My old congregation is being shuttered (page 2)

stan livedeath

its positive decline--also known as negative growth.

hoser

They are closing congregations in our circuit as well. There are now 15 congregations where 20 years ago there were 24.

It’s the old people dying off and the young ones moving to the big city and fading.

LV101 I live in Europe( not a English speaking country if you complain about spelling 🙂). We're I'm at this happened about 15 years ago. In ways I understand many people struggling with emotional problems and halls are not best place too be. It's a boring, depressing soulless place. Add to that watchtower with their do more do more, you are not good enough talks. All doom and gloom. It's a very judgemental atmosphere. I doubt even if they removed zoom that people are gonna return to halls. Meeting attendance has been going down sense the 90s. Nothing gonna change that.

LV101

Hellothere -- yes, you summed it up 'a boring, depressing souless place' -- nothing has changed since the 90s/still a miserable place. People are jumping ship -- or some, anyway.

Looks like there's around 12 halls in the valley and that's not including Henderson which is only 20-30 minutes away and growing like crazy, also. Not sure they've sold off halls here yet -- doesn't seem like they have. I recall sell offs (other areas) past decade+ then the restructuring, dancing to the 'Happy' song and jw.org, etc., etc., being formed trying to attract the young folk -- looks like that's been a dismal failure. There was a site with WT real estate listings but haven't seen in long time (nor looked for it).

RULES & REGULATIONS

Here is a Kingdom Hall in Minneapolis, Minnesota up for sale for $625,000. Since the Watchtower Society owns this facility, they shut down this congregation ( with dwindling numbers ) and put the facility up for sale. The faithful witnesses funded and helped build this Kingdom Hall, received no pay for their labor. The congregation members who maintained this property have no say in the matter. They dedicated their lives to Jehovah with nothing in return. All they receive is a new assignment to another Kingdom Hall that may be a greater driving distance.

I think the Watchtower Society are using the dwindling membership as a fine opportunity to sell off as much real estate as they can, to pay off all the lawsuits that have been settled and new ones that are pending.

stan livedeath

i wonder if there are any KHs that are NOT now owned by the watchtower?

There must be a fair few that were built with cash donated , loaned by members--bequeathed in wills etc---that were NEVER mortgaged to the society ?

road to nowhere

The first picture shows why there is no blessing: no blue square. Driving distance really hurts

When zoom is curtailed it will mean missing meeting, which I look forward to.

nowwhat?

Thank you it's been a while since we received such an encouraging report!

FedUpJW

Where I used to attend had a congregation in the high 90's low 100's every single meeting. Members paid for and built a new KH with their own time, labor, and money, had to turn it over to the WT$ in the money grab for property years ago, and it now sits empty even after the plandemic due to no money to fix what is going wrong. Mold so bad that it has been pretty well shuttered, but can't be either fixed or sold by the local congregation without permission or orders from the branch. Members are now driving thirty minutes each way to the next town over. Less than 25 ever at the hall. Four towns congregations in the area are sharing the two usable halls that are left, the third sits empty, and the fourth has sold. Less attendance total for the four congregations now than any single one had twenty years ago.

HappyDad

This is the best description of all Kingdom Halls that I have ever read.

'a boring, depressing souless place'

My old congregation is being shuttered

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