a circuit overseer friend of mine serving in latin america called me today to say hi.
i asked him what's new and he dropped the news that they have received notification that the branch in mexico will be closing!!
this branch also called the central american branch (although located in mexico) oversees all of mexico's 800,000+ publishers plus all 7 countries of central america of over 100,000 publishers.
I could see a time when as the rumor was years ago, the CO ends up being drawn from a local elders on a rotating basis, a kind of super-COBE who travels within the circuit they live in.
Of course, one way or another, these COs would be accountable to Watchtower. They would not have autonomy. Watchtower fears schisms and keeps a tight reign to keep this from happening.
it's no secret that both remaining a jw or leaving the wts can take a toll on mental health.
some will suffer from depression and ultimately some will have thoughts of suicide and a few will succumb to those.. but i don't recall ever seeing any hard stats or studies on it though.
i'm sure we all know of some people who have committed suicide but i don't know if, because you may have loose association with a much larger pool of people through the religion, that this only seems higher or maybe not be actually higher than the general population.. what i mean is, you go to a kh here there maybe 100-150 people, you attend circuit and district conventions with many tens of thousands - if any one person commits suicide then you likely hear about it and it becomes part of the anecdotal 'evidence' that is then put forward as a fact that there is a higher rate ... but is there?.
I think hundreds of thousands for the blood issue is perhaps too high. Certainly tens of thousands have though.
As for suicides, I wonder if one examines a like group with similar conditions where studies have been done. It would be easy to extrapolate.
the elders in this area are getting burned out.
i have overheard comments that demonstrate this, but in my dealings with them, i clearly see it.
they can't keep it straight.
This is nothing new.
Every year there are fewer elders and ministerial servants. And fewer males are "stepping up to the plate", meeting the incredibly steep requirements it takes to climb the theocratic ladder.
That means more work for those that remain.
i have two questions about warwick.
see the picture included.
1) at the other side of the lake you see other buildings.
I think it looks like Scientology's Gold Base in California. At least their compound is more colorful...blue, not grey.
I wonder if the grey buildings are to match the revised NWT and new songbook...or the other way around.
so our sunday meeting was on the 25th (christmas) and my active jw wife and i were out of town enjoying some family time with relatives.. apparently there were many others in our congregation that missed as well.
so few were there in fact that sisters ran the mics.
(actually it was a sister running one of the two mics) a friend of my wife commented to her about how the brothers just aren't stepping up and it "makes her want to cry.
There's a high bar for "brothers" to meet to even qualify for running mikes.
First, one has to be above a low hour publisher. This is what got me disbarred from carrying the mike.
Next, if one has looked at soft porn, they are disqualified, or watched a rated R movie, or played a video game deemed to be 'violent'. Or if they have a beard or goatee.
There are so many ways to lose this 'privilege'.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t06777k65p11e53/20160521e.pdf?dl=0.
may 21, 2016. we are pleased to inform you that electronic versions of the annual items for 2017 will be made available for download on jw.org beginning in october of this year.
this includes examining the scriptures daily—2017 and the 2017 yearbook of jehovah’s witnesses.
Yes, we seem to have this conversation every year...
it was the year 2011. remember that one?
surprise, surprise -- it wasn't one of their predictions.
it was from one of their competitors, harold camping.. "religious leaders sometimes predict tragic worldwide events to warn mankind and gather followers.
They aren't a doomsday group because they've made up a definition of one that they don't match but others who had "wrong expectations" are. But outside of the loaded language of Watchtower, in the everyday vernacular, they are.
With 1914, JWs are ignorant about the history of the teaching and its ultimate roots or their kinship to the Second Adventists and Millerites. Dozens of groups all predicted the end of a 2520 year period from years the 19th century to1917 to 1934. It just so happened that one of those groups predicted a year where something happened...just not anything they were predicting. Then after the fact they revised what the prediction was all about.
the wts has a tax free income of 2 bilion dollar now by selling the brooklyn hq (beside other recent money schemes).
were has the money gone?.
it must be somewere.. g..
The "true" religion would have the most transparency. After all, what would there to be to hide? The children of the light do their works in the light.
when i truly believed the jws had the truth, i usually reverted back to 'what's the point?
i'm going to die anyway' as a way to justify for doing so-called bad things or not doing so-called good things in jw land.. i shouldn't be watching this r-rated movie.
(why stop?
Yes, I got to the point where I thought I was going to be destroyed. Every Watchtower study, every assembly, was telling me I was doomed for very trivial reasons.
So I got to the point where it didn't seem to matter anymore. My fault was then feeling guilty, trying to go back and putting my head in the lion's mouth. But that helped me wake up in the end.
at this year's annual meeting (2016), david "mark" sanderson asks the audience the question, "are you determined to keep on preaching with us until we say the work is completed?
" to which they respond with applause.
do you think that stopping the preaching work will ever be a part of the gb's long range plan?
Is that an exact quote?
"we say"?
It used to be "Jehovah's says".
