In 2010, a new Elder’s book – “Shepherd the Flock of God” – was released. You can find a copy by clicking here. A large portion of the book is devoted to the procedure for judicial committees and disfellowshipping. This book is for elders only, as made clear in Letter to Elders, August 23, 2010, which states: “The information is designed for use by the elders only, and other individuals should not have any opportunity to read the information.”
Sisters are not allowed to even bind it under supervision, as directed in the following quote from the Letter to Elders, October 7, 2010:
“There is no objection if an elder personally spiral binds or laminates his own textbook or does so for other elders. If he has another baptized brother who is not an elder do the work for him, the elder must watch while the work is being done. Outside companies, unbelievers, or sisters are not permitted to do this work. The material in the book is confidential, and confidentiality must be preserved.”
—————————–
Here is a summary of the chapters covered:
Chapter 1: Shepherd the Flock of God
Chapter 2: How Elders Work Together as a Body
Chapter 3: Appointment and Deletion of Elders and Ministerial Servants
Chapter 4: Assisting Those Who Are Weak
Chapter 5: Determining Whether a Judicial Committee Should Be Formed
Chapter 6: Preparing for the Judicial Hearing
Chapter 7: Judicial Hearing Procedure
Chapter 8: Appeal Hearing Procedure
Chapter 9: Implications of Disassociation
Chapter 10: Matters Related to Disfellowshipped and Disassociated Ones
Chapter 11: Reinstatement Committee Procedure
Chapter 12: Clarifications and Guidelines on Handling Certain Matters
—————————–
Please email me a .PDF copy of “Shepherd the Flock of God” in English.
(The link is broken)
I just sent the pdf. Hope you got it. Jacqueline
Hi can you please send me copy of this book, I am having trouble opening. I have experienced a lot of personal stuff swept under rug and I want to see this “elder”book. Greatly appreciate your help, I am EXJW, btw. t hank you so much!
reneemilroy – I just sent you the Shepherd of the Flock Book.
Please send me a copy of the Shepherd of the Flock book.
Thanks
Alex – I just sent it to you. Let me know if there are any problems with receiving it. God bless you. – Peter K.
Got it. Appreciate it.
Please email me a pdf copy of “Shepherd the Flock of God” book. I only have an Android based tablet.
Thank you,
Michael
Michael hi. Br. Peter will get to you. Today being Sunday, he gets busy with congregation matters. I am on a phone on the road and can’t figure out how. Bye. Jacqueline
Michael – I emailed you the Shepherd of the Flock Book. I hope it helps in researching issues that concern you.
Good Morning
Please e mail the Manual on shepherd of the flock.
I have tried to do It myself but I am having difficulty.
I am currently being visited by JW and the time is near for the end of the System of things according to them. Also how do they calculate the 144 000 heavenly rulers?
some of these have already been disfellowshipped. Also they refuse to discuss the Priesthood manual with me because It is secret.
Also I am trying to avoid them like the Plague because of all the False Prophecies.
what is your view?
Many thanks for your time and thank you for the information.
Robert.
Robert – I just emailed you the Shepherd of the Flock Elders book.
You asked how the 144,00 heavenly rulers are calculated. Actually the number is simply found in Revelation.
Rev 7:3-4 (AV) “3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. 4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.”
Rev 14:1 (AV) “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.”
The JWs beleive that these “children of Israel” is spiritual Israel, the anointed (having the Holy Spirit) body of Christ glorified to heaven. They are with the Lamb (Jesus) on mount Sion (Heavenly government) and so must be the heavenly body members of Christ. I think their view here is correct. The anointed (having the Holy Spirit) followers of Christ are described as a Little Flock (Luke 12:31). The fact that so few there are so few should not surprise us since these must past the test of complete faithfulness in order to be trusted with the important tasking in sharing with Christ as being earth’s future judges, priests and kings. Notice also…
Matt 7:10 (RVIC) says, “14 For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it.”
Rev 2:10 (RVIC) says, “…Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.”
Based on this, I am encouraged that there are so many (144,000). This gives me hope that I may have an opportunity to be counted faithful to be part of this group.
On another matter, you asked about the false prophecies. Yes, the JWs are often criticized as being false prophets. However, I would like to encourage you to evaluate a groups beliefs evenhandedly. For example, most denominational Church’s believe in Hell and Trinity. These are concepts that are clearly not taught in scriptures. So, every group can be criticized for something. I have to say, that although I have problems with some of the JWs prophetic views, I have observed that most people who view the JWs as false prophets base their conclusion on what they have heard from JW critics, without giving the JWs a fair hearing and opportunity to defend themselves.
