@Pams girl- be carefull when looking at charts that count baptism figures seperatly from peak publishers to try to find out how many are "missing".
It seems many on this forum do not understand how to read the WTS figures. The report for 2010 SY shows the following:
peak publishers: 7,508,050
average publishers: 7,224,930
2009 average publishers:7,046,419
number (of above publishers):
baptized:294,368
Of the 7,508,050 who reported as publishers during the 2010 Service year 294,368 got baptized during that service year.
In other words- the ones who got baptized were publishers already before they got baptized and have been already counted as publishers. The 7,508,050 INCLUDES the 294,368 who got baptized.
You cannot use the baptism figures to try to estimate how many fell away, became inactive, df'd etc. If you did you'd be counting the baptism figures twice.
All the wts is doing is showing that in any given year of all of those who reported as publishers that year, this many, got baptized that year. They are already counted as publishers- you cannot get baptized without first being a publisher!
I hope I am explaining this well enough.
These figures are from the 2011 Yearbook Of Jehovah's Witnesses .