Dissolving a congregation?

bornintoit

I was a member of a congregation in Brooklyn, N.Y. Prospect Congregation to be exact. In early 2000.it was dissolved. I never found out why. What would lead up to this? Now mind you, I was not attending that congregation when it happened. I was on My way out of the Borg. Living in another state. Any thoughts?

sspo

Not enough members?

I've seen it back in Illinois and TN. They split because of the growth and then eventually 8-10 years later they combined them again due to not enough publishers in each congregation.

jgnat

They quietly closed a Kingdom Hall in Grande Cache for lack of members. It did not rebound when the mine did.

Found Sheep

they closed a few in wv no people

Vidiot

I have it on good authority that at least 8 or 9 congregations in the Peace River/Grande Prairie area of Alberta have been dissolved (or consolidated into other congregations) in the past decade or so.

In many cases, their KHs had been renovated at the WTS's urging (using local JWs' funds and labor), after which full ownership was transferred to the WTS (if it wasn't fully owned by the Society already).

A few years later, the WTS then sold those selfsame refurbished KHs and pocketed the revenue.

Oubliette

These are all signs of the tremendous growth among JWs and evidence of Jehovah's blessings upon his people!

Seriously, unless you were the CO at the time, you'll never no either the "official" reason or the REAL reason, but there were likely rumors ...

Gopher

About 33 years ago a congregation with territory partly in North Minneapolis and partly in the suburbs dissolved, with many of the suburban congregants (mainly white) being sent to another suburban congregation, while the Minneapolis congregants (majority black) were sent to a previously all-white congregation on the north side.

The scuttlebutt was that the dissolved congregation had a rift along racial lines. I was in the previously all-white congregation. At first, all the new members (mainly black) had the habit of sitting on one side of the hall, and the older (white) members sat on the other side. It was as if an invisible line had been drawn among this group of "Jehovah's people". Then one of the black elders got up in front of the hall (during a "special needs" service meeting talk) and poked fun at racial stereotypes. After that, the people intermingled more and the invisible line was erased.

The black elder who gave the special little talk left the organization within about a year and a half of giving his talk and resumed his successful blues-music career.

DesirousOfChange

At least 5 congregations have been closed/merged within the circuits that utilize the AssmHall here.

Small rural areas, lack of elders & shortage of publishers.

More metro areas, lack of publishers, thus allowing 2 to merge into 1.

Meeting attendance is at an all-time low.

Doc

ILoveTTATT

hmm... so it would be in their best interests now, if they want to move to a real-estate corporation, to actually LOWER the number of witnesses...

Vidiot

ILoveTTATT - "hmm... so it would be in their best interests now, if they want to move to a real-estate corporation, to actually LOWER the number of witnesses..."

I have been suggesting for some time now that on some level, the GB can see the way the wind is blowing (mass apathy, passive rebellion against the rules, overall reduction in global membership and thusly revenue flow, etc.), and is deliberately becoming more marginilized and extremist as a means of managing the decline in a way that they can keep a handle on (as opposed to any kind of "mass exodus", which they'd have no control over).

Dissolving a congregation?

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