JW Study Meeting #23

Uriah and I never got around to any theological discussion at our meeting today, really. We shared some reflections from the convention, talked about our mutual friends at the Kingdom Hall a bit, and I learned a lot about the way they're organized. A little while back, one of their weekly meetings was cancelled by the Watchtower Society and its components were fused into the others, so now they only meet Tuesday and Sunday (or Thursday and Sunday--Uriah kept mixing those up too). He's thinking of seeing if he can get me one of the Theocratic Ministry School books.

Anyway, I learned a bit about how Theocratic Ministry School works, as well as the service meetings and the weekly studies. I think I forgot to ask what book they're working through in that. I also learned some stuff about how districts and circuits are organized. A circuit is a relatively small unit, generally consisting of a couple counties; a district is generally larger. The local congregation is now in a new district this year, which covers northern Maryland, most of New Jersey, and our corner of Pennsylvania.

And finally I got to ask some questions about ministerial servants and elders. I'd guess that the former category is basically their rendering of a deacon. They essentially handle a bunch of the grunt work like making sure the lawn at the Kingdom Hall gets mowed, doing the literature orders, etc. The local KH only has two ministerial servants, which is low. One is an elderly woman who has trouble getting around, and the other is Shem. They also have eight elders, who basically take care of congregational issues together, discipline, etc. Uriah is one of the local elders, and since they have so few ministerial servants, he also takes care of the literature. (And how fitting is it that the JW assigned to me should happen to be, not just an elder, but the one guy who handles getting all the publications?) So yeah, it was an enjoyable time, and I kept him for 20 minutes longer than he was probably supposed to be here. We're planning to meet again in a week to discuss the anointed.