by SuzieQ 34 Replies latest jw friends
My first post here (Yay!)!
Very short bio: I'm a born-again atheist, fading away from the WT.
OK - as for the topic, I think perhaps what you've heard is that when Armageddon is imminent (even more so than now!), JW will stop preaching - just like when Noah closed the door to the ark.
So if they've stopped preaching - - look out!
It wouldn't surprise me if the Society limited door to door canvassing to tract campaigns like they are doing with the convention invitations. These campaigns are little more than publicity stunts, but they work so I expect to see them continue.
The original purpose of the door to door work was direct sales. The Watch Tower Corporation was a book printing business and wholesale company. The colporteurs were independent sale representatives. All Bible Students didn't go door to door. That didn't start until Rutherford started his "advertise the King and his Kingdom" campaign.
The book sale work wasn't a recruiting activity. It was commerce. The early "advertising" of the King amounted to lunatic rants and raves that condemned just about everybody, and these rants were delivered by phonograph records played on a wound up record player right on the door steps of strangers.
The purpose of "service" in the 50's was easy to see. It was a sales for cash business. Kingdom Halls were book warehouses and the meetings were book selling training sales meetings. The reading of the books at the meetings was so we had read the books we were selling.
Now the Society has 7 million guaranteed sales with every first printing but the donations do not match the numbers. The literature is going the way of the assembly food . . . away. Printed literature used to be an asset to the Society. Now it's a liability. The purpose of "service" is gone. It's not profitable and it's not an effective recruiting method.
If the Society worked one tenth as hard on member retention as they do on recruiting new members, they'd have double the members that they now have. The Society actually discourages people from staying Witnesses and the Witness people badger each other into leaving.
Right now in the United States and Canada we are seeing a silent strike. From my vantage point I only see one side of the strike and that's the Society's side. They're trying everything imaginable to turn it around but obviously they haven't found the formula yet. I think this will be an interesting next year for Watch Tower watchers like me.
The JWs will stop the preaching the day Barry Bonds stops the steroids, the same day Bush admits his mistakes, the day Mel Gibson goes to a synagogue.
remember they said if they ever stopped the rocks would cry out
I remember them saying years ago that even when it will be too late to become a JW, they will still preach door to door, but a message of DOOM, not a message of SALVATION....
They have to keep the r & f busy . Otherwise it becomes another "Go to church on Sunday" religion. And no ministry means nothing to talk about at the meetings.. No . I think door knocking is with us as long as the law will allow it and there are still dubs willing to do it..
And WELCOME to Awakened 07...
During the 1973 convention, I well remember an elderly brother addressing the excited throngs (Ah! Those were the days when JWs actually lapped up every word uttered from the platform): He said something like:
"We ought not be fooled into thinking that the door to life will always remain open whilst this system of things continues. There will come a time when people will beg to study with us, but it will be too late...the preaching work will have then been completed".
We were told to get busy distributing the Kingdom News pamphlet before it was too late!!
This created such excitement in the on-edge crowd and we began breathlessly expressing among ourselves the need to step up our own preaching work because it would soon be stopping altogether.
Meanwhile, a quarter of a century later.....Nothing's changed.
JH and Steve2 - I remember that message. Now that I look back, I think that it is really sick to believe that one day you are going to go door to door saying "neener neener neener god's gonna kill you and we aren't going to lift a finger."
They wouldn't want to use the internet to promote their teaching 'cause you know this whole world wide web thing is just a fad!
FALSE
