joe134cd and slimboyfat, but if one can correctly claim it is "more a reshuffle, rather than actual growth" then the same thing could also correctly be said about the JWs, especially prior to 1975. Namely, a great many who became JWs, who were not raised as JWs, instead came from other Christian religions (according the language of the WT, they came out of Babylon the Great, primarily out of Christendom). The WT literature (since it quotes heavily form the Bible) is geared to people who read the Christian Bible (or at least think it is a good book). It is not geared to Muslims or some other non-Christian religion, nor is it much geared to the nonreligious. Whether most of the nondenominational members came from another church (whether a conservative Protestant Church or the Catholic Church or some other church), the nondenominational churches in the USA are still growing much faster that the WT's JW "church". But yes in the USA, Christians (as a percentage of the total population) are now declining, likewise in the USA in regards to Protestant Christianity as whole.
Are the statistics out yet?
by slimboyfat 169 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Disillusioned JW
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slimboyfat
There is a difference because a lot of these independent churches have seceded from larger denominations. This is a fragmentation of the churches as part of their pattern of decline.
Say you start with a denominational church of 100. It declines by 30 and two groups of 20 each secede. Wow you’ve got two new churches with 20 members each. Such growth! In reality you’ve gone from 100 members in one church to one denominational church with 30, and two nondenominational churches with 20 members each - 70 members in total, still a decline of 30, just distributed differently.
The Tron Church makes a lot of noise about their ‘growth’ compared with the Church of Scotland. But I’ve been to a couple of their services. We are talking about a couple of hundred people, at most. Meanwhile the Church of Scotland as a whole is losing over 200 members a week.
If you’ve got examples of churches that are growing by attracting new members (not wholesale/block defections from another church) I’d be interested to know the details.
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Disillusioned JW
There are Hispanic people (born outside of the USA, in a predominately Catholic country) at my place of work whose primary language is Spanish, who were formerly Catholic but who specifically say they are now "Christian". When I ask them their denomination they either say they don't know or they say it is simply "Christian". Many (not just the Hispanic ones) don't even know know the name of their specific congregation.
Furthermore, some of my coworkers might be going to a Baptist church without knowing it is Baptist. In response to my questioning a coworker (who came from an Asian country, I think it is a communist country), the coworker said she to me "I think it is Baptist" in regards to her church.
I have not inquired (or researched) any nondenominational church to find out if it was formed by a splitting up of another church. However, a person at one of the churches told me that people from multiple churches have switched to their church. His nondenominational Bible church seems to evangelize people from other churches and his its church sticks to basic teachings of the Bible. Many years ago when I visited the church to see what it is like I noticed there are lots of people there (including lots of people under age 40). Probably well over 200 were in attendance. They have a band which plays "praise" style worship. One day a week they serve very good dinners (though a sign asks for a donation to pay the cost of the meal) in a cafeteria line style. When I was there one time the sermon (in one of its points) specifically taught against atheism/philosophical naturalism. [A Catholic church I visited also specifically taught against atheism/philosophical naturalism.]
At a different Bible church which serves a free dinner (to anyone) one day a week, the person who founded the free meal service also founded a nonprofit to help the homeless (and he told me 100% of the donations they receive are distributed to various homeless charities which meet their criteria of effectiveness in helping me to cease being homeless). They used to also have a "Celebrate Recovery" program there after their Tuesday night worship service. They still have the midweek worship service and it is a "praise" style worship service. They have men's ministries and women's ministries. I was told they have men ministers and women ministers.
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joe134cd
I was going to say another good example of redistribution is that of the Iglasea ni Christ (church of Christ). I was attending their services for a couple of months after leaving the JW. This is a religion that relies heavily on the migration out of the Philippines into western style countries. When I was going they were talking about purchasing property to build a church because of the phenomenal growth taking place, and it was to. The rented facilities was at capacity. Yet I was the only one there who wasn’t born in the Philippines. They even highlighted an jw assembly hall that had purchased by the InC in Spain. To highlight the growth and god blessing. Needless to say I had to chuckle to myself.
Yet really had the InC grown in real terms internationally. Had it attracted members who weren’t Philippines. Or was it a result of existing members been redistributed. You decide
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Disillusioned JW
Correction: In my prior post where I said "... in helping me to cease being homeless ..." I meant "... in helping people to cease being homeless ...". I am not homeless.
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Jeffro
Nigeria was inadvertently left off the list of new congregations I posted previously.
Nigeria lost 496 congregations.
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Jeffro
The changes in the numbers of congregations for Mozambique (238 added) and Nigeria (496 fewer) are not consistent with the changes in the number of 'publishers'.
Mozambique did report a 7% increase, which was 4,887 new publishers since the previous year, which might initially seem to straightforwardly explain the increase in the number of congregations. However, this would average out to the new congregations having only 35 publishers each, though the average number of publishers per congregation in Mozambique is 48. So it appears that there are a significant number of considerably smaller groups that are being classified as separate congregations.
Conversely, Nigeria reported an 8% increase, with 27,268 additional publishers which isn't directly consistent with a reduction in the number of congregations (and certainly not such a significant drop), so it seems that many congregations have been merged there, perhaps combining previously small groups. It may also be that people have had to move away from parts of the country where there is significant opposition to Christianity generally.
In both cases, it is possible that at least some of the reported increases in publishers is partially due to people without reliable Internet access not being able to report activity for alternative preaching during the pandemic.
There could be something else going on regarding the congregation numbers in these two countries too, such as being in different phases of
real estateKingdom Hall building vs. selling? -
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smiddy3
Can we really trust the GB / JW ,to truthfully report accurately on numbers ?
I have my doubts about anything they publish nowadays as being truthful .
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LongHairGal
BLOTTY:
It appears to me you are unaware of how damaging this religion can be to many people - especially born-ins.. Just because you were fine doesn’t mean everyone else is.
MAGNUM:
Yes, I know your story and am sorry for everything that happened and how your potential was taken from you as you describe. I wonder if in your case some of those older JWs preaching poverty were already collecting their pensions! I noticed this. They themselves were in the workforce - but yet they were preaching poverty and knocking careers to young people there such as myself.. Thankfully, I didn’t listen.
I cringe when I think about this. My heart goes out to you and others.