JW Expanded Volunteer Activities?

by doinmypart 25 Replies latest jw friends

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  doinmypart

  I think the GB needs to expand publishers' volunteer activities beyond door knocking.

  GB has shifted away from door-knocking to more varied forms of witnessing and no longer counting time for publishers. What's next? My prediction is that the GB will start encouraging JWs to participate in broader community volunteer efforts: clean-up drives, food banks, senior citizen support, and other non-proselytizing activities. This move could help them gain goodwill with government agencies and the public.

  Expanding volunteer activities could significantly shift how JWs are perceived by the wider community. It might also alter the internal culture, offering members new ways to fulfill their spiritual and social needs.

  What do you think?
  

  Would expanded volunteer work impact the JW identity?

  Could this shift alter public perception about the organization?
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  TonusOH

  That would also require a change that I think they need very badly- to allow the rank and file to have normal social interaction with non-JWs. Stop the isolation and the separation from "the world" and allow them to develop friendships and relationships. I think that even the hardcore old-schoolers would welcome that.
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  FFGhost

  It’s an interesting idea, especially since the new “check the box” monthly report doesn’t mention “preaching” explicitly but instead it says “any form of the ministry”.

  On the other hand, aside from the change in the view of social interaction with “worldly” folks mentioned above, it’s particularly difficult to thread the “Jehovah is going to slaughter 8 billion plus people very soon now” needle with the “but until they are slaughtered, we ought to feed them soup” thread.

  But who knows? They are definitely transitioning into [something] - maybe that something, many years from now, might be something more socially friendly.
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  doinmypart

  Not that I read the Bible or religious anymore, but Jesus cared for people's physical needs (food and healing), dealt with the environment (storms, trees, fish), and hung out with marginalized people.

  The GB could use these examples (not that they need to...can simply say, "GB has decided..." ha ha) to roll out the ok for an expanded volunteer service.
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  DesirousOfChange

  Expanding volunteer activities could significantly shift how JWs are perceived by the wider community. It might also alter the internal culture, offering members new ways to fulfill their spiritual and social needs.

  I think that is a brilliant idea!

  Remember, it needs to be the giving of time/labor. They will never give up any of their potential CA$H contributions to others. God Needs Your Money! But they could organize volunteers to clean parks, highway litter, assist elderly (esp JW elderly). They might even find a way to get compensated for assisting elderly/infirm members or non-members. (At least here in the US.)
  
  
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  Beth Sarim

  The Borg has to sustain its ""us vs. them" mentality

  It has craftily maintained the mindset of such & has to continue to do so.

  The concept that their God will "soon" wipe out every non believing JW of the 8billion on this earth.

  Expanding any kind of volunteer service with non believing will undermine & dilute the Borgs theology.
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  LongHairGal

  DOINMYPART:

  Yes, opening food pantries and the like would most definitely improve public perception of them.

  It would certainly help out those of their members made poor by following their bad advice not to get a career but instead be out in the ministry!
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  FedUpJW

  Not a chance. They have to maintain the isolation or they will lose control over the whole religion with the resulting loss of money. Never gonna happen.
  
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  I quit!

  1. I don't know if that would work for them. Their whole shtick for the past hundred plus years has been that the end is coming, and Jehovah is going to kill everyone not in their group so doing anything else other than preaching and building the Watchtower kingdom is a waste of time. Beth Sarim is right. The whole thing is based on an us vs them mentality.
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  Halcon

  I remember when I left JW mentally, one of the first things I wanted my family and I to do was volunteer at food banks and animal shelters. And that I wasn't going to care if JWs judged me. That seems so strange that I'd be judged for something like that.