Sheep and Goats

Category: Field Service

  • The End of Counting Time in the Ministry

    On the final month of reporting time, I reported 50,000 hours to the congregation secretary. Might as well go out with a bang. 50K in a month not physically possible, you say? “Go to the ant, you lazy one.”

    The guys that made the model for counting time in the ministry came from a factory era in which, when there was nothing to do, you’d better nonetheless look busy in case the boss happened along. This being the model for work, it seemed natural that it might be applied to ‘working for the Lord,’ and so they did apply it. It would take a future generation, raised under different circumstances, to say, ‘Jehovah doesn’t work that way.’

    It is an explanation I’ve heard to account for how we (Jehovah’s Witnesses) once counted time and now we don’t. It’s as good as any. At any rate, I never saw the change coming. But there at 2023 the annual meeting was discussed how it’s not for anyone, whether an elder from HQ or not, to monitor another’s service to God; that’s a matter between the individual and God. It is obviously so. But I never saw it coming. Nor did anyone else I spoke to, and I know a lot of people.

    Any time you change any practice with a hundred year history, it takes some guts. Counting time worked well enough for the longest while. In the days of print-only, it was well to know how many of this or that item was placed so you could print up more. You’d get an overall view of how the ministry was going in this or that area, important if you were trying to live up to the commission that ‘this good news of the kingdom will be preached into all the inhabited earth for a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.’ (Matt 24:14) But what will you do when someone shows an online digital video? Does that mean it is used up and you have to make another one?

    Any model wears out in time. What will the new one mean? For starters, it will aid informal witnessing. And if removes once and for all any notion of being ‘on duty’ or ‘off duty.’ It also completely obliterates the instinct to compare one’s service to that of another’s. Nate Nazi used to grumble about the type of service he phrased as ‘driving around all day avoiding people.’ This type service used to rankle those who preferred more bang for the buck, boots on the ground, maximize those contacted per hour. Now it doesn’t matter. Let each do as he/she sees fit and/or is more comfortable with. Certainly there is nothing wrong with spending much time in the company of the friends, mixing service with socializing, even with errands, and with searching for ‘long shot’ return visits. It just used to rankle those who all but supposed efficiency was a fruitage of the spirit and who’d rather devote their non-contact time to other activities. ‘Always work at the pace of the slowest publisher,’ one CO advised, apparently wanting to accommodate the greatest number in the public ministry. Alas, one can worry he has no idea how slow we can go. Now it doesn’t matter. Let the fast ones work fast, the slow ones slow. Let each team up with like-minded and/or like-abled sometimes, polar opposites other times, without fretting about how it affects one’s field service report.

    Regular pioneers continue to count their time. They are now likened, as are special pioneers, COs, build servants, etc, to the Nazarites who voluntarily took on a special vow.

    Informal witnessing, the way we are being encouraged to do it today, calls for restraint. Toss the ball of conversation; see whether they toss it back to you. If they do, advance it by a degree. If they don’t, move on. Like with Jesus at the well, you do not lead off with a question—that makes it ‘weird.’ Instead, you throw a spiritual statement into the mundane mix and see if you get a response. In short, ‘You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away’—and if you do it right, ideally you will never have to ‘run.’ However, when people are ‘on the clock,’ they tend to not be content with just a statement, for they must give a ‘thorough witness.’ They push beyond that point—must not cheat God, after all, who is monitoring the clock—and end up having to ‘run’ when their imposed-upon non-interested party finally gets fed up. 

    I like the end of counting time—it better enables informal witnessing, which is becoming more and more of a ‘thing.’ It even anticipates should the door-to-door ministry one day become illegal; ‘anti-cult’ loons try to spin it as ‘taking advantage’ of people. 

    And, once and for all it puts a lid on people who insisted Witnesses had a model indicating they thought they were ‘earning’ salvation. Put it in the same category of ones insisting that the literature distribution was commercial (and therefore taxable); So to make clear it was not, it was stated that from then on literature would be distributed at no cost.

    The brothers have operated in accord with this snippet from a recent daily text commentary: “Spiritual goals give our life direction and purpose.” For men who overwhelming come from the work-a-day world where you get paid for work by the hour, it couldn’t have seemed a draconian goal to ask for 10 hour activity per month when the workday model they were raised in called for 40 hours per week at a minimum. They’re rethinking it, something I thought would never happen. Maybe they’re cracking open the door to whether congregation members need go in the organized preaching activity at all. The former door-to-door in this area isn’t what it once was.  Is it yielding to another model? Probably not, but maybe to some extent.

    Want to criticize them retroactively, as though they should have changed the model long ago? I don’t play that game. The game I play is to say that the people who brought the truth to me were the people who counted their time. The people who didn’t count their time also didn’t bring the truth to me. In fact, they could not have, because they were yet steeped (and still are) with trinity, immortal soul, God & Country, and so forth. And in case anyone says, ‘You don’t need any people; you just need Jesus,’ I will say that the people Jesus used to bring the truth to me were those who counted their time,’ etc. I’m just happy over the change, that it was recognized as an idea whose time has come. I’m not inclined to say, ‘What took them so long?’ By playing that game, you can be dissatisfied with everything. You find fault with headship both before and after revision. After all, there are plenty of scriptures that fit the old model, such as the Master sending workers into the vineyard.

