I have finally sat down and read this letter. I won't recreate the letter here, but if someone wants to share the link here, please do.
ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS
FEBRUARY 2025
FOR ELDERS
2. Special Talk: “encourage all elders” to “consider” whether
“their circumstances” “to serve as auxiliary pioneers (30 or 50
hours/month) during March or April. “Invite
family members (obviously non-jws), Bible (WT books) students, return visits,
and “other acquaintances”
Other (close) acquaintances, does
that mean non-jw family members, bible students, return visits…(not df’d jws?) “A close,
warm friendship cannot be cultivated overnight. After all, friends are much more than acquaintances.”
3. How to Attack An Outline, not what you might think
this means: but rather that elders put
little effort into developing an interesting, well-thought out talk, not doing
this because they have “given the talk so many other times before.” How many elders I knew just tried to wing it,
not having read let alone studied the study article, even if the WT study
overseer or bible study conductor. The
old ministry school was developed in 1943 to teach baptized men how to give
good public talks. In 1958 women were
allowed to participate in showing how to talk to a non-jw person. MS and other men in the congregation look to
the elders to show how a good, effective talk is to be given.
4. Hospitality for Visiting Speakers!!!! There used to be a list back on the “information
board” for people to sign up for certain speakers, usually good friends or
people they wanted to impress. Is that
done any more? We had occasions where
the original speaker cancelled out and another elder was sent to give the
talk. The ones that signed up suddenly
had a unforeseen conflict and cancelled and the chairman supposedly was supposed
to take the speaker and family out. Or
the case where the COBOE had a grudge against the replacement visiting speaker
and coerced the one that had signed up for hospitality to cancel at the last
minute. The WTS considers showing
hospitality a very serious thing (in print anyway) (the WTS says that Lot and
Abraham showed hospitality to strangers, even not of their own belief, and
ended up having entertained angels).
5. School for Kingdom Evangelizers (new term
to me). “The
School for Congregation Elders was inaugurated in 2008. Over the next two
years, more than 12,000 elders were taught at Patterson and at Brooklyn Bethel.
That school is continuing at various other locations, with trained field
instructors. In 2010 the Ministerial Training School was renamed the Bible
School for Single Brothers, and a new school was formed, the Bible School for
Christian Couples. Starting in the 2015 service year, those two schools were
combined, forming the School for Kingdom Evangelizers. Those being instructed
could be couples or single brothers or sisters.”
6. WORK SAFELY AT KINGDOM HALLS: I knew an elder that volunteered and was sent
to Bethel as a temporary worker and safety procedures were not followed and
some had no experience in construction, one such inexperienced brother, dropped
a 200 pound steel pipe on that elder’s foot and that elder spent the rest of
the 2 weeks in the Bethel hospital being treated by a WT doctor that had
experience in fingers! That injured
brother was not offered any concern except by one older GB brother who visited
him every day. In another case, an elder
with construction experience but the WTS did not follow safety protocol, and he
felt off a flimsy scaffold and died on the spot. WTS did not offer any help paying for the
injuries or the loss of income to the dead brother’s family. Yes, the WTS says PLAN (wow) Do you think the
elders are doing it? Haha. But the WTS
is CYAing legally, putting it on that congregation’s elders.
7. So no more 16 year old MS (but can a baptized male under 18,
conduct field service arrangements?) Do
the parents or guardians have to approve the appointment of their minor son, or
does the body of elders have the final say?
1) What does the WTS mean “always respect parental headship
when working with a young ministerial servant?”
2) Another legal CYA “never be alone with a ministerial
servant who is younger than 18 years of age.
Use discernment (what is the WTS definition of that—legal CYA here) to
avoid any conduct that could be misinterpreted by others (who) as morally
questionable (any legal definitions of that that conduct might be?)
3) (MS who is younger than 18) should not be given any
responsibility that involves overseeing or supervising others. (Does include
conducting meetings for field service?)
4) Some…younger than 18…microphone…sound equipment..literature,
territory (unbaptized helping?)
(The WTS once again is only making these changes to address many of the legal problems they are having in the courts)
