New letter, re: Fully Utilizing Kingdom Hall Auditoriums (page 8)

Vidiot

So, the solution to an "urgent need for Kingdom Halls" is... less Kingdom Halls?

ToesUp

splash - Imagine how far some, who live on the furthest edge of the territory will now have to travel to get to a kingdom hall, maybe having to drive past where the old hall used to be

I wonder if they will ever eliminate the mid-week meeting due to the "not having enough auditoriums" reason?

Will they further promote jw-tv to include the mid-week program? If you are too old or have a special needs (i.e. no gas money, no ride, sick, etc.). Jehovah has authorized the following spiritual provision:

We now have the mid-week meeting available on JW.TV for your convenience. When you click on the video, a pop up box will state: Have you been cleared by your local elders to miss the spiritual food in person? Have you been approved for on-line meeting attendance?

Please note the donate buttons at the top, bottom and both sides of your screen.

leaving_quietly

Our local RBC tried to get people to go to the KHs in the territory where they lived a few years back. They mapped out where everyone lived and showed by data that some people were driving at least three territories away to attend a congregation. Why? Because they simply couldn't get along with people. So, the RBC figured out that we don't need new KHs. They decided the best approach would be to have the elders take the lead and GO WHERE THEY BELONGED. Guess what? That went over like a lead balloon. One elder very adamantly REFUSED to do so and put the entire thing in jeopardy. The C.O. got involved and the whole thing was dropped.

The RBC was right. We didn't need NEW halls. We needed people to quit being babies and act like real Christians and forgive their brothers and sisters. In the end, it didn't happen.

People shift congregations all the time. It doesn't matter what the branch says. People are going to do what they want to. If congregations merge, expect people to shift again, to another hall somewhere else. That's the nature of it all.

joe134cd

Toes up= I know of case where they built a new Hall, and if you lived on the perimeter of the territory it would almost be the same travel time to attend a Hall in a neighbouring town than what it would be to go to the Hall assigned.

DJS

We may be missing the point of these changes if we focus on growth/money. Whether the Dark Tower was growing or shrinking in numbers and $, this is a more efficient business design, especially for churches. Data obtained through an empirical method and referenced on the world wide web:

1. Rodney Stark of Baylor University compared churches with attendances under 100 against those over 1,000, reporting it in What Americans Really Believe. He sought to determine whether large or small congregations provide a better religious experience. He concludes that the “mile wide and inch deep” accusations of megachurches, taken as a whole, lack a research base. Stark includes a graphic in his study that shows larger churches fare better in most categories.

2. Barna Research wrote “How Faith Varies by Church Size.” Its study found attenders of large churches were more likely than those engaged in a small or mid-sized congregation to give an orthodox biblical response – such as that Jesus led a sinless life, the Bible is totally accurate in all the principles it teaches, Satan is not merely symbolic but exists, God is the all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe, etc. Further, on seven of the eight behavioral measures, attenders of large churches scored substantially better than those of small churches. Activities included attending church in the past week, reading the Bible in the past week, and volunteering at their church in the past week. The average difference related to the seven behaviors was 17 percentage points.

And larger churches were more likely to tithe.

If I'm a consultant, and I am, this is the type of data/research I'm presenting to my client.

sparrowdown

Oh it's about friggin time they showed their hand on this one.

Cannot wait for all the turf wars to begin amongst the power couples all wanting their slice of the congregation pie.

There are going to be a lot of noses out of joint implementing this one.

Let the bun fights begin.

Pistoff

2 thoughts:

I see they quote Haggai 2:8 “‘The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ declares Jehovah of armies."
If this were true then why does the WT constantly badger the congregations for money all the time.

Because they conflate themselves with God; that means that the scripture really reads:

"Your gold and silver are OURS, send them in."

Second:

Now that they have changed the program (undoubtedly because they feared that they would be viewed as a lender and be subject to government supervision) and are taking 'donations' instead of processing loan payments, there in NO impetus to build; building now is a negative for their cash flow, so they will merge, merge, merge.

nowwhat?

We have around 100 in our Cong. And almost half don't live in our territory

pepperheart

good news to hear this

Ignoranceisbliss

I am a firm believer that the GB aren't full blown scammers but rather are fully deluded. With that in mind I'm really not sure what their "master plan" is. In their minds how does this further the Borgs cause? Maybe they really are in money trouble. I've always thought that they had more cash than they can handle but maybe this monster of an organization is extremely cash hungry.

New letter, re: Fully Utilizing Kingdom Hall Auditoriums

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