How many of your elders & servants are "Preachers Who Are Not Believers?"

by Franklin Massey 30 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  jay88

  All hypothetical,....I sure.----- Sorry Frank, for being a hog.

  How to survive Door to Door

  ps for service! If you must go door-to-door:

  Tip #1 - Be your own conversation stopper

  Introduce yourself immediately as a "Jehovah's Witness" and happily accept their objection to continuing the conversation. This will end 90% of opened doors. If your partner objects, tell her/him that you are not ashamed to 'witness for Jehovah.'

  Tip #2 - Ask me, ask you

  Oh crap, they didn't close the door! So ask the householder, "Is there anything you ever wanted to know about Jehovah's Witnesses?" Great conversation starter and keeps you from having to push info on them. People who want to talk, will. Use this opportunity to hang out on their doorstep while the rest of the car group finishes the territory.

  Tip #3 - Bookless publisher

  Don't place literature. Carry some tracts as a backup just in case the householder asks for something. Instead use the Bible and discuss a couple scriptures you like. I use the Sermon on the Mount. If your partner questions that, explain you are working on starting a Bible study using just the Bible (what a concept!).

  Tip #4 - Noturns

  RVs? What Return Visits? Don't return on "interest" (an ever increasingly nebulous term). I usually avoid afternoon service (usually RV work) but if I am caught in a RV group, I'll make up an excuse that the territory has been very dry for me, etc.

  Nothing gets the heat on you like low hours. If you still care about avoiding that (someday you won't!) always count about 10 hours a month, but make it vary as your congregation secretary is putting these numbers in a neat column in your file. If your conscience pricks you about this, keep in mind that billions of the hours counted by JWs are fake. Most of that time is spent walking between doors, standing next to a talking JW, waiting in the car, driving, and other indirect activities. Surely you are witnessing to the public indirectly with your fine behaviour at least 10 hours a month. At least I hope so... If not then put on your convention badge and count your commute time. Probably more effective than door-to-door!

  Fake hours?! How dare I presume... JWs logged over 1.6 BILLION hours in 2010. For a while (and to keep my self sane) I would carefully record the actual time I spent directly conversing with a non-JW people while in service about religion. The consistent average was... 2 minutes per hour in service. Of course a Bible Study may count as real time, but who has those anymore?

  But hey, let's more than double that: 5 minutes per hour is about 8% of what I am allowed to count according to the organization's procedures. That includes hand-writing form letters to locked-gate communities, sitting in a SUV with 6 other JWs while the other two have cookies with a return visit, driving 15 minutes between houses in rural territories, heck, if you are in a sign language group you get to sit in cafes, play your publications on DVD, and flash signs at each other. Looks funny if you don't know ASL and will get you shot in certain gang lands. Don't try it.

  So the math says that 1.6 billion hours is really about 133 million hours in real conversation. Still a lot. But divide that by publishers (7.5 million) and all you get is 1.4 hours per publisher per month. That average includes missionaries and pioneers! Like I said, fake hours.

  So if you wonder how insider apostates do it, now you know. Guilt-free, ritual-free, and maybe someday... just free.
• 

  Giordano
• 

  miseryloveselders

  MLE, would you say your position on field service apathy is debatable from a Witness perspective? Or is it just too blantent for debate?

  -Sab

  Well Sab, I have to give people the benefit of the doubt because at the end of the day, who am I? I'm not in a position to judge anyone's motives, and even with those who's family and work schedule's I'm familiar with, there's things I may be not taking into consideration. Fear plays a role into various ones hesitating to do door to door, myself included. Its not the easiest thing to show up uninvited to a complete stranger's door and discuss non-dinner table related matters. There's other factors to consider as well, such as fatigue from life's other demands. Some people can balance both, others can't. Maybe they're discouraged from the apathy from the people in the territories, which I've said from the platform that I'm discouraged at times for that very reason. There's other reasons that are legitimate I'm sure.

