Finding time

Jordandemm

Is it possible to full time pioneer while working a full time job without making up the hours? I know of a brother who recently got married too a pioneer the guy was really desperate to get married because his wife despite her many 'spiritual credentials' has very few Christ-like qualities unfortunately, anyway that's besides the point. He is a pioneer now and I'm sure he will be a MS soon the organisation likes that type of stuff the 'pioneer couple' so it shouldn't come as a surprise. But where does he honestly find the time especially with taking on more responsibility?

Spiral

I know some people who -literally - get up, start writing a letter (for leaving at a not-at-home) and then proceed to count the hours during the day, as long as they pause intermittently to give someone a tract, etc. So a Saturday can be 9 hours of time if you drag it along like that. They seem to think its okay.

Listener

This is from the jw org online about pioneers

The term “pioneer” often refers to those who explore new territories and open up a way for others to follow. Jesus was a pioneer of sorts, having been sent to the earth to perform a life-giving ministry and to open the way to salvation. (Matthew 20:28) Today, his followers are imitating him by spending as much time as possible ‘making disciples.’ (Matthew 28:19, 20) Some have been able to take up what we call the pioneer service.
A pioneer is a full-time evangelizer. All of Jehovah’s Witnesses are publishers of the good news. However, some have organized their life to serve as regular pioneers, spending 70 hours each month in the preaching work. To do this, many limit their secular work to part-time

Notice the last section which suggests that there are some that continue to work full time.

At 70 hours a month, it equates to 16 hours a week. (66 hours a week - FT job and pioneering). I thought this would not be unusual for people in the US who have two jobs, a job with lots of overtime or a secular job requiring this.

Just as a side point I found the statements by the org interesting and a bit more honest than usual, although still obscure to a degree. They basically admit that they are not using the word 'pioneer' in its normal meaning.

Beth Sarim

66 a week. So about 9 hours and a bit every day. If some methods, like Spiral, easily attainable. Slouching around in the back of an S.U.V. or loitering around those carts, easy time. In the meantime catch up on facebook and texting friends too.

brandnew

Its just crazy.....how jw's care so much about their score sheet. Its like the widow who only put a few coins in the coffers......it really doesnt matter how many hours ya put in....

But its all %ullshit anyhow !!!!

Max Puppy

the truth is mine

I actually pioneered from the time I was 19 until I was 39 and worked at least a full time job and was an MS. Half of those years were 90 hours a month and then the last half were 70 hours a month. I did not do the common start your time with at tract in a phone booth crap. For some stupid reason I thought I actually had to do the time. Living in a rural area we did do a lot of rural service though I did my fair share of walking blocks. As the territory servant I would work all the town territory that no one else would work so that the CO would not yell at me for having territory over a year old. My schedule was service seven days a week and work six days a week. After I got married I also added a second job to that schedule working three nights a week,and I was an elder for several of those final years serving as a book study conductor, service overseer, circuit speaker, sound coordinator and substitute TMS overseer as well. When I stopped being an elder and a Pioneer it was the greatest moment of my life up to that point. A total relief.. Of course I had started to suspect that I had been wasting my time and my life. Now I look back and it makes me so mad that I wasted so much of my life on bull shit.

cognac

I did. But, that didn't last long. Started pioneering in September, by December I was an apostate, lol

Carol1111

Must be exhausting. Sad too.

stephanie61092

I have seen it go both ways, it just depends on the nature of the person doing it and why they want that official title of being a "pioneer."

In my old cong, there was a woman who worked full time but she would go in early service before work, do letter writing on lunch, evening service after work twice per week, full day on Saturday and then finally service for about an hour before and after meeting on Sunday. She did this for quite some time before turning in an application. I know she believed it was the best way to live her life and didn't care about having a title and/or obligation.

However, in my current cong, there is a brother who gets the majority of his time on the weekends "encouraging" those who are struggling and doing letter writing in the homes of the elderly who can't go in service; he even admitted to always stopping at the gas station before work to leave a tract with his phone number on it and then counting his commute time to work and then placing another tract in the phone vestibule of his office. He claimed he could count his commute time because if someone at the gas station found his tract and was really interested, they could call him and he would be available for discussion while he drove! He said that it was his way of a "guaranteed 6-7 hours per week without sacrificing or doing much."

jookbeard

I think its very easy, I knew one pionsneer in my old cong who worked full time and pissed through the hours 90/month back then, he claimed it was very easy to witness and place literature with his work collogues, he even claimed he clocked 18 hours in one day, it got him onto the pioneer school also, they have some easy ways to book masses of hours weather it be leaving a leaflet on the bus on the morning commute, going gas station witnessessing and leaving home at some god forsaken time in the early hours to walking from one end of the territory to the other over a day, a good few miles.

Finding time

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