privilleges equals spirituality

by stillin 31 Replies latest jw friends

  • poor places
    poor places

    The reasons for a person becoming a servant or an elder are really strange. If you're a male, all you have to do is boost your service hours and comment more and within a couple of years you'll be a servant. Then, once you become a servant, you can do next to nothing and remain a servant for years. Or if you're a servant who wants to be an elder, you can pretty much just keep doing what you've been doing, and within five or ten years you'll become an elder. The appointments from servant to elder can seem really arbitrary. Sometimes age has a lot to do with it. Or maybe good looks.

    All I know is that once you're appointed anything, you start to think about why you were appointed, or at least why you were appointed at the time you were appointed. It's sort of like when you're a little kid and you turn eleven. You think to yourself, "Wow, I'm eleven now, but I don't feel any different!" And you start to question the meaning of the age number. When you're appointed, you think about how you're essentially no different than you were a year ago, or two years ago. You're no better as a person, you have basically the same hopes and flaws, basically the same spirituality level. And yet here you are, an appointed person. And then you start thinking about all the things you've done wrong, little or big, and how undeserving you are to be appointed anything.

  • cult classic
    cult classic

    poor places - I totally get what you're saying.

    My brothers and I would talk about this a lot. With each new assignment/appointment, we would ask "What did you do the day you got recommended/appointed that was so different than the day before?" Of course the answer is always. "absolutely nothing" It's all such bullcrap.

    And the sisters are not immune either. From baptism on you're encouraged to set an example and help others in the congregation and the field. You are totally clueless to your own needs as an individual.

    Having privileges is no more a barometer of spirituality (maybe a lack of it) than a person having a good job is a sign financial stability.

    The only trap bigger than getting baptized into this religion is "striving for privileges of service" That is what sucks the breath right out of your life.

    Cult Classic

  • AllTimeJeff
    AllTimeJeff

    Lest we forget the function that accompanies these "privileges"

    All it is is work to be done. How do you trick people to clean toilets for free? To mow the lawn? Tell them its a privilege, and attach the core cult work as the key determining factor.

    Yup, to qualify to clean toilets or mow the lawn, you have to be "regular" in FS each month.

    Clever....

  • man in black
    man in black

    i remember near the end of my life as a jw, our local kh was being remodeled.

    Almost all the young boys were doing their best to work and be noticed by the elders.

    This one uppety, elder (Renfrow) was walking around yelling and telling all the guys what they should be doing.

    This overweight guy didn't lift a finger to help anyone, yet he acted like a real construction expert.

    FYI : he runs a store that sells aquarium fish, where did he get all of his "expertness",,,, gods spirit ?

  • Crisis of Conscience
    Crisis of Conscience

    poor places & cult classic

    I completely agree, 100%. Over the last 2 years or so, I've been spoken to about all those things. I'm currently an MS. The elders have been wanting to recommend me. Service hours were no problem but supposedly commenting was, more so on my wife's part. And they spoke to me about a few other things. I was all for it and doing my best to fit the mold until I really started questioning how the Holy Spirit is invoved in all this. What does it take to be perfect in the little things that aren't scriptual?

    I said to myself, how can an elder or his wife not comment enough or not support Saturday service, or whatever else, continue to do that and not loose his "privilege" of being an elder? But supposedly I wasn't meeting the qualifications because I was lacking.

    Now I've never been after a position, so that didn't upset me, but it just didn't make sense. You are exempt when you become an elder? So the last time I was talked to about it I let the brothers know that right now I do not want to be an elder. Who would've thought that after I started questioning things and researching I would've come to the conclusion that I NEVER want to be an elder.

    I was appointed a servant in my late teens. That should have never happened. Holy spirit? I doubt it! And all these years, though I've strived to become more 'spiritual', I have never felt it, even despite praying for it. Yet the brothers say it is obvious that I've been blessed and have God's spirit. Whatever!

    I know I've rambled a bit but all in all, privileges never define spirituality. If it did, many of us wouldn't be on here based on JW standards. But look how we were pushed. I don't reget it though.

  • WTWizard
    WTWizard

    The "privileges" suck. Staying after the a$$embly to run a vacuum cleaner is not a "privliege"--I can do that in my own apartment. Cleaning a damn toilet is not a privilege. Passing a microphone is not a privilege. And so on.

    Now, supposing everyone were to not exercise their "privileges". The mics are not going to pass themselves. The vacuum cleaner is not moving itself. The sound system is not running itself. The littera-trash and rag departments are not going to count themselves or hand themselves out to others in the congregation. Slips are not going to hand themselves out, nor is the schedule going to print itself. The money in the Worldwide Pedophile Defense Fund is not going to count itself. Field circus slips are not going to count themselves.

  • hoser
    hoser

    Status equals spirituality

  • finallysomepride
    finallysomepride

    so glad I didn't reach out for privileges, damn it they kept giving them to me, then i moved to another congregation, and these became less.

    Actually i enjoyed the mic privilege, totally took zero notice of the watchtower & other publications, & got to see many pairs of sexy legs LOL

  • DATA-DOG
    DATA-DOG

    Amen and marking.

  • ÁrbolesdeArabia
    ÁrbolesdeArabia

    Here's the truth that's quite upsetting to me, I can go to every Poison, Rat, White Snake, Metellica, Linkin Park, Ozzy Osborne, Deicide and Green Day concert and keep all my responsibilities if nobody has the courage to call me on my gross hipocrisy. I have Facebook friends of anti-Witness bands, possible apostates or disfellowshiped friends, I am "spiritually strong" if nobody catches my duplicity.

    My sister's congregation has a "pioneer couple" who followed all the heavy metal bands of 1980s(big haired bands) and they scream "Shout At The Devil" at the top of their lungs when Vince and Tommy were rocking. Young sisters head to the "sister-pioneer" wanting to pick her brain, to hit the spiritual high Sister Pioneer gives through her verbiage (Theocratical Ministry School parts, demos and frequent interviews of her longheld faith.) as the crowd eats up her bull-crap.

    If the average JW had "X-ray vision" during the Circuit Assembly I was Chairman, it's possible my body piercings might stumble them (nipple, nut-sack rings and pins), thankfully I was in full garb which presents the illusion of "spirituallity".

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit