@ factfinder - I served in Bethel in the past. And while not once do I remember being encouraged to miss meetings, as a "new boy", I was told that Bethel came first.
I do even remember getting "counseled"(TM) about me going to an onsite bookstudy at Bethel rather than supporting my hall's arrangement. I was told to support my congregation.
However, there was a Bethel brother in my hall that was involved in a video project for a few months. He wasn't seen for at least a month at a time causing others to ask me if he had left Bethel. He was working about 18 hours a day for this project. He was definitely overworked.
He was a ministerial servant in the hall, and obviously would have missed being involved in field service because of this. Yet he was NEVER disqualified.
After I left Bethel I asked elders at my hall about that. 'If you are encouraged at Bethel to support your congregation, why does that go out the window when a big Bethel project comes up?' Naturally, no answer, or rather, no really good answer. 'That's the arrangement of the slave.'
The same actually applies to those with positions in the Regional Building Committee, or RBC, and I believe those involved in International Construction. Those projects come FIRST, even if you miss meetings and/or field service. I've overheard elders talk about how they've gotten little, if any, field service time because of being involved in all this. And for months at a time! Yet no disqualifications.
Double standard at its very best! And I witnessed (no pun intended) it firsthand in God's house. Gotta love it!!
CoC
