What was the ratio of witnesses in your town?

JH

Back in 1988, at the height of our activity here, we were 400 witnesses in a town of 30,000.

That was 1 witness per 75 population, which is ALOT !!!!!!

Today, the city merged with the town next door, and there is about 450 witnesses for 125,000 population. This means only 1 witness per 270.

Gee, did the witnesses decrease here !!!

hillbilly

back in the day...Dyersburg had say 100 steady members in a town of 12,000.... The whole county was maybe 80,000...lots of dirt road territory.

Said town had over 80 'mainstream' churches

~Hill

Hm I dont know what it was back in the day since I've only been living here for almost 3 years now but I do know that about 16 years ago the population of the town I live in was about 9,000. Now it is over 55,000 and there is only one small kingdom hall here and churches are being built like gangbusters.

stillajwexelder

1 per 150 people

inbyathread

City ratio is 1 witness per 190 population but add the surrounding territory that the congregation is obligated to serve and the ratio goes to 1 witless per 600.

Numbers within the congregation are dropping faster than the community is growing.

IP_SEC

1:250,

And that dont include the whole territory, just the town.

blondie

territory or town? Each congregation in this area is assigned territory with approximately 40,000 people with congregations around 100 publishers. To be realisitc I would think you count the rural areas and towns assigned to the city/town congregation holding the territory.

The COs have said for years that there should be at least 7 more congregations.

I have see imbalances of territories where many congregations exist, partly due to the building of housing in developments in some territories; then the boundaries are reassessed.

US average still around 300?

Blondie

aniron

The town were my old congregation is the ratio works out at 321 per JW. Thats with two congregations in the town.

If we take the whole borough it then works out amongst 9 congregations at 451 per JW. I don't think I spoke to 321 people on the doors in all my 20 years as a JW.

richard

I wonder how they manage on the isle of St Helena where there's 1 JW on 28 inhabitants ... (yb2005)

Honesty

I live in a county of 110,000. There are 3 congregations in the county and 2 Kingdom Halls. The average attendance at congregation meetings in 2004 was 87-93 per congregation. That's about 300-350 'active' witnesses when illness is taken into account. Not too good of a figure in a county where there are over 400 Christian churches. I have often wondered why the local JW's don't get alarmed when they see the yearly reports and read the following:

Isaiah 60:22

22 The little one himself will become a thousand, and the small one a mighty nation. I myself, Jehovah, shall speed it up in its own time."

Isaiah 2:1-3

2 The thing that Isaiah the son of A'moz visioned concerning Judah and Jerusalem: 2 And it must occur in the final part of the days [that] the mountain of the house of Jehovah will become firmly established above the top of the mountains, and it will certainly be lifted up above the hills; and to it all the nations must stream. 3 And many peoples will certainly go and say: "Come, YOU people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.