Open mind

Joined

• started 385 topics
• posted 6,386 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by Open mind

• 
  67

  How Can I Kindly Kick Weak And Unproductive Publishers Out Of My Kingdom Hall?

  by AuntConnie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  unproductive kingdom proclaimers won't leave my kingdom hall, how do i rid our hall of these vultures or turkeys?.

  "you can't fly like the eagles if you hang out with turkeys".

  after visiting your site, i decided to allow one of the spiritual weak individuals into my car group, it was not easy but you have made valid points i find very self condemning.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  C'mon folks, let's cut Aunt Connie a break here.

  She did at least ask how she could KINDLY kick out the weak and unproductive publishers.

  That's a little bit of progress.

  om
• 
  51

  Clapping at the meetings and assembly

  by NewYork44M in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i had a random thought this morning about clapping.

  growing up in the wt culture i learned the proper protocol for clapping.

  before the assembly speaker gave his talk, but not after.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  *Feeling like a fool today, so I'll just rush in here.*

  BOTR said: "This is interestiing b/c clapping only happens in Episcopal churches when they make announcements"

  My interpretation of BOTR's comment:

  BOTR has been to Episcopal churches. (Probably many times.) Based on her lengthy experience with the Episcopal Church, they only clap for announcements.

  My interpretation of what ShirleyW heard:

  The only church, aside from the JWs, that has clapping is the Episcopal Church.

  *stepping out now*

  om
• 
  12

  Congo Merger Elder Meeting Flashback: SUPER True-Believer Cong. Secretary

  by Open mind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this thead is a little bit long and it's not earth-shaking.

  it just gives a glimpse into the inner-workings of elder meetings.. .

  several years ago i was serving as an elder and the c.o.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  jookbeard: "The Big Match was always broadcast then and I loved this show as it showed the football highlights of the past Saturday"

  I've only recently started to watch a little bit of the game that the rest of the planet knows as football. As a newcomer, watching "highlights" is absolutely the best. I'm sure I'll appreciate the subtleties of the game as time goes on. Too bad you were denied that.

  flipper: "! Ah- Sweet is the Freedom ! "

  Indeed.

  mamochan: "There was no other cong. in the hall, we could have had the meetings any time, but the elders were stuck to those times."

  Yeah, unless there's some outside pressure, meeting times never change.

  minimus: "I was asked to pray to get the meeting back under control."

  Do you remember the topic that got the crazies so worked up?

  om
• 
  36

  Greetings

  by Monsieur in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i visit this site often for various reasons, above all to see the opinions of those in regards to their present state in life in relation to past or present tendencies in thinking (religious, morals, etc).. i had not found anything constructive or worthy of adding to this conversation but for one reason or another here i am doing so now.

  i am presently an active jw member.

  i believe that our faith provides a haven or parameters from which members can significantly obtain structure and order in many different ways.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  Welcome to JWN Monsieur!

  Flipper said: "Don't think too much about God or the meaning of life or your head will explode."

  (One of the wisest things I think I've ever seen come out of the Flipster's fingers.)

  Our lives are short. Make the best you can of it and hope that if there is a God, it/she/he isn't a jerk. (I donned my "tasteful" cap in choosing my words.)

  om
• 
  147

  Weird "new world" artwork from the 2013 calendar

  by cedars in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my mother-in-law has a strange obsession with calendars, and orders the society's calendar each year.

  this year's calendar is especially weird.

  it features images depicting future events - in particular, the society's vision of the new world order.. i've taken the opportunity to scan some of the images for you all to check out.. please note - there are captions for each of the images, but i don't have the english language version of the calendar so i'd rather just quote the scripture used so as not to reveal which country i'm in.. .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  Snickering at snooker.

  Good one.

  om
• 
  152

  How Long has it Been since you Last Attended Meetings and What Caused...

  by flipper in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ..... you to stop attending ?

  injustices ?

  disagree with the teachings ?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  Memorial 2012.

  We will just be "Easter" JWs from now on.

  My trigger moment for really plunging in to researching JWs was giving a Service Meeting talk hammering home the importance of shunning DFed relatives. In the talk I told the entire congregation that my family had 100% shunned my DFed older brother for 20 years. If we can do it so can you!

