SERVICE REPORT 2005 : WATCHTOWER FEB 1ST 2006 (page 6)

serendipity

Hi bhunter! Welcome to the forum! Thanks for the scans. It will be at least a month before I get this mag.

JT

I personally feel the vast majority of ACTUAL new ones that is not young ones baptised are from the foreign language fields

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i have been told that if it were not for the spanish language congos, the USA would be in worst shape

JT

So why wouldn't the WTS cooks these figures after they get them?-

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my old roomate on the service desk used to laugh about the numbers- no Bethel does not COOK the numbers

once again i was told directly by someone who works in Sevice, that the numbers are not cooked- they are merely reported as recieved- but the Service Dept is aware that the number ARE cooked before they get to bethel by the local SEC sending in the total

i know i used to cook the books and so does almost all the SEC i know

last night to send in the report, it is late you don't have sister jones time, you look at her previous month she had 3/4 hours for the last months, you figure, I Know i saw her out in service, so i know she must have at Least 3 hours and off it goes

TheListener

I appreciate you scanning that in very much.

steve2

Thanks bhunter. I appreciate getting the service report without the rigmarole of trying to get a copy of the Watchtower.

Whether the figures are cooked or not will always be open to question. I think a lot of the cooking occurs at the individual level, but, if pressed, I could not produce any evidence for that assertion.

What stands out from the report, though, is the continued trend of stagnation in numbers and even decline in western countries. Those of you who have access to last year's service report, will note the huge decrease in total hours preaching for the current service year and a relatively large drop off in the total memorial attendance figures. Not good signs.

Notice also the inexorable decline in the Scandanavian countries, especially Denmark whose average number of publishers has stagnated since about 1984. Yet, the baptisms continue. They're coming in the front door, and going straight out the back. Hardly the thing you'd see in a vital, life-giving religion.

I notice that the report now has a new column for auxiliary pioneers which probably gives an inflated figure for numbers actively preaching.

Whichever way you look at the report - and keeping allegations of cooking out of the picture - if it were not for third world countries, the worldwide picture for the JWs would look even more dismal. I get the impression that the days of large numbers of new ones coming into the congregations has well and truly past and that most of the (short-term) growth is from those born into the religion. Yes, the Watchtower is showing all the signs of an "ageing" religion long past its heyday. It will limp along for an indefinite number of years, but its place as one of the fastest growing "Christian" religions is a distant memory in most western countries.

How ironic that a religion whose catch-cry through the rapidly passing decades has been 'the end of the system is nigh', is itself crawling to an end before the world ever will! Bu isn't this how all end-times religion 'end up'? The existential reality for JWs is that, the end does eventually approach - one's personal end in death. We don't need a sense of end-times urgency to come to terms with that reality!

Elsewhere

Baptized: 247,631
Publishers Increase: 81,675
Total Baptized missing: 165,956

The reports from elders, COs and DOs is true... they really are loosing people faster than they are coming in. If they had more coming in than leaving then the number of Publishers Increase would be greater than the number baptized.

M.J.

Hey this is INCREDIBLE if you ask me. I fully expected a SPIKE this year due to the catastrophic barrage of natural distasters. Tsunami, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. This was the WTS's year to SHINE. Didn't happen!

SERVICE REPORT 2005 : WATCHTOWER FEB 1ST 2006

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