Besides the possibility that the Theocratic Ministry School was dropped to avoid the word 'school' appearing any longer for A.R.C child abuse reasons, the introduction of the new CLAM meetings for midweek has been one of the several main factors making me develop a repulsion for the JW.org religion.
Okay, the Watchtower study is fairly Mickey Mouse these days too, but the midweek meetings are truly awful and contribute to me feeling physically and emotionally ill, which I documented in my first post on here.
I'm quite a well-educated person and my job involves a lot of linguistic skill, thinking, communication, analysis, research, interpretation and presentation. The CLAM workbook is patronising and like something even school kids would tire of.
After a long day at work, I don't like the idea of dragging myself off to a midweek meeting in the cold dark nights let alone any other time of the year, but it'd be far better if it was for more solid spiritual food. Somehow the meetings I grew up with as a child were more interesting. These days, CLAM meetings are a carbon copy week on week. There's now no longer the opportunity to unearth genuinely interesting Bible highlights away from the dictated 'Jehovah' and 'ministry' questions, and the preprepared 'digging for spiritual gems' questions simply involve brothers or sisters repeating a Watchtower quote verbatim.
The bit that makes my heart sink and to feel physically nauseous is the trio of demonstrations. This month, we've endured the silhouette video of memorial invitations, then this week it's about how to offer, guess what, the memorial invitations. Next week, you'd never guess, it's about how to offer memorial invitations. Most publishers in my congregation have been offering them for the last week, so do we really need constant simpleton demonstrations?
The meeting then ends with 30 minutes of self-congratulatory stuff, which is rather contradictory and makes my mind wander onto Governing Body member Geoffrey Jackson saying under oath in court in the Australian Royal Commission on child abuse that it would be presumptuous to call themselves the faithful and discrete slave, God's only channel.
The 3-minute review of the meeting is so repetitive but not in a good way, and the preview of next week is the same. Once you've studied the CLAM workbook in preparation, you don't learn anything new at all by attending the meeting itself.
'Association' afterwards comprises congregants saying how wonderful they feel to be in the centre for true worship, but during the meeting with 40 out of 80 publishers in attendance, only a handful participated and I saw loads of yawning. Someone in the ministry said to me lately he feels sorry for J.W's and wishes we'd let go and have fun. Inside my heart and head, I agreed with them.
Most of the time, when someone asks how I am and I tell them I'm not so good, they very ironically say "we'll it's a good job you've got The Truth" and "I'm sure being here tonight will make you feel better, then" - but most J.W's in my experience simply start walking away the minute someone says they're unwell or whatever. Nice.
I find the CLam meeting analysis on this site very good.
Instead of wasting my time at a CLAM meeting I'd rather be helping the homeless or doing real 'good'.