Random thoughts about the organization. In 20 years.....

by stuckinamovement 40 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  snare&racket

  Knowlege is power..... Knowlege is now free and in most peoples pockets. To survive they will need to either completely refurbish the wholebelievsystem and biblical reliance or drop western civilisation and target developing countries where information is still hard to come by. Science is doing incredible things with medicine and biology. Last year we created life! We made a living thing.,,. Did god breathe into that man made bacteria? Knowlege is power.

  Great post and I totally agree. I am surprised at modern JW disobedience to the org, I think most JWs tell themselves now that the society have got a lot wrong and are out of touch... Leaving room for breaking quite big rules.... All of this whilst half telling themselves "but it must still be the truth."

  The world is getting nicer, the JWs know Muslims ain't gonna drop religion because of the UN, a weak assed beast lol. D all other faiths! This kind of teaching will have t be revised soon, none of it adds up anymore... None of it. Also, modern western society won't put up with homophobia and backward thinking to the degree the society push it. They sound embarrassing and like fundementalists already, in 10 years time they will look more ridiculous not less. I think once 2014 passes people will leave quicker than ever before, not in droves but in number.

  The financial market will recover.,.... And a whole new generation of young teens will leave because elders and old timers had told them it was proof the end was near. Even more will leave as Armageddon does NOT come before they left school, (and they say Santa is harmful lying to kids). The young are the downfall of the society, the young will always aski why.... They will always push the boundaries, with every bethel tombstone the society has had to relax a little so as to not lose too many... They can only relax so far!

  Finally my friends.... There is no Armageddon on its way. As much as I don't want to see my friends in 30 yrs and hear them say "shit... It didn't come" ... This alone will see it end in the next half century.
• 

  Fernando

  Too true mrquik!
• 

  NOLAW

  Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church is still here after 1900 years, Jewish religion even longer and they serve more crap to their 'customers'...
• 

  Sulla

  Sorry, I guess I'm a scoffer. The org has an excellent bench for future leadership, according to what they are looking to accomplish. There are plenty of men who want more responsibility within their congregations, especially when we remember that the congregations are kept very top-heavy by design. Comsolidate a few congregations and see how many excess Elders and MS you have.

  The JWs would be more than happy to see the printing business go into even greater decline, since the markups on printing are not particulalry large anyhow. Smaller overhead, fewer workers (who are still costly to house and feed) equals no problem. It would be pretty easy to increase direct contributions from the congregations to the HQ, eliminating the priniting process (almost) entirely. 20 years from now, they will simply be preaching with tablets: you want the mag? no problem, just get an instant download or whatever.

  And world conditions are always thought to be getting worse and worse -- everybody thinks the old days were better than now and there is always some crisis to get worked up over. Hell, look around.

  Finally, the overlapping generation has bought them another 80 years, at least until they change it to something else. These guys aren't going anywhere, sorry to say.
• 

  yourmomma

  "There are plenty of men who want more responsibility within their congregations"<----everything i read, hear, and see points to the opposite of this
• 

  thetrueone

  They will find away to stick around to be sure, they may have to drop a few old doctrines and proclaim they have new light or understanding,

  1914 comes to mind. Remember the balls they had recently to spin even Jesus's own words from this generation to generation(s) !

  The WTS. has been resilient over the years in its history to make necessary changes when needed to keep a perceived sense of viability toward the

  public.

  They can change the organization's name like what Rutherford did, they can change the name of the their most published magazines The Watchtower,

  Awake like did before.

  So you see there are many revisions they can instituted to distinguish themselves from the old WTS/JWS to something different and new.

  Not my personal wish mind but this is fact.

  Lets also not forget the WTS. as a world wide organization is worth over a Billion + US and more, so this is another plausible reason why it might stay around

  for a lot longer than one might think.
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  I don't see that this bunch of GB is capable of coming up with anything new. They got to where they are because they toed the WT line. They're not "leaders", they're "followers." The only thing they know how to do is... what they've been doing for the last 40 years.

  And their efforts to come up with anything new are just reactionary and don't seem to be well planned. They flip-flopped on "generation" a couple of times until they decided on the current "generations" teaching... which even the faithful JWs are unable to understand. WT still hasn't updated Reasoning or Insight to reflect that change, so it might get further "refinement". They've abandonned the King of the North and destruction of false religion it would seem. Freddie could fill books with all sorts of "prophetic" speculation. Now they just recycle this month's magazines from last year's articles with a few word changes here and there, and top the magazine off with an article about some endangered plant or something.

