"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
New letter, re: Fully Utilizing Kingdom Hall Auditoriums
by suavojr 113 Replies latest jw friends
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sir82
Yes elders only. The R&F, for the most part, are only vaguely aware of the changes being wrought re: building style, funding, etc. -
tim3l0rd
That's the baby boomers retiring in larger numbers to Florida...but the elder population is getting older and dying off. We attended congregations where people were 50 and over and only 3 children under 18.
I call this musical congregations
A family of 6 moves out of one congregation and goes to another
70-6
64+6It's the retirees plus the large cuban and other foreign language population down there. We already know that the only increases in recent years are coming from those segments.
I'm in agreement that it's a shell game. As I said in an earlier post, many of the JWs are spinning this as an equalization - those who have more are sharing with those who have less. It's a shame that small congregations that paid off their kingdom halls will be moved to a kingdom hall that's less convenient and may even be expected to contribute more.
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JW GoneBad
One thing is for certain JWs are experiencing very, very low meeting attendance. Congregations with 80 publishers are now winding-up with 40 or less show-ups for weekly meeting. Imagine a hall (auditorium) that normally seats close to 200 JWs with only 40 in attendance. That is the epitome of discouragement and cause for more and more not wanting to go to meeting. The congregation in my town has about 160 publishers and is lucky to get 100 of those publishers to a meeting, that's about 40% who have better things to do on meeting night!
So, yah, just doing the math shows that WT doesn't need more but less Kingdom Halls.
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poopie
Power being taken away from cobe and move to co now if elders do not cooperate with co they will be quickly removed with not much colatral damage to small cong power shift underway. Also more time to chase after inacative -
JWdaughter
This was predicted here by even before the new hall style came out. What is missing is that they will find reasons to sell and build a lot at first with their shell game. Then they will find more and more reasons (never shrinkage) to re-arrange congregations. Like school or voting districts rather than straightforward splits some of the time. That's how they will hide the contraction in growth.
Don't forget, they have a master plan.
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dgeero
I was in 1 congregation (southern Oregon) that got so large they had to split back in the 90's when I was only 7 or 8. Since then there have been 2 new KH's built in the area one being a double hall. The trend I notice was massive amounts of people attending for a bit followed by dwindling attendance. The congregation I was in before learning TTATT a year and a half ago was meeting at one of the double halls built not that long ago. I believe we had around 130 publishers but Thursday was always around 60 to 70 attending if that and it was quite an accomplishment if it hit 100 on Sundays even during CO week.
I think there have been a lot of KH's built that probably weren't needed but it gave an impression of growth that was largely artificial or growth due to children being born. Now the org needs money what better way to get it then pool smaller halls and sell the buildings all while saying how expansive the growth is. Common sense should tell anyone that if they are combining halls growth isn't happening. I know in my lifetime I can only think of less than 10 people that came into the cult through the door to door or any witnessing. And lets just say the majority of them weren't all there mentally, emotionally or other. But I know plenty born ins (including me) that learned TTATT, were df'd and never came back or faded away.
After running the numbers I found out there are more going out than coming in
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brandnew
No growth......thats it. -
minimus
U have to keep up with the chariot!!! -
joe134cd
They are clearly asset stripping. It's just a question of how far will they go. It seems rather coincidental this timing. Commenting on 150 mile radius of where I live. Every single KH is either new or has been fully refurbished, and in some cases has been fully refurbished twice. I can't help but think if this was done, with the end plan of having pristine buildings getting top dollar when they fully knew that shortly these were going to be sold. I think the master plan here was
(1) get control of the asset.
(2) maximize value in the asset.
(3) strip the bank accounts
(3) then sell it under the pretense of no longer been needed.