There’s still no sign of the report on the website. It’s getting pretty late for the release. Yet the release must be coming sometime before February for it to appear in the meeting schedule in February.
Is there a growing reluctance to release the report among the GB? Might this be the last one we get? It is somewhat surprising that they didn’t feature highlights of the report in the annual meeting, as they usually do. I haven’t watched the annual meeting so can’t say for sure they didn’t, but I haven’t heard any mention of selected statistics from the meetings as there usually is.
Jeffro I’m still a bit baffled by what your beef is. All I have claimed on this thread is that JWs are still growing while most churches are declining. The data bear this out. I didn’t say that was good, bad or I different. It’s just a fact.
Personally I would be surprised if the report shows greater than 2% growth. My guess would be between 1 and 2%. This is poor compared with their growth in the past, but is “impressive” compared with most other churches. I am familiar with a number of churches locally: Mormon, Church of Scotland, Catholic, Unitarian, Methodist, Christadelphian, Swedenborgian, New Apostolic Church, Quaker, Brethren, Christian Science, Seventh-day Adventist, Baptist, Grace International (successor to Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God) and more. Every single church I am familiar with has declined significantly during the pandemic. The only exceptions are the Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses who have each grown slightly. In fact some churches have closed down altogether during the pandemic. I know of four Church of Scotland churches that have combined, a Christadelphian ecclesia that has closed, and one Unitarian church that will very likely close in the next few months. I lost contact with the Swedenborgians but I think their church closed too. The local Mormon church, which once had a congregation of around a hundred in the 1990s, has now been downgraded to a branch with fewer than 20 people at their services. Methodist churches are closing all the time and I haven’t been in contact with them for a few years. The last Methodist church I visited had 8 people in attendance which they said was their usual attendance. I think it must have closed. The New Apostolic Church and Christian Science were both down to around 15 or so before the pandemic.
I will be interested if the number of JW congregations worldwide falls this year. I would argue that the number of congregations is one of the best indicators of overall growth of any religious group.
I’d be curious to know what the attendance was for third memorial over Zoom in 2022 and then compare that with the 2023 figure, back in the Kingdom Hall, this year.
I wonder if there will be a bounce back in baptisms too after a decline during the pandemic years.