  After 9/11, their numbers did a jump... but just for a while. And it seems that the global financial crisis hasn't produced any significant growth in WT stats over the last couple of years. Right now the organization is just coasting into obscurity. They're selling off Brookyn property and branches, so they certainly aren't expecting any significant growth.

  Their business model is not good for a cult. Printing less of the same boring nothingness that even most JWs don't bother to read. Most of the dubs don't watch the videos even after they have service meeting parts promoting them. They've reduced their meetings. They have fewer elders and MS. They have a low rate of retaining children.

  As long as WT clings to 1914, they have an expiration date. As an apocolyptic doomsday cult, time is not on their side. Nor are facts or technology on their side.

  The GB may make some absurd mistake that could cause many to just walk away. Otherwise, JWs are becoming an irrelevant cult that the rest of the world is passing by. A 19th century oddity that has somehow survived into the 21st century.
• 

  Sulla

  "There are plenty of men who want more responsibility within their congregations"<----everything i read, hear, and see points to the opposite of this

  Yeah, there may be fewer, but that's because the JWs are used to extraordinarily high levels of participation. Don't know what the numbers are, but a congregation of 120 or so might typically have 8-10 elders and a similar number of MS. Nobody else operates with that sort of ratio. They could easily absorb considerable reductions in the size of elder bodies.

  And their efforts to come up with anything new are just reactionary and don't seem to be well planned. They flip-flopped on "generation" a couple of times until they decided on the current "generations" teaching... which even the faithful JWs are unable to understand. WT still hasn't updated Reasoning or Insight to reflect that change, so it might get further "refinement". They've abandonned the King of the North and destruction of false religion it would seem. Freddie could fill books with all sorts of "prophetic" speculation. Now they just recycle this month's magazines from last year's articles with a few word changes here and there, and top the magazine off with an article about some endangered plant or something.

  Totally agree with you, Billy. But the "generation" changes are getting close to 20 years old now. The magazines are what they have been for quite some time, etc. They haven't seen their numbers reuced at all by all this. The best you can argue is that the rate of increase has fallen (or, adjusting for population growth or whatever, maybe it's gone a little negative).

  Actually, the more I think of it, the stronger the org looks. In the face of the internet, profound doctrinal shifts, attempts by very high profile JWs to start splinter groups, and all the rest: no decreases in numbers. I really think talk about "beginning of the end" or "nails in the coffin" and all that are merely wishful thinking. Show me an actual decline, then we can talk.
• 

  sir82

  There are plenty of men who want more responsibility within their congregations.

  I would have to disagree.

  In the last elders' school a year or so ago, the point was made that for the first time in [can't remember, but a very long time] there are more elders than ministerial servants in the US. And it's not close - IIRC it was something like a 7-5 or even 8-5 ratio.

  Our CO visit just ended recently - we were the last congregation he visited on his "tour". He remarked that in each of the 20 congregations in out circuit, elders outnumbered the MS, or there were the same number.

  As noted, many current elders are in their 70's or 80's, and very limited.

  And, if our congregation is typical, a lot of current MS are extremely limited in their abilities, and quite frankly will never become elders. Easily 1/2 of the MS in our congregation will never make elder - too old now (a few in their 70's), or just too "slow" mentally, or just a bit too wacky to be taken seriously. Others are just "cruising" - low hours in field service, uninspired meeting parts, low enthusiasm for much of anything other than all-you-can-drink vacation getaways in Mexico.

  Before this decade ends, I predict a serious shortage of adequate "leadership" within the congregations.

  I think the Society knows this too and is worried - hence, for example, the re-purposing of Gilead school, to train elders to send to "problem" areas. Crumbling 1st world congregation infrastructure is now a more pressing need than sending out new missionaries.
• 

  Sulla

  Those are real problems, sir82, but by your own admission, they are not unprecedented (in terms of elder-MS ratio). And, anyway, the leadership of local congregations has always sucked, on average. But nothing here can't be solved by reducing congregation numbers by 20% or something: five congregations become four congregations, and you distribute the Elders and MS as appropriate. Problem solved.

  Plus, there are all sorts of levers you can pull to get more MS and Elders: you can make the requirements lower, you can make the jobs easier, you can make the perks better. I guess I think it is a problem that they can manage just fine instead of some sort of harbinger.