2024 Governing Body Update #2

[Leslie.m]

1 minute ago, BLEmom said:

Years ago myself and some other sisters helped run the sound box and were assigned to do the literature and magazine counters before and after meetings. Technically the elders could have done it but then they would not have been able to do other tasks and shepherding.

Similarly I know the Spanish congregation that meets in the same hall is using sisters for AV. They have brothers but nowadays a lot more brothers are needed per meeting to take care of all the tasks. 

This 100% makes sense, but is just not done back home at all, unless there wasn’t a single baptised brother available at that time to do the assignment. So a brother coming off the platform from offering the closing prayer and immediately going to the literature counter would not be regarded as “double booked”.

[Hope]

35 minutes ago, Hope said:

 

Maybe not "set" as much as not having slacks appropriate for meetings. I currently do not.   I wear jeans or activewear-type pants to work (I work at Nike) and stretchy pants for running errands and such.  I haven't needed business casual slacks for many years. I know how I want to look when I do wear slacks for meetings and service, but I'm not in a position to buy a new wardrobe.

 

It will take awhile for me.. 

 

Although.... I DID just buy this suit.  It will do me very well for many things  😉  

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP41T1PT?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Edited March 20 by Hope

[BLEmom]

16 minutes ago, Leslie.m said:

This 100% makes sense, but is just not done back home at all, unless there wasn’t a single baptised brother available at that time to do the assignment. So a brother coming off the platform from offering the closing prayer and immediately going to the literature counter would not be regarded as “double booked”.

I get what you are saying. Back then we had three elders and one ministerial servant so those poor brothers were already doing a lot. Having us wo’man’ the counters gave them a slight break. (I should add that most of the other brothers were illegal immigrants and could not be used to even pass mics)

It would be interesting to know how it gets decided according to numbers in current years. Could be that if the congregation elders express being overworked their CO will make recommendations. 

For many years missionary sisters were trained on how to handle preaching and teaching in remote areas with few if any brothers so it’s not something really new. 

And nowadays bethel is using sisters for all types of things and LDC expects brothers to be prepared to take instructions from sisters if those sisters have been given the task to instruct. 
Im sure certain areas of the world are slower to adapt in that mentality though. 

Edited March 20 by BLEmom
Added for clarity

[Leslie.m]

1 minute ago, BLEmom said:

I get what you are saying. Back then we had three elders and one ministerial servant so those poor brothers were already doing a lot. Having us wo’man’ the counters gave them a slight break. 
It would be interesting to know how it gets decided according to numbers in current years. Could be that if the congregation elders express being overworked their CO will make recommendations. 
For many years missionary sisters were trained on how to handle preaching and teaching in remote areas with few if any brothers so it’s not something really new. 
And nowadays bethel is using sisters for all types of things and LDC expects brothers to be prepared to take instructions from sisters if those sisters have been given the task to instruct. 
Im sure certain areas of the world are slower to adapt in that mentality though. 

Hopefully a future GB update will correct this “imbalance”. Although some of the older / “set in their ways” brothers are already getting ulcers from the recent pace of changes! 🤣

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

90% of brothers were wearing ties and jackets to the mid week meeting yesterday ….interesting indeed. Only one sister in slacks …. Looks like we are very set in our ways congregation LOL  

It's totally different here. The only 8 ties were due to platform.
80% sisters in slacks.

Old (Downunder) Tone

[Leslie.m]

What’s the feeling about going to the Memorial no jacket / tie / with slacks in your locations? Technically only the 4 or so brothers up on the platform need to be fully suited up, and I was the first to applaud the tie / jacket change for brothers, but it feels weird (for me) even thinking about attending the Memorial without a suit or jacket / tie.

 

Is this akin to first century Jewish Christians feeling weird about eating pork suddenly?

[Qapla]

We have to remember the announcement said we "could" choose to not wear a tie/jacket - it did not say we are not allowed to wear a complete suit.

 

Just like the first century, just because they were allowed to eat pork did not mean they had to have pork for every meal.

