``Quality Time'' in Field Service: Fact or Fiction (page 3)

RedhorseWoman

I wish I had known about all these tricks when I was pioneering. If I wasn't actually going door to door, I was writing letters.

Guess that's why I ended up in the hospital and ended my pioneer career.

What about the big push for time in AUGUST when you were behind? One year several of us were behind in our time so we decided to hook up with several other young pioneers from other halls and do witnessing at the AIRPORT. Oh, my....it was a time-wasters PARADISE. You had coffee-shops, restaurants, arcades and any other means of divergence. Start your time by offering mags to some flight attendant at the terminal or some bum sleeping outside and you were on your way.........

SixofNine

Still Black Man, if you got the magazines into the hands of someone, you were indeed planting seeds of truth. You can take pride in that aspect of your ministry. Remember, discouragement is Satans favourite weapon against Gods people. He especially likes to use discouragement against our precious pioneers. Brutha! don't let discouragement take hold-- I can see from your post that you are feeling like a shit for the way you conducted your ministry. DON'T. It is a marathon not a sprint. ALL witnesses, even CO's and DO's are lazy assed sometimes. We have to look at the big picture, so as not to be f***ed by Satan.

conflicted

MAN, where were these congregations? My former cong must not have recieved the "new light" of wasting time in service. We rushed everywhere, mothers dragging kids by their arms, kids barely able to keep up, brothers and sisters impatiently tappiung their feet waiting for the elderly. It was awful - we could breeze though a territory in a couple hours. And sister "full-time pioneer" kept track of who was with her and how long we were out so nobody could fudge their hours.

It was impossible to make more that a dozen hours a month unless you stayed out all day every day - it was maddening, then we got councilled for not spending enough time 'spreading the good news'.

I always hated that term, by the way - What's so good about the destruction of everyone on the planet?

"Would you like to hear the good news about how God is going to kill you and your family unless you throw away all of your hip clothes and spend every spare moment spreading this same message I'm giving you?" "Why not?"

Black Man

And telephone witnessing.......what a joke! At our hall we had phone directories made of our territories and would meet (on inclement days especially) at the hall and sit around the table at the library and make calls. Of course publishers would stumble embarassingly through their phone presentations. I can't recall getting any discernible interest off of phone witnessing. It usually gravitated into 1 or 2 of the more experienced publishers or pioneers doing all the calls while the others would just sit at the library tables with their coffees gossiping about other peeps........

Ranchette

Alot of these time wasting tactics were used in the congregations we belonged to over the years.
I found that most of the witnesses were relieved to get into one of these car groups instead of the car of the local "service natzi." Every congregation I went to had at least one of those!

Here's something we used to do on fridays to get in a long service day.We used to go to garage sales.
We took turns offering magizines to the persons having the sales while the rest of the car group shopped.Then the person who gave the presentation would get to shop after their presentation which would take up more time.
We had fun and found all kinds of neat stuff.Of course we had to take a break too!
Ranchette

Stephanus

Sherri:

(Kind of like dreaming about being naked in your high school classroom-arghhh.)

I had the same dream, Sherri - you were naked in my high school classroom! LOL

Moxy

just saw your question nyt.

to all former pioneer bros.......
how painful was it to lead the group everday
trying to think of something new to say....................ouch

i loved talks but hated service groups, partly because im NOT a morning person and could not think on my toes before 11AM. service groups were more frustrating than anything. i would refuse to do the text except as an absolute last resort but would try and think of something meaningful to say. the more meaningful the more blank stares id get, sometimes when id try and think up a new topic, how to handle this situation or that on RVs or BSs, id get complaints from the sisters, "i come to the group to find out what i should say at the doors."

and GOD, arranging the car groups. former sisters or anyone that never had to try and do this, be happy! one has to be aware of all the various pairs of sisters that should NOT be put together, has to accomodate the one sister with no car and 2 kids and 4 bible studies, and not appear that one is always saving the best people (the skilled time-waters) for ones own car group. and not a word of suggestion from any sisters to help, thats not the order of things. the order of things is to sit quietly, wait patiently for the brother to struggle thru the arrangements, occasionally piping up near the close to announce that "oh, by the way i have to quit/go to a bible study/pick up my kids at 10:30. that will be a problem." and then once you're finally done just go out to the parking lot and re-arrange the whole thing themselves.

toward the end, id would never show up on time for the service group. this served 2 purposes. if perchance another brother was there, he would probably take it. if not, it would be so late, i would say "since its late, lets just arrange the groups and go."
mox

Teirce

"how painful was it to lead the group everday trying to think of something new to say" - Towards the end, I was saying things like, "God speed!" hehe Only the Gestaponeers knew that was a paganish thing to say..

"and not appear that one is always saving the best people (the skilled time-waters) for ones own car group." lol! I'd get thru that stuff quick usually, being confident the smarter sisters would fix things in the parking lot. Now, this kindof backlashed, because then the sisters got a reason to make jokes about how they were so much smarter. I didn't appreciate that back then (although it's funny now).

``Quality Time'' in Field Service: Fact or Fiction

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