How very kind of you, Minimus.
AMNESIAN
new service report (upturn)
by whatiloveaboutwater 70 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
Pork Chop
When they piloted the 15 minute thing and having field service reports turned into the book study overseer they got a consistent 1.5% increase so it would probably be appropriate to attribute that percentage of 2002's increase to these organizational changes. Just book keeping rather than an actual increase, the rest of it would be growth but there's really not that much of it if you look at it that way.
-
AlanF
I think that the 2002 statistics were up for two reasons:
The new 15-minute rule for JWs in difficult circumstances.
The 9/11 terrorist strike.
I think Pork Chop's figure of a 1.5% increase due to the 15-minute rule is reasonable, but it might be only 1%.
A lot of people around the world who are JW hangers-on were scared into "activity" by the 9/11 disaster. As the world situation settles into a new state, and Armageddon still fails to arrive, these people will revert to marginal activity.
I think that the above are mere statistical glitches in the overall decline of JWs. I suspect that the 2003 service year will show a significantly lower percentage of increase.
The 2002 service year statistics benefited from events closer to the beginning of the year than the end. But the Society received a lot of bad publicity toward the end of the year due to the child molestation issue, and I think that this will be strongly reflected in 2003. Some internal Bethel information indicates that a lot of JWs up and quit altogether because of this publicity, and the Society's leaders are extremely angry at the people on the forefront of it.
AlanF
-
SLOAN
Amnesian,
GREAT post!!!!! I totally agree. Meeting attendence is down EVERYWHERE!(I know this is a fact as I haven't been out that long) I don't see how their numbers are increasing. They're a bunch of LIARS!
-
ballistic
and what I said originally still stands in principle... the JWs must grow by an amount equal to global population increase to stay standing still. Currently approx 1.2%.
-
NameWithheld
And I think that the bookeeping changes account for a LOT of it. Think about it, now the bookstudy dude has to gather the hours each month, instead of the service overseer elder dude having to get the entire congo's time. So you have one dude calling maybe 10-15 people harrassing them for hours, instead of one dude calling 50-80 people harrassing them for hours.
Many times I would not turn in a slip and never get a call. Easy to slip through the cracks that way. But when the bookstudy dude was doing it, he always called, and I always made up figures.
I would bet one miiiillllion dollars that a vast majority of the reported hours (and as a by-product, the # of publishers reporting them) were fudged to get the nazi bookstudy dude off their backs. Ditto study numbers, what easier way to fake hours then to claim a study w/ kids, or even a fake study in the field. Plus it make you look good.
-
acsot
I agree with NameWithheld. I've been fudging my hours for several months, and from what I've read on a few posts here, I'm not the only one! So whatever statistics are reported can't be the real ones. I'm at work right now but was checking Canada's figures from around 1998-2002. It seems that, if my memory is right, around 1999 there were +/- 108,000 pubs in Canada. 2001 there were +/- 106,000. So even if 2002 brings it back up to +/- 108,000, it's not really a net gain over 1999. However, math and I are not on the best of terms so I stand to be corrected.
-
Dutchie
the Society's leaders are extremely angry at the people on the forefront of it.
Putting it mildly indeed.
-
ballistic
Well in that case they'll either die with regrets or as martyrs. Either way they wont be happy.
-
link
Can somebody explain something to a real thicko?
There a number of elderly members in my wifes congregation who are not able to turn in any hours because of age and infirmity. Are these people not classed or counted as baptised publishers in the figures? If not there are far more baptised Witnesses than there are publishers.
Can someone explain how this works?
link