Did anyone ever come across the idea that meeting attendances were an indication of how much spirit Jehovah was giving or witholding from the congregation?
..And that this was directly related to whether or not there was any secret wrondoing within the congregation that was "blocking the spirit" and thereby restricting the "increase"?
Just a couple of instances:
One of my early congregations had a 10% fall in it's Memorial attendance in successive years. This prompted a "remnant" lady to advise the PO that the spirit was being blocked for some reason. Co-incidentally, a 15 year old sister was found to have been sexually active, publicely reproved from the platform with all the details of what and how, and generally made to look like a tart. The next years Memorial attendance was up by several points and heads nodded wisely at the rooting out of the wrongdoing.
A year or so later, an International assembly was held at Twickenham, London. The attendence was over 50,000 to the public talk. The next year, at Twickenham again, the attendance was in the low 40's. Whatever could be wrong?
It transpired that at the second Twickenham assembly, huge communal tents had been erected in the stadium grounds as an alternative accomodation to the normal rooming reservations. Mostly occupied by younger folk, much bonking had taken place there, despite the tents being segregated according to gender. It was rumoured that over 100 DF'ings had taken place as a result of this, and THAT WAS WHY THE ATTENDANCE WAS DOWN!
The spin-off from all of this was that many people measured their activities by the meeting attendance in their own particular congregation. If the meeting attendance rose, then so did masturbation and petting!
Did anyone else encounter this sort of thinking during their time in the dubs?
Englishman.
