How many in the cong visited you when you started fading

by joe134cd 50 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Phizzy

  3 or 4 guys who I had been good friends with dropped in once in a while in the early months. None of these were Elders.

  Nothing now for years, apart from two years running where different sisters called with a Memorial invite, last year an invite was just shoved through the door.

  I am pleased they left me alone, and now I must be seen as a lost cause. But "Shepherds of the Flock" ???????

  Us faders should be thankful that most Elders simply like being called a "Shepherd", they have no idea what true Pastoral Care is, and they never wish to get involved in it.

  Again, this is good, the evident lack of love causes many to leave, and cements the certainty that what they have left was never God's Org, and was never Christian.
• 

  Bloody Hotdogs!

  For six months after we started missing meetings absolutely NO ONE tried to contact us. Keep in mind that we never spoke our mind to anyone – so no one could have known why we weren’t at the meetings.

  Then, finally, two elders stopped by. Neither of them had ever conversed with us before, literally. And guess why they came. CO’s visit.

  Have you ever had an elderly person die at your Kingdom Hall during a meeting? I’ve seen it TWICE. On both occasions no one noticed until it came time for the song. Everyone stands up, except sister dead. There’s a slight kerfuffle in the rows around her. Brother first-aid lays her on the ground between the chairs. What does everyone else do?? Keep singing. Then the Watchtower starts. No acknowledgment at all of the fire truck that’s shown up or the paramedics awkwardly pushing down the row. Literally no disruption. That should give you some idea of just how close these ‘friends’ are, #not.
• 

  KateWild

  I was df'd when I stopped going to meetings and trying to get RI'd. I haven't been to a meeting for almost 3 months and no elders have called me or visited me.

  My friend who just got RI'd when I stopped going to meetings called me a few times, but her calls have stopped now.

  No one at the KH or in the org cares about me at all, my story is the same as everyone elses. They really don't care. I suspect if I was RI'd and then stopped going I may have got a few more calls, but being DF'd means you are abhored by JWs everywhere

  Kate xx
• 

  Vidiot

  Hardly any for us, but we timed it (more or less) with a change of address.

  Couple of phone calls; that's it.
• 

  joe134cd

  Frazzled UBM= As an outsider I find this discussion interesting. The congs are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they do chase up faders then this is harrassment and if they don't it is uncaring. Personally I would love it if my wife's 'friends' didn't call her every time she misses a meeting. I think this form of subtle pressure makes her go back the next week.

  yeah I agree with you ( and I was the one who started the thread). I just find it puzzling, with the amount of people they lose every year, why they arnt been more proactive. Don't get me wrong I'm happy it worked out the way it did, and it saved me a lot of stress with having to deal with them. But what I thought would be the case, was exactly the opposite.

  Even as I look back on past events e.g deceased sister in cong who I never knew who died. I have to ask myself just how I could not have known.

  The thing that I find totally ironic. Is how they are prepared to spend 1000s of hours for a new recruit, and yet not even know the person had died. In the TMS If you were to count the time allotted to finding a new recruit as apposed to retaining him, it would be telling. I think the problem that Wt is having trouble understanding, is the reason for poor growth (particularly in western lands) is the out ward flow of people. When you look at the figures and see that for every increase in publisher one baptised person is leaving. 2/3 of the youth are leaving. JW have the lowest retention rate of any main religion. One has to ask would that time and money be better spent on retention rather than on magazine distribution. I work with this penticostal guy and he quite often talks about team building events that is openly encouraged, and in some cases subsidised by the church. They have church councillors who have had secular training, to help not only it's members but also outsiders who may want assistance. These things are not only helping it's members not to secumb to the pressures of the world e.g drugs, gambling, sex etc but also inevitably retaining them. Wt chooses to solve the problem at the other end by disfellowshipping the unrepentant sinner once the problem is out of control.
• 

  RottenRiley

  MPC: 0

  I know how bad things are when you began to fade, it's amazing to believe we put our trust in a organization that obviously had no love for anyone, we allowed people to walk out the door and never be seen again by our Elder Body.

  Why did we allow our time with "Burned-Out Bob", "Pot Head Pete", "Albert the Wife beating Alcoholic", "Transvestitie Timmy", "Six Hundred Pound Sid", "Debby Downer", "Phil the Pedophile" instead of chasing after faithful members of the congregation who were battling problems at their Homes? We failed as a Organization protecting the Faders, why did we not show more compassion to the sick and infirm, the elderly and poor?

  If we all knew the Statistics of JW Children that walked out the door after attending meetings faithfully for 15,16, 19 or 23 years never to return or get checked up on, it would prove we are nothing like the Shepherds Jehovah asked the people of Isreal to be.
• 

  steve2

  Christianity's nursery-cushioned view of shepherding is a reflection of its hallmark ignorance. While one of the "specialities" of real Shepherds is indeed to ensure the flock does not go astray, the other is to ensure it gets safely to market for sale and subsequent slaughter.
• 

  humbled

  I had an 9 month absence from meetings before I DA'd. I had visits from elders and friends. One visit was in my home from the elders in my congregation. an elder from an old congregation called on me with grave concern for me (a really good guy). Five sisters called on me at different times. I didn't accept phone calls from others as I was really feeling some trauma after awhile.

  Once I was out, no one called. I was announced in the winter of 2010. It seems longer ago than that.
• 

  whathappened

  ZERO!
• 

  Julia Orwell

  I'm certainly no hot babe. A lot of these people considered themselves my friends and were concerned about my eternal welfare. The co was put up to it by congregation politics, into which my 'apostasy' witch hunt got in the middle of. Then maybe other elders wanted to catch me out in apostasy, and my husband had a jw mentor figure who really did care. Also, they would have needed someone else to do the sound and magazine counter when he left.