In the manner of false prophecies:
I personally believe those who accuse both the Pastor and the witnesses of making false prophecies are conflating prophecies and predictions. Prophecy is really when one claims God has spoken to him or her and told them something will happen. Prediction is when one makes a guess, either educated or not, that something will happen. In the case of the Pastor he examined the scriptures and predicted that the end of the system would come in 1914. But a prediction is only as good as one’s perception of where the evidence leads and in that case he got it wrong, though he did get other aspects of the significance of the date right. The Pastor also nailed other matters right on the head where his predictions were concerned, such as Israel’s restoration and many details about it. He nailed enough of them that I am confident that what he predicted will mostly happen.
I’m always disgusted that the Pastor is called a false prophet though folks like Hal Lindsey aren’t even though they made predictions which certainly failed. Of course Rutherford and then later Franz and Knorr made prediction which didn’t come to pass. That didn’t make them false prophets any more than contemporaries such as Lindsey (with Knorr and Franz) were. But that’s the way it is.
An example outside of the Bible of a prophesy and prophet in God’s name would be St. Malachy. While visiting Rome in 1139 he claimed to have had a vision and saw all the Popes to the final one. He wrote them down in a cryptic list and there is controversy as to whether the list is accurate or not. Part of the reason it is so controversial is that the current pope would be the last one and Rome itself will be destroyed towards the end of his reign as pope.
The Pastor, Rutherford, or the others I mentioned ever made the same sort of claim St. Malachy did as far as I know. So none were false prophets as far as I’m concerned. Obviously some of their predictions were less educated than others.
please e mail Sheppard the flock,
thank you
Doug – I just sent you the Shepherd of the Flock books pdf. Please confirm to my email that you have received it. Thanks.
cannot open Sheppard the flock pdf
d
Doug – Are you using a computer with Windows? If so, this link should work: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0P5s5YtkFqFODE4ZmNjM2UtYzAxNi00YmIzLWI5MzEtZTcwYTExYTI0MmM2/edit?hl=no&authkey=CKHh4KkL
If not, let me know and I can email you the pdf tomorrow.
I can’t open the shepherd the flock PDF, can someone send it to me? I have just left the organization and am in the stages of fading. I want to understand what my “rights” are
Hello and welcome Kelly, we will see what is wrong. Meanwhile could you share your experience with us please. Also follow Br. Peter instructions to Elad, it should work.
Hello Jacqueline,
Thank you for the clarification. I apologize for sounding disrespectful – perhaps you should add a big graphic to the top of your site that says, “We are not Jehovah’s Witnesses”. I left the JWs a couple years ago because things just weren’t adding up. Recently someone told me that fairly soon the WTBS is going to start telling members to actually *denounce* people when they go door to door. Scary stuff! Again, though, I am sorry for drawing the conclusion yours was a JW site. It’s not readily apparent.
Sincerely,
Lynn
Lynn, a lot of people make that mistake. I was a witness for 61 years myself. It just so happens I have a lot of relatives here who were once witnesses and we saw your comment.
Wow! They used to do that in the 50’s and especially after the 1968 announcement that the world should come to an end and the thousand years should began in 1975. Where did you get this info. I will start a search right now to see if there is a letter or something out there.
Could you tell us your story, experiences of why you left please? Lynn it helps others when they see someone else’s story is just like theirs. We have from 4,000 to 5,000 visits on the site in a month and some just need to feel connected. Most are so hurt! A former elder wrote me the other day and said after reading Raymond Franz’s book “In Search of Christian Freedom” he felt so betrayed, as if he just learned his mother was grossly immoral. That was deep he was serious! So that’s why we are here to help until ones can steady themselves.
We are currently working on a project so ones may call in to talk or ask a question. (It is in the planning stage now) We would love to have you come on.
The district convention is this weekend in this area and everybody is a little hyper. They were told to blitz the ones that have left. To me that is strange, why would a person come back to something that they have decided is not for them, I have never understood that.
Do you have questions at all or just something to say on some of the articles? It’s always nice to hear a female point of view on the articles.
PS: Lynn I thought you might have been a brother since you knew about the advice not to let sisters see the flock book. LOL So I was picking at you.Will go search now for the info you stated and wait for your reply if you know where it is printed. Take Carte.