    So, if it was stated again and again at that annual meeting, which went on to consider other things, ‘We must not be dogmatic,’ does that mean they were dogmatic before? It is another game I don’t play. The ‘too dogmatic’ people brought the truth to me. The ‘laid back, reasonable’ ones did not. People are a product of their times. To be sure, when my favorite circuit overseer commented on the separation of the Watchtower into private and study edition years ago, he say, ‘It should have been done a long time ago.’ But he said this only to me, plus whatever one or two others were in the car group with me.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • The Catholic at the Door

    The man answered the door and said he was Catholic. He also said he very much respected Jehovah’s Witnesses and the work they did. But he was Catholic, 4th generation Catholic, very involved, and so there was no way he would ever change. “Fortunately for you,” I said, “we’re not recruiting. It’s just conversation.” Whereupon, he added that he was also busy.

    I thought of Dave McClure, the circuit overseer from ages ago, who had said how you could “pre-empty” certain objections by anticipating them up front. “We’re calling on busy people today” he would say to illustrate. What are they going to say—they’re busy? You could even do two. “We’re calling on busy people who have their own religion, and . . .. ” But there was a limit. You really couldn’t do three. “We’re calling on busy people who have their own religion and who aren’t interested, and . . . ” No. It doesn’t fly.

    This man really was busy. He and his wife were soon to depart for a medical appointment. But apparently not that soon, for he then went on to say some nice things and even asked a few questions. When they do this, it means that, while yes, they are somewhat busy, they also have learned their lesson from when Oscar Oxgoad called on them a few years back, saying he would be brief. To their dismay, they discovered that ‘brief’ to Oxgoad meant he’ll stay there all day if he possibly can!

    When you make it clear that you really do intend to be brief, miracles can happen. This you do by saying something like, ‘The world’s crazy. We think the Bible helps—telling why it is that way, what can we expect for the future, and how to live in the meantime. I want to read you a verse, you tell me what you think, and then we’re on our way. Good idea?” It is not as though someone is going to tell you to get to the point. This man agreed to it.

    For him, the verse selected was one he would surely recognize, the Our Father segment of Matthew 6:9 which goes, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Yes, God’s will is done in heaven; surely he has his act together up there. But it sure isn’t done on earth; at least, it does not predominate—and it will not, says the prayer, until “thy kingdom comes”—so just what is that kingdom?

    You can go so many ways upon reading this verse. After explaining why you selected it, as above, invite the householder to participate if he likes, or not if he doesn’t like, or not if the time is not right. This is the point where this man said he was Catholic and busy, but then engaged us with a few observations of his own.

    These days, Jehovah’s Witnesses are departing from those clunky silhouette presentations once offered up at meetings for a more conversational approach. Of course, there isn’t there isn’t that much difference. They always strived to be conversational. But there is a limit. If you call on someone formally, you cannot just say, “Anything you want to talk about?” You have to provide a reason for your call, and that was the whole idea behind the silhouette suggestions. Alas, any such offering can be committed to memory, after which it comes across as ‘canned.’ Just be conversational, is the new guidance that is not really new.

    It is a very challenging task undertaken. Take persons who are just as “uneducated and ordinary” as were the first-century apostles and send them to people who, in some cases, are educated and are not ordinary—some of whom take much pride in those circumstances. Some will be hospitable, but some will look down their noses at the disparity; it is just the way people are. The congregation doesn’t really “send them”—their own understanding of the Bible does. “This good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come,” says the Word. Who’s going to preach it—those who don’t believe it? So the congregation does not send them, but they do support and coordinate them.

    Though not suddenly becoming unbusy, the man was growing more comfortable and somewhere along the line mentioned that his aunt had died in the Holocaust. “Was your aunt of the Jewish faith?” my companion asked. Jehovah’s Witnesses will almost always do this, and why not?—there is nothing like bonding over a horrific experience jointly suffered. Jehovah’s Witnesses, with their stand of neutrality, were among the very first concentration camp inmates, even preceding the far-more-numerous Jews. Sometimes you can even point out that Jehovah’s Witnesses were more than victims in the Holocaust; they were martyrs, for they alone had power to write their tickets out. All they had to do was renounce their faith and agree to work with the Nazi regime.  

    The aunt, it turned out, was not Jewish. She was Catholic. She had resisted Hitler’s policies and was incarcerated. 

    Talk about what they want, not what you want. As Dale Carnegie said, ‘Who cares what you want?’ Once in a while you may luck out the way that geeky reporter did, with Bruce Wayne telling Alfred to write him a grant just because he asked for one. For the most part, though, you’d better build a bridge and you always start with a genuine—not contrived—interest in the other person. Talk what they want to talk about.

    The Catholic Church has a long tradition, I offered him, and they’ve done a lot of good. They have problems, some quite serious, but they have done a lot of good. I even told him about the Pope who arguably saved the word. I thought the man would not know about it because nobody does. It is all but the most closely guarded secret of our time. I only blundered upon it myself by sheer accident. During a time when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, respective heads of the two superpowers, struck up a friendship. It was a friendship not without strain, mostly because both were surrounded by warmongers who were sure the two were daftly naive, even traitorous. But, though the world teetered on the brink in the days before, during, and after the Cuban Missile crisis, the two managed to pull it back. And the man who served as catalyst, bringing the two together: Pope John XXIII. Who would have thought?

    It’s purely a function of a determination to fix the world as opposed to being no part of it. But in this case, it bought the ‘ol globe some time under its present rulership.

