At around 19 years of age I started dating a "worlding" girl and brought her to meetings to get the elders off my back (to no avail of course... I was "marked"). Needless to say word got out and some of my other friends decided to check out some of the meetings. One of my closest friends who had been to many church services (he is a gifted musician and played organ at his church and several others) came to a Theocratic Ministry School/Service meeting. I watched his jaw lower further and further as the meeting progressed. He couldn't believe that after someone had the guts to go onstage and give a "sermon", an elder quickly trotted up after and "critiqued" him. He was blown away by the question and answer parts from the Kingdom Ministry; this was at the time when it was up to the brother reviewing the material to come up with the questions for each paragraph (ie.. paragraph reads: So then dear brothers, it is important to keep up to date service records because Jehovah is a God of Order and we want to please Jehovah. Question, "why is it important to keep up to date service records?" Answer from kid wearing bowtie in the front row waving hand frenetically: "Because Jehovah is a God of Order and we want to please him!".... nods of heads and sighs of approval...move on to the next paragraph). After it was over I turned to him and asked him what he thought. His deadpan response:
"this is what you guys call church? It's like I just sat through a business meeting of aliens."
I guess that's why the society doesn't recommend bringing new ones to the Theocratic Ministry School/Service meeting right off the bat.
I had some really great, polite, liberal minded friends and pretty much just invited them so I could hang out with them under the pretense that they were "interested." Most of them were not as vocal as my previously-mentioned friend. I can only imagine now what most of them were really thinking as they sat through all the rhetoric. Anyone else have a similar story?