Are Baptisms Internal Births or Converts?

Watchtower-Free

Are Baptisms Internal Births or Converts?

There were around 6,000,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in 1995, during which time the global average birth rate was 22.4/1000. The estimated number of Witness children born is therefore 134,400. In 2011, when that group of children were around the age of baptism, there were 263,161 people baptised. That means Witness children could only account for at most half (134,400/264,161) the number of baptisms. Witnesses are growing mostly in poor countries where growth rates are higher, but since the Watchtower encourages not to have children, and a sizeable number of children do not get baptised, it seems reasonable to conclude that no more than half the number being baptised is internal and the rest is from preaching. That is not an encouraging statistic, since 1,707,094,710 hours of preaching only resulted in 130,000 conversions, or over 13,000 hours preaching per convert. http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php

KateWild

The stats show how uneconomical it is to recruit, but it's all free labour. So recruits whether they are born-ins or converts are being recruited for free and then donating their funds to WT. This is win/win for WT.

It's a publishing company that have lots of valuable real estate. All that is relevent is doantions keep comming in and the organisation is still recruiting new recruits.

Kate xx

Phizzy

Interesting figures and interpretation thereof ! thanks.

Anecdotal evidence from JWN Observer Corps suggests most baptisms in the English speaking Congs are born-in kids. Perhaps whole families join and get baptized in Foreign language Congos and countries ??

sir82

It depends on where you are, and the language/culture of the congregation. The split is not evenly divided across all areas.

In the US, in English speaking congregations, I'd put the % of newly baptized as "kids of current JWs" at around 90% or more.

In the US, in Spanish language congregations, there are more converts - so maybe the ratio is 50%.

In, say, Central America or sub-Saharan Africa, where there is still a strong missionary presence, maybe only 20% of new baptisms are "kids of current JWs".

I have no idea of the true percentages, but I think my (made-up) figures are at least in the ballpark.

gingerbread

I think that the WT leadership may be changing it's stance on children. This is just an intuitive guess.

WT publications have been produced just for young folks since the 1920's. These were indoctrination books. And over the course of 90 years, the WT has discouraged parents from having planned pregnancies because Armageddon was just 'around the corner'. If anyone was around in the mid-1980's, this message was loud and clear in publications and from the platform.

With the recent development of children's videos, lessons, arts and crafts projects, etc., I'm thinking that the leadership has realized that kids are their main source of new converts. The new WT's message to young ones is 'candy coated' and 'happy, happy, joy, joy' cartoonie character perfect.

The WT leadership is also sending a subtle message to young couples : make babies and raise them in the organization.

With the help of the Mother organization, you can have a happy and rewarding family life...

quellycatface

What is the WT's stance on contraception these days??

Faithful Witness

I hate to say this, but both my parents and my sister and her husband, were all converts and baptized sometime between 2010 and 2012.

I have not given up hope on them... but for now, they are statistics.