    ******  The bookstore

  • One Fine December Day in the Ministry

    The man answered the door and wasn’t thrilled to see us. I understand the feeling. I take cover myself when I spot unknown persons heading up the driveway. But often you can defuse any anxiety if you are not too weird.

    My companion said something about the Bible and the man replied that he was not much of a Bible reader. ‘Have you always felt that way?’ the companion said. It is sort of the latest pick-up line, uttered in the belief that it may spur on conversation which, depending upon the person, it often does. No dice with this fellow, though. He told us a big problem in his eyes was Christians who carried a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. A jab directed at us, I thought, as I played with his two large poodles which had bounded from the house to jump all over me. “Did I ever tell you how much I like dogs?’ I said to one of them.

    “Here’s something you may not know about Jehovah’s Witnesses—which we are,” I interjected. “They are absolutely apolitical and none of them carry guns. Their weapons are words only. Tell them no and they go away. And they don’t afterward go to some congressperson to urge passage of a law to make others do what they say. “At first glance, they are the most intrusive people on earth. At second glance, they are the least. They say what they have to say, but otherwise they are completely live and let live.”

    When you interrupt your companion, you don’t do it permanently. You inject a thought and then hand it right back to her. You usually don’t do it at all, so as not to derail her train of thought. But I have thirty years on my companion, so I can do it a little. Not much, usually not all, but a little if the situation calls for it.

    She went back to reading and commenting on a certain verse. It engaged her, and the man, if not warming up to the message, was warming up to us. The call concluded as most of them do—he had had no use for religion and still didn’t—but just as we were leaving, I thought to extend to this fellow a contact card featuring the Bible study program. “Most church teachings are not found in the Bible,” I told him. “It is the attempt to read them in that makes people pull out their hair and say, ‘Nobody can make sense of this book!’”

    Look at it if you like, I told him. I’ll never know if you do or not. You may still not agree with it; most likely you won’t, but there is a big difference between a book that makes sense and one that doesn’t.

    I always write a number to text on these cards and even observe how it has “one of these computer things that you can scan”—overplaying the tech-inept hand, but I still didn’t want to do with them as I had done with ‘crosstags.’ “They’re hashtags, Dad, not crosstags,” my daughter had told me about this other digital innovation, which had occurred recently by human standards but ice-ages ago by digital standards.

    The home was on top of a hill. Descending the long winding driveway opened up a magnificent vista. We had already commented on how smart someone must have been to build up there. “Don’t worry about the dogs!” the man said, now quite friendly, as we were taking our leave. “They’ll chase you down the drive and bark like mad but once they reach the invisible fence they’ll stop.” And that is exactly what happened.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Cool Hand Luke: ‘He Beat You with Nothin!’ The Atheist Search for the Origin of Life, Part 5

    For best results, see Part 1 here

    This post is an aside. ‘Origin of Life’ science, as discussed in the lecture series, might easily strike a non-enthusiast as so speculative as to challenge the all-time king of speculation in the guise of science: evolutionary psychology. So it is that I diverge into that other cutting-edge field.

    ***

    The circuit overseer was visiting. It was a week of special activity. We reconvened to plan our afternoon. Nosmo Jones had unexpectedly cancelled his study to bail one of his kids out of jail, so I was open. “Does anyone have any calls?” the circuit overseer asked. “I have – Mr. Strawman out on Pretensia Pond Road,” I said. “You remember him from your last visit.”

    “Does anyone else have any calls?” Silence. I knew Bill Ding had several, and also Sally Shinspits, but they would likely not be home at this time of day. “Are you sure nobody else has any calls?” the circuit overseer repeated. I reminded him again about Bernard Strawman. “He’s told me since our last call that he could believe in God!” I said. “We could build on that foundation.” He’d also said something about climate change in hell, but I hadn’t understood what he had meant by that.

    “Check carefully. Nobody has any return visits?” the circuit overseer asked again, looking desperate. “Maybe we can do street work,” he pleaded. But Brother Bruno’s wife, Brunette, had done street work all morning and her feet were sore. She wanted to ride around for a while.

    Twenty minutes later we pulled into Mr. Strawman’s driveway. A Mercedes was already there, in addition to the Jaguar that Mr. Strawman drove. I rang the doorbell with the circuit overseer in tow. Mr. Strawman answered. He invited us in, told us to take off our shoes, and introduced us to his visitor, Dr. Adhominem. I’d never met Dr. Adhominem, but I’d heard Mr. Strawman speak of him glowingly.

    Mr. Strawman asked us to be seated. He asked us if we would like some orange juice. When we said yes, he explained that he didn’t have any. I settled in my chair for a stimulating discussion that was sure to come! The circuit overseer mentally reviewed his notes for the talk he would give that evening: “Are You Following the Lead of the Angel in Your Ministry?’

    Mr. Strawman and his visitor explained to me the research paper they were preparing to submit to Wonderful Scientist Magazine. It was to be their contribution to the exciting field of evolutionary psychology. “Much of the cutting-edge work in science is in this field,” Mr. Strawman told me. The paper he was co-authoring with Dr. Adhominem, he explained, was on the evolutionary origin of boisterous flatulence. “Back in the stone-age eat-or-be-eaten days,” Mr. Strawman explained, putting the concept in a nutshell, “you wanted to evolve everything you possibly could to scare off predators. And nothing would do the job like boisterous flatulence. It quickly cleared the area, the same as it does in modern times.”

