We had them speak at our assemblies and conventions quite often. I can't remember an instance of them coming to a congregation, though.
I heard Fred Franz in Beaumont, TX in the mid-80's. He was already blind as a bat and very feeble, but he did command attention. I also thought the fact that he could give a complete sermon with scriptures with no notes was amazing.
as a jw, when i'd find out someone got disfellowshipped, i'd shake my head and think, "what a selfish person.
choosing immorality (it had to be immorality) over jehovah.
i hope i never make such bad choices.
I have another question. What would happen if someone is called on the carpet for being naughty (you know, like celebrating your child's birth or reading spiritually pornographic material such as this or going to church or other terrible things), and you decide to just hand in your disassociation letter in lieu of attending the jc meeting. Would they then just drop the disfellowshipping charges and let the disassociation stand?
when i was still living at home as a young adult i managed to attend mass every sunday, mostly out of guilt, for the catholic church was good at making you believe that not attending mass without a valid reason was a mortal sin - an offense that would send you to hell for certain.
i usually went to the church in the next town over since it had the latest scheduled mass in the area.
one particular weekend my sister and her husband were visiting and on sunday they drove to that neighboring city to go to mass, so they declared.
To the kingdom hall. Always the kingdom hall. Every . . . single . . . boring . . . time.
To think of all the blueberry pancakes I've missed!
as a jw, when i'd find out someone got disfellowshipped, i'd shake my head and think, "what a selfish person.
choosing immorality (it had to be immorality) over jehovah.
i hope i never make such bad choices.
Just want to add that my heart goes out to all you guys who got attitude from people like me. Even though I can't remember ever actually shunning anyone, I'm sorry for the warped view I had of good people.
as a jw, when i'd find out someone got disfellowshipped, i'd shake my head and think, "what a selfish person.
choosing immorality (it had to be immorality) over jehovah.
i hope i never make such bad choices.
As a JW, when I'd find out someone got disfellowshipped, I'd shake my head and think, "What a selfish person. Choosing immorality (it had to be immorality) over Jehovah. I hope I never make such bad choices." I felt sorry for their self-imposed position.
But da'd people were different. They deliberately turned their back on the gift Jehovah had given them. I figured anyone who da'd themselves had basically given the finger to the elders who I'm sure tried so hard and lovingly to keep them in the flock. They had to be insane!
To me disassociated people were practically inhuman to me. I couldn't imagine that many people just wanted to be left alone, and were forced into disassociation. I couldn't imagine that people could actually NOT believe it was "the truth".
as a jw, when i'd find out someone got disfellowshipped, i'd shake my head and think, "what a selfish person.
choosing immorality (it had to be immorality) over jehovah.
i hope i never make such bad choices.
I think about this because I may some day have to choose between the two. Be df'd for apostacy in abstensia, or choose to write "the letter". I don't think it really matters to me, but I think of how my extensive family will view me. I know policy-wise, it's all the same. But it would have made a difference to me in how I thought of someone or treated them.
i've recently shown my wife this forum (she's a df'd jw who does still hold fast to jw views).
she's been really depressed and feels down on herself constantly because she wasn't a better witness and seems to feel she has no hope of a personal relationship with god now that she's df'd.
i was a little upset a moment ago trying to get her out of her depression by pushing my point of view that the wt is full of $hit regarding a great many number of things, the least of which that only 144,000 people are going to heaven/effectively can be saved.
Where is the Great Crowd Serving God? Very helpful article.
for the longest time i was afraid to see it, and when i did i have to admit i felt 'weird', anyone else feel this way.
I'm with Elsewhere on this one. For the first time I'm willing and able to watch scary movies without fear of "letting the demons in". After watching some of the classics I missed, I wonder what all the fuss was about.
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i remember about 5 or 6 years ago,they introduced the pioneer-assist program at one of the service meetings.the purpose of of this program was for the spiritually-strong pioneers to go out in service with an r&f member on a weekly basis for about 6 months to help build up others in the congregation.part of this was because in the mid to late 90's a large number of people had become jw's and they wanted to make good publishers with them.. anyways,my wife was quickly signed up as was another young sister down the road.my wife was excited about it and was really hoping to benefit spiritually.within a few weeks though,her pioneer partner started making up excuses why she couldn't go out with my wife until eventually their arrangement just petered out.the young sister down the road was also quickly ditched;the pioneer saying she had to care for her elderly mother(she didn't stop pioneering though).before long the pioneer clique was back to normal and the spiritually-strong pioneers were again going out in service with other spiritually-strong pioneers.i don't recall any updates or the program itself ever mentioned again at the kingdom hall,like it was just a bad experiment or a major burden on the pioneers.. does anyone have any experiences with the pioneer-assist program?
This was one of the few things that made me out and out angry. The way it was put to me was that the pioneers needed my help. I was a humble little sister who never questioned anything but it only took a couple of sentences to see that the title Pioneer Assistance Program was just a front to guilt low-hour publishers into doing more.
If you think I need encouraging to go out in service more, just say it. Don't try to trick me into it. It made me feel like such a child. A child who couldn't say "don't treat me like a child".
The pioneer assigned to me happened to be the one lady in the congragation I just didn't like, and I would bet the feeling was mutual. She cancelled on me once, I cancelled on her once, and that was all she wrote.
if you are da'd or df'd and an elder from your former hall ran into you in public and tried to engage you in conversation, what would you do.
would you talk to them or shun them as the rank and file are required to you.
i would walk away without even acknowledging their existence.
If this elder was one I respeced and was nice to me then I would be glad to talk to him. If he had treated me unkindly I would be polite but probably cool and excuse myself. Either way I think the most important thing would be to avoid seeming intimidated or acting hateful in return.
