Crazyguy - "The Borg announced the closure of something like 295 KH's in Spain and a condensing of congregations in to as many as 4 per hall in the UK. This sounds like a hollowing out to me."
Yeah, no indication of decline there...
Mormons getting hollowed out: The tipping point has occurred.
by Qcmbr 85 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Vidiot
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insidetheKH
@crazyguy check your facts cause your information is not correct
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Junction-Guy
I have met several Ex-Mormons who are devoted to exposing that religion, and from what they tell me, the Mormons aren't nearly as bad as the JW's when it comes to shunning, dishonest recruiting practices, etc etc. About the only negative thing I could come up with is they can't drink coffee or soft drinks. They do have a whacky doctrine, but given a choice, if I could go back and pick my childhood religion, I would choose Mormon any day!
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Terry
The plus factors for Mormons vs. JW's are vast.
The social programs actually address family life, young people, earning a living, practical finances, etc.
I've never met a stupid Mormon, which is more than I can say for JW's.
A large number of upper-level Mormons have been exposed to factual disproofs from Science.
The official line is now, "Yes, these things may not be factually true, but by talking about it we are not being faith-affirming."
Oh, okay.
Faith is much more important than reality. Right. Uh huh.
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sir82
@crazyguy check your facts cause your information is not correct
Not sure about the UK stuff but heard a first-hand account that the info about KH closures in Spain is 100% true.
Many KHs in Europe are in rented facilities, so I think a lot of the closures are of that nature (move out when your lease is up). Congregations will be packed 4 and 5 deep into existing owned KHs.
I suspect it is more of a financial issue than a "declining numbers" issue. If congregations are not paying rent, there is more money that can be sent to the WTS branch office.
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insidetheKH
@sir82 no its not 100% true cause the same official letter speaks about building entirely new Kingdom Halls and refurbish a lot of them too. So what is happening is abandoning old/rented buildings and build new ones.
More and more you see that they build new Halls with more than one auditorium or make with 2 or 3 congregations use of one audiorium on different days and times. That only makes sense in areas with a good number of congregations.
It has nothing to do with decline or hollowing out, but is all about ownership, cost reduction and efficiency.
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OneEyedJoe
but is all about ownership
I suspect that has a lot to do with it...just probably not in the way you meant it...
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sir82
OK, between the 2 of us, I think we have it.
Yes, hundreds of KHs are going to be shuttered in Spain.
And yes, there are plans to build new ones.
And yes, it is due to wanting to own property, rather than renting it.
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Crazyguy
I think were both right new halls will be built for mutiple congregations and ownership issues but at the same time this allows for them to quietly delete congregations with out anyone knowing the numbers are down. Some one posted here that they know a co in a circuit near Seattle Wa, and he was told by this co that there lossing half a dozen people per circuit per assembly. No way to know for sure but the last few circuit assemblies I attended seemed down in numbers as well as the District assemblies. But there always changing things around so it hard to tell. Maybe that's the reason why so people won't figure out that the numbers of people attending are down.
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OneEyedJoe
I think were both right new halls will be built for mutiple congregations and ownership issues but at the same time this allows for them to quietly delete congregations with out anyone knowing the numbers are down. Some one posted here that they know a co in a circuit near Seattle Wa, and he was told by this co that there lossing half a dozen people per circuit per assembly. No way to know for sure but the last few circuit assemblies I attended seemed down in numbers as well as the District assemblies. But there always changing things around so it hard to tell. Maybe that's the reason why so people won't figure out that the numbers of people attending are down.
On the topic of anecdotal evidence for decline, I'll add my observations: The last CO visit we had, in his final talk he said what boils down to - the elders have expressed concern to me about meeting attendence, but I don't think it's a problem because your congregation has some of the best meeting attendence in the circuit. Our meeting attendence is probably 70-80% on sundays and 50-70% on the mid-week meetings. That was never passable when I was a kid (we'd get local needs talks if it dropped below 90% for sundays) in the same area so something must've changed. I think the trend is that meeting attendence is dropping everywhere and they've switched from trying to recover the ones that are leaving to trying to put on a good face so that the ones who are still there don't leave too.