I got the info about the denouncing message from a Witness who has been in the congregation almost 30 years and is very close (related) to several of the elders in my former congregation. She even went to the extreme of asking me not to repeat what she had said concerning this, but I was so dumbfounded by the statement that I couldn’t even continue the conversation with her. This was during the time that I had moved away and was still on the fence about whether to stay or go.
Actually I have lots to say about my time as a member and my reasons for leaving but I don’t even know where to begin. I have just in the past few months gotten past being emotionally wounded by the whole shunning thing. But my attitude about that is, who am I to complain about it when I knew when I joined that shunning was what would happen to those who leave? So when people complain about being shunned, I’m like, “But you knew they would do that.” I think for kids the practice thinks, but for adults, well, we know what we walked into and the consequences of leaving, so no point in whining about it, LOL!!!
Not sure if this is more than you wanted to hear, hope it’s not one of those too much information things. I don’t know if anything has been published about the door-to-door denouncing yet, but I suspect it’s coming sooner rather than later, considering how clearly afraid the WTBTS is of all of us “apostates” out here.
Oh and FYI, I’m now a member of the LDS church. Life is good! 🙂
-Lynn
Lynn, This quote from page 20, para 17 November 15th, 2013 on Micah 5:5 and the rest of the article seems to be gearing up for something. Is this the article that may be telling them to denounce persons? The watchtower organization think they are Israel and this a drink the Kool-Aid type of thing.
Elders who are reading this article can draw some useful conclusions from the account we have just considered: (1) The most practical step that we can take to prepare for the coming attack of “the Assyrian” is that of strengthening our faith in God and helping our brothers to do the same. (2) When “the Assyrian” attacks, the elders must be absolutely convinced that Jehovah will deliver us. (3) At that time, the lifesaving direction that we receive from Jehovah’s organization may not appear practical from a human standpoint. All of us must be ready to obey any instructions we may receive, whether these appear sound from a strategic or human standpoint or not. (4) Now is the time for any who may be putting their trust in secular education, material things, or human institutions adjust their thinking. The elders must stand ready to help any who may now be wavering in their faith.
Hi Jacqueline,
Wow – that’s scary. And it sounds like it points right to what my friend was saying. I remember her commenting about wondering if she would have the courage to do this if the GB put out the mandate to actually denounce people. Then she said she’d have to do it since God speaks through the GB. My feeling at the time was that I was scared for and by my friend – I thought she was on the cusp of being delusional, and she had always been one of the most clear-headed people I knew in my congregation. 🙁
Thanks for corresponding with me, looks like we both assumed some things about each other but I admire your straightforwardness. 🙂
-Lynn
Lynn how do you put the emotion faces? It helps to convey feelings well. That is the one drawback to the internet, facial expressions and voice would have shown that we are both just trying to fight through this whole affair. Lynn I really didn’t know about the shunning, I was a born in. There was a time in the Deep South when we didn’t have this type of thing before about 1975. The GB thing snuck up on me even. I was having babies. lol. I was also that sister that spoke to the DF’d ones that came to the KH and never shunned DF’d in the family. My nieces and nephews love me for that now that they are older.
I sort of knew they would do something to scare the friends and make them think you are in danger and God is talking to us only to keep so many from leaving. They do this every 30yrs or so. That group dies out then they do it again and the younger ones don’t know it is a pattern of control. It is known as the bogey man effect in psychology. It paralyzes a person with fear for their children especially. So cruel.
One of my daughters said I will stay here and you go and which ever one hears something come get the other. Jump ship when we are sure who is telling the truth.LOL
But now I know more about Jesus and his saving power and that it is a gift, not earned. His sacrifice covers over all transgressions and that the world is not on trial for their life now, only in the millennium. Most of the scriptures they apply to themselves belong to the real Jewish nation. Also scriptures that are said to have fulfillment before Armageddon actually are millennium fulfilled.
Remember they say if you die you come back because you paid for your sins? Not true, you can’t redeem yourself. They come back if they die before Armageddon and during because Jesus paid for those sins. I don’t have a fear of Armageddon like I used to. It is their hellfire doctrine made up to scare.
