I was thinking about this on the drive home today, and it occurred to me that what the WTBTS might cultivate in the future is more of a "circle the wagons" mentality among the members. More and more paranoid behavior, less contact with the outside world, more and more and more control. That seems to be the way cults go. What do you think?
JW Stopping Door to Door Preaching?
by SuzieQ 34 Replies latest jw friends
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journey-on
I agree with Garybuss. I think they are losing money with the literature now and will soon go with tracts only. Heck, those could be on some file the elders could access from the WT website, download, and have printed out locally (at the KH expense, of course). Password protected I'm sure.
But, I don't see the door to door preaching coming to a halt anytime soon because they HAVE to keep the drones busy doing something on the weekends. Otherwise, they would be enjoying LIFE with their families and friends and you know where that leads.
Like the rest of you, I see strange things happening in the next year or two. Hold on for a bumpy ride!
BTW, SuzyQ: WELCOME ABOARD!
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WTWizard
In fact, I remember a rumor earlier this year that Matthew 24:14 had been fulfilled. Inevitably, this would have meant that the preaching work was about to stop, and the Great Tribulation was imminent. Then the idiots at Brooklyn that initiated that rumor turned around and said that they never said any such thing. So, it's business as usual.
As I see it, as long as the Tower is up, service is going to be a hallmark. They are always going to be going from door to door, wasting huge amounts of time and gas in the process. Eventually, people are going to get p**#ed off enough to put a stop to it, passing ordinances that limit the work of the Witlesses. And the Witlesses are going to work around those laws, fighting it all the way up to Supreme Court. Until the Tower comes down, they will be doing that wasteful door to door "work".
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garybuss
The Watch Tower Corporation used to market their products TO the public. Now they are protecting their products FROM the public. The Witness people themselves are the new market. This inversion is almost complete. It's hard to notice for young young people because it's been phased in over the last 15 years or so. It appears to me that the Society is on a 20 year conversion plan.
Look at the Kingdom Ministry publications from 20 years ago. The offers were magazine subscriptions, bound book "a", or bound book "b". Then they started to clean out the book rooms and they offered ANY hard cover book. That was the start of the change. The monthly sales special (offer) was never just magazines. Those were for the kids on Saturday morning.
In the 50's the monthly sales specials were often a hard bound book and three booklets. We had handbills printed for every Sunday talk and those went in the doors of not at homes and into the hands of people who declined our offer to them to contribute cash to us in exchange for literature.
Heated arguments at a stranger's door in service was an every day thing. Witnesses never backed down from an argument. When they started backing down is when they started to dumb down. The Society told us to use "theocratic tact" and lie to the customers by telling them that we would do some research on their topic and get back to them. Then we would give their address a goat stamp and forget about them.
We were not selling religious literature for cash, we were separating the sheep from the goats. The customer's life depended on our sales presentation being successful. It was just a coincidence that our successful sales presentation netted us a sale and cash to the Society.
That's all changing. The Witness people are the new cash cows. -
besty
If outside consultants looked at their business my guess is that they would recommend less printing and more property developing and stocks investments. Much more upside potential with less downside.
This fits with the recent printing presses - no business purchases capital equipment without a sound demonstration of how it saves money and/or creates more money. With the pricepoint of the literature assumed to be zero, the new presses must have offered them cost savings through new efficiences, staff layoffs etc
With regard to the 6.5 million members spending time on the screeching work, I suggest that this is background noise to the moneymen at HQ. Its not impossible to envision a time when the JW's become an asset-light religious movement (like 1st C Christian's ..nooo I'm dreaming)and one of the other statutory bodies - eg Christian Cong of JW's or similar - becomes a true moneymaking machine.
Oh wait - perhaps this has laready happened in all but name....