by Blueblades 25 Replies latest jw friends
Heather, if it is human and is there, it is counted, including little babes in arms and DF'd ones. And they don't have to be there for the entire meeting. If they walk in for the last few minutes, they accounted. At least in the congregations my husband was an attendant.
Blondie (realisitc numbers eh?)
I was the KH servant when I left. More often than not it was I who took the count of hall numbers. We had around 100 registered publishers - but we were lucky if half of that number went out regularly. Before I left the attendance figures went down to around 35 - and six of that number was my own family! Most of the hall is made up of old people (when they can get there), die-hard single middle-aged people or one's in divided homes who go for the company more than anything else. Youngsters are very thin on the ground. The elders number around 12-13 and like to laud it - but even they miss a good few meetings. Those elders and ministerial servants that do attend regularly still have the PO's haemorrhoids branded on their noses. At this rate the elders will outnumber the flock and have no-one to subjugate!
Almost nine years ago when I married my wife...I attended a few meetings with her at the Hall in our home town...there were probably close to 100 folks there on a Sunday...(the Hall was brand spankin new). Last year at Christmas I took my step son to the meetings for the several Sundays we were in Illinois...if there were 60 folks there I would have been real suprised....yep...as the newness wore off...attendence went down.
I'm not even impressed by the crowds at Memorials. How many of those people there are NON JW's that got roped into attending? I was one of those several times.
Many of you who post here STILL don't understand how Watchtower publications and talks work!
They must always portray the organization as growing and invincible - all else must be hidden or explained away.
If they are proclaiming "full to overflowing Kingdom Halls" ( likely some awful third world country), it's just propaganda
designed to impress the many publishers who clearly witness local decline.
A recent Watchtower talked about how great Japan was and reported a "peak" in publishers. This is designed to cover up
the massive loss of Japanese congregations and publishers. ( Of course, they have some kind of a "peak" every year,
regardless of net losses)
This sort of misdirection works very well. I knew an elder who ran a successful business. I told him about the
OBVIOUS mass loss of Witness kids in every congregation he knew about. He replied talking about the smiling
faces of young kids studying in some distant third world nation, as shown in the Awake. The deception worked!
Here's another: Contributions aren't coming in like they used to - which they can't admit because it suggests that
Jehovah isn't behind them. So, they publish glorious pictures of new Halls and buildings with a "reminder" to fork over some bucks.
Did you hear about a talk about alcohol? Brothers are getting drunk. Did they say Jehovah's Witnesses are the "happiest
people" in the world? Depression is an epidemic in congregations. Is the organization run by a "faithful and discreet slave"?
They're coldhearted old coots who are being exposed for hiding child molesters.
It's SO EASY, friends!!
Just read the magazines ( and after the nausea passes) PRESUME THE OPPOSITE OF WHATEVER THEY ARE
PROCLAIMING! Most of the time, you'll be right!
metatron ( if attendance is so good, where are the contributions?)
The number of cars at the local KH continues to dwindle.. don't know if more JUUs are walking to the meetings but in just the past two years the number has halfed. Nice looking place but certainly not maintaining a full parking low..maybe it had something to do with that banner on the roof that read "Pedophyle Paradise"??
carmel
A recent Watchtower talked about how great Japan was and reported a "peak" in publishers. This is designed to cover upthe massive loss of Japanese congregations and publishers. ( Of course, they have some kind of a "peak" every year,
regardless of net losses)
Metatron, do you have the publisher count for Japan over the last 5 years? Could you post it? I would do my own research but I'm backed up in other projects. Thanks, Blondie.
``Meeting attendance is soaring" and the ``halls are filled to capacity" is something that always occurs in some Kingdom Hall just over the horizon; you know, the one where there's no dissension, no immorality and every one truly loves one another..... the one Dorothy and Toto attend!
Not at the hall I go to.
wannaexit
When I was a Ministerial Servant, at the meeting with the servants during the CO visit, he described low meeting attendance as the "western hemisphere disease".
My own congregation had around 75 publishers (probably around 105 eligible attenders). School and service meeting attendance ran less than 50. Sunday attendance may have hit 60. The CO could bring in up to 80 - far from stellar numbers.
I can name quite a few rural congregations that have been disolved. In the town where I grew up, we always had around 55 publishers. Today, they have 35, even though their territory is almost twice as large as it had been, due to neighboring congregations vanishing.
Their public statements are very selective. They put their best foot forward (usually Africa), and let us assume that this is the case everywhere.
I drove past the Kingdom Hall this morning at 9:30AM and there were 13 cars there for "service". That is not too unusual for a week day. There must be something in our water here that makes people want to do unpaid religious literature distribution and sit on hard chairs listening to untrained ministers read ever changing religious articles from recycled paper.
