A recent thread regarding 2 day assembly’s included some numbers of people being baptized at them. In the examples provided the numbers were very… VERY low. Granted these were numbers based out of the US but even at that I can remember years where our small circuit was producing 10-20 bodies every year to be baptized. The last time I went to an assembly, and that was YEARS ago… I think there were 2. At the district convention a couple years ago there were 3, when in years past there would easily be 20+.
I sat here wondering how this effects growth overall in the USA and I realized… I can name off hand 19 people in my immediate “friend pool” that have willingly (not disfellowshipped) walked away from the JW’s in the past 12 months. 10 of those were split between two families who decided they were done and as one cohesive unit they simply quit going and they couldn’t be happier I should add. The rest were couples or single people who for whatever reason and not due to any judicial action simply walked away. Now, my “friend pool” is made up of people from 3 different congregations spread across 3 states. I could probably add another 5 people who went to those congregations who were DF’d and another 5-10 who also went to those halls and who died. However, I can only name 2 people who got baptized. One of those was a crazy and the other was a kid…
So… here’s a question… How many people do YOU know of that have walked away in the past year and how many have joined?