by darkspilver 32 Replies latest jw friends
I actually listed the European countries last year, and the figures showed that overall there was no increase at all In Europe as a whole. I'm hoping this trend will spread to other continents this year.
Am I right in thinking the report will first appear on jwdotorg under the 'about us' heading?
I just hope I'm still around to see it!
George (Well past his sell by date)
So do we George!!! Who would fight all the dragons for us😀
There is no enthusiasm for preaching among the brothers in the UK. Maybe in the foreign field but not in general.
My husband asked a brother recently how the ministry was going and he replied: 'most people have made up their minds up now.'
And they don't take the ministry seriously anyway. Knock on two doors and off to the coffee shop (oh, but it's okay, the cafe owner knows they are JWs so it gives them a witness and anyway people see us walking down the street so that's a witness too, right?)
Without giving too much away, I live in a rural area. It's a well known fact Friday is Farmers market day. One Friday my husband saw a long line of farmers coming into town with their trailers full of livestock and in the other lane a long line of witnesses in cars going in the opposite direction out to the farms, where they KNOW no one will be in. If the work is so urgent, why do that?
Or the well know 'pioneer shuffle' which we've all done because let's face it, no one likes the ministry.
Phoebe: There is no enthusiasm for preaching among the brothers in the UK. Maybe in the foreign field but not in general... Or the well know 'pioneer shuffle' which we've all done because let's face it, no one likes the ministry.
Interesting, and I do not deny your observation.
As I said in my OP - as a whole - over the last 13 years, publishers in the UK are now apparently on average EACH spending 25% more time in the 'preaching work'.
As per the thread title, this is stagnation: increasing preaching but with decreasing growth (the ratio pub-to-pop).
In 2016 it was 184 hours-a-month. Although generally increasing over the last decade, it is still short of the late 1980s when it got up to 205 hours-a-month
Presumably you mean per year not per month.
And it’s intereeting that hours have gone down since carts began, despite it being “easier”. The amount of time on door to door, when you subtract carts time, must be much less now than previous years and decades.
slimboyfat: Presumably you mean per year not per month.
haha, yes, thanks for picking that up!!
Totally my inadvertent mistake - sorry - I wrote that post between doing some month-based number crunching.
In January 1999 there was an adjustment in the hour requirement for regular pioneers (reducing it from 90 to 70 hours per month) and for auxiliary pioneers (from 60 to 50).
I think the 30 hour aux pio provision for Memorial and CO visit came into operation from around 2012 and the 15-minute publisher provision came in around 2001.
Yes and going back further I think pioneer hours were once 100 hours, and further back still, even more than that, maybe 120 or so.
Elders are allowed to count various activities including giving talks, I believe. I have no idea how longstanding that “allowance” is.
No statistical categories are stable or straightforward.
slimboyfat: Elders are allowed to count various activities including giving talks, I believe. I have no idea how longstanding that “allowance” is.
Just congregation public talks I thought as actual 'preaching' time.
Which used to be one hour long (?), but are now only 30 minutes - counted even if entire audience is baptised, as it is a public meeting.
If they are regular pioneers they may count some other 'theocratic' time as a time 'credit' only, but it is not counted as 'field ministry' time for the WT's Annual Report.
Divine Purpose, pages 312 and 313
1938: Time spent in street advertising of public talks (information marches) first reported
1940: Time spent in street witnessing with magazines first reported
1945: Time spent delivering public talks first reported
1949: Incidental preaching time [AKA informal wwitnessing] first reported
I believe it was around 1976 when the regular pioneers went from 1,200 hours-per-year down to 1,000 hours-per-year (AKA 90-hours-a-month).
yep--i was a regular pi--100 hrs a month. late '60's
I have a memory that in the 1970s special pioneers did upwards of 120 to 150 hours per month.
I understand that even that band was reduced in more recent decades.
Can anyone verify that?
