Top Ten Signs Your Congregation May Be Dying

by metatron 26 Replies latest jw friends

  • Shakita
    Shakita
    Your Theocratic Ministry School had a "A", "B", and "C" school

    then it had an "A" and a "B"

    now it has only an "A"

    Yes. This happened to a hall we went to. Definitely a sign that all is not right in the ranks.

    happyman:

    No, please don't tell me....the END is here......AGAIN!!!!!!

    Mrs. Shakita

  • proplog2
    proplog2

    This has all happened before. When Christ didn't return in the first century. You can only maintain a sense of urgency for about 4 generations. Count the years from Russell to now and you have a situation that mirrors the rise of the Catholic church.

    1. Chirst didn't come.

    2. Creative people got bored and left the Church.

    3. Only people who stayed in were those that liked the titles. So they invented a lot of positions and titles thus creating the "hierarchy".

    4. But the boring hierarchical types weren't very good at teaching so they developed rituals. Created the sacred calendar so they could recycle Christs life over & over.

    5. Meeting attendance wasn't so good except at the Memorial. "Hey! Since so many attend the memorial let's have the memorial more often - maybe everyday.

    6. You can't trust the lay people to teach so lets write a Catechism that covers the important points. While we may not be good teachers there will be a test to make sure everyone's got the main points.

    7. Just to make sure any new ones value the Bishops - only the Bishops will do the baptising.

    8. Since the young ones aren't getting baptised we'll do that when they are small and don't know about sex yet.

    9. No more talk about when the end is coming. It is enough to know that it will come some day. As a matter of fact we don't care if he doesn't come because we aren't serving with a date in mind.

    10. The ugly sisters who pioneer with the hope that God will eventually find them a mate will be rewarded with a big wedding to Jesus. We'll give them some strange clothes as a symbol of their sacrifice.

    JW's are getting closer to the Catholics everyday.

  • Pistoff
    Pistoff

    How about this one?

    The social circle gets smaller and smaller; the related bunch hang together, and make up the elder body/pioneering wives (complete with dunderheaded home schooled children) and if you are not in the group, too bad; you won't get invited to the good parties get togethers.

    I lived in a hall that went through a very nast time, the whole existing body was deleted and the new boys the CO brought in were very hard line, by the book types: no kids, pioneers, etc. The political types and butt kissers went far with these boys; those who didn't, didn't.

    That hall was murder to be in; I left as soon as I could. Not in time to keep my kids from rebelling against the idiot elders tho.

  • RubaDub
    RubaDub

    Here are a few more:

    1. After giving the Public Talk, the speaker sits down and claps for himself;

    2. To stimulate interest in question and answer portions, publishers are encouraged to raise and wave both hands when wanting to comment;

    3. Demonstration parts are done with hand puppets instead of householders.

    ***** Rub a Dub

  • frogit
    frogit

    Tuesday and Thursday night, you know all the posters on this Forum

    frogit

  • DanTheMan
    DanTheMan

    Excellent.

    These signs very accurately describe what I saw in the congs I attended in the late 90's/early 00's.

    And the WT expects the r&f to be chomping at the bit to recruit people into this decaying corpse of a religion.

  • JH
    JH
    Top Ten Signs Your Congregation May Be Dying

    When you see a For Sale sign up in the front of a KH.

  • josephus
    josephus

    A very well written peice.

    i can only add one thing. They stop harassing ones who leave.

    i left 2 years ago. my freinds and family all know my feelings about the "truth" and ive helped about 8 others leave in my hall.

    the result ?

    no visits. no interest. only an announcement recently stating that "all the ones wjhove recently left are to be considered bad accosiates.

    very weird indeed.

    josephus

  • Blueblades
    Blueblades

    Do you attend my congregation! You described it to a tee,you are right on the mark.

  • rocketman
    rocketman

    Great post met.....I've seen almost all of these items in one form or another.

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