JW's Sell Kingdom Hall (page 2)

Satanus

a building with no intrinsic spiritual value in itself - that'd be idolitary

Let's compare this w the attitude and actions of ot jews to solomons/herod's temple. The temple was said to be the dwelling place of jehovah because of the arch of the covenant w the hovering shekinah light. Before it's desrtruction, it is understandable that jews prayed toward the temple, to the shekinah. After the babylonians destroyed jreusalem, there was no more arch/shekinah, yet the temple that pagan herod built for the jews was still considered sacred. Even jesus called it the house of my father, when he attempted to clean it up. Was this herodian temple devotion idolatry?

In a king hall dedication, what is dedicated, and to what is it dedicated? Obviously, the building is the object being given over. The next question is, to what is it dedicated? I would say that it is being given over to an activity, ie wt training, study and related activities. These activities have the aim of spreading wt propaganda, raising money, gathering new recruits. Therefore the building is not truly, directly dedicated to a god, jehovah, but to activities of the wt corporation. That would explain the ease with which they can dispose of their buildings after they have become redundent.

SS

Max Divergent

I can see how people can be adversly affected in their worship by these commercial and fairly tough decisions, and how it looks odd to see former KH being used for other purposes, but they are *former* KH that (seemingly) can't be supported financially so somthing has to happen.

I don't think the JW really see churches as any worse than commercial organisations - they're all lumped together as old world mostly - so their standard dosn't really seperate between the two buyers.

Nor should the references to maintaining 'proper standards' at the KH be confused with some spirituality being attached to the building and land itself or to the use of the building after it's been disposed of by the JW, SS made that point well.

My feeling is that if they're to be accused of breaching their own religious standards, it should really be their standards they have breached (which are rather legalistic and rationalistic).

If it's the more general standards of fair play or christian kindness/conduct or whatever, then they're open to plenty of critisisim on that basis anyway - but for accuaracy and fairness and to maintain the validity of the critisism, they should be critisised for breaching the standard they are alleged to have actually breached... if that makes any sense ;-)

Well, that's what I reckon anyhow... The alternative is just blasting a fog of dirt at them and hoping somthing sticks. A crude and ineffective approach to a sophisticated adverary - but I guess it has it's place too.

Take care

BERNARD

I attended a kingdumb hall in NY. We had alot of
money in the building fund. We were suppose to tear
down our kingdumb hall and expand it since we had a empty
LOT next door. we had to clean this LOT because it was a
big garbage dump. so after years of savings and cleaning
this garbage of a LOT next too the kingdumb hall.
HERE IS THE PUNCH LINE.
The brothers sold the kingdumbhall to the MORMONS on 129TH st
between fifth ave. and lenox ave. in NY where i use too attend.
The brothers there, now travel farther too share another hall with other congrgations.

Sadie5

The KH we attended was sold just a few months after we left. There was quite a controversy at the time when they put it up for sale. Most of the brothers didn't want to sell it because it was paid for.

Then the CO came and announced that the KH had to be sold, because it needed too much repair. There was a problem with mold for one reason. I don't think they ever fixed the mold problem, just sold it to the Baptists.

They met at another hall about 25 miles away for several years. This past year they built and started using their hall.

closer2fine

They sold the assembly hall in Monroe, NY to the Hasidic Jewish community to use for their worship.

closer

Solid stone is just sand and water, baby
Sand and water, and a million years gone by - beth nielsen chapman

outnfree

Closer,

That Assembly Hall in Monroe was the first I ever attended. In fact my best [now inactive] friend was baptized there in the late 70's...

I remember the Hassidim community being very upset that the Witnesses 'worshipped' there among them.

RR,

My ex-congregation's former KH is some kind of office building now.

outnfree

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift

AngryXJW

Its amusing that some would criticize JWs for disposing of unwanted real estate to non-JWs, when such critics fail to jump on JWs for conducting worship services in facilities devoted to war-like activities (sports) and war-gods (sports stars). Even worse is when JWs conduct worship services in facilities owned/used by false religious organizations like Knights of Pythias, FreeMasons, etc.

OOPS!!! That precedent was established by none other than the Miracle Wheat King himself, Charles Taze Russell, the acknowledged "faithful and discreet slave (prophet)" of the "Bible Students".
PS: I know of several former KHs which were sold to churches, furniture stores, and even converted to private residences. However, I'm sure the deeds were all issued with restrictions that prevented future owners from performing non-christian activities for perpetuity.

Prisca

I agree with Max and Gumby regarding the JW's attitude towards Kingdom Halls.

Once a Kingdom Hall is sold, it's no longer viewed as a KH. Simple as that. So what the new owners do with it, or who they are, doesn't make a lot of difference.

A question to everyone:

When you were a JW, how did you view the Kingdom Hall? Did you view it as once a KH, always a KH? What happened if the KH you were in was sold? Did it really matter to you what the new owners did with it?

We were all JWs once.

waiting

The land our KH was built upon was given to them by one of the locals jw's. They gave all their frontage property to jw's - kept several back acres for their family. Originally, they wanted to lease the land ($5.00 for as long as jw's wanted use of the land) - but the cong. insisted on outright gift or nothing. They got the gift.

50 years laters, the jw's decided to sell land and old building for $275,000. The only condition of original gift was that givers's sons had First Option to buy it back. One son exercised that option and bought his parents property back that they had given to jw's.

The congregation gave nothing back to the old elder & his wife for their generousity - nothing. Btw, the elder was 80 and a line factory worker his whole life. Even if it was a small material thank you - say only one percent of the sale......they would have been so grateful.

I was so angry (it was my husband's parents) - I approached the elders privately and said they should do SOMETHING! I suggested if money wasn't possible - a group of us do yardwork for them, even a cookout at same time. I said we'd might even enjoy doing a thank you for their gift.

Elder's response: "There are no guidelines from the Society for doing anything like that. It's not possible."

But there were articles in the Awake showing groups doing things just like that. I wrote the WT giving examples and showing our local situation.

WT response to me: "We've sent your letter to your elders. When they respond to us, then we'll be able to respond to you."

Well, it's been going on three years now, and I'm still........

waiting

Btw, several old KH's in our area are now local churches. The Assembly Hall in Indpls, IN was an old Baptist Temple.

BERNARD

THE REAL QUESTION IS WHERE DO THE
MONEY GO AFTER THE KINGDUMB HALL IS SOLD ?
after a large amount of building fund money is saved ?
then the society loan the congregation money with interest
to build another. along with our contribution to the
building fund.

JW's Sell Kingdom Hall

Share this