Witness Numbers Going Down??? (page 3)

minimus

Metatron: DITTO for me.......My experience is that when the congregation typically had 80 publishers and 90 attending, the figures in the same Halls are more like 65 publishers and 58 attending. I know JW's all over the USA and I hear the same thing from all of them: The numbers are down. The Hall is empty. They are worried and getting discouraged.....Personally, I see no reason for the Society to not use "theocratic stratergy" or quite simply LIE if they feel that certain ones are just not entitled to know the truth.

Room 215

It will be interesting to see over the next few years what will happen as the developing world gradually opens up to the Internet and the prospective JW Bible students there learn to type ``Jehovah's Witnesses" or ``Watchtower" into their search engines!

run dont walk

If the Watchtower admitted they were wrong and closed their doors today, the numbers would probaly still go up. New groups of the belief would branch off and fom their own beliefs based on previous learnings.

It just goes to show that even in 2003, there is still a sucker born every minute.

Religion is based on fear, and everytime serious world events happen, churches show an increase in attendance.

How many of us lied on our field service reports, just to keep family and elders off are back. (all of us)

And today, how many JW's are counting internet time as witnessing and return visits ???

The numbers really mean nothing, because if Armaggeddon came tomorrow and the Watchtower was right all along, how many of the six million would make it through, a couple hundred at best.

Francois

Depending on the WTBTS for an honest revelation of any kind of statistical data is frankly naive in the extreme.

These people are counting as "publishers" little children too young to understand what they are doing. Also they are counting as publishers people who get in their 15 minutes. God only knows what other slick practices they're pulling in order to appear to be growing. This group is just not honest, and it's never been.

Read through Jehovah's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose and see if, during your reading, you hear the ring of the Bell of Truth even once.

There is so much documentation available regarding the basic dishonesty of this group that it takes a certain type of self-delusion to believe anything they say; a near-terminal case of cognitive dissonance.

I say the WTBTS was one of the models for the book How to Lie with Statistics.

francois

peacefulpete

I think I confessed this earlier but even before the rule was changed BS conductors were encouraged to approach every housebound/nursing home resident witness and ask repeatedly if in fact they might not have spent 15 minutes combined the whole month in letter or to the mailman speaking about something remotely Bible oriented. In those days they were encouraged to add months together and report when it totaled an hour, this kept them from being "inactive". I know some zealous BS conductors fudged for them and assumed they must have witnessed but forgot to report it. It was shameless. As it pressured the "publisher" to lie and exagerate. Few BS conductors put forth the effort to make these contacts and so the new 15 min. rule no doubt has resulted in at least 1 reactivated publisher per congo. This alone accounts for much of the "increase". The baptism/hours preaching ratio is showing a slowing of interest on the part of the public. This also by calculation suggests that each year a greater percentage of those baptised are witness children rather than "new" converts.

Joker10

Of 2 Kingdom Halls that I know of, seems that all report higher arrendance than publishers. One congragation with 95 piblihers report some 175 in attendance and 220 when CO visits. Another comgregation with 75 publishers report 130 people on Sundays.

integ

I see NO DECLINE in jw numbers based on my personal observations. This does'nt mean they are not actually going down, it's just my personal observations. It does'nt mean that it's the truth either. The Catholics' numbers are pretty high, but I don't think they have the "truth" either. Just because the Watchtower says their numbers are rising, they could be lying, they've lied about a lot of other stuff, so why not their numbers.

Integ.

Witness Numbers Going Down???