by nowwhat? 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
@pale they make fully use of their human resources. If you have no needed skills then you are out.
Have you seen the video of the logistic departement? With all that running people? They have become Amazon 2.0 working style, Total madness for volentary people.
G.
They've recently been emphasizing using "remote" Bethel workers, and part-time "commuter" Bethel workers (there was a JW TV segment on this recently).
"Remote" = "worker does projects for free, for Bethel, while at living at home, far from a physical Bethel location. Completed projects e-mailed to Bethel branch."
"Commuter" = "Bethel pays $0 for food, healthcare, residence, anything else - 100% of workers' sustenance is paid for by the worker, who physically travels to a Bethel location to work for free for 8 or 16 or 24 hours a week".
They appear to be transitioning to a very small skeleton staff of full-time Bethelites - pretty much just the bureaucrats and higher-up muckety-mucks who create, implement, and enforce policy. Everything else to be done by remote workers or part-time volunteers living offsite.
The WTS is either becoming astoundingly, inordinately greedy, or they are running out of money.
Or both.sir82
The WTS is either becoming astoundingly, inordinately greedy, or they are running out of money.
SIR82:
I would also assume that the religion is planning on letting yet more bethelites go and any bethelite should be making plans for this possibility. They have a decade of warning.
As far as the ex-bethel couple you mention who “ooze resentment” - I hope their resentment is directed at the religion and NOT the people in the hall. The people in the hall don’t owe them a goddamn thing! The couple are probably pissed about having to fend for themselves in the “world”. Well, TOO BAD because I did and got criticized for it.
Some bethelites may do well if they are younger and have connections who can offer employment opportunities.
BUT, this will still mean yet MORE appeals for money to the rank & file Witnesses in the congregations. This is getting out of hand because they are probably already being hit up left and right for money, goods, cheap apartments, old cars, etc. This is the begging at a local level in addition to the religion itself wanting money from each congregation.
What this means is just about every adult JW in the congregations is going to walk a gauntlet of people asking for money. And being hit up for money is not an occasional thing. It is on a regular basis. How can anybody stand being around this? I wouldn’t.
I think their plan is to turn the unoccupied rooms into "bunkers" so they can hide when the 'storm troopers' come knocking!
just saying!
I hope their resentment is directed at the religion and NOT the people in the hall. The people in the hall don’t owe
them a goddamn thing! The couple are probably pissed about having to fend for themselves in the “world”. Well,
TOO BAD because I did and got criticized for it.
That's it exactly - they are peeved that they were counting on living the rest of their lives in cushy comfort in Bethel, and now they are stuck in "the world".
He displays it more than her - even after 10 years, he trots out lines like "Well, I am Bethel-trained"...."When I was in Bethel, we did it his way"...."I was talking to one of my contacts in Bethel, and..."
And then he gets frustrated when others don't fawn over what he thinks is some sort of "trump card".
Also, he still misses the reverence he used to get from the rank & file as "ooh, a Bethelite". He was a frequent "Bethel speaker" (although his delivery is usually pretty rambly, it's only half-decent when he really works on it). Now, he's just a regular elder in a regular congregation in the middle of nowhere. He pouts when he doesn't get the respect he thinks he deserves (which is pretty often).
They are now in their mid-60's. They see the future - never retiring (they are special pioneers - too old to work, too little in Social Security). They will depend on their SP stipend for as long as they live. Another 10, 20, 30 years of shuffling door to door, never ending, never ending, never ending....and the best they can hope for is that when they get too old & decrepit to shuffle any more, they might get taken into some sort of Bethelite old age home.
I almost feel bad for them.
There's a former CO, former missionary who's now demoted to just a regular elder in a KH here in Liverpool. Anyone remember Barry Birtles? He was a traveling missionary in the middle east in the 70s and 80s and had to flee one of the counties where JWs were under ban when the authorities managed to get a photo of him. He had loads of interesting stories and experiences.
And look at him now. Approaching 80 with no savings, no job, standing by a cart in the cold everyday.
Nearby congregations are filling up with old, tired, no-longer "useful" ex-Bethelites, ex-COs, ex-SPs....longtime elders are now in their 80s & 90s....
You'd think it might give the 40-60 year olds pause. The "spiritual giants" they grew up with, who would "never get old in this system of things", are old & dying. Now, that generation, the ones on the downhill side of middle age, are next. Armageddon, as it has been for the last 100 years, is coming "very soon now". "This system can't last another 3 years", as those now doddering 90 year olds, slumped down in their seats, dozing as the meetings lurches on, saliva dribbling out of the corners of their mouths, used to say 50 years ago.
But it doesn't, at least not around here. The "kids", those under 40, are overwhelmingly disconnected mentally. You can tell they don't really believe, and probably never did. But those middle-agers keep plugging along.
I think they are the last generation of "real" JWs. By 2040, most of them will be marginalized (or dead) as well. JWs will still exist, but as a rapidly receding shadow of what they once were.
"THERE IS NO PAST we can bring back by longing for it, only a present that builds and creates itself as the past withdraws." -- Evelyn Greenslade, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
We who have given up on the notion of living forever in paradise have moved on with our lives, making the best use of our remaining days. Strangely, I have a quiet sense of purpose and contentment as I embark upon my seventh decade. I don't need "forever."
SIR82:
Sorry to the original poster whose thread got derailed.
Regarding that ex-bethelite couple: I figured as much that they (he) thought mentioning his bethel past is some sort of “trump card” or “currency” to get special respect or whatever in the congregation. I’m glad to see it doesn’t work ☺️.
You said they are in their mid-sixties and “too old to work”. Well, many people in the world are in their mid-sixties and work. But what you mean, I assume, is that this couple are not qualified to work at anything. You say they are out of bethel ten years: which means they could have tried to do something in their fifties. They probably didn’t want to.
I don’t know how much this stipend is that special pioneers get, but I will wager it is not enough to get through a month. Therefore, people in the hall are asked to cough up money. I was criticized for my full time job (which I’m glad I held onto) and there’s NO way I’d give money if I were there.
Since the JW religion is cutting back, etc., what would happen if this stipend stopped or was reduced? I shudder to think what’s going to happen in the congregations in the near future when yet MORE bethelites are dumped out.
This sounds like a potential crisis of monumental proportions!
