Inattentive elders...anyone else experience this?

B_Deserter

Everyone always talks about the elders and people in the congregation coming around to see why you aren't at meetings...but I've never experienced this. I've been away from the meetings for months, and not one single elder has called me. My friends occasionally call me but never bring up my lackluster attendance. Is this just the area I'm in or are elders everywhere just giving up right away now?

R.F.

From the observations of many posters here, i'd say it's happening all over the place.

The local elders in my area are the same way. My own Book Study Overseer hasn't even called me in months to see how I was doing since i've stopped going to meetings months ago. The Elders recently diagnosed me with depression, so since then the've definitely backed off since then.

I'm not complaining though.

Gopher

I think it's primarily the responsibility of your congregation book study conductor to keep tabs on you.

You didn't say whether you're still turning in field service reports. (Although if you haven't been to meetings, you probably can't turn them in.) Once you become inactive or irregular for a while, the congregation secretary should notice and they talk about it at those meetings they have with the C.O. whenever he comes around.

tula

maybe you don't give enough $$ to make it worthwhile??

Ex Nihilo

I pioneered for years, and just severed service and meetings with no notice....that was a year or so ago, I haven't had any contact, and they know where I am.

wizardca

i faded out in the late 90s starting with the bookstudy. never got a call or a unannounced visit from the bs conductor or the elders not even when i was at the kh asking what was up. i think it depends on the boe and the bs conductor.

OnTheWayOut

2 elders met with me when I attempted to resign as an elder. We talked for a few hours
and I did it, anyway. The C.O. met with me nearly 2 months later for literally 15 minutes
only because the P.O. insisted. He didn't offer much. Since then, no attempts for nearly
a year from the elders to shepherd me. In that time, I stopped field service and then
stopped all meetings. The few times I have seen the JW's, they say they miss me, but
only a couple of good guys actually tried to call me on the phone, and they have stopped
since. I started a thread on how 2 elders avoided eating with me at a gathering.

The point is that they totally don't do their job. I am actually thrilled that they leave me alone.
I suppose they will have to make a half-assed attempt before the C.O. visit as I am now inactive.
"No, thank you." is a complete answer.

shell69

YES!

Elders who don't really give a hoot about you.

Then they get a 'wiff' of a wrongdoing, even if your not attending, and they haven't spoken to you for months, but suddenly decide they want a chat???

Suddenly they care enough to try to 'help' you?

BOL**CKS

Shell

greendawn

Who knows what goes on with the JW elders without some good statistic on how they react to local dubs becoming inactive?

At the end of the day they are unpaid and ill trained volunteers that do the bidding of the devil, the WTS, while being told that they are doing the bidding of God. They probably got tired of being used by a corporation that leads them all to nowhere.

Honesty

Elders who don't really give a hoot about you.
Then they get a 'wiff' of a wrongdoing, even if your not attending, and they haven't spoken to you for months, but suddenly decide they want a chat???
Suddenly they care enough to try to 'help' you?
BOL**CKS
Shell

Were we in the same congregation?

The THOUGHT POLICE heard from some sistas that they saw a young woman hugging me in the parking lot of a fast food resturant one day and they were on the phone within hours of the event wanting to know who she was...

"My psychologist. She is helping me break free from a mind-controlling cult."

That seemed to satisfy them because the next time we had any contact was when I called the CHIEF THOUGHT POLICE 3 months later with the Good News that my psychologist had been succesful with her methods of therapy and the JW's and the Watchtower Society could all go to hell as far as I was concerned.

Inattentive elders...anyone else experience this?

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