Meetings

OrangeBlossom

Do you think the WTS will ever reduce the number of meetings per week, maybe drop one night a week? Just curious! It seems that everyone is so whipped from working all day, I really think that's why there is such a drop in meeting attendance. I know for me, back when I still believed it was the truth, I missed a lot of meetings just because I was so tired from working. Let's face it, you work all day, come home, make dinner, clean up kitchen, who has time for anything else? I'm usually in my jammies by 8pm and nodding off to the TV by 9.

OB

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This is an interesting question. It's tough to say. After all the years of hammering away at Hebrews 10:24,25 and "how vital our meetings are! would we ever want to be missing from Jehovah's spiritual banquet table? far from it!", I think there are a lot of Witnesses who would be disturbed if the Society actually dropped one of the three meetings. And the Society wouldn't want there to be fallout from that.

The possibilities I could see include:

1) Further shortening the length of the Public Talk on Sundays. (Maybe half an hour?) I doubt they'd touch the Watchtower Study.

2) Reducing the length of the Service Meeting, or even somehow merging the TMS and the SM together. (Ultimately, both meetings are supposed to serve the goal of making you more effective in field service anyway, aren't they?)

However, a more significant reduction would be to scale back to two meetings per week. The hassle in going to meetings is less about the time you spend there, really, than simply having to commit your Tuesday/Thursday evenings and Sunday to the meetings.

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JanH

A very important question. I wished I knew the answer.

For some time, I've been looking for signs that the WTS is mainstreaming. It would actually be the first time in its history that it moved in the "liberal" direction, but it seems to be what is happening. Acceptance of civil service, attempts to put behind itself the blood ban point in this direction. However, the instituting of lawyer-based PR agencies indicates a more uncompromising stand.

The surest sign of a mainstreaming would be that the requirments for field service and meeting attendence is lessened. So far, the only sign this is happening is the lower requirements for pioneers, and that may not be so important. Rather, it can be a sign the WTS wants to inflate the pioneer numbers after a decline.

I think we'll still have to wait and see.

- Jan

orbison

i am curious, what are the new requirements for pioneering,,and is this for special pios??aux??reg???

Farkel

: Do you think the WTS will ever reduce the number of meetings per week, maybe drop one night a week?

I didn't wait for them. I reduced my number of meetings to zero per DECADE almost three decades ago. After twenty five years if being out, I decided to catch up on doctrine and policies. It took me about three hours of study to do that, and NO meetings. After that I was as current on Watchtower Life(tm) as those dubs who spent 14,000 hours in meetings, preparing for meetings and getting to and from meetings over those 25 same years. If the average person spends 16 hours a day awake, then those people invested 2.4 YEARS of their life over WT meetings. I spent those same 2.4 years of my life doing worthwhile things, and 3 hours playing catchup to WT dogma. I could be wrong, but I think I used my time a tad more wisely.

Farkel

orbison

i am curious, what are the new requirements for pioneering,,and is this for special pios??aux??reg???

Gopher

Orbison, requirements were reduced to 70 hours for regular pioneers monthly (840 hours per year), and to 50 hours per month for auxiliary pioneers. I'm not sure for special pioneers.

Gopher

larc

The meetings,

are a wonderful place. They give children a chance to hear gory accounts of the blood and guts destruction of mankind, which percipitates nightmares for them. Children also have the privelege of listening to adults discuss sexual practices in a way that is generally not accepted in the rest of society. Then, when you consider the "spiritual banquet" for the adults, which is sort of like eating a ham sandwich every day of your life, hey, life doesn't get much better than that now does it!

TR

OrangeBlossom,

I'm usually in my jammies by 8pm and nodding off to the TV by 9.

I remember a "brother" being pissed at me when I wanted to change the bookstudy time from 7pm to 7:30pm. He was going to miss his favorite TV show. I like you, was bushed after work, and wanted an extra half hour to get ready for the study. Of course, I rejoiced when meetings were cancelled.

TR

momoftwo

That's great! I couldn't have said it better myself!

I was just thinking today about the "Noah's Ark" story in the MBOBS. I can still picture that image of those children clinging to the rock for dear life while the water is rising around them. And this is a children's book??? All I know is it used to scare the crap out of me (especially considering this was such a popular bedtime book).

[8>]

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