    I was very impressed with this crock of insight. But the circuit overseer said: “Got any evidence of that?” He had heard of something called the Scientific Method. I was so embarrassed. Dr. Adhominem smiled and explained that to become obsessed with such matters was to chase a red herring. The very reason such rapid progress was being made in evolutionary psychology, he continued, was that researchers could work without that sort of distraction. He asserted the time for his breakthrough had come because similar research had been accepted by the scientific community. To tell the truth, I was becoming more than a little mortified by that circuit overseer. Clearly, the man doesn’t know much about science.

    For example, Dr. Adhominem told us about the evolutionary origin of faulty reasoning, something which had long puzzled scientists because it seemed to fly in the face of survival of the fittest. But the April 5, 2010 issue of Newsweek summarized the latest scientific thinking. “Faulty reasoning is really our friend! It enabled our ancestors to learn argumentation!” If there was no cockeyed reasoning, Dr. Adhominem explained, nobody would have anything to argue about. Throw any issue before the masses, and they’d all instantly agree! How could survival of the fittest take place? Smart people can only evolve if they have blockheads to stomp into submission with their clever argumentation. So stupidity has proven to be essential to our evolutionary advancement!

    The circuit overseer said: “That doesn’t make any sense to me at all.” Dr. Adhominem gently suggested the reason: evolution had selected people like the two of us to enable people like himself and Mr Strawman to become brilliant. I felt privileged to have such a role in science! The circuit overseer asked to use the bathroom. “Eighth door on the left,” Mr. Strawman said.

    The three of us remaining strolled out into the back yard. Next door, Mr. Strawman’s neighbor was drooling over his curvaceous girlfriend prancing about in a micro-bikini. I instantly turned away. “Interesting how evolutionary psychology accounts for this phenomenon,” Mr. Strawman remarked. “Indeed,” Dr. Adhominem said. I drew a blank, so he patiently enlightened me. “You’re not going to get far in the struggle for survival if your wife keeps dropping your babies and killing them, are you? Decidedly not!” Pleased with himself, he continued: “But that knockout bombshell of a competitive wife has convenient shelves upon which she can balance as many babies as you can give her. Thus, over the eons, our ancestors began to prefer curvy women and to think them beautiful.” How could I have been so stupid for so long?

    We seated ourselves again inside and the circuit overseer said something about God. Mortified, I slid down into my chair! Mr. Strawman had already explained to me the evolutionary origin of God: “See, any group of individuals will have some riffraff who must be kept in check so as not to disrupt the clan. The trouble is, the riffraff doesn’t like being kept in check. They fight back, and this spills the primordial soup of even the most peaceful clan, spewing evolutionary ripples everywhere. What you need is a superhuman cop, one with whom you can’t fight back! Then those ne’er-do-wells will behave. That’s how the concept of God evolved, with all its quaint notions of right and wrong.”

    “Homosexuality? Surely that has to be a fly in the ointment of your race to procreate,” the scientifically ignorant circuit overseer said, much to my dismay. “Not at all,” Bernard Strawman replied with a smile. “Homosexual men tend to be nurturing, and so they nurture everyone in the tribe, including themselves, giving the entire tribe a competitive advantage,” he said.

    We discussed other interesting things as well. Seeing that he was getting underneath the circuit overseer’s skin, Mr. Strawman asked us as we were leaving how we knew that we were there? “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, how do we know that it makes a noise?” What a fascinating question! “Because the squirrels go crazy!” the circuit overseer said. “I’ll be in the car, Tom.” He’s a fine brother but he really doesn’t know anything about science.

    “What a wonderful experience in the field ministry!” I exclaimed to all as we entered the Kingdom Hall after field service was over. I suggested that the circuit overseer might use it for his upcoming part in the circuit assembly, but he said he already had participants.

    [The boisterous flatulence hypothesis is (for now) made-up nonsense, but all the other ideas have found acceptance among evolutionary psychologists. I predict boisterous flatulence will also be embraced one day soon, since it is only slightly more ridiculous than what has already been accepted by these characters.]

    The circuit overseer said he would never ever EVER go back with me on this call and changed the title of his talk that evening from ‘Are You Following the Lead of the Angel in Your Ministry?’ to ‘Look, Sometimes You Have to Learn How to Take a Hint.’

    However, three years have just about elapsed. He is soon to depart for a new assignment; a new circuit overseer will soon arrive, hopefully one with better appreciation for science. He will thus be the ninth one to aid me in assisting Mr. Strawman in his progress.]

    “The first effect of not believing in God, is that you lose your common sense.” G K Chesterton

    To be continued: here

     

    ******  The bookstore

     

  • ‘Don’t Let the Door Hit You in the Rear End.’ Moving on from Scripted Presentations.

    Just finished the Nov 6 broadcast. What grabbed me most was not the announcement about not counting time. I’ve gotten used to the idea in the past few weeks. I decided to go out with a bang, reporting 50,000 hours to the secretary. When he said that was physically impossible, I answered, “Go to the ant, you lazy one.”

    So, the time announcement was anticipated. The talk that got me going and was not anticipated was the one about conversations, the accompanying brochure, and the news that it would soon be incorporated into the midweek meeting. Loved that part. 

