WERE THERE ANY DISPUTES DURING DISSOLUTION OF A CONGREGATION?

by badboy 3 Replies latest jw friends

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  badboy

  ANY TAKERS?
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  OnTheWayOut

  Not really but my story almost fits. We had 3 English congregations in a single hall, along with a foreign-language cong.
  One English congregation always had small meeting attendance and trouble covering their territory. Our English cong. regularly covered all the territory, had plenty of pioneers, had large meeting attendance and the third English cong. did pretty good in the same areas.

  The C.O. did not insist on dissolving the congregation that was doing poorly, but highly recommended it. The Body of Elders did not want to dissolve. The C.O. had recommended that they go into the other two congregations. Without directly saying it, the B.O.E. made it clear that they didn't want to "serve" under another P.O. and service committee. Basically, they didn't want to lose their power structure.

  Finally, both of the other English congregations offered to "give them" the stinking power titles in their congregations. "You can come over and be our P.O. and establish a new service committee here." But they wouldn't do it. It seemed that they were worried that once they were split in two, each remaining congregation would have a majority on the B.O.E. to override anything they wanted to do.

  Finally, the third English cong. (with 'pretty good' numbers) dissolved when one of their elders died and just folded entirely into the smallest one with a few publishers and one elder going to the biggest cong. (mine). That way, the power-hungry B.O.E. kept all the positions and kept their (slim) majority. All the elders outside of their cong. were happy to just let them run things- less work for us.
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  badboy

  BTTT
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  wha happened?

  There was a similar situation in Los Angeles. One KH had two English, 1 Spanish, & 1 Korean Congregation. The Korean had split once and the 2nd Korean congregation went to another KH, (no room for another meeting), and the Spanish cong was ready to split and there was no room locally. Well one of the English congs was having trouble with attendance and covering their territory. The elders there were just awful. So very full of themselves.

  So CO comes through and recommends merging the cong with a cong in a nearby KH, moving everyone to the other KH. The elders didn't like it. This went back and forth as to who would have what postion, which PO, etc etc. Finally the CO came back and got word from NY. Disolve both congregations and form a new one.

  Well half the elders went their own way because they lost their positions. I was in the congregation that everyone was moved to. I hated it. Those elders that moved in were Nazi's. Some people left (like myself), and the attendance dropped offf until most of the elders changed up and the Nazi elders were in the minority. It took a few years