Help....I have heard that the U.S. report in the Jan 1 WT showed a 3% increase! How? The past 15 years or so never saw growth more than 1%. Usually less. Dis they change the way these figures are compiled resulting in exagerated numbers? I don't have a copy of the Magazine, so can anyone verify this and the number of baptised? Was there an adjustment to include inactive ones? Did the 15 minute rule result in 30,000 shutins reporting for first time? Any inpute welcome.
making sense of report
by peacefulpete 23 Replies latest watchtower bible
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SLOAN
Pete,
I wouldn't worry if I were you. They're lying!!!
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Kenneson
Pete,
You may want to check the following threads:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/post.asp?id=46218&site=3
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/post.asp?id=46219&site=3
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/post.asp?id=46102&site=3
The only statistics provided by Jehovah's Witnesses on the net date to August 2001 and can be viewed at
http://www.jw-media.org/people/statistics.htm
Edited by - Kenneson on 9 February 2003 19:25:37
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AS IF
Come on now..........one of you must still have an active subscription!!!You could just look it up and scan in the #'s for us?????
AS IF I CARE
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Love JWs
United States monthly(?) average publishers
(2001) 945,689 (2002) 972,754 Baptized 29,816 Memorial 2,217,148
Alaska
(2001) 2,119 (2002) 2,208 Baptized 59 Memorial 4,663
Hawaii
(2001) 7,319 (2002) 7,571 Baptized 237 Memorial 18,284
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peacefulpete
Very interesting. The anomalous growth is due to very very low number of Disfelloshippings,disassociations and inactiity. Using my head I calculated the following approximate figures. In 1998 13,000 became inactive or were dfd. In 1999 36,000 became inactive or were dfd. In 2000 25,000 became inactive or were dfd. In 2001 18,000 became inactive or were dfd. In 2002 only about 2,600 became inactive or were dfd!!! I arrived at these numbers by simply comparing the rise in publishers with the number of baptised. The discrepency reflects the number of JWs that discontinued preaching during the year. So what does this mean??? It is hard to believe that in all the 11,000 congregations less than 2,600 became inactive publishers, let alone this number including all the DAd and DFd ones. When I was serving a couple years ago approximately 10,000 were DFd in U.S.each year. Are we seeing a new age??? Is disfellowshipping being phased out?
Edited by - peacefulpete on 10 February 2003 1:26:49
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peacefulpete
Boy do I feel stupid. I completely forgot to factr in those reinstated and reativated. They will raise the publisher number but not be among those baptised. So being that an unusually high number of people became inactive in 1999 and 2000 and the average time disfellowshipped is about 2 years (an unofficial experience spawned average) a great number were reinstated in 2002. About 9 out of 10 disfellowshipped JWs return for more punishment So with this statistically predictable large number of reinstatements in 2002 coupled with the new 15 minute provision to reactivate inactive publishers I think I can account for the 10-15,000 mystery publishers without concluding that any fewer people were disfellowshipped last year than average. Sorry to have thought this out while typing.
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TheOldHippie
These calculations are not correct, my friend, and they are close to impossible to make. Why? Because one does not have to be baptised to be a publishers. There are many new publishers being so for a few months, then vanishing, then they perhaps re-emerge some time later again, and then there are the reinstated ones as you mention, inactive ones becoming active, then disappearing again etc. And you have the death rate of 1 % annually. IF you would look at this thru 20-30 years, it would begin making sense, but one cannot look at a handfull of years and make predictions.
Zambia is funny; 10,000 are baptised annually, but the number of publishers doesn't grow incredibly much, so there's one for the speculators ........
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justhuman
Maybe is the 11 SEPTEMBER that increased their numbers...
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peacefulpete
Old hippi...Actually with the number of baptised being about the descending average for the last 4 years there is no reason to suspect a disordinant number of unbaptised publishers being approved. The death rate as you pointed out is constant (unless the world developed a JW virus) and therefore does not affect the number I gave. These calculations are of course rough but the incredibly high number that went inactive in 1999 and 2000 was the figure that failed to catch my eye the first time. Given that the baptism figure were about average in those years as well as in 1998 we have no reason to suspct a rash of unbaptised publishers being approved or walking away. There also was no policy change that would predictably affect these numbers. Therefore that number too was a descending constant. The number of unbaptised publishers then likewise did not, according to this evidence, affect the calculations. The exact percentage of those who ceased publishing that were actually baptised cannot be decifered but the fact that such a large number did so in 1999 and 2000 without any reason to suspect a greater than average number of unbaptised publishers walking or less than average number being approved leads to the conclusion that a larger than average number were DFd or DAd. For the sake of arguement lets guess that 50% of those who left off preaching were DFd or DAd and 1% died. That means about 9,600 (1% of 960,0000) of the 36,000 who ceased preaching in 1999 didn't quit but kicked. That leaves about 26,000. 50% of 26,000 is 13,000. Take about 30% of 90% (9 out of 10) those (since the average is about 2 years and this is three years distant)and we come up with about 5,800. Take the number of those who left in 2000, 25,000 and take 50% (our assumed ratio of baptised vs. unbaptised that ceased preaching)and you get 12,500. Divide 90% of this by 50% (the average length of disfellowshipping being 2 years)and you get 5,600. Since the number of those who ceased publishing in 2001 was more average it can be ignored. Adding those two calculations we get about 11,300 people being reinstated in 2002. Of course I have assumed for arguement that about half of those who ceased publishing in 1999 and 2000 were DFd or DAd. This may be less or more but it seems about right. Then the matter of the new 15 minute provision. Let say conservatively that in each congregation 1 old/sick person in a care center resumed reporting time, this amounts to 11,000 publishers that were not part of the formula previously. These two figures are the anomalous numbers that account for the 3% increase. If you add the 22,300 to the 2,600 (the disparity between the rise in publishers and the number of baptised in 2002) you get about 25,000. This would be about average of those who ceased publishing for the past 3 years. About 50% of these hypothetically were DFd or DAd. (12,500 or 1.2%) So no there were no less people DFd or DAd in 2002. In fact that figure is greater than the 10 year average and greater than the number last year. It is appoximately the same as in 2001. It is corroborated by mutiplying it by 6 ( U.S. has 1/6th the publishers in the world) and getting 75,000. This is about the unofficial average of 70-80,000 disfellowshipped and dissassociated worldwide. And the printed average percentage of publishers DFd is about the same 1%. As long as I use the same ratios for each year and disregard the constants it is possible to approximate trends in statisics like these. Arguements otherwise are welcome but I think this explains why they show a 3% growth this year when the number of baptised actually greatly fell as it has been doing each year for years now.
Edited by - peacefulpete on 11 February 2003 0:17:5