And Here We Go

I've arrived at the boiling point.  There's no getting around it now.  I've come to the point where I've officially ostracized myself from the JW's.  Say goodbye to my family and friends as I've known them.  Friends have been lost.  Family will never be the same.  Let me take you back to where this all began and what lead to this.

To start off let me describe a few of the roles that go on in the JW congregation.  Three major positions are deemed ministerial servant, elder and pioneer.

A ministerial servant is somebody who is viewed highly in the congregation.  It's one step below an elder.  Many responsibilities are given to a ministerial servant.  They give "talks" which are public discourses.  These public discourses vary in subject matter as well as length.  On Sunday meetings, public discourses are 30 minutes long.  It's essentially a sermon like you would see in any church.  On the weekday meetings (mine being held on Thursday), they would vary based on what the subject matter was.  For the Bible Highlights, which consists of a review of the weeks Bible reading (usually 2 or 3 chapters), they give a four minute discourse with a six minute audience participation.  There are also various parts on what's called the "service meeting" which detail ways to improve your preaching skills.  These range anywhere from 10 minutes to 20 minutes.  They also serve as assistants to the elders.

Elders are the leaders of the congregation.  They give the same discourses that the ministerial servants give but usually they give them more often.  Also they are in charge of looking over the congregation.  They deal out judicial decisions and make a lot of the important decisions in the congregation.

Pioneers are JW's who agree to invest at least 70 hours in the preaching work every month.  They take the lead in preaching and are usually looked upon as examples to look up to and are held on a pedestal.

Let me describe where I sat.  For three years I was a pioneer.  This was not necessarily of my own volition but I was guilted into serving because at the time I wasn't working and I had nothing else going on.  I was also a ministerial servant.  As my decline went on eventually I stopped pioneering because I couldn't muster up effort anymore, especially while working a full-time job.  Plus my heart really wasn't in it.

After the last meeting we had, two of the top elders decided to sit me down for a talk about me being taken off the pioneer list.  They told me about this ahead of time so I was going to take the opportunity to step down as ministerial servant as well.  We get to talking and the next thing I know I'm going into a tirade about the doubts about the faith I've had and the doctrines that I think are just plain wrong.  Each point I brought up was responded to with the same nonsense I've been hearing for years.  They got me to agree to put a list together of teachings I have an issue with.  I don't know if I'm going to even bother doing that.  They won't sway me either way.

So I get home and decide to break the news to my mom.  She did not take it well.  She cried and and laid a guilt trip on me.  I just told her I loved her but could not go on with the lie anymore.

A couple days go by and it was okay I guess.  I was treated better than I thought I would be.  Then today comes around and I've been getting non-stop calls and text messages from people who are "concerned".  I've heard that word thrown around a lot over the last few days.  I even had visitors today, people who were trying to sway me.  My mom sat me down to have another talk with me and she was obviously upset. She said to me, "It would be better if you were dead." I was speechless.  How do you respond to something like that?

I appreciate what my mom is dealing with at this moment.  To her, it's like I'm informing her I have given myself a death sentence.  I feel so bad because I know she's hurting over it.  In the end though, is it better to have her feel a brief period of pain or should I continue the lie? 

She's told that I will need to find a new place to live because they can't have an "apostate" living in the house.  I kind of figured that would be outcome of this. 

In conclusion, what a miserable religion.