    I’ve been uncomfortable voicing that I thought most of the suggested presentations were clunkers, so I didn’t voice it. But now that they are on their way out the door, I can. It’s not that they can’t work, or that they were inherently bad. They weren’t. It was that it meant using someone else’s words. That’s hard to pull off. Of course, any number of times the organization said you don’t have to use them; feel free to do something else, put everything in your own words, but there’s something about the friends to make them feel you were all but disloyal not to use them.

    I abandoned them long ago for a much easier approach that involves an offer to read a scripture and leave—staying only if that offer is accepted. If it is, having read the verse, then is the person up for considering it briefly? Lately it has been. ‘The world’s crazy. We think the Bible can help—why it is that way, what can we expect, how to cope in the meantime. I want to read you a verse, you tell me what you think, and we’re on our way. Good idea?’ After reading it, ‘The next move is up to you and you don’t have to make one. I can discuss or go now—up to you.’ It works at least as well as anything else I have seen. And more importantly, it’s no stress. 

    So long as we were using those scripted presentations at the meetings, one could hardly speak against them—it smacked too much of saying ‘contemptible bread’—couldn’t do it. But now that they are on their way out anyway—well, don’t let the door hit you in the rear end as you leave! Oh yeah—moving on. Learn to converse. Learn to use your own words, not someone else’s. And, glory be, base whatever you say on how people are in your territory, something the scripted presentations can’t possibly take into account. 

    The grapevine had it that the new publication was like a Make Sure of All Things; Hold Fast to What is Fine, only geared toward the friends. The grapevine was wrong. Instead, it is a tool to advance conversation. The twelve or so attributes are all there in order to enhance conversational ability through their cultivation. I like it. 

    Of course, the new change wasn’t introduced as above. Instead, it was ‘What was wonderful has become even more wonderful!’ Lots of fond reminiscing about doing things the old way. Ah, well, I guess it must be done that way. In this cynical age, crack the door open even a little to previous things having been bloopers, and there’s no telling what we’ll all be like, dissing everything. Were they even bloopers? Some things are good for their time and then times change.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • The Newbie Who Eclipses the Vets

    Working in the ministry with a 75-year old who just became a Witness, he makes a better impression than me (who can be accused of having been around so long as to know every spiel.) But not him. With him, it is pure conviction and sincerity. ‘I had never read the Bible,’ he said, despite his long church affiliation. ‘When I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down.’

    It was at a home where no one had answered at first, and you wonder whether that is on purpose or not; sometimes people don’t answer. But upon returning, there she was, an older woman, puttering around in the garage. We crossed the street to speak with her.

    She was guarded about my invitation to read a scripture, get her thought, and then be on our way, observing that she was Roman Catholic. ‘Fortunately, we’re not recruiting,’ I told her. ‘It’s just a scripture from a book you know as well as us.’ She then added that there were some Witnesses in her extended family—with the air that ‘They keep me informed so you don’t have to?’ Dunno. Could be, but dunno.

    I offered a ‘deal’ which was—sometimes when there are Witnesses in the family, you wonder why they do this or that, you have some views of them which may be good or bad, usually some of both, but you would not just come out and say it to them because—well, they’re family. You don’t want to mess with the chemistry. ‘But us you’ll never see again,’ I told her, ‘so anything you wonder about them we can tell you about.’ 

    All this either loosens a person up or shuts them down. If it shuts them down, then off we go. In this case, it loosened her up. Family members had responded differently to her Witness relatives, she mentioned, but as for her, she is open-minded. It was plain that she was open-minded when we finally did read that scripture—in this case it was Matthew 6:9-10, the ‘Our Father’ prayer; I prefaced it by saying, ‘This is where Jesus tells his disciples how to pray,’ upon which she interjected, ‘Supposedly.’

    ‘She doesn’t really believe it,’ Keith observed to me as we were discussing the call later. Just like he hadn’t really believed church things either during his nominal time as a member. That’s not to say he disbelieved them—only, that he had formed no decisive opinion—they might be so or they might not be. 

    Keith had come into his own during this short call. I had gradually yielded to him. They had some things in common, such as having recently lost a spouse. One never knows how someone will respond to the Bible until you run a few verses past them and they get to put it in context.

    Strange how some, like Keith, say that once they started reading the Bible, they ‘couldn’t put it down.’ Even I was able to put it down, if he’s speaking of reading it straight through. But once a person is given a few keys to it—then one is not able to ‘put it down’; then they are forever flipping back and forth to see that this portion really does explain that portion. They are just drawn to that basic Witness approach to understanding the scriptures: for any given passage in question, gather together all other passages on that same topic and on that basis decide what the scripture means. In the process of doing so, one sees through and jettisons a truckload of religious doctrines that serves to impede understanding.

    But others will read the Bible and see a lot a nasty doings chronicled. ‘If it’s there, it must be A-okay God,’ they figure. What is wrong with people to think that way? It’s just history. It’s history of what people did when they knew of Jehovah, when they didn’t know of Jehovah, and when they knew but were oblivious to his requirements. Obviously, he has requirements. The creator of humanity—we are going to have requirements of him or he or us? That doesn’t mean people pay any attention to them. Sometimes comeuppance for such straying is prompt and sometimes it is not. Sometimes it doesn’t happen at all and is one of those things for which we must stay tuned.

    And here I am, on another occasion, with a fellow long-time Witness. Keith, meanwhile, is working in the field service with someone else new—in this case, someone who ran a local youth agency until he retired. He and Keith are chatting up a storm at one door. No one had given my fellow and me the time of day.

