by logical1 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I haven't been to a meeting in 7 years but I have cruised through the parking lot of about 4 KH's now during peak meeting times and been surprised to see 20 or less cars in the parking lot.
It always seemed when I was younger that the parking lot was a lot more full.
Yup they are getting smaller. In the cong I attended if you got the afternoon slot for the Sunday meeting there would virtually be no youth.
If I get time I will drive past my old K.H, in the old days when I attended, even after we became two congregations, the car park was full. I doubt it is now.
Although the drop in attendance may be somewhat masked by the fact that a lot of JW's from elsewhere, mainly young married couples, have moved in to both Congo's.
My congregation peaked at around 90 in the 1980s, but it's been stable at around 45 ever since the late 1990s.
Thanks for the first hand experience SBoy, and yet there must be a good number of Congo's growing here, as the U.K numbers are going up.
hey seem to stay the same around here though there has been growth as more congregations have been formed in the last 20 years. However, my city is one whose main growth comes from people moving in all the time rather than people being born here, and the congregation growth has been commensurate with the big influx of people moving to the area ie most growth comes from jws moving in from elsewhere.
In my expererience, the shrinking or growing of any congregration is mostly due to either geographic migration of existing JWs or the ever-present "congregation shoppers" who tend to flock to the most popular congregation of the moment. The latter seems to occur in waves-- either lots of young people all want to hang out together, or pioneers move into a particular hall because there's lots of support, so the numbers bump up over the course of a few years, level off, then slowly trend downward as people move on to seek greener pastures.
R_O
I know my MILs congregation has been sharing a KH with another for a supposed upcoming new KH but I hear nothing about building a new one and it has been almost a year now.
They are attending online. No need to waste gas.
Driving all the way to the KH is Passe. Why bother.
We Need New Yaughts!! Brother!!! New Yaughts!!!
