Women make up the main population of the Kingdom Halls, and the pool of young males willing to step up to "serve" is drying up. What is the likelihood of "new light" on JW women in ministry roles formerly held only by males?
Women in JW Ministry
by NotFormer 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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stan livedeath
what!! next thing it will be the brothers cleaning the toilets.
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dropoffyourkeylee
I maintain that it is almost a certainty. It’s just that it will take a while. 5, 10, even up to 20 years. They’ll start with ministerial servant assignments (deacon/deaconess). -
blondie
This is it, if there are not enough qualified men (baptized and in good standing), the elders can have a woman do certain tasks. Such as audit the congregation's financial info, required by the WTS. In one case the COBOE was put in charge of this task, but his accountant wife did the work and he signed off on the report.
I was in a small congregation where there was only one elder, no MS, and no other baptized men. A sister, moderated a book study (did not ask auxiliary questions, just those in the publication. Paragraphs were read by sisters in rotation at the study, or by one sister if not all good readers, she handled the magazines/books handout for the congregation. The sound system was minimal, also a sister handling. But these were not considered 'appointments' and as soon as a brother qualified, he would take over (being trained by the sister unofficially. If there was a judicial situation, the circuit overseer would select 2 other elders from nearby congregations to make up the committee of 3 or he would make up one of the 3. For many years, there were few qualified men and some congregations were all women. So I am paraphrasing how to handle that per the WTS. Unbaptized men were not to be used though.
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NotFormer
That's a very interesting anecdote, Blondie. A bit of pragmatism here, a nod and a wink there. I assume that the WT discouragement of women in "appointments" was about Paul saying that women should not have authority over men or to teach. Even that doesn't preclude women from having support roles, like a bit of back office paperwork. And reading out paragraphs from the WT is hardly teaching; the articles were written by men at Bethel.
BTW, what does a ministerial servant do?
What is the complete list of "appointments" that can be handed out at a Kingdom Hall?
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Teddnzo
It’s already happening. Sisters doing microphone and sound.
The big change was in the OD book only baptised brother or sister can do these things. They thought this would get more to get baptised but it didn’t work.
the order is first baptised brothers but if there are not enough then baptised sisters. If there are not enough baptised sisters then unbaptised brothers can but it’s rare that there are not enough baptised sisters.
Most young ones brought up by parents in the congregation just don’t want to get baptised when they understand what there have to lose if they don’t follow the rules. Once hormones kick in they certainly don’t want to get baptised
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jhine
I still find it laughable that handing round a microphone is considered a privilege. This really shows the level of mind control that the org. has over publishers.
It's like children getting excited about being trusted to do some " grown up " job by Mom and Dad .
Jan from Tam
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LongHairGal
JHINE:
I know it’s hard to understand and must seem very pathetic to somebody who was never in the JW religion.
Men and women in the Witness religion are trained to think they are ‘privileged/blessed’ to do mundane things like this or clean the toilets. I don’t know how else to describe it to somebody who was never in.
I was never interested in ‘privileges’ or even titles - like ‘pioneer’. And Good thing I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have retired if I quit my job for full-time ministry like they tried to pressure me to do!! …When I read the news released on October 7th that they were doing away with hourly time being reported, I was very glad I never did this.. I would have felt positively ill if I had.
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BluesBrother
When I was a child we had a sister in charge of Literature because there were not enough qualified males. I used to help her serve , counting out leaflets and so on . She was very efficient.
As has been said it was an unofficial appointment, doing the work without the title.
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TonusOH
Jan: It's like children getting excited about being trusted to do some " grown up " job by Mom and Dad .
That's a good analogy. It does seem different since I got outside of it. I think it works because of the attitude that the end is very close, and you have these opportunities to score some extra points with god as his kingdom approaches. Thus, even the smallest things become unusually meaningful, and you don't really think about how silly it is.
It is why I wonder how the changes will work out. Becoming more like mainstream Christian churches means the urgency of "the last days" will continue to be de-emphasized. At that point, the main difference will be that JWs don't celebrate holidays. Who will want to stay in for that?
Hmmm... I think I know what the next big change is going to be...