    ******  The bookstore

  • The Service Meeting Part of Which Almost All Missed the Point

    Then there was that service meeting part of which almost nobody got the point, the one about informal witnessing. ‘Let the conversation run,’ was the theme. It’s okay if it doesn’t lead to a witness. It’s not a defeat when that happens. Just having started it is a victory. In case it does present an opening for witnessing, we have plenty in our ‘toolbox’ to nurture it along.

    And for the duration of the part, that’s all anyone talked about—how we have tools for everything. The takeaway was that everyone will get a witness, every conversation should lead to one, whereas the text and video of the part specifically allows that they may not. 

    Now, to harp on this may seem small, perhaps even anti-mission, but the service meeting part presents a problem: “We may get nervous [the CO said in the video said “terrified”] about the idea of starting a conversation if we focus too much on how we will introduce a Scriptural thought.” If you someone is terrified, telling them that they’d better know that toolbox inside out so that every conversation leads to a witness will not make them less so. 

    The solution, as presented in the part? Don’t focus on it. Just start a conversation, which is a victory in itself, and see where it runs. Alas, the way the part was handled, it was Do focus on it. Know that toolbox well so that everyone gets a witness. Even the ministerial servant handling the part covered it that way. 

    The accompanying Iron Sharpens Iron video made just the opposite point. The first of two demos showed the clunkiness of moving in quickly for the witnessing ‘kill’—which came across as one. “It started okay but then got awkward real fast,” said the make-believe householder. The second demo let the conversation run, and it did indeed lead to a witness, but the CO and text repeatedly made clear it might not—and if it did not, that’s okay. 

    Yet—“I thought the first demo was pretty good too,” said one of our publishers, about the awkward mess. It wasn’t. The householder and CO said it wasn’t. She missed it.

    “If during a conversation an opportunity presents itself to express your faith . . .” the text said—the CO in the video repeated the ‘if.’ I am reminded of an old chum, now deceased, who for whatever reason, never thought he had it in him to be an elder or ministerial servant and so declined all overtures. “IF any man is reaching out…” he would quote the verse. ‘If’ doesn’t mean ‘when!!’ It means ‘IF!”

    We treated the informal witness as a ‘when.’ The part presented it as an ‘if.’ The nervous [or terrified] ones who feel the pressure feel it all the more. ‘Counting time’ probably aggravates it. You can ‘goof off’ on your dime, but not the Boss’s, and so you stick it a word for God no matter awkward it seems—picture Him watching you with the eyes-on sign, fore and index finger from His eyes to you. But if you’re doing it on your own dime, not a problem.

    This is that bird’s nest illustration come back to haunt us: the guy who found a crumpled up tract in a fallen nest, who unraveled it, and came into the truth! It is so much emphasis on ‘life-saving Bible literature’ taking us captive that leads to a determination to leave some literature no matter what!  It may be life-saving, but it’s also a little like an invasive species—once it takes root, it is all but impossible to eradicate. These days the brothers are trying to eradicate it with the message that not all conversations will lead to a witness, and we look quite awkward when we pull out all the stops to make them all go that way.

    The circuit overseers seem to have this new method down pat. They’re working hard to spread it around. Exiting a Starbucks where we’d taken a break, one publisher delayed a bit. When he caught up with us, he said he’d left a contact card with the fellow one table over. But the CO (gingerly) said we don’t really do it that way. At the door, we do—if you knock on someone’s door, you’d better have a purpose for your call. But when you haven’t knocked on anyone’s door, when its just informal start-up chit-chat, he likened witnessing to ‘tossing a ball.’ See if they toss it back. If they don’t, it’s okay. Even Jesus’ woman at the well waited seven verses to toss it back. 

     

    ******  The bookstore

     

  • Let a Householder Talk Long Enough and He’ll Tell You Why He Needs the Kingdom

    In an article from The Watchtower of May 1, 1984, p. 31 under "Questions from Readers" it states that "Jehovah's Witnesses do not go to people's homes in search of truth or clarification. Rather, they have spent countless hours learning the truth from the Word of God and, having learned the "good news," obediently go out to share it with other people.

    Coming back to that one:

    The idea that anyone would find this “problematic” (as did Bill Brexit) is almost too bizarre to comprehend. In my entire life, I have never opened the door to someone who doesn’t have something to say.

    ‘Let a householder talk long enough and he’ll tell you why he needs the kingdom.’ If they don’t, then they’re plainly not the type of person Witnesses are searching for. They look for the one who is ‘skinned and thrown about like sheep without a shepherd’—and he knows it, if only subliminally. Anyone who sees the present state of human affairs and says, ‘Things are just hunky-dory here!’—that’s not the person they’re looking for. Do a little pleasant chit-chat, and I move on. As often as not, I’m not called upon to do any pleasant chit-chat. They’re more eager for me to move on than I am to do it.

    It’s the notion Brexit seems to have that Witnesses call to shake down whatever people have so as to ‘build back better’ that is crazy. Can he really think that way? Witnesses have no interest in deassembling a person so as to reassemble that one. Their looking for persons who are already deasembled, who know it, and who are dissatisfied with it. Let them talk enough and they’ll tell you why they need the kingdom.

