"Congregation Collapse Disorder" or "Congregation Publisher Depopulation Syndrome"

I saw this post on the other thread. You have included quite a bit of information here, so I'm only going to respond to a few things for now.

While many of your ideas are very creative, I think that they are impractical without the combined effort of a large group, which is probably unlikely to happen. In my experience, local congregations are quick to react to "parasitic" Bible studies or apostates in their territory. The WTBTS might even be able to take legal action in some extreme cases.

A few of your points focused on the cost of literature. You might be surprised at some of the efforts being made by the organization at both the local and internation level to reduce the costs associated with the waste of their literature.

For example, the branches now closely monitor the literature stock at the Kingdom Hall level through a single coordinator for all of the congregations in that Hall. All requests are made through this one brother who interacts directly with the branch. A limited number of stock items are kept and the branch may even be deciding for the local Halls which publications and how many of them can be stocked.

Letters to the congregations have discouraged the ordering of bound volumes and other expensive literature and instead encouraged the use of the Kingdom Hall library and the Watchtower Library CD-ROM instead. I'm not sure if it's official policy, but there may be some restrictions on what non-publishers can request at the literature desk.

All of these measures will make it very difficult to employ any of the tactics you mentioned above related to literature.

Still, you noted some important trends, particularly the over-reliance on foreign language groups for growth. Such groups usually focus on immigrants who may have had less exposure to the Witnesses and are more likely to be attracted by the inclusive community that Witnesses present themselves as. Again I think it will be hard to counter their efforts without a large, coordinated effort. But, I do think that over time immigrant communities will become familiar with the Witnesses, their beliefs, and preaching tactics.

I do agree that having "apostate" literature available in other languages is important. Crisis of Conscience is available in many languages, but it seems that many websites and online resources are in English only. Perhaps some of the already good material out there (jwfacts, FreeMinds) could be translated.

It is so sad to think that good people can be mislead by a heirarchy of idiots,teaching nothing but lies!After,the old guard ages,and dies off,or drifts away into the night as you said,their are changing attitudes,and they are all negative now,all over the world.The jw regime,is in a major CCD syndrome,as it is reported that the only countries with increases,are poor,desperate,and starving people,who will grab onto any colorfull picture in a jw book or mag,or tract right?But in all of the 72 developed countries,their is a major decline in the troops,especially scandinavia,re........denmark,sweden,and norway!!!!!!!!!!!...........Soon as more internal troubles mount,and more prophecies fail,their will be many jws rebelling against the status quote,but i am very happy to live to see all of this,because i just sat at the hall for 40 years listening to endless wt propaganda,now being exposed all over the net.Thank God for the advent of the world wide internet,for it alone,has been the major threat to the wbts.They greatly FEAR the net,and rightly so!Wouldn't you,if the news media,exposed all of your deceitfull lies,and rediculous nonbiblical teachings???????????????HUmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!...........For a church organization,to speculate dates for the end of the world,many times over,is the real apostacy against Jehovah God,and all of the ever changing teachings in there,is now so visible to all people inside and out of the cult!Never follow a man,or a group of men,only God ok?CCD is picking up momentum now,as many publishers lack the will to preach,nice!!!!Baptisms are down all over the world,verses hours of preaching,as it now seems almost futile in their efforts to attract new members to march to the beat of the old drum as it were!

Thank you those are excellent responses and thanks for noting where some of the ideas need work, I appreciate that.

The single biggest threat to the WTS is "the truth," the "truth" of their history and their fear-mongering ways, the simple "truth" to counteract their present "Truth" of ever changing, flip flopping doctrines and dates.

The single biggest threat to wts is slowing of growth.

We already know most dubs who get baptized don't stay, and neither do most of their kids. Slowing the growth among nonmembers would make the org wither and die. Without lots of members, without money, they will fade away.

Anyway, we've all spent an enormous amount of time talking strategy with no action.

I've had a bit of an epiphany just now. Let me know if I'm right:The best thing we have going for us is disinterest. Yep--our collective disinterest in trying to fight the cult, and the general public's disinterest. It is this disinterest that will bring down the cult, solely by slowing the growth. Death by attrition. No one cares enough to join, the cult has such a bad reputation and is just seen as pathetic and ridiculous.

There will still be mentally ill people who form apocalyptic cults....until mental illness is cured and prevented. But hopefully they'll make up their own cult that won't be so destructive as the dubs are.

The failings and lies of the cult are well-documented at this point. I am going to keep on educating people about the truth--the truth about the origins of life, the importance of skepticism and science, etc. Vaccinations against high-control groups and other ludiocrity.

I too think the demise of Jehovah's Witnesses lies in a slow decline of growth rather than the mass exodus that is often hoped for.

I agree with Rebel8 that the "failings and lies of the cult are well-documented at this point." Only when people have access to such accurate, critical information can they make an informed decision.

However, I worry that non-English speakers have significantly less available or that information in their language is harder to find.

Of course, Commentary Press has made Crisis of Conscience available in many languages, though there are a few important omissions. I also noticed that FreeMinds has translated selected material on their website. Perhaps, this is enough.

'However, I worry that non-English speakers have significantly less available or that information in their language is harder to find.'

That is changing. Out of the 6000 languages that currently exist, 2500 are slated for extinction. This a natural result of better communications, centralisations of informations, supplies, culture. As the world becomes more interlinked, scammers like the wt org are having a harder time of it.

S

Here we go again. You can watch another great idea fall flat on its face, live in technicolor.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/members/private/183571/1/Need-your-help-May-2010

Rebel, link not working.