  For myself though, and many others whom I know, for the most part, it can be said we can do more. There's times I've been in the audience and a Ministerial Servant was doing a Service Meeting part on a subject such as... well just say The Importance of the Ministry! These articles are a dime a dozen filled with stupid questions and ridiculous, baseless assertions such as, "Why do we find joy in the ministry, yet view it as important?" I or another publisher might raise our hand, and when the microphone reaches us, say, "because we love our neighbors and we have an important life saving message to give them." The brother on the platform will nod his head in approval with a creepy smile on his face. Meanwhile that brother barely cracks the national average, and goes on more vacations then Bob Barker is giving away. But nobody says anything, because they're all guilty of the same lack of enthusiasm in one way or another. Their wives aren't cracking the national average, their children aren't either.

  There's a telling picture in one of the more recent books, I can't recall the title, as its slipping me. There's a picture of two men in field service. One is ringing the bell, the other is walking away looking at his watch with an expression on his face that says, "Well, its 11:45am, I did my hour and a half, I'm outta here!!" While the brother closest to the door is looking at him in disbelief like, "how can he leave so abrubptly? We have lives to save!" Somebody needs to scan that photo, as its very telling, and not the exception to the rule. Its prevelant in your average congregation, USA.

  Give you another example, this Sunday is the day of the big announcement regarding for the month of April, they're dropping the Auxilliary Pioneer times to 30 hours "for a limited time only." As in only April 2011. If I was a gambling man, I'd be willing to bet the powers that be in Walkhill are fishing and using anything they can for bait. Trying anything to motivate the average publisher, and even those taking the lead. Like Wooo-hooo!! I only need to get thirty hours and I get to sit in half of the Pioneer meeting when the CO visits!!! Yippy Skippy!! Reality Check. Some of those devoid of personality and with complexes may bite on this lore, but most will just view this as business as usual. My CO told us in his meeting with us, "It would be nice if some of you, and really all of you can take advantage of this provision from the slave. Think of the example you'll be setting for the sheep. When they see you shepherds out there, they'll think wow, look at him. Maybe I can do this too!" It was so pathetically delusional, that it was comical. But hey, if it makes him feel good, good for him.

  I'm a firm believer in what resides in one's heart, is what motivates him. If we really believe that this work, this door to door work is a life saving work and so very important, then why aren't we more gung-ho about it? Why does the Slave feel the need to bend our arms to make us get involved with the all so very important work? Why do the same ones get interviewed at assemblies and conventions every year? Why won't they interview the average publisher barely cracking the national average? Why does the literature seem so far removed from reality? The answer is, the average JW's beliefs, including elders and ministerial servants isn't as strong as they'd like you to believe.
• 

  sabastious

  Well, for one, most people have to be cracking the national average for the national average to exist, right? Do you think it's in the realm of possibility that the published average hours per month are not in reflection of actual involvement?

  -Sab
• 

  sabastious

  Give you another example, this Sunday is the day of the big announcement regarding for the month of April, they're dropping the Auxilliary Pioneer times to 30 hours "for a limited time only." As in only April 2011. If I was a gambling man, I'd be willing to bet the powers that be in Walkhill are fishing and using anything they can for bait. Trying anything to motivate the average publisher, and even those taking the lead. Like Wooo-hooo!! I only need to get thirty hours and I get to sit in half of the Pioneer meeting when the CO visits!!! Yippy Skippy!! Reality Check. Some of those devoid of personality and with complexes may bite on this lore, but most will just view this as business as usual. My CO told us in his meeting with us, "It would be nice if some of you, and really all of you can take advantage of this provision from the slave. Think of the example you'll be setting for the sheep. When they see you shepherds out there, they'll think wow, look at him. Maybe I can do this too!" It was so pathetically delusional, that it was comical. But hey, if it makes him feel good, good for him.

  It's facinating to hear what happens on your side. I was a bottom feeder as a Witness... always on the fringe never accepting any real responsibility within the congregation.

  I remember one time I was having lunch with the CO and after speaking with me he said I was "ministerial servent" material. It was one of the eailer signs for me, because I didn't feel the reverence for the position, and the recommendation, that I felt I was "supposed to have."