  After the talk, a sister whose 20-something daughter had just been DFed, came up to me with tears in her eyes telling me what a great job I had done and that she was REALLY going to try to apply the direction from The Slave from here on out. Lots of others also gave me strong commendation as well. I really poured my heart into that talk.

  Getting ready for bed that night, I looked at myself in the mirror and REALLY didn't like what I saw. The shred of non-cult humanity that remained inside me won out.

  om
• 
  51

  Clapping at the meetings and assembly

  by NewYork44M in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i had a random thought this morning about clapping.

  growing up in the wt culture i learned the proper protocol for clapping.

  before the assembly speaker gave his talk, but not after.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  Actual experience: The Clapper Talk. (Last talk of the District Convention.) In recent years it appears to have gone the way of the DoDo. It was always full of JW Global growth statistics and cheesy "experiences". For lack of anything better to do, my brothers and I would actually keep a tally of how many times there was applause during The Clapper Talk (tm). Usually it was at least 15-20 times.

  Another bored, Distriction Convention past-time: Try to be the first or the very last person to clap in the whole audience.

  My personal Fantasy: As a non-believing observer, wait for a meeting where someone is announced as DFed or reproved, start a slow clap, stand up and keep up the applause while walking all the way out of the KH. Will never happen since we only go to Memorials now.

  om
• 
  52

  One experience in our old Kingdom Hall that still HAUNTS me

  by Newly Enlightened in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  the following is a true experience and my daughter gojira101 will verify that it happened to her.

  an experience from our family's past that still haunts me and started my questioning whether this is the true organization of god or not.. my daughter, who has always been a good kid, never gave us any problems [she's an adult now] started regular pioneering.

  within a few weeks of her starting, she fell on a steep hill and tore open her knee and had to have several stitches.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  Welcome to JWN Newly Enlightened & Gojira!

  That story sounds like at least the elder giving the talk, if not the entire BOE, really had it in for you. As hard as it was at the time, in the big scheme of things they actually did you an unwitting favor since it helped you finally exit the Borg. (Still a very unloving thing to do.)

  We had a Circuit Overseer that was a complete "Old School" hard a$$. He'd berate parents and little kids that were being allowed to doze during his snoozy talks. He tried to impose a ban on denim, etc.

  His hard-core approach was helpful in waking up my wife and children. Thank you very much Brother Jack Ass!

  om
• 
  12

  Congo Merger Elder Meeting Flashback: SUPER True-Believer Cong. Secretary

  by Open mind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this thead is a little bit long and it's not earth-shaking.

  it just gives a glimpse into the inner-workings of elder meetings.. .

  several years ago i was serving as an elder and the c.o.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  zeb: "There was no debate at all. just a vote."

  When it came down to the congregation, that's how we did it too. We let everyone know the two possible time slots that the "spirit-appointed" elders had narrowed it down to and that one week later a vote would be taken.

  Alan Miller aka OTWO: (Just finished reading the last few chapters of your book, BTW.) "Why not stop and pray?"

  Well, we certainly could have. In fact, I half-way expected Starry Eyes to possibly suggest it. We had already been meeting for two hours and of course, the meeting was opened with a long-winded prayer by one of the two likely future P.O.s (COBE) who was trying to show how spiritual he was. Some of the other issues we had been discussing were even MORE fractious and we hadn't stopped for prayer then, so why bother now. Let's just hear the arguments, make a decision and hopefully get home before midnight.

  In over ten years serving as an elder, I can only remember one occasion where the body stopped in the middle of an elder's meeting and prayed for guidance, wisdom, peace, unity, etc. All the other prayers were at the traditional times.

  om
• 
  12

  Congo Merger Elder Meeting Flashback: SUPER True-Believer Cong. Secretary

  by Open mind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this thead is a little bit long and it's not earth-shaking.

  it just gives a glimpse into the inner-workings of elder meetings.. .

  several years ago i was serving as an elder and the c.o.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Open mind

  This thead is a little bit long and it's not earth-shaking. It just gives a glimpse into the inner-workings of elder meetings.
  
  Several years ago I was serving as an elder and the C.O. decided that it was time for our congo and a neighboring one to merge. The grandstanding, posturing and politicking by the various elders during those first few combined elder body meetings was nauseating and comical by turns.
  
