The Social Structure in the Congregation (page 6)

LUKEWARM

Great post Mary!

Had a good laugh at this one liner:

Missing meetings on a regular basis makes you more invisible than Jesus' Return in 1914.

I was #4 while pioneering and going to PI school, then #5 the years before and after PI'ing. I became #7 when I moved to a new hall and was the only deaf one there and there wasn't a regular interpreter. I became the worst kind of burdon then. That is when I left.

White Dove

This thread is so good it deserved a resurrection:) I wondered why I didn't know any of the posters except for three of them.

InquiryMan

Honestly, this must reflect American JWism more than its European counterpart....

wantarevolution

I agree Inquiry man.

The cong I grew up in wasn't as layered as this.

I was in the PO family , and my childhood friends were mostly from spiritually split homes. My closest JW neighbour that I used to walk to school with was 1 of 7 kids, mother was a witness, father was THE NICEST MAN ever, but never baptised or attended memorials. My parents never had any issues with me hanging out with them.

There was 4 special pioneer sisters, but they weren't held up as anything special - my favourite elder (some of the ex gilead's may know him) was a special pioneer who worked 30 hours a week to make sure his incredibly sweet wife always had enough flowers and cheese :D and that he could always make it to the latest films.

Our elders were a mixture of hyper zealous, one had a gay daughter, one an autistic son, one a party animal.

Maybe ours was an irregularity, however our hall was (and by all accounts still is, based on my last visits) a very level playing field.

inbetween

well, according to this list I would be 2,

but I guess things are not so bad in our congr., elders really view themselves as servants mostly, its really quite cool...

no its def. not our congr. that makes me come here, its the fallible doctrine of WTS that sucks...

oompa

One of the biggest cliques is not positively ID in your list Mary, although you do touch on it with the ladies in group #2 (i love your list btw and lmao!)...I and a few others fit in very well in #2 but were not elders and eventually i was not even a Mini-server and i still fit in. How could this be?.....and many of missed a lot of meetings for recreation? You fit in with upper echelon types IF YOU HAVE A LOT OF COIN AND TOYS!!.......and back in the day i had aplenty.....two week vacations and group cruises every year....always the exact same group, and ya, we were all borderline alcoholics.......almost never did our weekend bashes at the lake or ocean include the poor dubs.......we were a tight clique

money covers a multitude of sin apparently..........oompa

highdose

in my experiance of the UK this is exactly how the congo is set up, mary has nailed it so exactly its amazing! she could be writing about any of the congos i've ever been in!

i was the bottom of the pile btw, a woman, part of a single parent family who worked and worst of all, i only went and got a uni education! then to add insult to injury i went and got a well paid job after that.

i can still remember 2 sisters who were pioneers and cleaned windows/houses part time, they used to interigate me at every meeting, " how much had i earnt that week? how much did my shoes cost?" they always hated the answer and turned green...

it used to make me feel gulity, but now i just laugh... hhahahahahaha!

straightshooter

Mary your outline of the social structure within the congregation is so true. When I got baptized, I ass kissed to become a ministerial servant then I ass kissed to become an elder. When I did not ass kiss the circuit overseer, then the bottom dropped out and sank towards the bottom of the status level.

The Social Structure in the Congregation

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