  -Sab
• 

  sabastious

  I'm a firm believer in what resides in one's heart, is what motivates him. If we really believe that this work, this door to door work is a life saving work and so very important, then why aren't we more gung-ho about it? Why does the Slave feel the need to bend our arms to make us get involved with the all so very important work? Why do the same ones get interviewed at assemblies and conventions every year? Why won't they interview the average publisher barely cracking the national average? Why does the literature seem so far removed from reality? The answer is, the average JW's beliefs, including elders and ministerial servants isn't as strong as they'd like you to believe.

  Your observations are simple and profound at the same time.

  -Sab
• 

  Sapphy

  The society says that wearing smart meeting clothes to and from the convention "gives a fine witness". Therefore wearing meeting clothes in the ministry "gives a fine witness". Therefore from the moment you step outside your house to the moment you step back inside and change is fine witness giving hours.

  Basically brothers, if you need to up your hours, just count all the time you wear a tie.
• 

  sabastious

  fine witness giving hours.

  Is that kind of like Happy Hour?

  -Sab
• 

  miseryloveselders

  Well, for one, most people have to be cracking the national average for the national average to exist, right? Do you think it's in the realm of possibility that the published average hours per month are not in reflection of actual involvement?

  -Sab

  Ohhh, without a doubt!!! When you see articles discouraging ones from fudging their hours, that speaks volumes right there. Another thing, as Franklin Massey mentioned, there always those who are scrambling at the end of the month to get double digit hours or right underneath the average. How far do you think they'd go to avoid ending up on the elder's radar? The same with elder's, how far will they go to avoid ending up on the CO's radar? Another poster mentioned something else in another thread, I can't remember if it was Undercover, or OTWO, but it was sooooo truthful!!! There's publishers who show up at the field service meeting point, on time, well just say, 9:30am. Because the group overseer is hung over from the night before, the group is a little sluggish getting to the territory, and to be fair to the Alcoholic In Chief, maybe the territory is a little bit out of the way from the meeting point. So they don't actually get to the group, and start field service until 10:05am. But there will be publishers who stopped at the laundrey mat and dropped off a couple older magazines on the table beside one of the washing machines at 9:25am. They did this before showing up at the meeting point. So they conclude that they started their time at 9:25, and even though they didn't actually start any doors with the rest of the group until 10:05, they've convinced themselves that they've already got 40 minutes. Ever hear of the Pioneer Shuffle? I've known older sisters who've placed magazines in the windows of their homes, while they were getting dressed for field service and convinced themselves that this was acceptable for counting time. The WT has printed articles of individuals preaching to animals, and counting it as time.

  I'll give you one last example, and its one that actually hurts me a little bit to relate. There's an older sister I view almost as a grandmother. I love her, and it hurts me to see her physical health deteriorate. I visited her a few weeks ago, and during my visit, she started crying and sobbing. She mumbled that it pains her that she can't get out into the field anymore. You know, in times past, I would read articles in the literature where it encouraged older ones that their limited service was still acceptable to Jehovah, and I never believed older ones had those misgivings until I got appointed and they started really expressing themselves to me. It hurt me to see her like this. I reassured her the best I could and emphasized that all she's done would not go unnoticed or forgotten by Jehovah. Then the indoctrinated side of me kicked in. I then stated, maybe we can organize letter writing, or phone witnessing here so you can have a share, and at least get 15 minutes in? Later on after giving it some thought, I felt like scum. I wanted to step in front of a bus. The reason I share that with you, is to show you the pressure that some have allowed the WT to put on their shoulders. That pressure will lead some to fudge hours, stretch hours by rounding, and a host of other questionable ways to count time.

  The WTS knows this, make no mistake about it, they know whats going on. Their articles reflect their awareness of the reality they try to shield themselves from. The COs and DOs are reporting to the Branches. The Branches are reporting the New York. They have their finger on the pulse of this organization. I don't doubt for one moment they know what they're doing. To answer your original question in yellow, the leadership may be printing an actual national average based off of what congregation secretaries are submitting every month. Whether the figures from the secretary are accurate or not, well that's debateable.
• 

  Ding

  As a JW once said to me, "If you're just going to go through the motions, there have got to be a lot easier religions to do it in than Jehovah's Witnesses -- meetings, assemblies, field service reports..."