@Coded Logic
The most I'm willing to say is east coast. Sorry...
Is attendance down in your location too?
by StarryNight9 90 Replies latest jw friends
-
StarryNight9
-
days of future passed
I grew up in a hall that eventually split into two. I remember when I was a kid, that were quite a few interested people that would come in on Sundays. The last few years only saw a few bible studies that hung on for years but never got baptized. The small 2 day assemblies baptisms started to become a little bit smaller along with the diversity of age.
The society used to say the shuffling of who attended what assembly, was to "widen out" our association of brothers. But it makes more sense that they didn't want us to know that attendance was changing.
The only time I see witnesses on my street is on saturdays ( and that is few and far in between) and they are from the spanish congregation. Walking sooooo slooooow as they go to one house or so on the street that is marked for them.
Can't say what else is going on with them recently.
-
Freedom rocks
The numbers at my last few circuit assemblies went down from over 1400 to between 800 and 1100 the last few years. The regional assembly from 6-7 thousand down to never more than 4400 for the last 5 years. I have the Attendance numbers written down In assembly notebooks that I still have from the last ten years
-
freddo
Down round my way. 20 years ago high 80's on a Sunday, now 50 ish. Midweek 45 with highs of 55 and lows of 35.
Publishers gone from near 90 to mid 60's.
Two congs within 5 miles dissolved in the last five years.
-
Pete Zahut
I live in a desirable area 25 miles outside of a major west coast U.S. city where there are lots of nice new houses, new large shoping facilities, new schools and new parks that have been built in the last few years. On the main road into town, there are 6 churchs within 3 miles of my house (not counting the K, Hall) l, all of them were already very nice but each expanded and have built on new and very elaborate facilities to their existing building. Their parking lots are full on Sunday and often people need to parked on the main road and walk to the church. Most of them are casually but neatly dressed rather than wearing suits and ties.
Our Old old Kingdom Hall is the same as it has been since the late 80's 90's when it was remodled. It still looks nice but In the last 8 years JW's have only called on us 3 times. It has been about 5 or 6 years since the last time anyone one calld on us. There used to be two english speaking congregations that met at or kingdom hall but I've heard that there is now only one english speaking congregation and our hall is made up mostly older people. When we attended, any growth came from when a JW family moved into the territory and there we no new converts. The other congregtation that meets there now is now a spanish speaking mexican group. The parking lot on Sunday for our old Hall is not very full but the spanish speaking Hall seems to have a normal number number of vehicles in the parking lot.
I think there is something going on because this summer when we drove by the stadium where the District Assembly was, there was only one parking lot being used rather than all of them being full the way they used ot be.
-
My Name is of No Consequence
It certainly is in Northeast Ohio. I can't keep up with all of the dissolutions and mergers of congregations.
-
Doubter
Ok so now we are determining membership health based on counting parking spaces?
lol
”Hey that company going out of business soon”
”How do you know?”
”Less cars are in the parking lot compared to last year”.
”Yes, they are going out of business”
”Yep”.
-
DesirousOfChange
Definitely down by at least 9 at our KHall.
All of Doc's family are missing!
20 years ago, the 3 Congs in our KHall divided to form a 4th Cong.
2 years ago, the 4 Congs were regrouped to close one of the Congs.
In the area that uses our Assm Hall, at least 5 or 6 Congs closed in the past 5 years.
"Wonderous expansion is NOT taking place!"
-
Pete Zahut
Ok so now we are determining membership health based on parking lot usage. lol
If the parking lot is full during the meeting, there's a pretty good chance that the K, Hall will be full as well. If the meeting has started and the parking lot is relatively empty, one would have to assume that either attendance is low or the Hall is indeed full and everyone either walked to meeting or they car pooled with eachother for some reason.
I think it's safe to assume that in the case of our old Hall, attendance is low, especially since the Hall is located off the main road and one can't help but observe what's going on in terms of parking in comparrison to all the other churches that are overflowing.
-
StarryNight9
doubter: "Ok so now we are determining membership health based on counting parking spaces?"
That's one tiny part of what people have said. Why are you so upset about this? It's just a friendly discussion of things people have noticed (comparing notes). There's only been a few mild speculative comments about the meaning of the observations. No one is claiming to know anything about the entire religion for sure.