Am I reading this right? Seems odd that they gave up on selling after only six months, tore down the building and put up a tiny box in it's place. The Branch knows absolutely that KH usage is never going to pick up in the future and KHs are not needed even to sell - remove the building and just sell the land? Weird for an org in "accelerated growth" period. But then again if pop growth has slowed to crawl and going backwards in certain areas pulling out is sensible.
Congregation dwindles
by wannaexit 29 Replies latest jw friends
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steve2
None of the readers who comment in the local paper on the article correct the figure of 330 JWs in the State. Perhaps though it’s a typo intended to read 3,300?
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darkspilver
wannaexit: I think we are going to be seeing lots more of this stuff.
thanks for the repost as a new thread
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5737565341614080/_post/5677809998495744
OrphanCrow: Are you familiar with South Dakota?
Some of the posters discussing this earlier this week apparently are actually from SD - and it seems it is a typo, with the last 0 left off by mistake, as steve2 suggests above - see:
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UnshackleTheChains
Quote from capital journal
"The Pew Research Center that studies American religion says the Jehovah’s Witnesses have one of the lowest retention rates of denominations and religious groups"
🤔 Interesting.....I wonder why?
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never a jw
I am with Slim, there's an exJW behind the article. However, the general idea stands; the religion is shrinking. Also the general information about JW's is true. Regarding the details referring to South Dakota's numbers.... who knows about the accuracy.... it's of little relevance anyways.
The part that makes no sense is tearing down the old kingdom hall and building a smaller one. What's the point of that. Just stay in the same old building and save the cost of tearing down and rebuilding.
Agree, 330 is too small, but over 3,000 is too high. My bet is somewhere between 1K and 2K.
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darkspilver
never a jw: Agree, 330 is too small, but over 3,000 is too high. My bet is somewhere between 1K and 2K.
Why do you think that?
- South Dakota Population = 865,454
- US JW-to-Population Ratio = 263
- Therefore JWs in South Dakota is expected to be around = 3,290
The article says 330, therefore most likely they've missed the last '0'.
Additionally it appears that the figure of 3,330 was actually obtained in the first place by doing the above calculation.
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never a jw
Dark,
You make a good point. However, the greatest JW source in the U.S. is the immigrant population. South Dakota is definitely not a state with a big immigrant population. So the average that you are using is quite likely not representative of South Dakota. The "white" population of South Dakota is far less likely to be a JW than, let's say, the heavily immigrant population of los Angeles.
The Latino population, for example, brings far more publishers to the watchtower than just about any other group. The Latino population in SD is only 3%. I guess SD didn't enjoy the big surge of Latino publishers that I witnessed in recent decades. Therefore it is fair to infer that ratio of JW to population in SD should be lower than the U.S. average
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OrphanCrow
Thx for the replies to my query.
Dropping off the last zero makes sense and it is the most likely that happened.
What I am interested in is - what kind of prefab building was erected? Why did the volunteers come from Oregon? Is there a prefab manufacturer out in Oregon with ties to the Org?
Who supplied the prefab building? (is that a portable modular building? where did it come from?)
Who released the press release to the newspaper? These kind of articles almost always show up when the JWs contact the press themselves. Is this article meant as some sort of advertisement for their "new" kind of building?
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Gayle
That KH looks like a pre-fab warehouse.
I lived in Pierre '59-63. A teenager then. We went there to serve "where the need was great." Ugh.
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darkspilver
never a jw - sure I understand, but if you use the JW-to-population ration from 25 years ago, you still get a figure today of 3,135 JWs in SD.