by purrpurr 17 Replies latest jw friends
Anyway when I was "out in service" while disillusioned, I just gave up and let the lady at the door say whatever she wanted. I just listened. I figured that was far more interesting and effective, whatever the effect might be.
I do not at all value my days as a door-to-door millenarian creationist.
You know you're in a cult when you find yourself going door to door trying not to deliver a message you don't believe in.
I would have to agree with previous posters in saying that lying to a householder and yourself pulls you out of the ministry all together. Being awake and going door to door is impossible considering you know the message is bs and trying to sell bs is mentally stressful. We even tried telling the householders the truth about the org but we discovered there are much better things one can do on a Saturday morning than banging on doors.
When the wife and I realized this we just stopped reporting time. From one month of 11 hours, then to 4 hours the next month, to nothing. Didn't even feel guilty about it. Why should we? They lied and we fell for it.
Even before I reduced my "ministry" to a once a month showing and a fake 2 or 3 hours on my report my door knocking went like this.
Look at NH slip (AKA S-8) and say there are 2 dozen NH's to do.
Choose first one and pretend to press bell. Wait about 30 seconds and pretend press again. If the first house is not home then I would leave it on the slip as a NH. I would also cross off a few of the NH's anyway to leave long walking gaps between.
Let's say I find someone who comes to the door.
If elderly I always said "Hello Sir/Madam, my name's (Freddo) and I live in the neighbourhood (might be five miles away but hey!) and I wanted to ask for some advice - do you think there will ever be a time when there will be no more war?
Obviously they will either say "Not interested" (Great!) or "No."
If they say "No." then I asked "Can you remember WW2?" and off they go. YAK YAK YAK. stand there for sometime talking about my Uncle Billy who was in the RAF or Uncle Stan who was in the Royal Navy and if I was lucky they'd talk about the "Blitz" by the Luftwaffe and I'd learn something about what it was like to grow up during the war.
More often than not though, out of 2 dozen NH's I would find one or two in and get "Go away" or "not interested", cross off about half the NH's anyway and hand them back to the territory chap a week or two later.
This reminded me of a few incidents that occurred when I was on my way out. The first one was about a person I was giving bible studies to. He was very interested, but he was also a very intelligent person. In fact, I liked talking to him. At first half of the bible study became unrelated conversations. Then after a while i told him that I was planning on leaving and pretty much that all that JW stuff was all nonsense. He told me that he was suspecting that I was not that much into the JWs. He started asking me why, and I told him a few things related to doctrine, nothing personal in terms of my private life. He thanked me and he told me that he liked the interesting conversations we were having. After that I visited a few times and we talked about many other things, one of them being my leaving the JWs.
The other was more bizarre. I had a one night stand with this guy, and then one day I knocked on his door. Didn't know that he lived there. You can imagine the mutual surprise. The other JW that was with me noticed that I seemed to recognize the person I was talking to, so I did acknowledge that, and started letting the guy know that I was in fact a JW and was "surprised that he didn't know". I managed to preach to him, he just kept looking at me perplexed, but went along with me. He took the magazines and sarcastically said "sure, I'll read them. I'm quite sure that this helps people stay away from trouble" or something like that. Later I saw him on the street and when he saw me he crossed the street. That was the first time I felt like a JW weirdo.
Anyway, I did spend some time involved in many JW activities while I was on my way out. What kept me going was reminding me that none of that really mattered to anyone. I never made a revisit, I lied a lot about my activities, and at the same time, reflecting back on that time, I realized that it was actually good to go preaching while seeing and feeling things from a different perspective. I noticed a whole lot of things I never paid attention to (like how much in danger JWs put themselves going house to house preaching).
I gave the entire JW spiel at times, but I felt safe that I wasn't converting anyone. I also figured that people were not going to stop showing interest if I stop preaching. Some other JW will knock on those people's doors. Plus I was watching out for my best interest first. I did preach, never followed up.
Please tell me you arent going in ministry knowing it's all bollocks and a cult?
Would you explain why your there when you don't want to be?
I`m here because intellectually, I`m still a child..
Big People Tell Me What To Do..
I notice my neighbor receiving return visits, I told her please look up JW on the net. I just flat out told her it's a cult...So if you are forced to go out, tell the folks if you really want to know what we are about check JW child abuse and I will come back next week and we can discuss it....Make sure you bring a pioneer sister or brother with you on your RV....
