THE REAL REASON JW'S HAVE GROWN OVER THE DECADES... WHAT DO YOU THINK.?

by ?me? 16 Replies latest jw friends

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  OUTLAW

  Sir82..What year,is the year book your quoting from?...Thanks.............OUTLAW
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  sir82

  Outlaw,

  Pick any Yearbook from the late 70's...each yearbook has the publisher count.

  Also the count is in the Watchtower each year, I think it used to be in the January 1 or 15 edition, maybe February 1.

  Unfortunately, I don't think any of the publisher charts make it into the WT CD-ROM.
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  OUTLAW

  Sir82..I`ll check on that..Something does`nt make sense about those numbers..Thanks.....................OUTLAW
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  eyeslice

  I don't see any real growth in the west. It is amazing how many congregations are basically the same as they were 30 years ago - same core families, and often the same elders. Where there have been changes, it is usually due to families moving in or out.
  
  In the last 30 years, I have not seen a single family come along in the truth and really 'make it' in terms of becoming core; elders, kids becoming pioneers, and the like. All I have seen a few dysfunctional families come along and then fade away.
  
  It was different when my parents joined in the late 50s and early 60's through to the 70's. Whole families joined then and became what is today the 'core' of many congregations, often grandparents and parents are elders and kids are the next generation of pioneers.
  
  Eyeslice
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  Jeremy C

  I can remember that gary buss once made a funny statement regarding this topic. He said it appears that most of the JW growth has come more from breeding than reading.

  Considering that the Watchtower movement is now 130 years old; its growth is anything but impressive. The Mormon and The Seventh Day Adventist Churches (which were founded around the same time as WT) have had much more growth.

  It is also noteworthy that growth has come to a virtual halt in areas of the world where literacy, education levels, and information access are the highest. This one fact alone speaks volumes. I believe that the industrialized populations have simply had their fill of apocalyptic, superstitious cults.
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  willyloman

  This topic has been explored often on JWD over the past six or seven years. The consensus seems to be that the "growth" that JWs experienced in the 1960s (during the great anticipation over 1975) has both slowed and changed. The pace has slowed, and what growth there is comes from abroad rather than from the dub "base" - which is the U.S. and Western Europe. It's now mostly the third world. Secondarily, dubs know that most of the growth today comes from baptizing children of first- and second-generation dubs.

  Living in the western U.S., and looking back over my 30+ years involvement in dubdom in various congos in two different states, I have seen very little real growth in the congo's I am familiar with. If one congo grows, another one sharing the same hall sees a decline - as people move around to be with their friends/families or escape the tyranny of elders. New KH building projects are rare in the circuit - the last one we had here was about 5 years ago and the build was really only necessary because an existing hall had to be vacated because of problems related to faulty original construction and the existence of mold and related issues. There are no more people in chairs in the KHs that there were nearly a a decade ago, and this is an area that often makes the list of "fastest growing regions" in California and the nation. So the growth here has not come close to keeping up w population increases.

  Finally, we don't really know what the actual numbers are. We get the numbers from the WT Society. They are not audited and no spread sheets are issued to the rank and file. The only"official" dub numbers we do know something about - the monthly field service reports from each congregation - are clearly fake. Dubs often manufacture the hours, the no. of placements, the return visits, and even the "studies" they turn in. Many of these numbers are "fudged" by the publisher to put them in a better theocratic light in the congo, or just to keep the elders off their backs. And we know that a percentage of these numbers are outright fabrications. How many posts have you seen here from someone who turns in 5-6 hours but never goes out; it becomes a game for thousands of faders, to see how long before anyone notices the disconnect and says something. There are scores of inactive pubs in each congregation who turn in an hour or two just to reposition themselves in the eyes of elders and others.
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  free2beme

  Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Witness growth is coming from people raised in the religion. However, poor countries in Africa and other places with low education and economic problems, are also a good source of growth.