Have there been any threads on this video? Has the video been leaked? If so I missed it. So here is my take:
There was a 12 minute video about KH consolidation presented at the midweek meeting last week. The narrator for the video was brother Breaux, the same brother made famous by his defence of the two witness rule, and the “pillow-gate” leak. It seems he’s the new messenger of bad news.
This video was produced in the US and has indications of being particularly focused on that territory, but is being presented worldwide. The theme of the video is making efficient use of KH facilities; in other words consolidation and mergers.
What is most striking about the video is the assumption and orientation toward decline. Gary Breaux says it is important that publishers cooperate with mergers of congregations. He stated that: “fully cooperating with KH mergers is like making a financial contribution to the Kingdom work”. Which gives a clear indication of the agenda and focus.
Breaux presented visuals of various scenarios in which mergers of congregations or KHs would make sense logistically, such as where an overutilized KH is near an under-utilized KH. He also mentioned in passing the possibility that full KHs would necessitate building new ones, but not very convincingly, and this was clearly not the focus.
The video made it clear that decisions about mergers would be made by regional committees and they would take various factors (including travel time for brothers) into consideration. There is no provision for local JWs to have any say in the process. Their role is to accept and support the decisions made.
Gary Breaux mentioned that as a result of mergers he and his wife had been reassigned to a new congregation after decades at their old KH. The message being: if it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for you. Don’t complain.
The video began by asking the audience what good memories they have of their KH? It prompted the suggestion of a young brother’s first talk. It struck me that KHs are not conducive to good memories and they struggle for examples, because JWs are highly restricted in what they can do at KHs. Meetings are predictable and repetative: the poorest possible conditions for creating enduring, good memories.
This video highlighted many of the failures of WT which are resulting in the organisational decline they are here attempting to deal with.
For one thing they treat congregations and individual JWs as bean counters to be reassigned and distributed in the most “efficient” way, without publishers having any say or input in the process other than obedience. This is not only crass, it is strategically stupid. They don’t understand that congregations, if they are anything at all, are dynamic systems, with unique histories and characters. To WT the relevant factors are space, expenses, distances and capacity. To human beings the relevant factors are relationships, convenience, connections, history, and shared meaning.
I have observed that Christadelphians have witnessed decline in recent decades, but that individual congregations have battled on and survived against the odds. This is precisely because they value the uniqueness and autonomy of each congregation. Had their ethos been more like JWs and centralised, it seems likely that Christadelphian decline would have occurred much more rapidly than it has done. I know some Christadelphians who travel considerable distances to attend their “home” congregations, or ecclesias as they are properly called. Because community and history are important.
The WT leadership seem to think that JWs should value obedience to theocratic direction over their personal connections with congregations. Well they are welcome to that opinion, but they are setting themselves up for disappointment. Just because they think JWs should respect and obey the “theocratic arrangement” to disband and merge congregations, doesn’t mean that’s how it will play out in reality.
What will really happen, if they truly implement this barmy scheme as proposed:
1. Many JWs will disobey directions and instead attend congregations they feel most at home, fostering a climate of disobedience that may spill over into other areas.
2. For some JWs the distances will be too great and they will slow down or stop attending altogether.
3. Local communities will notice the decline and retreat of KHs, as they do with other churches, and JWs will be recognised as a church in decline.
4. JWs will feel dispirited and dejected at the programme of mergers which is clearly designed to cope with decline.
5. The imagined financial savings from this process will not meet WT expectations because the result will be fewer JWs and those who remain will be less zealous and less inclined to donate money. In fact the whole “efficiency” agenda may exacerbate rather than alleviate their monetary problems. Cutbacks are rarely a good strategy for growth, but especially not when the “business” involves consumers who have been primed to view continued growth as an essential feature.
6. This plan smacks of desperation. WT desperately needs the money, it’s as simple as that. Even though it’s a terrible strategy in the medium to long term, they may have no other option but to pursue KH consolidation in the short term. I suspect that KH sales in this process may not be enough. They may need to begin selling KHs even where there is no possible rational local basis for doing so, just to meet organisational costs. They may try to offer yet more rationalisations rather than candour for these developments. This will alienate and depress JWs yet further. This will result in fewer JWs and smaller donations, in a downward spiral.