    To this end, the ‘read a scripture’ approach works well for me. I’m not a fan of these open-ended questions which all-to-often have the effect of putting the householder on the spot. It’s uncomfortable to be put on the spot. Nobody likes that. Better to say, “I stopped by to read you a scripture, you tell me what you think, and I’m outta here. Good idea?” It’s not much of a request. Quite a few people say ‘yes.’ If they think it is not a good idea, I am true to my word and outta there. If they do an answer that isn’t an answer, such as, ‘I have a church,’ I say, “it’ll still work.” If they hem and haw a little, I say ‘in the time it takes to decide I can just read it,’ and I do. 

    Read the scripture, explain why you chose it, in a sentence or two, and give them opportunity to converse on it if they like. If they don’t—hey, I’m happy—I read a verse and it fell flat. This is not the person I’m looking for. Move on with pleasantness. Even people who decline are apt to say, “but thanks for calling,” so pleased are they that you get right to the point and didn’t try to impose on their time. 

    Recently I used 1 Thess 5:11, “Therefore, keep encouraging one another and building one another up, just as you are in fact doing.”

    I explained I chose it for two reasons. 1) that it was the theme of a recent meeting (a witness in itself, because it gives an indication as to what goes on at a Kingdom Hall), and 2) it seems like a big ‘Duh’—a no-brainer—seek to encourage and build up—except we live in a world where that is almost never done. 

    You reach this point, by which time a householder may have formed an opinion of you as a reasonable guy, not pushy, not wound up too tight, and then they may go off in a hundred different directions.

    A guy I spoke with last week interrupted my spiel of 1 Thess 5:11 with, “You don’t work, do you?” 5023E7D5-EBED-4B2E-AA53-84D8BE2525F3I thought it was an attack. “Well—I’m retired,” I hedged. Turned out to be nothing of the sort. He just launched into how ugly people were at his workplace, how argumentative, how abusive—and, alas, I could detect a personality that would make it ten times worse, but it was a good inroad into discussing kingdom promises and the discussion went on for some time.

    Bill Brexit seems to think it’s likely that the householder comes out to talk ‘theology’ with you. It’s not unheard of, but it’s not very common. 

    (Photo: Pixabay)

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • One Fine Day on Social Media Getting My Head Handed to Me on a Platter

    “Should I be concerned that my first instinct when someone rings the doorbell is to pretend I'm not home?” someone said over Twitter. Within the thread were assorted GIFs, such as the one with the woman inside the refrigerator, pulling the door shut. 

    Me, I just like to help: “Of course not,” I replied. “Sudden appearance of someone you don’t know is always a cause for concern. Just watch out that the yapping dog at the window doesn’t give you away continually looking back as though to say, ‘Well? Why don’t you answer?’”

    I should have left it at that. But I took on another tweet in the thread:

    “I feel like this is the result of boomer parents drilling into their millennial children that all strangers will murder you and you’re never to answer the door or the phone when home alone. Ever,” a woman said.

    Tommy, shut up. You know you should shut up. Don’t say what I did: 

    Yeah. It’s like when teens came to the door and I showed the ‘Be Social Media Smart’ video. Then on a return visit, mom appeared, I said she was the one I’d been looking for, and she said I shouldn’t talk to her kids. Well—I specifically asked them if they thought their parents would care—people are different—and they had said no. ‘Kids will say anything,’ the woman told me.

    Be Social Media Smart is innocuous. Few would be anything but supportive of it, pulling out their hair as they do about kids’ online activity.

    Uh oh: “The fact that you don’t see anything wrong with being a grown ass man having a conversation with children and showing them religious material without their parents present is exactly why millennials grew up not trusting men who knock on their door.” 

    Caution: Disagreement ahead vs ‘children vs teens,’ also ‘religious material vs PSA:’

    The teens answered the door. I wasn’t looking for them. I asked for the parents who weren’t there. The material I showed, after asking if folks would object, was perfectly innocuous, not preachy in anyway, and I have never known any parent, religious or not, to oppose it….1/2

    The fact is, in two or three years, those kids will be in the workworld, in college, maybe the military, where they will meet many a situation more ‘threatening’ than there encountered. Not all parents want their teens to hide. Most realize they will soon enough face the world….2/2

    “You didn’t know what that parent wanted because they weren’t present for you to ask. So instead of leaving and coming back later, you, an adult man, continue to speak to children at the door of their own home when their parents weren’t available.”

    The video is essentially a PSA announcement, hard to believe it would get someone’s dander up so. Were the teens to resume watching TV/internet, they’d see many far more objectionable things. But I’ve no quarrel with you, nor your family rules & would never violate whatever rules you have laid down, or that your teens, were I to encounter them, would tell me about.

    “You could have been going door to door to show them episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. The problem is that you didn’t leave once the kids said their parents weren’t available. As the adult it’s on you to disengage when the parents aren’t present, but you didn’t.”

    Best drop it at this point. You often have to let people get the last word, unless you want to be drawn into a thread that may never end. I even had to look up what Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood was and I was a little concerned it might be some pervert video or other, but it was just an example of an innocuous and virtuous video for small children. (whereas we were talking teens)

    Still, I gotta say, it’s not the most comfortable spot to be in. Does it make me rethink? Times have changed. Best not be a dinosaur when the meteorite hits. Best not think of how it used to be. Think of how it is now. I’m not even sure ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ works anymore, and—let us be honest—even if it does, am I one of that village?

    It is a pretty rare scenario in these parts but it does happen. You never press any teen, but is it the rule now that you don’t talk to them at all? I certain youngster I chatted with briefly, he being the only one home and assuring me nobody cared if he exchanged a word or two with a visitor. Upon leaving, there was his mom driving up the driveway. “I asked your son a couple of questions and he answered intelligently,” I told her. “You should be proud of him.”

