JW Numbers Are Set To Grow

by Defender 19 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Defender

  Despite the lackluster records of JW number growth in the past 6 years, I believe that their numbers will start to swell again and remain high for at least another 10 years Here is why.

  The Society is becoming more and more business like in its approach (especially after last year's re-org) on how to maintain and increase growth. The WTS, like any corporation when it becomes acutely aware of stagnation, begins to formulate a number of new techniques in order to bolster its sagging membership or sales. This could include, TV ads (I believe Intuit39 mentioned something to that effect), radio, newspaper and magazine ads and direct mailings. Video productions, specialized newsletters, even perhaps dedicated cable tv channel.

  The Society is a huge publishing empire with deep pockets, and although it has experimented in other medias before, it will now have to throw its weight behind them.

  Despite the negative JW info found on the internet, close to 150 million, half the population of the US do not have online access. The newly devised marketing campaigns will mainly attract seniors and low income single parent families and immigrants. The attraction of seniors alone will have a major positive impact on the WTS checkbook, as these seniors are more likely to make large donations and bequeath large portions of their estates to the Society. In fact, is is those seniors that will fund most of the expenses associated with Kingdom Halls and expansion.

  The demographic makeup of JWs is going to change and there is going to be less emphassis on the door-to-door approach as seniors and single parents are not best suited for such work.

  By the time the newly recruited seniors pass on and the low income single parent and immigrants get online, the Society will have accumulated a good second wind enough to propell it for a decade or two.

  Incidentally, the influx of new seniors may well boost the number of "annointed" partakers.
• 

  Room 215

  Hi Defender,

  With all due respect, it sounds like wishful thinking to me. This attachment to 1914 is beginning to look embarassing, and what will they do for an encore in 2014? Hold a Centenary celebration??
  Sure, they're likely to retain many of the present mature and aging JWs who've invested their lives and who continue to hope against hope that an imminent Armageddon may yet eventuate to rescue them from old age and illnesses; but what does the WTBTS have to offer prospective converts?

  Ask yourself: How many of their teachings can withstand impartial objective scrutiny from neutral observers, especially with the internet to facilitate research, pro-and-con? Keep in mind that JWs have been to date able to rely on the public's ignorance of their past history with its scandals and failed predictions in order to make any progress at all with an unwary public.

  Their chronology, already in tatters, erodes with every tick of the clock. I mean, when have rthey ever been right? What printed speculation of theirs can stick under our noses and say ``see? we told you so!'' What's the average shelf life of a hardbound JW interpretive publication?

  My friend, if they were a publicly traded corporation and I were a stockholder, I'd be selling.
• 

  Defender

  Room 215

  Your points make absolute sense IF a person puts the effort to compare the real background of the WTS date settings and the 1914 cornerstone. However, the WTS is slowly moving away from all this and the new emphassis is going to be on association and not on doctrine. That is why newly recruited members are going to be increasingly immune to past WTS blunders.

  Church doctrines like those upheld by the latter day saints or mormons will also not stand any real test of logic and reasoning, yet they still enjoy growth.
• 

  moman

  I can only hope you are wrong & I believe you are, 5 reasons.

  1) THE CARROT & STICK: Paradise & Armaggedon just around the corner, is no more,with dates like 1975.

  2) The NET will & is growing fast, the new generation has been weened on the Web, the lies of the WT are there to see, they can't hide.

  3) Revival of Nationalism, it becomes harder to dismiss those that relish in the distruction of their government, while enjoying its freedoms, TAX-FREE!

  4) The boooring meetings, they were tolerable when "the end was just around the corner", but not now.

  5) The shunning, blood issue, pedofile protection, etc., they will have to try & squirm out of these insane beliefs, but they will have little success.

  Will they go out of business, probably not, the elite of the Borg will always live well, but they will morph into something smaller & much different. IMHO
• 

  freeman

  I can’t wait to see how the numbers grow after dateline.

  Freeman
• 

  JanH

  Defender

  The newly devised marketing campaigns will mainly attract seniors and low income single parent families and immigrants.

  A major flaw in that argument is that seniors almost never convert. They certainly don't in significant numbers. Sociological studies on conversion has confirmed this to be pretty universal.

  - Jan
  --
  - "How do you write women so well?" - "I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability." (Jack Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets")
• 

  LB

  I suppose the numbers will grow some, but it's always going to be a group of replacements. People are joining only a little faster than they are leaving.

  
  Never Squat With Yer Spurs On
• 

  anewperson

  Many JWs became such in 1970-80, are now 40-50 & about to go into their 60s & 70s, when many will die, thus decreasing membership.

  The 1970-80 time was when Knorr ruled in a firm but usually kinder way than his successors and predecessors. He was also a tyrant but not as bad.
• 

  Gandalf

  I disagree. The JW's are in decline in the developed nations and continue to increase mainly in countries with poor education, recent internal war and/or high levels of poverty. As these countries improve their levels of economic prosperity and levels of education the JWs will become less attractive. To summarise: they are a spent force that is becoming ever more dependent on rearing new Witnesses to replace the dying and dissafected. They will become, in my opinion, a dying church similar ti the 7th Day Adventists, the Christadelphians, and the like. th JW religion will continue for a few centuries probably but in continuous decline. They will also, judging by other dying sects, become more reasonable and we can expect them to abandon their extreme beliefs including the ban blood transfusions and disfellowshipping. The door-to-door work will probably diminish and the number and length of meetings will continue to reduce. As the organization becoems smaller it may well become a more freindly place to be a part of, much as it was in the middle of the last century. Without their more extreme beliefs the opposition will also decrease which will help the Witnesses to relax their 'bunker' mentality and be able to merge with mainstream society. Eventually it will become a small harmless sect. I don't believe that fierce opposition will accelerate this decline, in fact it may well delay it.
• 

  Room 215

  Hi again Defender,

  I'm sure they'll survive, they're masters at it. But the question is: in what form? it would seem they hav very little going for them in the way of dynamism of though or clarity of vision at the top.

  As their credibility as prognosticators founders, it's imperative that they reshape themselves into something more palatable to reasonable middle-of-the road pospective converts. To do so, they need to back off from the hard-driving manipulation by guilt, the ``can you do more, more, more?'' and the ``us-against-them'' antipathy they have for everyone but themselves.

  But then, if an elephant sheds its trunk and its tusks, is it still an elephant? Will what emerges be recognizable as the contemporary 1914-centered WTBTS of recent history?