How did/do you address your fellow believers?

by JayDubyaDotOrg 4 Replies latest jw friends

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  JayDubyaDotOrg

  Evening all.

  During today's midweek bore-athon my mind was wandering as usual, and I was doing some (oh the horror!) thinking.

  Nothing screams 'Cult' more to me than dubs calling each other brother.

  "That was an excellent talk tonight Brother Anderson".

  "Brother Jones, we really need to go in service together again soon".

  Is it just me using people's first name.. "Hi John how's it going? Did you watch the match yesterday?", or did you guys and gals also have some sort of normality in your greetings and dealings?

  Is anyone here guilty of the 'Brother' treatment?

  Was wondering if it actually happened in congregations or was just something in those vomit-inducing videos.
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  truth_b_known

  I usually only used the "brother/sister" thing when addressing people from the stage during a meeting. Once the meeting was over everyone was on a first name basis.
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  Anna Marina

  Do you remember the Tuesday groups? They used to use first names, then got direction to stop using first names in the Tuesdays groups. To me it felt like they were trying to drive wedges between people. They were trying to prevent natural friendships.

  Another thing I remember - congregations used to send their love to each other via the speakers. Then they were told to stop sending love to one another. I think the 'love' (or lack of it) is supposed to come from the top down only. It's not to go sideways.
  
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  Diogenesister

  Anna marina Another thing I remember - congregations used to send their love to each other via the speakers. Then they were told to stop sending love to one another

  youre kidding!! Oh the control is unbelievable now!

  Interesting that we did use the ”brother” and ”sister” address on the platform - it’s like we’re performing, it’s not genuine.

  I have to say I used first names unless I was talking about someone elderly, then I’d say ‘Sister Anderson”etc (when I was young, just out of respect, really)
  
  
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  neat blue dog

  I call EVERYONE by their first names. Once in a big while a very elderly one might prefer the title, and so I call them that out of respect similar to Mr. and Mrs. - But most don't mind and they do the same with each other. It really irks me to see some of the JW Bible dramas where they have people saying "Brother Paul", "Brother Timothy" etc, as if that was a 'thing' back then.