by garlic81 5 Replies latest jw friends
I wonder if the Pioneer Assist Others program being discontinued in August 2010 is one of the first service department changes, that has been implemented since Theodore Jaracz passed away?
I wonder if they will also be considering the requirement for pioneer hours in hopes of getting more individuals to sign up to pioneer?
Wow, that program may officially die in 2010 but in actuality (except for the diehard few) I think it died 6 months after it was announced.
Ted was still alive when it first leaked that the program was ending this service year. But he did have a stroke last year and probably has been out of the loop since that time.
he did have a stroke last year
Maybe that's why he had a stroke...... "You're ending what??!!"
Jedi Master
The Pioneer assist program never really got off the ground. Name one assisted person that the pioneer program helped? Not one in our congregation.
As a service overseer I used to hate the program & don't know of any elder who liked it. Pioneers didn't want to be put with a deadweight as it messed up their routine and they wanted to work with their friends - generally they weren't interested in training anybody on the ministry. Those "assigned" to the program were instantly labelled as wasters and didn't want to be involved.
The CO at one visit told us to try to chase the program up but we ( the BOE) told him that it was a waste of time. To give him credit , he admitted that most elders had told him the same thing , but he was just cascading down orders from on high.
The only way I could personally make it work was by assigning a new young female pioneer (the classic 15 /16 year old straight out of school) to an older sister and just basically tell them to work together occasionally.
I think that this program has long since withered on the vine - it has hardly been mentioned by the WTS for many years.
