congregations manned by inept dolts is not a task to be desired.
metatron
I do not think I was such a great elder. I fall into the stats of men not reaching out again. They lost me too. I was 40 when I was deleted as an elder and left the Organization completely 9 months later after transferring to another KH and circuit and state. I faded away and I am now 44.
I was a regular pioneer and a graduate of MTS (Ministerial Training School -- 62nd US Class - 2002 --- take that Bethel). I used to pick up the slack of the MSs and elders in our KH by taking on extra assignments and parts and talks. It was difficult to get MSs especially to do any more than they had to do. So when I left, I wonder who picked up the slack?
Oh, that's right, this reminds me of something I once heard while temping at Bethel: "How much do you matter? Put your finger in a cup of water, remove your finger, the hole that is left is all that you really mattered. Jehovah can and will replace you immediately." Looks like that water is turning to jelly.
After I had to leave my MTS assignment after only a few months because of health issues (OK... I quickly tired of the lack of support in the assignment truth be told), WTBTS dropped me like a hot potato. I got very few parts on assemblies and those were minor. If you are not a company man all the way, the will not have much to do with you.
On the one hand, I am glad to see this situation occurring. On the other hand, I really don't give a $hit.
Snakes (Rich )
The congregation I was in before leaving had 6 elders and 9 MS, with myself being the youngest MS at the time being only 22 when I called it quits. The next to youngest MS' were in their mid thirties and the rest were 45 or older. The elders on the other hand were quite up there in age, with all of them except one being in their 70s, and the youngest elder being around 50.
The future of this particular congregation is bleak, unless something miraculous has happened in the few years since i've left. None of the few JW males my age had any interest in "reaching out", and I didn't blame them, especially after they saw how I became the elders' slave after becoming an MS.