[Leslie.m]

1 minute ago, Qapla said:

We have to remember the announcement said we "could" choose to not wear a tie/jacket - it did not say we are not allowed to wear a complete suit.

 

Just like the first century, just because they were allowed to eat pork did not mean they had to have pork for every meal.

Yes and what’s the view in your locations about attending the Memorial without a jacket or tie. It’s not required anymore, so it’s a personal choice, but it’s a personal choice I think is a bit weird to make (for me, personally).

[Tortuga]

10 minutes ago, Qapla said:

Just like the first century, just because they were allowed to eat pork did not mean they had to have pork for every meal.

[Ahuvah]

58 minutes ago, Leslie.m said:

So there wasn’t a “need” in either the Congs I visited or the one I’m in now. At least not by historical standards - there not being a single baptised brother available to do the assignments. Culture / prejudice I understand, which is why I asked if direction had been given…

There's a fairly recent watchtower on women teaching and headship. It was put beautifully.  With the exception of the congregational arrangement of not teaching in the congregation, our lovely sisters are only under one headship, that is either Jesus if she's single, or her husband if she's married.  Otherwise Male,female have equal standing before Jehovah. 

This has been recognized early on, even before the watchtower by the Building committees when they started making sisters heads of construction teams. More lately, our dear sisters work on mics and video and audio as that doesn't violate the teaching in the congregation command.

 

Edited March 20 by Stormswift

[truce]

22 minutes ago, Qapla said:

We have to remember the announcement said we "could" choose to not wear a tie/jacket - it did not say we are not allowed to wear a complete suit.

 

Just like the first century, just because they were allowed to eat pork did not mean they had to have pork for every meal.

Or for any meal, for that matter.

[DancesWithWife]

39 minutes ago, Qapla said:

just because they were allowed to eat pork

 

[Ahuvah]

You can get a sausage tree!

[Lee49]

6 hours ago, DancesWithWife said:

Including not having to wear socks with dress shoes for the brothers!

Interesting fact - 

 So how did Einstein think? We can get a clue from his attitude to socks.

Einstein never wore socks, and was very proud of the fact. On one visit to the University of Oxford, he wrote to his cousin, and eventual second wife, Elsa, “Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid the lack of civilization in high boots.”

 Einstein revealed why he didn’t wear socks in a letter to his friend, the photographer Philippe Halsman, whose iconic portrait of Einstein would eventually appear on a U.S. stamp. “When I was young,” he said “I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in a sock. So I stopped wearing socks.”

https://www.lenfisherscience.com/einsteins-socks-a-clue-to-his-thinking-about-relativity/

[Pabo]

55 minutes ago, Lee49 said:

Interesting fact - 

 So how did Einstein think? We can get a clue from his attitude to socks.

Einstein never wore socks, and was very proud of the fact. On one visit to the University of Oxford, he wrote to his cousin, and eventual second wife, Elsa, “Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid the lack of civilization in high boots.”

 Einstein revealed why he didn’t wear socks in a letter to his friend, the photographer Philippe Halsman, whose iconic portrait of Einstein would eventually appear on a U.S. stamp. “When I was young,” he said “I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in a sock. So I stopped wearing socks.”

https://www.lenfisherscience.com/einsteins-socks-a-clue-to-his-thinking-about-relativity/

 

Maybe Einstein should have learned how to use a toe nail clipper, to minimise the damage to his socks.

 

[Lee49]

10 minutes ago, Pabo said:

Maybe Einstein should have learned how to use a toe nail clipper, to minimise the damage to his socks.

Probably couldn't find a pair since he was known to not be able to find his way home! 🤪

[Esined]

2 hours ago, Leslie.m said:

Yes and what’s the view in your locations about attending the Memorial without a jacket or tie. It’s not required anymore, so it’s a personal choice, but it’s a personal choice I think is a bit weird to make (for me, personally).

