Do Witnesses really want to go to the meetings?

BU2B

Do Witnesses really want to go to the meetings? Or do they just go because they feel they must to get into the new world. Or is it just peer pressure or pressure of elders? What is the real reason why the majority go?

In my experience it is very telling when the weather is so bad the meeting is canceled. Even among most "fully in" witnesses there seems to be a great sense of relief that they dont have to go.

When the weather is getting bad they seem to hope the meeting gets canceled. What does this say about their religion. If it was truly upbuilding they would want to go, they would wish it would not be canceled imo, anyways just what was on my mind, I welcome your thoughts.

LostGeneration

Its very strange to be sure.

I was born in, hated it as a kid of course. But for some reason I just kept going, even when I became an adult, and I was a very good attendance-wise.

Part of it is routine, drum that shit into someone for two decades and they just figure its "normal"...nothing could be further from the truth. What a waste of time.

jgnat

Not to mention a "cure" for depression.

sir82

I think it is mainly a social thing.

I think deep down in the psyche, JWs view the meetings as 2 hours of drudgery to be endured, in order to spend 15-30 minutes socializing.

Plus, there's the whole "Jehovah will kill you if you are spiritually weak, and only the spiritually weak miss meetings" thing.

gma-tired2

sir82 I believe you are correct Thats is what I looked forward to socializing until they decided to stary "MARKING" those considered weak spiritually.

Reopened Mind

In one of the Halls I attended there was a saying, "If you can go to the mall, you can go to the Hall; if you can go to the beach, you can go out and preach."

One hard-liner elder even said that unless you are in a coma or dead you should be at the meeting.

At another Hall one sister took it upon herself to call anyone who missed a meeting to "encourage" that one.

Did I really want to go to the meetings? I, too, felt relieved when the meeting was called off because of weather. O, and when we went on vacation we never went to a meeting.

Reopened Mind

SophieG

At first when I went back in, I craved the meetings because I had left “the world” and it was a new social connection. The longer I stayed in and over time I did not WANT to go. But I went because I was supposed to go. Because:

I did not want to appear spiritually weak

I was afraid if I did not go, then it would be harder to go to the next meeting

I was afraid to die in Armageddon

Other people depended on me to go

Best thing they ever invented: the ability to call in. Once I started doing that I was done!

wasblind

I know for a fact when it was announced that the book study

would no longer be held in private homes

The Elder who's house I went to was happy as heck

I looked dead at 'em after the announcement took place

they had to restrain themselves from doin' the Happy dance

.

mrsjones5

Jws feel compelled to go. I know I did and I wasn't even baptized. One doesn't go to meeting because one necessarily wants to but because one has to. Feels great to not have that guiltly feeling of not attending meetings.

free and happy

I suppose you do feel pressured into to going but when your born in you become a robot, its where you always are at the same time each week. You don't really think about it.

Toward the end though when we weren't going much, I have been known to turn the alarm off on a Sunday morning and go" Oh dear! We have slept in!" he! he!

Do Witnesses really want to go to the meetings?

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