can a disfellowshipped person get rides to the meeting?

Solace1998

well apparently i couldnt.

In the first cong i was in, up north in NY, i got rides just fine for a while -- but shortly after i moved to my old cong south of there...

I called up and let them know that I didnt have enough money to pay for gas to get to the meetings, and was wondering if we could work something out...

(after all, when i was first baptized, getting rides was NO PROBLEMO!!! they wouldnt even take my money)

...

he said

"i dont think we are going to give you any money"

I said, ohhhh i meant RIDES. i just need RIDES.... (it made me rather uncomfortable that they thought i wanted money in the first place)

he said he would ask the brothers

they got back to me and said it was against procedure. -- but i already knew of a disfellowshipped girl who got rides all the time in the same cong...

so i found some articles in the WT that showed a difference between someone simply disfellowshipped and "unrepentant" and someone who was trying to come back...

I contacted an elder about it via email and he was astounded at some articles from 1974... he got the elders together, and i waited about a month or so. I followed up on it, and waited a bit longer. They finally had given in and arranged rides for me. At that point, i had been going to meetings for a year, and was looking to get reinstated. When i returned, and asked about my reinstatement, they complained that i had not been there in a while....

wow.

I got rides for a couple of meetings, and then never went again.

that was about 2 years ago.

BabaYaga

Jesus would have given you a ride, if he had one, and he would have walked and talked with you if he didn't.

"By their (lack of) love, you shall know them."

Solace1998

crap, this part didnt come thru

well apparently i couldnt.

In the first cong i was in, up north in NY, i got rides just fine for a while -- but shortly after i moved to my old cong south of there...

I called up and let them know that I didnt have enough money to pay for gas to get to the meetings, and was wondering if we could work something out...

(after all, when i was first baptized, getting rides was NO PROBLEMO!!! they wouldnt even take my money)

...

he said

"i dont think we are going to give you any money"

I said, ohhhh i meant RIDES. i just need RIDES.... (it made me rather uncomfortable that they thought i wanted money in the first place)

he said he would ask the brothers

they got back to me and said it was against procedure. -- but i already knew of a disfellowshipped girl who got rides all the time in the same cong...

so i found some articles in the WT that showed a difference between someone simply disfellowshipped and "unrepentant" and someone who was trying to come back...

I contacted an elder about it via email and he was astounded at some articles from 1974... he got the elders together, and i waited about a month or so. I followed up on it, and waited a bit longer. They finally had given in and arranged rides for me. At that point, i had been going to meetings for a year, and was looking to get reinstated. When i returned, and asked about my reinstatement, they complained that i had not been there in a while....

wow.

I got rides for a couple of meetings, and then never went again.

that was about 2 years ago.

BabaYaga

If it is any consolation, Solace, the thing that really opened my eyes about their "(T)ruth" was when I saw a disfellowshipped dear friend of mine walking to the Kingdom Hall in the pouring rain... on a dirt road... in his polyester suit. Every single car full of "Christians" headed to that Kingdom Hall passed him and left him walking, drenched to the bone. I was in the back seat, and I could not believe my parents did not stop the car.

Just as well. Here I am. And I never have to worry about stopping to pick up a friend in need ever again.

blondie

We were in a congregation that the bus only went within one mile. This df'd man had to walk that distance in the bitter cold and in the dark. We were new and didn't realize he was going to the KH and we drove past him. When we saw that him at the meeting, we were told he was df'd but we asked why he was walking a mile in the cold. He didn't live far from us so we started giving him and a ride daring the elders to tell us he had to walk in bitter cold. He never talked to us but was glad to have the ride. After 6 months he was reinstated. We felt we were doing the Christian thing. We didn't want to be like the priest and Levite.

WTWizard

In the congregation I used to go to, it used to be "association with a disfellowshipped person" if anyone did that. They would have to either take the bus or walk, or call a cab.

blondie

Walking in the bitter cold was not an option. The neighbors were already wondering why no one was giving him a ride. It has been my experience that there is no fast rule but it depends on the individual BOE. Notice that the WTS doesn't suggest this woman should have called a tow service.

***

w748/1p.467par.6MaintainingaBalancedViewpointTowardDisfellowshipedOnes***

But consider a less extreme situation. What if a woman who had been disfellowshiped were to attend a congregational meeting and upon leaving the hall found that her car, parked nearby, had developed a flat tire? Should the male members of the congregation, seeing her plight, refuse to aid her, perhaps leaving it up to some worldly person to come along and do so? This too would be needlessly unkind and inhumane. Yet situations just like this have developed, perhaps in all good conscience, yet due to a lack of balance in viewpoint.

DaCheech

years ago, we gave a ride to a couple. one of the 2 was df'd. we were told not to talk to the one that was df'd.

undercover

I don't know if there is a written rule or anything but I've seen it both ways...

While I was an MS, I had the "privilege" of giving a DFd person a ride to the meetings. I didn't personally know him, I think that's why they picked me. I was instructed to limit any conversation to just the basics...things like, "I'll pick you up at 7" or "will you be attending the next meeting..." those kinds of things. I don't think we spoke 10 words to each other in the couple of months that I gave him rides. He eventually quit coming. Can you blame him? I mean, we treated him like shit...I'd quit too.

But another instance that I was privy to...a sister with two kids was DFd. She worked some night shifts. Before she was DFd, she had arrangements with some of the friends to pick up the kids and bring them to the meetings. Usually it was an older brother whose kids were grown and out of the house and he and his wife doted on the children. He was an MS as well.

However, the scandal of this sister getting DFd was so bad that not only were the elders determined to punish her, but her children as well. When the kids showed up at the hall with the brother and his wife, the elders corraled him in the back room and told him that under no circumstances was he to have any dealings with that DFd person or her children. When he protested that the children weren't DFd and needed assistance, the elders said that she (the DFd sister) should have thought of that before she caused the trouble she did. Of course the brother that was DFd at the same time (you can put 2 & 2 together on that one) had no trouble having the friends associate and help with his kids because his wife was a JW. He was reinstated 6 months later...the DFd sister drifted away never to be seen again. In the long run, the kids were probably better off, but I cringe when I think about the DFd sister and the guilt and pain she must have endured...

BFD

Matthew 23:13

can a disfellowshipped person get rides to the meeting?

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