    Several years ago—what, maybe 20–I worked door to door with Elena, newly arrived from South America. A child answered the door—this time it was a child, not a teen. I handed a tract with instructions to give it to her parent. As we walked away, Elena said, ‘I would have witnessed to her.’

    Of course. She wouldn’t do it today. But where she came from, it was quite common for Witnesses to speak with children. Parents had no problem with it, and in fact, many were quite pleased that some would be learning the Bible. But something even then told me we’re not in San Kansas anymore. No way in Western lands do I ever speak with a child so young other than a ‘give this to your mom’ kind of thing.

    And here I was speaking to Davey-the-Kid about the difference in kids. Youngsters in the Latin American countries take on responsibilities early and thus mature early, whereas in the States there are 30-years olds as silly as adolescents.

    ***And—best not ignore the elephant in the room. The reason parents are on hair trigger alert more than even 20 years ago is the fear of pedophiles. Nobody is above suspicion. Just last month a pedophile school principle, who called children into his office to sit on his lap, was sentenced to prison. Call it another sign of the times.

    From Tom Irregardless and Me:

    “For example, a former coach of youth sports, Bob Cook wrote: “The most upsetting thing about many child-protection rules is they assume any adult is capable of doing something bad. If you think of yourself as a good person, and the people around you as good people, you can’t help but be taken aback. You can’t help but think a wall has been put between yourself, the children you coach, and the families you deal with. It’s a wall that seems patently ridiculous when, in the case of the Catholics involved in my Virtus meeting, were tight-knit, south side Chicago parishes where families had known each other for
    generations.”

    No sense fighting it. You’d better adapt. ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.’

    ******  The bookstore

     

  • When They Come Out to Talk Theology

    Occasionally they do come out to talk ‘theology’ with you. Here ‘theology’ is in quotes because the word itself almost guarantees that one will miss the point, elevating the ‘study of God’ over the ‘worship of God.’ If  ‘obedience is better than sacrifice,’ (1 Samuel 15:22) it’s infinitely better than study to see just how much (if any) sacrifice is warranted.

    When they do come out to talk theology, you don’t quite know if they are on the up-and-up or not. No matter. If you get some irritation, build a pearl around it.

    In one of those morning meetings for field service, a circuit overseer discussed how you might handle those persons, whether sincere or not, who press their own literature on you. ‘There was a time when I was searching,’ he related what he had said, ‘and during that time I would have eagerly accepted that literature—I searched literature of all sorts. But I have found what I had been seeking. My search as ended.’

    Sort of like the fellow who finds the pearl of high value. He researches, confirms its worth, and off he goes to do whatever he must to own it. He doesn’t go visiting the pearl salesman in the adjacent stall. He would have visited that fellow at one time, but he’s found the pearl of high value.

    ”Again the Kingdom of the heavens is like a traveling merchant seeking fine pearls. Upon finding one pearl of high value, he went away and promptly sold all the things he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45-46)

    Andy Laguna, another CO, now deceased, would tell of those really insistent ones who would press literature on him—now and then you hear of people who keep a stack of stuff just for visiting Jehovah’s Witnesses. ‘Now, now,’ he said, ‘I stopped in on you. Plainly that means I have something I think is worth saying. Now, I might be willing to switch focus to what you are urging upon me, but that would have to be at a time when you call on me.’ The overbearing householder would press him for his address. ‘You’ll just find me in the course of your normal house-to-house ministry,’ Andy would say.

    As an offensive statement, I’m not overly fond of it. It just seems too much a ploy of one-ups-manship. But as a defensivestatement, sometimes that is exactly what you do. Like when one snooty religionist heard me out, and said, ‘No thank you, I’m Christian,’ will the plain insinuation that I was not. ‘Actually, only a Christian would do what I am doing,’ I told him in seeming befuddlement, ‘and, frankly, I’m a little surprised that you’re not doing it yourself.’ Fade smug smile—one of the most beautiful sights in the constellation of stars.

    I know it’s not exactly kosher, but I tend to just stuff donated literature in my pocket (or bookbag, when I carried one) if a polite decline doesn’t do the trick, with the proviso (depending upon whether I think the intent is to undermine or not) that I may get around to reading it or I may not. It gets the person out of my hair, just like countless persons have gotten Jehovah’s Witnesses out of their hair with a ‘take their literature and be done with it’ tact. Often that backfires on them, however, when they find they are not ‘done with it.’

    It’s like when I returned to my parents, home for semester break, with the what I was sure would be the life-altering-for-the-better bombshell question, ‘Have you ever heard of the Watchtower and Awake?’ Turned out they had. They had been on someone’s magazine route and had accepted the magazines for years. I had never seen them lying around the house. I suspect it was not because my parents were then in the back room reading them eagerly.

    My dad was amiable, not inclined to pick fights with people, not inclined to tell people off, though he personally had no use for religion. This may have been a carryover of his Catholic days as refined by World War II, an experience that did a number on many a person’s faith. The only exception to his not telling people off was when the Presbyterian minister stopped by and in the course of his visit pointed out that my churchgoing mom—she wasn’t home at the time—was behind in her pledge contributions. ‘Just remember who is the source of those contributions,’ my non-believing dad told him.

     

    ******  The bookstore