Within one minute JW with trolley directs me to JW.org

by steve2 33 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Magnum

  steve2: I notice that the attention headers on the trolleys are on relatively innocuous topics like "Is the Bible Really God's Word?" and not on how on warnings about how near the end is - which is kind of puzzling because from the organization's perspective, the end is that much closer as time passes.

  On the other hand, it's also a no-brainer that the organization is now trying to convey to the public a nice, balanced healthy, non-cult-like outlook.  Were they to come with more blatant warnings about the nearness of the end, it would provoke recognition that the organization has been banging on about the end since the 1870s - and you'd need an organ grinder's monkey to distract the public from the its healthy skepticism.

  You've sure got a grip on the current situation in JWdom.

  So JWs are now 'tickling ears'. Funny how they used to speak against others for doing that. What happened to the situation being like the seventh day of marching around Jericho? I thought JWs were supposed to be delivering a loud, bold, hard message in these very last days.

  
  
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  brandnew

  Its cuz people arent giving a @!#$ about preaching verbally.  The old timers maybe, but new generation of cart pushers....nah.  Why when they can have their ipad talk to ya.
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  OrphanCrow

  Huh.

  So the gist of it is that the Witnesses are now solely directing traffic to the WTS' website. That is quite a switch in roles. No interest in conversion either. Strange.

  Why this shift in direction?

  Why the emphasis on website traffic?

  A friend of mine told me that 'they' are regularly set up on campus in the city here. She thought it was strange and so out of place and somewhat creepy. Targeting the youth at universities is historically a cult-recruitment tactic that has been widely used in North America. 

  This latest shift in behavior reeks of recruitment rather than conversion.

  
  
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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  I've seen JWs standing by their carts in my city. As others noted, the JWs' bodies are there, but their minds seem to be elsewhere. They don't approach others or make eye contact. Might be talking to each other or standing quietly.

  It's certainly not an issue here that they can't approach people for legal reasons. Lots of other religious groups are out there enthusiastically trying to initiate conversations, carrying signs, passing out leaflets, preaching about hell using loudspeakers, driving around in vans plastered with signs and blaring some preacher. And with the myriad of street performers, those JWs would probably get lots more attention if they put out a tip jar and either stood really still like statues or did a drumming routine on their carts.

  As the JWs are around here, they're completely ignorable. And since the vast majority of JWs I know would sooner leave the religion than go back to the type of theatrics that JWs used to do with street witnessing and sandwichboard campaigns, this is WT's solution. The GB is willing to dumb down the ministry so the dubs can fake it like this. And why fight it? The door-to-door preaching certainly isn't that productive, so just let them stand around and count their time.
  
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  steve2

  Magnum, I also concluded that they were now into reassuring the public they are just a nice, friendly, kind bunch of citizens who happen to also have the "truth" - but you'd never get them claiming the latter! It struck me as they spoke to me how almost apologetic they were about their message: Eg., "We're not out to force people to listen...we know people are busy...we appreciate people may not want to listen to us..." Hell, if they are the sole possessors of the "truth", people need to know!!!

  Billy, the dumbed down approach was very striking as the two JWs spoke. I wondered if they even thought that I would find their examples too simplistic - it appeared not, given they continued in that simplistic manner. They oozed advice that I could go onto the website for short periods when it suited me and I did not need to take in too much at one time.

  Whilst I admired their capacity for verbalizing empathy, it also struck me as largely needless given how stunningly simplistic the website information is. But they don't think it's simplistic - from their view, it explains everything. Sigh!

  By contrast, in my younger years I waded through several hundred densely filled pages of that really heavy tome, "Babylon the Great Has Fallen! God's Kingdom Rules". By today's standard, that would be considered an impossible and unnecessary read. And the Witnesses would tell me to stick to summaries found on their website. 
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  WTWizard

  Just a fancy way to waste time and money.  As door knocking wasted much time without accomplishing anything worthwhile, running these stupid carts wastes people's time standing behind them.  There could be 30 or more in a territory, set up where no one is going to approach them, and that would necessitate having 60 people running them all the time.  And, no more "One more call, and we're going in".  Instead, the carts have to be up and running from 5:30 in the morning until around midnight.  So much for going in early because of running out of territory or because all the calls were not home.

  In addition, it is a waste of people's money.  Before, with door to door, people wasted their money on gas and vehicle wear.  Now, it is data.  You run that stupid video on your own device, and that costs data.  Anyone knowing how much data per minute it takes realizes that this is a waste.  Playing a video repeatedly with no one responding is going to run through several dozen gigabytes of data with no return.  Who pays for this?  And, even if anyone goes to the site, it doesn't mean anything.  Before, you get a study, you returned regularly.  Now, I can go onto their site, browse through some of the rags, and then write an article to throw the whole rag right back into their faces.

  With time running out for the euro (and the dollar), financial affairs so unstable, and Neptune rapidly approaching 9 degrees of Pisces (all of which are bad for the dollar which is going to become toilet paper), who has the time and money to waste on this crap?  I don't.  I don't have money to waste on one of those devices--my computer at home can run all the videos I need with no additional cost.  With the money some of those devices can run through playing those stupid videos in the name of joke-hova within a month, you could get a whole roll of silver quarters and maybe have enough to get a roll of silver dimes or a silver Eagle with the change.  Which will help you a lot more when the currency collapses and the dollar becomes toilet paper than running that stupid cart and wasting your data on those stupid videos.
  
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  pepperheart

  In a major city this week they had a trolley full of teaching books that were printed in 2006 and none of the silver "what does the bible really say" but the old ones some of the books ive taken just these past weeks have been from 1998
  
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  Phizzy

  In the two decades before I left in 2008, the Congregation I was in only brought in about four people from the area they covered. This was the pathetic result despite the efforts of Pioneers and other very zealous JW's.

  If they are scaling back on DtoD, and relying on Trolley "witnessing" and referring people to the Website, then I can see the recruitment of non-JW's as being nil. The only "growth" comes from JW's born-in.

  The business plan of Property Churning may keep them going for a fair time, but the base of regular donations will erode, this is a problem they seem not to know how to tackle, and may hurry their demise.
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  Sail Away

  I'm traveling in Central America visiting family. I spoke to JWs in Bocas del Toro and in Coronado, Panama. I said that I have JWs in my family and played dumb. The only thing they were interested in sharing was their titles-- C.O., C.O. in training, Missionary, local Elder, full-time pioneer.
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  jookbeard

  in my town, a normal smallish suburb with a high street about 100 yards long with a smattering of normal stores, banks, couple of pubs etc we have a main line railway station taking commuters into Central London, they situated their cart in the 2 station entrances had it pitched there for as long as these carts came into existence, I've noticed recently that the cart has moved about 60 yards away from the station entrances and they pitch it by a non descript 70's style bland smallish shopping precinct that has a far less amount of footfall, yes I believe the railway company have moved them ! LOL.

  The very last chat I had with them some months back while they were by their carts, I mentioned their UN membership , the person asked if I had looked on jw.org to find out , I replied I had and found it strange that it didn't mention it at all, just the usual blank stares ensued!