I was thinking about this last night, in the year book they publish the number or peak and average publishers. As we know a publisher could simply be a child getting out in service regularly. If two parents baptized have to small children that are publishers then they are counted as four. So is it not possible that if we remove all the children then that leaves a much smaller amount of actual baptized jws? Could this not also be one of the reasons for all the changes to the religion and the sell off of their goods? With most of the kids leaving and very few new coming in and only 4-5 million real jws left but many of those dieing in the next few years, maybe they are scared?
Could it be the number of jw under 5 million?
by Crazyguy 17 Replies latest watchtower scandals
-
-
OneEyedJoe
Yeah, the number of adult baptized members that are active in the ministry is much smaller than the number of publishers. But it's always been that way (at least since I can remember) so I don't think this would have any relation to the selling of property, etc. If anything the ratio of adult baptized members to peak publishers has been increasing in the last decade as the retention rate for the youth drops.
-
Doubting Bro
Hard to tell. You can be a baptized JW but inactive and not included in the publisher count. Or you can be an unbaptised publisher (read JW child).
I know in the congregation here locally, there are probably around 10-15 unbaptized publishers and maybe 5 - 10 inactive. It likely washes if you include those who are technically JWs but completely faded.
-
sir82
The numbers reported have always been "publishers" not "baptized adults".
In a typical congregation, maybe 10% of the publishers are unbaptized.
Baptized pulishers far outnumber unbaptized ones.
-
steve2
Anecdotally, I see fewer witnesses out door-knocking. They've covered our territory twice this year - and both times at most 4 are going door to door ( there are lots on Not At Homes because this is a beach resort area and its only well populated in weekends). Earlier years, there were bigger groups of door-knockers. Of interest, I see no younger ones door-knocking. It is mainly older ones - unlike my youth when many young ones participated.
-
OnTheWayOut
The numbers are already entering a realm where they are meaningless. "Publisher" numbers include: elderly ones who have been prodded to say they made at least one effort at "witnessing" within the month to make it count for 15 minutes, children dragged along enough that a parent or elder thought they should be turning in their recruitment time, barely active or even inactive recruiters that turn in a fake report to keep elders off their back, and "peak" numbers include counting the same person more than once when they turn in reports all at once for months past.
Even with all that, they will have difficulty making it look like their number has grown.
-
William Penwell
OnTheWayOut, Your comments brought back bad memories for me. I hated being dragged out from door to door and then having to report the time. Then if you didn't put in enough time, I would get a call from the service elder. No matter how much time you would put in it was never good enough for them. You could never live up to their expectations.
I agree that the numbers are somewhat over inflated and doesn't actually reflect the number of hard core JW's.
-
Theredeemer
My mother, an 84 y.o. person with late stages of dementia, is a publisher. Her body of elders reports her at 15 minutes. My bed ridden aunt, who is very ill, is a pub. Both my cousins kids 8, 11 yo are pubs (both unbaptized).
Take away the 15 minuters and unbaptized pubs and you got maybe 5 million. Same as attendees of meetings, memorials and conventions. Take away children under 5 and you cut out alot of the numbers.
-
Londo111
I wish we had good metrics, but the real numbers are likely only known to HQ.
I suppose the only real metrics we have are the number being baptized.
-
Crazyguy
Well I think this is a good and a telling thing, because as more and more of the kids don't join and the elderly die off it could create a domino effect as halls become more and more empty even more will see it as hopeless and willing to leave. The other congregation of the hall my wife goes to is a prime example. Its a boring hall not many members no one really does anything with another and all just leave the kh ASAP after a meeting to go get on with something else.