If you tell your story on this link it is there as an article like and persons can easily find it over and over again: https://www.friendsofjehovahswitnesses.com/testimonials/
Check out these Armageddon articles and the scriptures, it is the takedown of the system, not judgement day on people. Fear and dreadful yes,, and deadly like wars are but resurrection of those will occur because that is the Adamic death not Gehenna. That is imposed only on ones that have had the opportunity to know the correct knowledge of Jehovah. We see dimly now but in Millenium it will be bright.
https://www.friendsofjehovahswitnesses.com/category/armageddon-2/.
Please fill free to tell your full story, it seems all of us have some of the same aspects. “Ask Jacqueline” articles are my experiences as I escaped. Take Care, In Christ. Jacqueline
So will the Jw’s be attacked because of their child molestation policies,death’s of memebers caused by dogmatic medical beliefs or What?
Hi K, are you referring to the Nov.15,2013 study edition that talks about an impending attack on Israel? The GB and the JW feels they are Israel so they are advising all to listen to the elders and obey even if what they tell them to do is against sound reasoning. Sort of like a Jim Jones or Waco thing to me. Although I sincerely hope not.
Hi Jacqueline, yes I was refering to the impending attack on Israel(the Jw’s according to them)
“Jim Jones” was what I immediately thought also. It almost sounds like they are seeking to temper people to accept an idea of doing something crazy when they state it like that. So the Now 15, 2013 Watchtower actually stated that??? Wow, that’s almost unbelievable!
David yes, if you go to jw.org and look up the study edition of the Nov,2013 watchtower you will see this. They are telling persons to listen to the elders, even if what they say doesn’t sound right.
Now since they have hijacked the Jewish nation’s spot, as witnesses of Jehovah, shouldn’t they do what Jehovah always told Israel to do? Look to him for deliverance!
They are speaking of what Bible Students and David Jeremiah, even, calls Jacob’s trouble. Something that will certainly hit Israel.
https://www.friendsofjehovahswitnesses.com/category/prophecy/israel-in-bible-prophecy/
It amazes me how they say the witnesses are Israel. When they run into a snag they say, OH, that is talking about Christendom. Then in the same sentence when it says something nice about Israel they say this is us. I would look around the audience to see if anyone was catching that crazy reasoning. Not a person was looking disturbed. But that attitude disturbed me and I needed to leave.
I know exactly what you mean Jacqueline, sometimes I’ll hear or read things that,to me,obviously arnr’t right or is contrary to what was previously said and I’ll look around to see if anyone caught it….but nope! they all still have the same blank look on their faces.
“There is no objection if an elder personally spiral binds or laminates his own textbook or does so for other elders. If he has another baptized brother who is not an elder do the work for him, the elder must watch while the work is being done. Outside companies, unbelievers, or sisters are not permitted to do this work. The material in the book is confidential, and confidentiality must be preserved.”
And yet here it is, posted for anyone at all to view on the Internet. I guess you are not a Jehovah’s Witness, is this correct? Otherwise you’d be following their clear instructions…
Hi Lynn, how are you and thank you for visiting the site and posting. Lynn we are not here to make your religion a problem for you, if you are satisfied with the society that is okay with us.
Lynn the watchtower society is a publishing company and are non-profit. Any books printed and distributed to elders, ministerial servants, publishers etc are open to the public according to law.
The book is published here to help those that are hurting from mistreatment, shunning etc understand the guildlines that are issued from the governing body. They can understand why an elder, who might be a friend, is behaving a certain way. They can check the book before going into a judicial meeting so they can prepare.
No we are not Jehovah witnesses but are the Original Bible Students from the Era of Br. Charles Taze Russell.
Jehovah Witnesses were started by Br. Rutherford in 1931. Many of the doctrines were changed to distinquish his new corporation from the Bible Students.
Please go here to read about this: https://www.friendsofjehovahswitnesses.com/category/bible-student-history/
Lynn the paragraph you quoted above is from a letter to elders about the Flock book, most sisters have never seen it but I will post that full letter if anyone care to see it.
As the word “organization” does not appear in the Bible, the Watchtower uses 1 Corinthians 14:33 – “God is a God, not of disorder, but of peace” – to indicate that an Organization is necessary. However, the existence of an organization does not guarantee order, nor is an organization a prerequisite for orderliness.
In an attempt to enforce the authority of the Watchtower Society, articles claim God has always operated though a single organization thus they have a “Flock Book” in addition to the bible to keep order.
Please read some of the articles and if you disagree or just want to discuss we will be happy to do so. Again thank you and I hope I addressed all issues. Jacqueline