Where’s the 2023 Service Report? (page 2)

Diogenesister

Oh those numbers are hilarious!🤣Comparing baptisms with COVID.years, bible studies can now be regular doorstep RVs, pioneer hours counted writing letters etc lol

Jeffro

Atlantis:

I don't know if this is accurate but you can take a look.https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/184g8nb/service_report_increase/

"Memorial attendance worldwide was 20,461,767, an increase of nearly 4 percent". Sounds good until you consider the fact that there was still a pandemic going on in 2022. In reality, the 2023 Memorial attendance was less than the 2019 Memorial attendance (20,919,041).

What actually happened with Memorial attendance:

2019: 20,919,041
2020: 17,844,773 (COVID pandemic, ad hoc arrangements)
2021: 21,367,603 (COVID pandemic with video attendance, harder for PIMOs to avoid)
2022: 19,721,672 (COVID pandemic, in-person meetings resumed)
2023: 20,461,767

Biahi

I can imagine the ‘encouraging experiences’ they will treat the R & F to. Something along the lines of, “someone smiled at me while I was manning the cart.” 😂😂😂

NotFormer

I'm surprised that "service" was not one of the words used by "Christendom" that Da Judge jettisoned to differentiate the organisation from other sects. It's not used in exactly the same way, but still, he could have purged it. Was he just not trying? I'm pretty sure "pioneer", used the WT way is unique to them.

That being said, publisher numbers will look good for a while. Will they publish hours put in by pioneers and others who still have to report hours?

Stan: to further confuse things, in the KJV, "publican" means "tax collector".

Diogenesister

Not formerI'm surprised that "service" was not one of the words used by "Christendom" that Da Judge jettisoned to differentiate the organisation from other sects

Yes and an important word too. Mind you, perhaps he was a bit skittish because in reality the early watchtower colporteurs were salesman....I guess he didn't want to call it "sales"!

slimboyfat

The figures are out! O ye of the little faith 😁

Elmer

Here we go again. Slim will say Watchtower is going strong and Jeffro will have to set him straight…..

slimboyfat

Interesting, it seems to be mostly decreases all across the Americas in the western hemisphere and mostly increases elsewhere in eastern hemisphere including Europe. Big increases in Africa.

Overall it seems pretty volatile. There’s a 6% increase in Ireland - that seems a pretty large increase for a secularising country where JWs are long established.

Huge increases in the Congo and Nigeria and almost 1 million people attended the Memorial in Zambia, amazing in a country of only 20 million.

Number of congregations worldwide is up slightly on last year.

One percent decrease in the US has got to be psychologically deflating but they might have to get used to it because religion in general is in free fall.

But maybe they won’t publish the figures next year, and even if they do it will be counting a different thing as publishers report a “yes” rather than a number of hours each month.

NotFormer

Diogenesister, I had to look that one up. It actually means "book salesman" ; it doesn't even hide the sales aspect! It reminds me of how Amway had "distributors" and now has IBOs ("Independent Business Operators"). 🙄

Hellothere

Irland taken in lots of immigrants. Probably JWs that moved there. Africa if householder becomes a JW, children automatically do the same. Yeah nothing really surprising about this statistics. Pretty much stagnant in western world. Only going up are partaking in memorial. Nothing extraordinary going on in JW land. Shall we see if chatolic Church or islam been blessed 2023? 😊

Where’s the 2023 Service Report?

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