by Gayle 16 Replies latest jw friends
Since this is the first weekend of RCs, anyone going that can give estimates of how many are getting baptized, how many appeared about that were JW youth, and what attendance figure is at these RCs?
I know U.S. baptisms are declining.
Can any keep a running report?
US baptisms INCREASED by 3,946 over 2013 according to the 2015 yb.
this was for the 2014 SY.
They may very well have baptism increases here and their , however they won`t tell you about all those that have left the religion , here their and everywhere .
smiddy
I would bet that a large portion of the US baptisms last year were because of the international conventions. Anyone holding off might've seen it as an opportunity that they would later regret missing out on, and parents no doubt used it to manipulate their kids into joining up. They'd get to walk on the field where their favorite football players played, they'd get to brag about being dunked at an IC, etc. It seemed significant.
This year I expect we'll be right back on the trend line, if not a slight correction below it.
Via my informant:
About 2000 in attendance Saturday, 5 baptized.
My informant also advised me that two of the five looked too young to spell "baptized"
BTW: evidently this was AMIII's "assigned" convention. He and his wife were there all three days, and both his sons handled parts.
I'd say the increase decrease would be based on how many children were raised as witnesses starting 9-15 years ago and are now of age and forced into making a decision.
Given that the pressure for teens wanting a Driver's License need to be baptized first, in order to maintain numbers, and after that is used up, we need to pressure teddy-bear kids.
Consequence - 3 years hence, maybe the Catholic practice of baptizing babies wasn't actually contrary to Scripture, because we're in the last days, of course.
