Christian Life and Ministry Changes

[Brother Brother]

Is it just me, or are the changes to the CLAM for 2020 so timely and beneficial? What wisdom as our brother refine and fine tune our meetings?

 

I love that the last 2 questions of the GEMS have been condensed into:

 

"What spiritual gems from this week’s Bible reading would you like to share regarding Jehovah God, the field ministry, or something else?"

 

My sense is that this opens a way for comments on bible research to have a place in the review which will be great!

 

Also, the extra 2 minutes for the audience will make an already fast meeting go even quicker?

 

I found it interesting that the Opening comments have been reduced by 2 minutes down to a total of 1 minute...

 

But the Concluding Comments stay at 3 minutes.

 

This shows the GB sees the power in review rather than making it 2 minutes beginning and end?

 

The biggest gift though, has to be in the Sample Conversation page and the referencing of where to find the suggested scriptures in the Teaching Toolbox, that is the Bible Teach Book and the the Good News Brochure...

 

 

 

How amazing!

[Mickey]

Great changes. I love the condensed questions. I think the previous format stifle comments, but this would encourage many to participate. I also love the Congregation bible study part now 30 mins or less. No need to prolong the study after the assigned has been thoroughly covered

[jwhess]

Br. Revbow, your selection of the sentence to begin your comment seems to indicate that you were discussing the adjustments to the Watchtower Study.  I know you were talking about the Congregation Bible Study (from the new instruction sheets).  I thought I would include the sentence before the one you quoted for clarity.

 

...and assist everyone to appreciate the practical value of the points covered. They will find helpful principles by reviewing published direction regarding how to conduct the Watchtower Study. After the assigned material for the week has been thoroughly covered, there is no need to prolong the study....💎

[Mickey]

4 hours ago, jwhess said:

Br. Revbow, your selection of the sentence to begin your comment seems to indicate that you were discussing the adjustments to the Watchtower Study.  I know you were talking about the Congregation Bible Study (from the new instruction sheets).  I thought I would include the sentence before the one you quoted for clarity.

 

...and assist everyone to appreciate the practical value of the points covered. They will find helpful principles by reviewing published direction regarding how to conduct the Watchtower Study. After the assigned material for the week has been thoroughly covered, there is no need to prolong the study....💎

😂😂😂. Well captured 

[SUNRAY]

5 hours ago, jwhess said:

They will find helpful principles by reviewing published direction regarding how to conduct the Watchtower Study. After the assigned material for the week has been thoroughly covered, there is no need to prolong the study....💎

Brother Hess..from where is this quote about the Watchtower study taken, please?

[Globug]

Brother Hess..from where is this quote about the Watchtower study taken, please?

It's in "Instructions for Our Christian Life and Ministry Meeting" Paragraph 13

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[SUNRAY]

4 hours ago, Globug said:

It's in "Instructions for Our Christian Life and Ministry Meeting" Paragraph 13

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Thank you!😉

[jwhess]

The point here is...it is NOT about the Watchtower Study, it is about the Midweek Meeting Bible Study.  The instructions simply refer the conductor back to previously published arrangements for those who conduct the weekend meeting.

[Luigi62]

On 1/3/2020 at 12:37 PM, Brother Brother said:

"What spiritual gems from this week’s Bible reading would you like to share regarding Jehovah God, the field ministry, or something else?"

This is my personal favourite change.

[Luigi62]

This is also a nice change. Each week we will have different questions about the sample presentation.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Luigi62

[Luigi62]

I noticed that in March we will be considering 2 lessons in the reading and teaching brochures. 

[carlos]

Yesterday we had our first meeting with the small changes included. IMO giving the chairman one minute at the start rather than three is an advantage for all those involved. The two additional minutes in the Gems part allowed for several additional comments. Besides, merging both questions in one makes it's easier for the brother conducting that part to manage the time well.

 

What is your experience? Do you usually have many comments that cannot be given due to lack of time, or rather does the brother find it difficult to fill in the ten minutes?

[Luigi62]

25 minutes ago, carlos said:

What is your experience? Do you usually have many comments that cannot be given due to lack of time, or rather does the brother find it difficult to fill in the ten minutes?

We had what seemed liked more comments than when we had the 2 Questions.

[Qapla]

It was a little hard to tell how these changes will affect our Congregation since our meeting was "quite different" last night.

 

Our Internet was out    some problem with the provider   

 

The thing was, the MWM schedule nor the videos had been d/l before the meeting. We still have a projector with the Apple TV device installed - so - one of the Brothers used his phone to play the videos for us. He has one of those Apple phones that can connect to the Apple TV device "easily" ... only thing is, his phone is one of those with "face recognition" and he had to make sure he held it so his face was visible to the phone or the phone would "lock" and the video would "pause" This happened several times  

 

Our Internet problems tended to have an overall impact on the meeting that skewed the timing and/or delivery of several of the parts.