Maybe even if we choose to stick with dressier clothes, this is an area that will make studies, RVs, inactive ones and others more comfortable attending the Memorial. A friend of mine who used to be a coworker, who was raised a Witness but has been inactive for many years, texted me very happy to hear sisters can now wear pants. She said she was stressing for days about having to tell her (active) mom that she would have to wear pants for the memorial because none of her skirts or dresses fit anymore. She was going to wait until the day before to tell her.

But now when I said, “It’s great you’re going, don’t stress too much about what to wear,” she could actually believe me 😊

[MullumMiss]

3 hours ago, Leslie.m said:

What’s the feeling about going to the Memorial no jacket / tie / with slacks in your locations? Technically only the 4 or so brothers up on the platform need to be fully suited up, and I was the first to applaud the tie / jacket change for brothers, but it feels weird (for me) even thinking about attending the Memorial without a suit or jacket / tie.

 

We discussed this with another couple the other day.  My husband is not on the platform but is one of the servers and he will be wearing a suit and tie.  Even if he wasn’t he would still wear the same as in our opinion it is a very special occasion that warrants dressing up.  

During Covid on Zoom he never wore a suit unless he had a talk with the exception of the memorial.  

Edited March 21 by MullumMiss

[Broseph]

7 hours ago, New World Explorer said:

90% of brothers were wearing ties and jackets to the mid week meeting yesterday ….interesting indeed. Only one sister in slacks …. Looks like we are very set in our ways congregation LOL 😂 

Same! With beards multiple brothers started day one, but with this update I only noticed one slacks and two lack of ties.

[Amygdala]

3 hours ago, Esined said:

Maybe even if we choose to stick with dressier clothes, this is an area that will make studies, RVs, inactive ones and others more comfortable attending the Memorial

 

Thank you for this. I will be engaged in cart witnessing today and was debating if I should wear trousers, because of the Memorial season. But seeing me in slacks may actually encourage some to attend again. 

[Leslie.m]

22 minutes ago, JonE said:

Same! With beards multiple brothers started day one, but with this update I only noticed one slacks and two lack of ties.

With beards there were no restrictions… this change has platform part restrictions - and as we’ve seen here some BOE’s have added other restrictions as well - carrying mics etc… it creates a bit of uncertainty…

[Dages]

9 hours ago, Stormswift said:

There's a fairly recent watchtower on women teaching and headship. It was put beautifully.  With the exception of the congregational arrangement of not teaching in the congregation, our lovely sisters are only under one headship, that is either Jesus if she's single, or her husband if she's married.  Otherwise Male,female have equal standing before Jehovah. 

This has been recognized early on, even before the watchtower by the Building committees when they started making sisters heads of construction teams. More lately, our dear sisters work on mics and video and audio as that doesn't violate the teaching in the congregation command.

 

As we are getting close to the GT, maybe sisters would receive some training in case they are alone without any brothers? 🤔

 

[Abigail]

13 hours ago, Murilo Orlando said:

Perhaps a future update will announce a new privilege for our dear sisters. 

 

It is possible to say that the biblical basis for women not participating in teaching and leadership in the congregation is Paul's instructions and advice. However, some argue that these instructions were given in a context where women did not receive much instruction, such as reading and writing.

 

What do you think? I personally understand each side of the issue, but I support the conservative opinion.

 

No please, NEVER, I don't want that responsibility!!

[Dages]

7 minutes ago, Abigail said:

No please, NEVER, I don't want that responsibility!!

It's ok. No one is forced to do anything.

[Eejay]

42 minutes ago, Dages said:

maybe sisters would receive some training in case they are alone without any brothers?

Many of the sisters where I live could give the brothers some excellent training right now on how to communicate and how to teach effectively, they are so good at it.

 

Attending a pioneer school was enough to teach me that lesson, and also to note how, in the context of demonstrations, the sisters who participated were able to share their skills and experience with great effect.

And really, just by working with such sisters in the ministry, brothers can receive that training in a most effective manner of delivery, that of learning from example on one-to-one basis. 😊