This is an in-depth look at the new DVD released this fall. It is primarily designed for young Jehovah?s Witnesses; in fact, the whole DVD is geared towards Witness youth only.
On the front cover there are 8 happy youths carrying school books and bags. There are four single colour shaded pictures, a youth preaching, a youth getting baptized, and a youth working at an engineering job, and a student on her graduation day.
On the back of the DVD case is the following text:
PRAYERFULLY consider your goals in life as you watch a dramatic depiction of the struggle of a young man who loves two worlds. Which will win out in the end? Which is more fulfilling? What will you do with your life? Interviews of youths from four countries open up a fresh way of thinking for you to consider.
The DVD starts off with the Biblical character Timothy, who had an unbelieving father and a mother and grandmother who served Jehovah. The real life story mirrors Timothy?s experiences.
The youth is in high school, is an excellent runner, and gets side tracked from spiritual things. Though he is not yet baptized, he is working towards it, and pressure from the coach to win the tournament causes him to miss meetings. His father is an unbeliever, but his mother and grandmother are witnesses. An elder helps put his goals right, and he makes the decision to leave the team and take up regular pioneering. The story is about 45 minutes long.
There are four interviews about different facets of JW life for youths: Meetings, field service, bible studies and full time service.
Now this is the interesting part ? the youths interviewed are mainly from USA, UK and Brazil. Everything they say is geared towards full time service. They make comments that a lot of JW youth find the meetings dull and boring. They say that many JW?s find the ministry boring and these ones never have return visits and bible studies ? hence the reason for their boredom. Then you see re-enacted scenes of a young brother out in service with a friend ? the friend is looking into the sky and around rather than concentrating on the ministry. He has a very bored expression on his face. The more comments from witness youths on why some youths hesitate to get baptized. Reasons? Feeling frightened when Jehovah will make an accounting for their actions, feeling that they?ll mess up and disappoint their parents. Fear of doing something wrong.
Seven, Maximus, Metatron and others on this forum who have ?witnessed? the changes in appealing to JW youths; some subtle and some not so subtle ? are absolutely right on what?s happening to JW youth.
It is abundantly clear ? maybe I should say super-abundantly clear that the Jehovah?s Witness religion is losing this current generation of young JW?s, and most likely subsequent generations.
The whole gist of the video was to make JW youths think that pursuing a career is ?refuse?, taken from the scripture that Paul wrote, and that there is nothing finer than pursuing a full time career in ?service to Jehovah.?
An extreme example is the story mentioned at the beginning of this post, that of the youth who wanted to be an Olympic Runner. Why do I say extreme? Most of us are not cut out to be athletic ? we may be into sports, but being good enough for the Olympics is an enormous challenge. Therefore, most of us are not looking for a career in the Olympics.
My point? The Society chose this illustration on purpose to make JW youths feel guilty.
If the youth wanted to study nursing, medicine or architecture, than the whole point of the story would have sounded much more of an emotional appeal to drop your future and start pioneering.
This video may very well work. It is superbly made, and it will hit the right notes with Witness youth who do not know the inner workings of the Society.
At one point, a section on ?What choices will you make,? even gives the impression that you have to tell yourself why you can?t pioneer, go to ministerial training school or become a servant.
The whole point of this DVD is to shame JW youth into giving up their careers and serving the Society.
This is truly the workings of a cult. There?s nothing wrong with serving God, but when this religion tells you to serve God under their leadership, you know something is wrong.
*** IMPORTANT ***
If you feel that the Society may backtrack on 1914, think again.
While they were discussing how JW youths can make their ministry more meaningful, the narrator says, ?For instance, would you be able to explain how Jehovah?s Witnesses come up with the date 1914 to explain how Jesus came to Kingdom Rule??
Later on, the witness youth is seen conducting a Bible study, and there he is explaining 1914.
The whole thing makes me sick ? Even psychopaths tell the truth sometimes, yet the Society, knowing that there form of worship is burdensome to an already over burdened youth, wants to make their lives even more harder by shaming them into questioning whether a career is worth anything compared to a career serving ?Jehovah.? ? And we all know what that means.
Finally, if any of you do get to watch this clever piece of propaganda, you?ll notice that the theme is ?serving Jehovah? ? Jesus does not get a mention once. It?s almost as if Jesus never existed.
Clearly, there is a massive problem in this organization, and the Society is taking steps to deal with it ? but in the wrong way.
Rather than organizing JW youth groups in congregations, and actually sponsoring JW youth events like many churches, they have resorted to emotional appeal and blackmail to cajole what remaining witness youth there is into slaves for their book publishing and distribution empire.