  The Secretary from the other congregation was a rare breed of elder, IMO. Let's call him Starry Eyes. He was raised by a JW mom and a secular non-JW dad. He got baptized as an early teen and by his late teens and early twenties he was very money-oriented and got himself a reputation as a bit of a materialistic ladies' man. In actuality, he was probably fairly well-adjusted and had a good head for business and Dad's approval to pursue a career.
  
  Somewhere in his late twenties Starry Eyes began to truly start drinking the JW Kool-Aid. He scaled back his business and dove into pioneering and serving where the "need is great" full bore. Eventually he married a JW bride from one of his overseas "need great" excursions and they came back to a more comfortable life in American suburbia. But he still had his "true believer" goggles firmly attached.
  
  This guy positively oozed "appreciation" for all things "spiritual". Holy Spirit could be found all over the place if you just had the right frame of mind. I don't want to misrepresent him here, so let me clarify. He was not someone who liked to APPEAR super-righteous so as to receive accolades from a fawning congregation. He was 100% sincere. So sincere that he often seemed innocent and naive.
  
  Now lets drop in on what I'm pretty sure was the second time both elder bodies got together to hammer out the practicalities of how we were going to handle things going forward as one big happy Uber-Congregation. Elder blow-hards had been yammering on for at least a couple of hours when the earth-shattering topic of.....
  
  Meeting Days and Times....
  
  reared its ugly head.
  
  At this point in time I had just started posting on JWN and was fully aware that the bulk of JW doctrines and policies were B.S. Our old congregation's Theocratic School & Service Meeting were on Thursday nights which sucked big time. Why? That's when The Office (NBC) was on TV. This was the first season and the show, even though it was a knock-off of Ricky Gervais' British version, was fresh and hilarious. So that was my own personal reason for wanting a Wednesday night TMS & SM. A reason that I chose not to share with the rest of the Good Old Boys.
  
  Personal preferences aside, I did have what I thought was a pretty logical argument as to how a decision should be made.
  
  "Brothers, as JWs we know that no day is more sacred than any other day. We are not expected to have meetings on any particular day. I know of one congregation in Wyoming that was in a "Company Town" run by an oil company. The majority of the congregation were brothers and they all had to work Monday through Saturday and a few on Sunday, with rotating shifts. Sunday was the only day that most of them had off. So they chose to have ALL the week's meetings back-to-back on Sunday morning. The deciding factor was what day and time worked best for the majority of the congregation's members. I propose that we ask the friends a couple of questions re: the TMS & SM:
  
  1. Which evening would you PREFER? Wednesday or Thursday? (Tuesday was out of the question since another congo already had their meeting then.)
  
  2. Would either Wednesday or Thursday pose a GREAT HARDSHIP for you to make the meeting?
  
  At this point, Brother Starry Eyes couldn't take it anymore. I think he wanted us to employ the Urim & Thummim to make this momentous decision. He said:
  
  "Brother OM, there's something we need to keep in mind here. Who do the sheep belong to? (Insert, super long pause.)

  ...... They belong to Jesus and we should seek His direction in making our decision."
  
  Inside my skull was a giant, neon, flashing, W. T. F. ?
  
  Uh, OK, if Jesus wants to direct us towards which night would be best, I'm all ears. But, as far as I can tell, Baby Jeebuz is being silent on this issue so we're stuck with making a decision that works the best for the majority of "the friends".
  
  The preceding paragraph was being recited silently in my skull, but, as a fairly good-humored fellow elder told me later, it was pretty apparent on my face as well. I was speechless.
  
  Somebody else chimed in and another 5 minutes of hot air was expelled before we finally came to an agreement that we would put it to a vote for the congregation(s).
  
  I think Brother Starry Eyes thought we should stop the Elder's Meeting in our tracks and pray for guidance on this issue. He didn't actually say this, but it was the only explanation I could think of for what path he thought we should take. Of course no prayer was said, but plenty of opinions were expressed.
  
  I hope this wasn't too disappointing of a thread for you. It's just a snapshot, as well as I can remember, of the inner workings of Elder meetings.
  
  (BTW, Wednesday night won out and our family got to watch The Office for the next few seasons before we switched congregations.)

  om