My wife attended the assembly last weekend - and I attended it with her!
Though I no longer have any association with the congregation I do attend the Circuit and District assemblies in order to support her.
my wife is attending the dc today.
i know she will be all dubbed up when she gets home tonight and i was wondering if there are any comments or questions i can ask or is there anything i should be ready to respond to based on her attending.
i know that the theme is "keep on the watch", i have listened to the audio that auntbee so kindly provided and from what it seems to me, they are merely driving home the point that folks need to be more faithful in there service because even though we do not know when the end it, it is so very very close.
My wife attended the assembly last weekend - and I attended it with her!
Though I no longer have any association with the congregation I do attend the Circuit and District assemblies in order to support her.
one of the principal problems the wts has is, how do they motivate the rank & file witnesses to do more in the preaching work?.
over the past 3-4 years, one thing they have tried is a series of "special" field service campaigns.
two or three times a year, there is a concerted effort made to cover all the congregation's territory with district convention invitations, memorial invitations, "special" tracts, etc.. but, in effect, with these special campaigns comes along a subliminal message that the society expects, indeed demands, that it will be a colossal failure.. for example, consider the campaign to invite the public to the district convention.
I think that most Witnesses would agree with the comments here. In my experience these campaigns stir up very little enthusiasm anyway.
just after the tsunami brothers donated millions in relief funds, marked "for the tsunami victims"....not realizing few brothers lived in these muslim areas.
problem is the society wanted this money for itself so..... kingdom ministry nov 2005 {11 months after tsunami} "last year brothers donated towards those effected by the tsunami disaster...however, when donations are earmarked for certain disasters it is...to use these funds only as specified by the donor {so what?
} and within a certain period of time, whether the needs of the brothers have been cared for locally or not.
I am sure that many of us would still be in if they were truly a humanitarian organisation.
There is lots of talk about down-sizing but no talk about building up any humanitarian efforts. There is nothing this organization could not do if they had the will but the hard fact is that they cannot see beyond the door to door ministry and printing and distributing of literature and all that goes with it.
Are they truely greedy? Perhaps not, but they are totally mis-guided with regard to the love of God.
it's the world's greatest game; played by the english gentry and kids in every slum in the indian sub-continent.. but like peanut butter and marmite, you either love it or can't see what others see in it!.
It's the world's greatest game; played by the English gentry and kids in every slum in the Indian sub-continent.
But like peanut butter and marmite, you either love it or can't see what others see in it!
a friend has died.
another has gone missing; we are hoping and praying that he is still alive.
john donne's immortal poem comes to mind:.
I have always loved the John Donne poem. It has inspired the title of the Hemmingway novel 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' and a great Simon and Grafunkel song ; 'I am Rock'.
i suppose the english word "love" has many meanings according to individual needs and experience.
the questions are for me: if love is unilateral or an interactive relationship?
is unrequited love none-the-less rewarding?
I guess you just know.
you aren't in charge of anyone or anything, and when you realize it, you will set yourself free to really live.. humans tend to categorize, label, and set up expectations.
cultivating a zen attitude means simply living, experiencing, and being without categories, labels, or expectations.. "tragedy" is only "tragedy" because we label it as "tragedy".
removing the label and simply experiencing the experience can help negative feelings pass and can turn a "tragedy" into a learning opportunity.. when humans experience catastrophic loss, it is more difficult to put things into perspective, but as with less serious losses, major loss is difficult because we attach our expectations and false sense of ownership, fears, and regrets to the things we have lost.. letting go of the attachments to our feelings of pain, grief, and sorrow can help us move through any experience..
I too like the idea of Zen living. I would love to be at peace with myself when my time time comes and I think the attitude that Zen teaches would help.
i always wondered about this when i was still a jw.
i just assumed that it was improper for a jw to eat any meat that wasn't thoroughly cooked, especially steak.
i though everyone could see that the red juice contained blood, which, if eaten, amounted to a violation of the prohibition against eating blood.
The whole problem with the JW stance is that they fail to recognise that abstinence from blood was symbolic. They, therefore, need to have to have a rule for everything and continue to make up pointless rules and regulations, such as you can eat rare steak and have blood components.
Remember, that the rule on blood was originally symbolic of a life taken - God wanted the majority of the blood symbolically poured on the ground and not reserved for consumption. After that it is irrelevant that a small amount of blood is left – you done the symbolic bit. Taking blood from a live person to save the life of another has absolutely nothing to do with the Old Testament symbolism, where you probably killed your animal yourself and poured out its blood to remind you as an individual that a life was taken to sustain you.
glad i decided to watch it.
i was afraid it would turn out to be a circus and i was very pleasantly surprised at how.
dignified and honorable it turned out.. thanks to the jackson family for allowing many to see all the good things michael will be remembered for as well.
I disagree. I don’t want to be a cynic but it was a 'show, a surreal piece of pop-culture entertainment.
quite a few years back i had various pioneer friends who were asked to give experiences at the circuit conventions.. they were to write up there experience first give it to the elder and they would go over it.. however, when it came time for this the elder who was giving the part decided to change their experience and it did not.
and was not even truthful now, it was not how it happened.
my one friend in particular was very upset about this because.
Part of the problem with these assembly parts is that there just aren’t the ‘encouraging’ experiences out there. So the brother giving the part either embellishes the truth or re-cycles old experiences.
I must have heard the same experiences from a former missionary couple half a dozen times. The reality is that they left the country they were serving in in the late 60’s and have never been back since.