| Author |
Message |
Nowisee
Registered user
Username: Nowisee
Post Number: 207
Registered: 5-2009
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - 9:47 pm: |     |
When I was Ingathering as a kid, we were sometimes given a little pre-printed song booklet. I kind of wonder if someone wasn't paying attention and just bought regular 'Christian' booklets, because I think I learned alot of the correct lyrics during all those cold nights of door-to-door begging.
This is something good God brought out of ingathering--I heard the gospel in those songs, but I still wonder where all that money went. (My husband tells of how embarrassed he used to be, asking for money from people who, in their little town, obviously didn't have much. At one place, after giving the spiel that they were collecting for 'the poor & needy', the man at the door exclaimed, "We ARE the poor & needy!") Do they even still 'ingather'? And did all of you (of my age-60's) have to go out once a year (taking a day off school) all the way through elementary & academy selling cans of peanuts (or whatever)? I still have an aversion to selling things to people! |
Philharris
Registered user
Username: Philharris
Post Number: 1925
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:06 am: | |
Nowisee,
I am 68 and did pretty much all the things you mention. And yes, I hate selling things. Added to the Ingathering, we lived several years at Angwin on a twenty acre farm and I had to sell our garden produce and grape juice door to door. Hated it all.
Fearless Phil |
Believer247
Registered user
Username: Believer247
Post Number: 89
Registered: 3-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 9:26 am: | |
Yes Nowisee, Ingathering is still done but they call it "Hope for Humanity" now.
I was ingathering leader for years and always had Christmas caroling several times in December. We would usually go out on a Saturday night for an hour or so, once in a while on a tuesday or thursday night. I also hated the "begging for money" , I enjoyed the caroling but not the other.
And we did sing the right words to the carols....I had made copies of a song sheet taken from the back of one of my Christmas piano books from my childhood. And it was a regular Christmas piano book, not Adventist. I do remember one time my sister in law commenting that some of the words were different from what she remembered...don't remember what song it was, but she sang it anyway! |
Believer247
Registered user
Username: Believer247
Post Number: 90
Registered: 3-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 9:34 am: | |
Vivian, in answer to your question on Sunday's post, the Jehovah Witnesses do not even celebrate Christmas. |
Nowisee
Registered user
Username: Nowisee
Post Number: 210
Registered: 5-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 10:32 pm: | |
Phil, Thanks for your response. I'm glad I'm not the only one....it was just recently that I realized the connection re my feelings of selling things. You help me feel not so alone!
Believer 247--I also loved the caroling part. But, for a child, the whole thing mixed something delightful (singing about Jesus in the crisp night air), with something very unpleasant. Nobody wanted the job of going to the front door! Often the littlest child got stuck with it...Does "Hope for Humanity" go door to door? (Plus I remember all the 'teams' competing each night to see who made the most.) |
Believer247
Registered user
Username: Believer247
Post Number: 95
Registered: 3-2009
| | Posted on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 8:32 am: | |
Yes Hope for Humanity still does the door to door. And no one ever wanted to go to the front doors. Someone usually finally volunteered, relutantly. I never did that, always sang the carols. The last few years that I went out caroling, the group always had several children with them and one or more of the children would go up to the front door with the person who was "soliciting." The reasoning behind taking children to the door with them was that people were more likely to give or might give more money if they saw children. Yes that reason was actually said out loud and agreed upon by the whole group....yes I went right along with it too.
Remember there was always a goal to reach, if the church went over the goal, they received more of an "Ingathering Reversion." I think 25 % of the funds collected was sent back to the local church. We didn't have competing teams at the church we were in, just one group always went out together. |
Hec
Registered user
Username: Hec
Post Number: 854
Registered: 3-2009
| | Posted on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 3:50 pm: | |
The "good" thing about this in-gathering thing is that one goes out to beg for the poor, for the victims of catastrophes, etc. But then the money is divided into the conference and what stays in the local church. The local church can do with it whatever it wants, even "evangelistic" meetings. Is that for the poor?
Hec |
8thday
Registered user
Username: 8thday
Post Number: 1383
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 5:37 pm: | |
And I was one of the kids they taught how to talk at the front doors.. all the while singing Christmas songs with the teeth taken out of them and raising money for a lie. My inner child is pretty hacked right now.
Sondra |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 7803
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 7:35 pm: | |
I used to feel guilty when I did not go ingathering. BUT I did not feel guilty not taking my son when he was little. He got sick to easily and I would not take him out in the cold. I will just say, thank you Awesome God for that.
Diana L |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 10760
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 11:14 pm: | |
Sondra, I'm feeling sympathy with your inner child right now. I know exactly how you feel.
God wastes nothing and redeems everything we submit to Him—even Adventism. Praise Him!
Colleen |
