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  • There's a JW mission near us and we get them a fair bit. We just say no thank you and they leave. Really they should have worked out there's no point bothering with houses within 5 minutes walk of the mission since if we haven't already have been converted by one of their brethren we probably aren't the converting type, but there you go.

    I did have an interesting chat with one guy on a bus one day because we were stuck in traffic for about half an hour and learned a bit about the setup. He was very pleasant other than double checking every 5 minutes just in case I'd changed my mind about not wanting to be converted...

    Anyway, what I realised from talking to him about his mission is that the purpose of the missions and doorstep evangelising isn't to make us JWs at all, it's to make them even more deeply identify as JWs.

    So these young JWs leave their home environment to be immersed somewhere they know noone except other JWs, who form a community around them. And every time they go out to evangelise, they are defining themselves as a JW in front of someone who isn't, linking their own identity more and more with the concept of being a JW.

  • We sometimes get young USA born evangelists preaching in Belfast, trying to convert people. Same idea behind it perhaps?

    Now those USA evangelist churches coming across all huggy and liberal while being deeply socially conservative replacing old school Protestantism where at least we know what's what...they may genuinely bring people in.

  • I listened to a really good podcast on the boom in evangelical churches. It's fascinating how good they are at adapting to different social norms and customs.

  • Tottenham's stuffed to the gunwhales with evangelical churches, usually in old commercial premises. They usually have names of the form "Church of the Verbing Noun"... Church of the Anointing Hands, Church of the Ascending Lord, Church of the Shining Truth" and suchlike

    Being mature adults, we amuse ourselves inventing surreal and inappropriate ones like Church of the Shuddering Jelly, or Church of the Demanding Donation

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