Few JW leader have children

by slimboyfat 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Vidiot

  Journeyman - “… if the R&F had been given a more ‘balanced’ view…”

  That would have run too much risk of diminishing the sense of End-Times urgency.
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  Journeyman

  To be sure, elders must ‘pay attention to themselves and to all the flock. (Acts 20:28)) If they are married, this includes their wives. (notice how many times the WTS says balanced, without giving any examples and specific ways to do things differently).
  

  Yes, blondie, that was a shockingly direct article for the GB, and although it's true they (or their predecessors) caused the problem in the first place, it was a surprise they even bothered to address it so specifically. It's an indication of just how bad the neglect of wives and families must have become, if they even felt the need to tackle it so openly.
  
  

  That would have run too much risk of diminishing the sense of End-Times urgency.

  However, and linked to Vidiot's point there, they now find themselves in a bind. By admitting that many serving men were neglecting their husbandly duties and need to "adjust" themselves to find a better "balance", they are at the same time effectively saying that many serving men need to do less in "theocratic" and congregation activity and concentrate on spending more time and attention on their wife and/or family.

  This is of course entirely morally and scripturally right, but it creates a problem for the Org (one of many of their own making), because it gives elders (and even MS to some extent) a valid reason to step back from doing so much (as mentioned in the other thread "JW light Elders?")

  That's of course why the Org is not keen to give specific examples, because anything they do say can be used by brothers to their local body of elders to say: "Well the WT of xx/xx/xx says..." and to "beg off" any assignments they do not want to do. As a result, the only examples they are likely to give are the most extreme or obvious ones, perhaps - rather like they do when giving examples of say, an elder who is burned out. They will always give an example of a brother who had his OWN balance out of kilter, rather than one who was overwhelmed by demands of others (including their own coordinator or CO). Then they can sort of "blame" the brother and say something like "he had to pray to Jehovah, talk with his wife, rearrange his schedule and find his own better balance - now he's happy".

  Never will they be candid and simply say something like: "the local coordinator or CO was demanding too much of the brother and had to back off", or something like that, because that will imply there is something wrong with the way the Org itself operates!
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  Vidiot

  Yup.

  They’ll bend over backwards to avoid even the hint of something like that…

  …because once your brain starts to head down that particular rabbit hole, there’s no going back.
  
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  HereIam60

  I've heard numerous comments over the years of witnesses commending the fact that "we do not seperate our children (into nurseries or Sunday Schools)...they learn right here with us!". In a recent public talk I heard this was implied to be a safety measue, along the lines of "... they are not isolated, we know where they are and can give them protective oversight..." This is probably a recent insertion into that talk's outline. It overlooks the fact that numerous public talks of the past contained subject matter not usually considered appropriate to discuss before children.

  Something that has prompted many comments in online forums is that the next publication to be used for the midweek meeting 'Congregation Bible Study' is the children book "Lessons You Can Learn from the Bible" - a revision of the old 'My Book of Bible Stories'

  As this will begin in just a few weeks it will be interesting to see how it is introduced and presented, possibly as "a loving provision to teach our young ones, and to renew the understanding and appreciation of the Bible accounts for all of us..."

  As this is scheduled as the final part of a meeting often held in the evening, it's been pointed out that it will come at a time when some small children will be getting tired and sleepy. I hope there won't be enforced participation, though thankfully we seem to have moved away from the days when spankings were the norm for inatentiveness.

  It will also be interesting to see how this goes over in a congregation like ours where there are virtually no kids in regular. attendance. The youngest "regulars" we have are in their early 20s, and the only children seen infrequently are grandchildren occasionally brought by their grandparents.