I just heard this a few minutes ago by a JW friend who is still an elder in my old hall.
The Kingdom Hall I used to attend and my mom still attends was paid off many years ago and serves about 6 congregations. One of the English congregations has a lot of financially well of members. Right before the WT asked all the congregations to hand over all the money, the well -off congregation had over $100,000 in their savings account and the other English congregation had $40,000 in their savings.The others are Spanish and they also had a substantial amount but I’m not privy to how much each congregation had.
They already had the plans and approval of the former RBC to remodel the Kingdom Hall, parking lot, and remote control fence. Needless to say they were upset when the WT asked for all the money to be sent to them. The CO assured them that since they have saved more than enough for a remodeling, all they had to do is ask Headquarters for a loan and it would not be a problem. Well it was a problem, they were denied.
So the elders of one English congregation took it upon themselves to open a secret savings account at the bank and save to remodel their own hall. They view it, not as being rebellious but as something personal they wanted to do on their own. And there was no instructions saying they couldn’t do that. So they saved up to $70,000.
When the Circuit overseer visited the Kingdom Hall, one of the Elders is exactly like that character played by Charlie Day, in the movie Horrible Bosses who always spills the beans. He just can’t keep his mouth shut. So when everyone was at coffee break with the CO, he blurts out something like, “Were gonna have a New Hall”
Everyone just shuts up. The CO starts asking him, “What are you talking about” the elder tries to evade the question but the CO keeps drilling him and drilling him until finally the elder breaks and tells the CO they’ve been saving money to remodel the Hall. The CO has a fit and starts to investigate and discovers the elders set up a separate account to remodel the hall and they argue all week long. The elders feel this has nothing to do with the Society since it is a personal account they set up on their own and the CO feels they can’t do that since it is for God’s Organization and some of the sheep contributed to the fund and they are working apart from it. They call the Watchtower for direction and the direction comes back which says;
“Send all the Money to the Watchtower”
As a result of this two elders have stepped down and not returned to the meetings but the wives and children are still attending. So now those families are being broken up and the congregation still can’t remodel the Kingdom hall.
To add insult to injury the CO recommended that since the congregation could afford to save $70,000 so quickly, then it would only be appropriate to raise the monthly contribution that is sent to the Society by another $1000 a month.
The problem is that since that happened a few months ago the congregation has not been able to collect even the previous amount before the $1000 was added by the CO. I believe the members are very upset and many are not contributing anymore. The elders and MS are being asked every month to dig deep into their pockets to make up for the deficit.
Which is why the elder called me, he was thinking of stepping down as an elder because the stress is too much and he wanted to know what it was like when you step down.
I told him what it was like. No elder’s meetings, no judicial meetings at night that last till midnight, no elders meeting after the conventions, no CO meetings, no shepherding calls to worry about, no Sunday talks to prepare, no out of town elder’s schools to prepare. No special meetings to go to. No getting chewed out by the CO. No having to deal with stupid elders.
And I went on and on till his face started turning red with anger. I thought for a while he was getting mad at me, but then he said, “That’s it, I'm turning in my resignation this Thursday”