7200 peak attendance 31 baptised. On par with less than 1/2 % growth. David " zzzz" splane gave talks. Needless to say the bunker videos were cringeworthy. The Hezekiah movie was very good. The video about the modern day "job" was very realistic but when bad things happen, It has nothing to with being tested. Sometimes tragedy strikes for no reason period.
cleveland ohio rc stats and observations
by nowwhat? 3 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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slimboyfat
You can't infer growth from baptisms at a convention because 1) people get baptised at assemblies too 2) publisher numbers and baptised JWs are two different measures and 3) growth is the net effect of people joining and leaving, and the number baptised says nothing about the number leaving.
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konceptual99
Agree that you cannot demonstrate a direct correlation between numbers baptised and the final growth rate reported in the YB however it is an indicator of the state of the nation. During the golden age of the WTS in the 50s and 60s assemblies saw large numbers of people baptised. The organisation was growing in good numbers year on year.
If you want to do some back of a fag packet sums....
7000 people is say 7 circuits (or parts of circuits).
We typically see <10 people per approx attendance of 1000 baptised at a CA. So, for the combined assembly/convention for this bunch you have an optimistic forecast of ((10x2)x7)+31= 171 persons baptised over a year. This is 2% growth before accounting for leavers of any type.
If you say only 50% of the district are active publishers doing 10 hours a month (conservative estimate I think) then that's (3500x10)*12 = 420000 hours a year.
That's 2470 hours per baptism. That's over 300 days of 8 hours preaching for one person.
It might be rough figures but it lines up with the sums from the yearly report and is shockingly poor for an organisation supposedly dedicated to preaching the good news and saving lives.
One other point - anecdotal evidence is that the majority of baptisms are of born in children, certainly in the West and other countries where Witnesses are well established.
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never a jw
You can't infer growth from baptisms at a convention
So true, and yet is a reflection of trends that closely correlate to growth. It's like polls, they don't have the final word, but more often than not point in that direction.