Can you imagine what might go on, how it goes on?
Here's one imaginative view from me. Maybe you have a different one.
MEMBER 1: Membership is falling. We can't tell the flock that. Our growth is supposed to be proof that we are blessed by Jehovah. We need some new light. What ideas have you all got?
MEMBER 2: Well, what has the spirit revealed to us?
MEMBER 1: Oh, come on. I'm talking about a crisis. Get your head out of your ass and come up with something. New light comes from us.
MEMBER 3: Is there a way we can manipulate the numbers to look positive?
MEMBER 1: We did that for the last two years. All we have left is to withhold some monthly "publisher" reports and turn them all in in August to make the peak number soar that month. But I really think we should save that for next year. The apostates notice when we do stuff like that.
MEMBER 4: We could proclaim the tribulation is causing membership to go down. Satan is sifting the weeds from the wheat in the last minutes of the last days.
MEMBER 2: Is the tribulation starting?
ALL MEMBERS (except #2): Where did we get this guy from? We'll decide that now.
MEMBER 5: What if we look at some of what Rutherford, Knorr, and Franz did when membership was down? You know, like when we recycled an old "generation" teaching. We didn't mention it was old light renewed.
MEMBER 6: We looked into that last year. There really isn't anything left to flipflop that will help membership.
MEMBER 5: What if we count all the inactive JW's? What if we go by attendance averages instead of publisher averages?
MEMBER 7: It all sounds deceptive. If we don't have positive things to say about growth, let's just stop reporting it.
MEMBER 1: Sounds great. The yearbook will not report totals anymore. Say that we have sent our staff tabulators back into the field where the need is greater than in the world headquarters. Let's vote on it. Someone shake Members 8 and 9, make sure they are just sleeping and not dead.
MEMBER 4: Can we do the same with partakers? It was up again this year.
MEMBER 1: All in favor of not reporting publisher totals and partakers- That's a majority. Now, let's start working on new ways the publishers can donate money to the worldwide work.