As many of you know, our daughter has been doing ballet for months. She really enjoys it and is practicing all of the time. We wanted to find something for our son to do also so Becky thought about a six week class of Tae Kwon Do at a local martial arts academy that is designed for four and five year olds. I practiced this martial art myself 20 years ago so it was something that I could help him learn.
Tag Archives: Jehovah’s Witnesses
I Felt Like A Jehovah’s Witness
Don’t Study Your Bible!
I was going through my inbox and deleting old e-mail when I came across one that I had forgotten about. An ex-JW friend of mine sent me a scan of a recent Watchtower publication that is causing quite a stir. It seems like the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society doesn’t want Jehovah’s Witnesses studying the Bible.
The September, 2007 issue of the “Kingdom Ministry” warns JWs from conducting their own study of the Scriptures and compares it to “foolish questionings.” Click on this image to see a larger version of the document so that you can read it for yourself. As you read through it (the part in the blue box), notice how independent Bible study is viewed in a negative light. If JWs want to be fed spiritually, they should read the publications of the Watchtower. Accurate knowledge comes from reading Watchtower material, but reading the Bible alone is “unprofitable and futile.”
I pray that JWs reading this edition of Kingdom Ministry will recognize how this is just plain sick.
Jehovah’s Witness Convention 2007- Follow The Christ- Part II
The building was not completely packed, but I have never been in the company of so many JWs. Every one was dressed up, men, women and children and no child care was offered. Above the stage was a huge banner that read, “Follow The Christ 2007 District Convention 2008.” The program started a bit late, but the speakers usually ended their time slot a few minutes early. There were no breaks from when to convention began at 9:30 until 12:10 for lunch.
As soon as the lunch break began, S.R. came over to me and asked if I had any questions. We got to talking about whether or not God needed an organization when he tried to prove through Acts 15 that all of the churches reported back to a governing body in Jerusalem. I pointed out that because this was the only time in scripture where a letter was sent forth from the apostles in Jerusalem, it wasn’t as clear cut as the Watchtower says it is about a governing body. I told him that after churches were set up and established, they were autonomous and followed no pattern of reporting back to Jerusalem. We agreed to disagree and decided it was lunch time.
S.R.’s family invited me to stay with them and eat. Practically no one left the building for lunch because they all brought their own food in small coolers. Out of the few people who did leave the building, the majority of them sat in the parking lot and ate lunch in their cars. Very few people left the premises to go eat at a restaurant. I thanked S.R., but declined their offer because I had a small cooler in my car and I wanted to call Becky and talk with her about how the day was going.
One of the things I told Becky about on the phone was that the parts I disliked most about the convention were the testimonies. The first three people to give their testimonies all had these stories about how they persevered through extreme circumstances in order to give more time to the organization. The first lady said that she entered into the pioneer service (full-time door to door ministry) in spite of the fact that she has type one diabetes, her daughter has some sort of disability and her grandmother, has Parkinson’s disease.
The second lady told of giving up her four year degree. She was very close to graduating, yet decided that she didn’t want to “waste any more time.” She thought it best to pioneer instead of following Satan’s world.
The third lady was a bit younger than the other two and said that prior to pioneering, she was seeking “wrong entertainment” in the form of video games and movies. Next, she said something very interesting. I don’t have it word for word, but it was something to the effect of, “If you stay busy in the works of Jehovah, you don’t have time for the world.” The message that the Watchtower was trying to send was extremely obvious.
“There are no excuses for not doing more. Do you think you have it
tough? These people have difficult circumstance and are still able to
pioneer full-time for Jehovah’s Organization. Why can’t you?”
What a guilt trip! That, my friends, is a classic mark of a cult. We should stay so busy that we do not have time for anything else. That includes no time for investigation or critical thinking.
One way that the organization accomplishes this was being played out right before my eyes in this very convention. Each speaker brought up numerous Bible verses to substantiate certain points of their subject, but gave almost no time to look up the verses and zero time to consider the context. I was writing as fast as I could and was looking up as many of the verse as I could. When I couldn’t keep up, I would just write down the passage and turn to the verse the speaker had already jumped to. I could see the JWs in front of me who were doing little more than just writing down the verses. It was very difficult to write down the verse, look it up, check the context and take notes before the speaker had already moved on to another verse. After a few hours of this, we all needed a break. Lunch time sounds good right about now.
Jehovah’s Witness Convention 2007- Follow The Christ- Part I
In this blog I will be reporting on my attendance at the 2007 District Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Since the story is a bit longer than I initially intended, I will break it up into more readable pieces over the next few days. I have never attended one of their conventions so I guess I had more to write about than I originally thought.
Part I
Every year the Jehovah’s Witness have District Conventions all over the globe. The JWs locally meet at the Bell County Expo Center in Belton, Texas. Weeks before the actual event, JWs will canvass neighborhoods and pass out invitations to this three day event. Last year Becky attended the convention for a few hours one day. This year we decided it was my turn.
I attended last Friday, July 13th and was able to stay the whole day. I wanted to attend the convention without bringing any attention to myself or cause any kind of trouble. When I arrived, I parked on the North side of the building and wanted to figure out the traffic flow. I didn’t want to get caught on the wrong side of the building and forced to go in a direction that I did not want to go. I decided to walk over to one of the parking attendants on the other side of the building and ask about the traffic flow.
As I was there talking to him, someone came up behind us in a golf cart. I turned around to see what was going on and the passenger in the cart said, “Hey, Keith! How are you doing?” I could not believe my eyes. What are the chances that I would get spotted by someone who knows me and I haven’t even been inside the building yet? The passenger was a JW I studied with a number of years ago. S.R. knows about our ministry and drops by the house from time to time to see how we are doing. He is a very like-able guy and were it not for the fact that the Watchtower discourages JWs from making friends of Christians who critique the organization, I think we could be very good friends.
He was genuinely happy to see me and probably a bit puzzled as well. He made sure I was OK and that I got my questions answered and then asked if I was “still doing [my] thing,” referring to our ministry. I said I was and he asked if I had any questions for him about their beliefs;
S.R. You know I’ve always got lots of questions.
That is true, you always come up with some pretty
good ones! So is there anything in particular you would like to
ask?
I was hesitant to get into anything right in the parking lot because I really wanted to just observe the convention and didn’t want to take any chance of getting kicked out. Not that I think S.R. would do that, but I have no doubt that someone with more authority and who does not know me would not think twice about asking me to leave. To his credit, S.R. recognized my hesitancy and said that he would stop by my house and we could talk then. I agreed to that and then started to make my way to the building.
As I was walking to the building, S.R. invited me to sit with his family and then jumped out of the golf cart to escort me to where they were sitting. This really was not turning out the way I had planned. I was hoping to be able to come and go unnoticed, take a few pictures and just observe the convention. Now, all of a sudden, I am going to be sitting next to someone who is very familiar with our ministry- an elder and his family. I politely accepted his offer and followed him into the center.
Jehovah’s Witnesses At Our Door…
The Jehovah’s Witnesses came by today. I found these two magazines stuck in-between our door knob and the frame of the door. They must have come by when we were not at home. This is pretty surprising because the local JW’s know who we are and what we do. We aren’t sure if we have been taken off of the black-list or if it is a mistake.
Either way, we pray that the JW’s come back and will be open to discuss the information found in this literature. In fact, if the JW who left the magazines is reading this now, PLEASE COME BACK!
Recent Comments