 

In addition to the Internet problems, ever since the recent Windows Update, our "timer" monitor connected to the computer is not working correctly. Many of the Brother rely on the timer to track their parts. With that screen blank, it was not as easy to keep track of their timing.

 

The Chairman did inform the Congregation of the new changes during his 1 minute opening comments - followed by admitting that he just used more than 60 seconds to make his comments.

 

We also had a couple announcements during the conclusion part ... made reviewing the meeting a challenge.

 

 

All-in-all ... the new format was still enjoyed and we had more comments during the extended "Gems" part.

 

 

 

 

 

We hope all is back to normal for next week.

[leoperales]

We need to always be prepared for plan B if there are technical difficulties. Sometimes we may have to do things "old school". During the week of our CO visit (week of Dec 24) when we played the final song, the sound booth operator (It was his first time that day) played the audio song instead of the video song. About 3/4 of the congregation were scrambling to open their tablets to the correct song. After the first stanza then everyone was singing in sync.

[Miss Bea]

My son had a talk on the coast. Tuesday. I had to really scurry to get the material studied. I did,  but missed the new format. When I prepared, I did it as usual. Two categories. When the part ended, I was shocked. I had bible gems. 
Well, our meeting is tonight. I am prepared! 
(My sons talk was wonderful. A strange thing. It was not his first talk by any means, but, the audience clapped. 😭And, I did not record it! He is loved by that congregation. One proud mom) 

[Strawberrypeach]

8 hours ago, carlos said:

Yesterday we had our first meeting with the small changes included. IMO giving the chairman one minute at the start rather than three is an advantage for all those involved. The two additional minutes in the Gems part allowed for several additional comments. Besides, merging both questions in one makes it's easier for the brother conducting that part to manage the time well.

 

What is your experience? Do you usually have many comments that cannot be given due to lack of time, or rather does the brother find it difficult to fill in the ten minutes?

We often didn’t have many comments due to the time constraints. Brothers didn’t get chance to ask more than one or two comments on the what other gems have you found bit which is where most people want raise their hands to comment. I am personally really happy with the changes and feel it will allow the opportunity for many more bros and sisters to comment.

[elisha]

We had an awesome MWM last night.  It really deepened my appreciation for the creation account, which I thought I already knew well.  It was very faith strengthening.

 

I felt the +2 minutes & the change from 4 questions to 3 made a noticeable difference.  I really enjoyed hearing from more of the friends.  The last question was maybe 6 minutes, it did seem like I had to pay extra attention during that time to the comments being made to make sure mine wouldn't be a duplicate.

 

I do wonder about later this year, particularly in December, when the assigned weekly bible reading covers only 2 chapters in Leviticus for 3 months in a row (Nov-Jan).. should be fun!

[Luigi62]

On 1/10/2020 at 9:11 AM, greeksurfer said:

I do wonder about later this year, particularly in December, when the assigned weekly bible reading covers only 2 chapters in Leviticus for 3 months in a row (Nov-Jan).. should be fun!

What's there to wonder about leviticus? What about Exodus 2 chapters a week for 4 months? What about Genesis 2 chapters a week for 5 and a half months?

[elisha]

6 minutes ago, Luigi62 said:

What's there to wonder about leviticus? What about Exodus 2 chapters a week for 4 months? What about Genesis 2 chapters a week for 5 and a half months?

I meant it seems extra research will be needed to have a variety of comments prepared to fill the 10 min.  There are the main themes throughout Leviticus (holiness of sacrifices, giving out of love, etc) which'll be discussed in the upcoming WT study article, but it takes a little more digging to find other hidden gems in these chapters.  Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to it.  I feel like I personally haven't spent enough time familiarizing myself with Leviticus, and Numbers too.

[countrykaren]

Our internet went out in the second half of our meeting too they just asked questions


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[jwhess]

We make sure the material is downloaded as well as streaming.  As long as we have electricity, we should be ready to go.

[Qapla]

Our items from the Internet are usually downloaded - had they been, we would not have ad a problem. However, in this case someone "dropped the ball", so to speak, and the needed material did not get downloaded ahead of time - then, with no working Internet, we could not d/l it before the meeting.

 

Seems the difficulties with the monitors distracted the Brother in charge and he forgot to check if everything was d/l - he sometimes expects that I will have d/l it as soon as it is available - but, there are times when I do not get the chance to do that ... this was one of those times.

 

All is good - the info is now d/l  ...   although, we do still have an issue with the monitors  

Edited January 11, 2020 by Qapla

[Brother Brother]

On 1/9/2020 at 11:53 PM, Luigi62 said:

We had what seemed liked more comments than when we had the 2 Questions.

I think it is because you can share research and points that didn't really fit before?

 

I sure was amazing. Such a subtle difference but huge at the same time?

[Brother Brother]

On 1/10/2020 at 9:11 AM, greeksurfer said:

I felt the +2 minutes & the change from 4 questions to 3 made a noticeable difference.  

Palpable! Very amazing and insightful changes.