by Clam 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Why does this surprise anyone?
Most of the cities in my area have an assembly hall that subdivides into three or four halls, which are then shared by half a dozen congregations. It is efficient and makes sense.
It does tend to be less convenient, as the drones have to drive further, but it saves money and permanently reserves a spot for circuit assemblies.
Our approach in looking after the flock is to keep them small because we do not want to lose the intimate touch a shepherd should have with sheep," he said.
This from JR Brown, what he really means is that they can better keep an eye on you and hound you more if the congs are smaller. Intimate touch my arse more like under their hammer.
It would be fun to show r&f jws posts from this board from years ago. They would probably just think Satan is behind all of it.
Kingdom Hall for Sale - In larger cities, if the KH is not already being used by 3 or more congregations, think about consolidating the region/area to do so. Dedicated publishers will drive a little extra to be at the meetings. Real estate is where the money is at. KH's, with property, can be sold for $200-300k in most areas. If the money crunch really comes, then do as other religions do - meet in people's homes. Book study groups could remain the same for all meetings. A new meeting format would need to be created if this were to happen. If congregations are instructed to sell off their KH's, then that will be the sign of the end for the WTS.
once the WTS feels the cash crunch, they will have to start selling KH's to stay afloat(this isn't just a guess - it is going to happen eventually). It could be that this announcement is primarily for larger cities where there are several congregations colocated in a reachable geographic area. In other words, if a city(including suburbs) has 10 congregations and 5 KH's, the WTS can sell at least 2 KH's and force the congregations to merge or share the remaining KH's...
But it wouldn't surprise me to see or hear reports of KH's being sold more frequently. I would also assume that the WTS will try to keep it fairly quiet.
I'm really getting tired of us not getting a consultancy fee for pitching these ideas to the WTS. With the money they are saving by stealing our business plans, they should at least kick back a few Canadian dollars to Simon for board upkeep.
I agree that financial problems could underlie the selling off of Kingdom Halls. A related reason for the use of a shared building could be due to the much slower growth among the JWs in your country - espeically in English-speaking congregations. Does anyone know whether this centralized building is because fewer people now attend meetings?
