The Watchtower Attendance Crisis (page 5)

Kenneson

Sorry. I was trying to post the following article entitled "Jehovah's Witness congregation in Talladega growing."

http://www.dailyhome.com/dh-index.htm

You will need to scroll down to find it.

It seems to me that if 50 to 60 people were attending in 1973 and the most recent meeting numbers 130, that this is expansion, but at a very slow rate. But it is claimed that as many as 300 belong to the congregation, and it is work elsewhere that prevents them from all being there at the same time. It seems that nearby congregations are faring better.

garybuss

Whoa! Good catch. What jumped out at me from this article is the claim the Witnesses were segregated in 1963. Does anyone have first hand experience with this practice?

*****

Jehovah's Witness congregation in Talladega growing

By Chris Norwood
01-31-2004

The Jehovah's Witness faith has been established in Talladega County for many years, but a local congregation was not established there until the 1960s, according to an elder. (Since the Jehovah's Witnesses do not a have a distinct clergy, the primary local source for this story did not wish to be identified by name.) Originally, witnesses in Talladega attended meetings with the congregation in Anniston.

Then, in 1963, a white congregation was established in Talladega; a black congregation was already established at that time.

The white congregation consisted of about 14 people initially, and grew slowly but steadily for the next few years. By the time the two congregations merged, in 1973, there were about 50 to 60 members.

The most recent meeting in Talladega drew about 130 people, although according to the church elder, "We're in kind of an out of the way place, and a lot of people have gone to Atlanta or Birmingham or Florida to find work. There are probably about 300 people like that out there in different parts of the country from our congregation."

Witness congregations are kept small intentionally, and generally a congregation will split when it has more than about 200 members. In fact, this is about to happen in the Sylacauga congregation, which is somewhat larger than Talladega's. Similarly, witnesses from Ashland came to meetings in Talladega for a while, but have recently started a congregation of their own. When a new Kingdom Hall is built, the congregation pays for all the materials, and it is built at no charge by brothers from everywhere.

The growth in Talladega mirrors the growth of Jehovah's Witness faith on a much smaller scale. According to a brochure printed by the Watchtower Society, the modern movement began in Pennsylvania in the 1870s with a single Bible study class. The first edition of what eventually became the Watchtower Magazine came out in 1879.

There are currently more than 6 million Witnesses in 230 countries in every part of the world. Watchtower is published in 141 different languages by volunteers working for free.

"We are basically a door to door ministry, like Christ and his apostles," according to the Talladega elder. "We study the Bible with people, and some of them become Witnesses and some don't. That is up to them. But it is a free service we offer. There are some 6 million people and families studying with Witnesses every week. We make disciples of people and baptize them. By the time they are baptized, they are ready to go out and teach others, as Jesus said."

In its emphasis on the Bible as God's word and truth and the role of Jesus as man's one redeeming sacrifice, the Jehovah's Witness faith is not very different from other Christian denominations. Other interpretations are more unusual to those who have previously followed other faiths.

For instance, according to the brochure, only 144,000 people will go to heaven after the end of the world as we know it, to rule with Christ. Those judged as wicked will be destroyed, but those good people not among the 144,000 will be given eternal life on a renewed earth.

Witnesses also believe that Christ died on a stake, not a cross (based on Gal. 3:13 and Acts 5:30), and that prayers should be directed only to Jehovahh (God) through Christ. They also believe that blood is not to be taken into the body under any circumstances, based on Gen. 9:3,4; Lev. 17:14 and Acts 15:28, 29.

About Chris Norwood
Chris Norwood is a staff writer for The Daily Home.

Contact Chris Norwood
Phone:
FAX:
E-mail:
256-362-1000
256-362-1903
[email protected]

chester

Gary,

I was in Selma, Alabama in 1976 and they were still segregated there at that time.

garybuss

Thanks Chester! I am from the north and we had mostly whites here. We started going to meetings regularly in 1951 when I was 7 years old and we had three black families here after that. I wouldn't even have thought of segregating them away from us.

How can the Watch Tower Corporation report to a newspaper that they are like Christ and his apostles when they were openly racially biased for at least 10 years? How do they talk about judging the good and wicked when they are segregating their own members?

They must have a bible that says that Jesus had his black apostles sit in the back of the boat. Disgusting!

What am I missing here?

Anybody else experience Watch Tower Corporation segregation?

willyloman

Probably the two most interesting things about that newspaper article quoting the elder from Talladega:

1. He refused to give his name.

2. He lied about the number of publishers they have.

This says a lot more about what's really happening out there than the handful of regions where there is significant growth due to population shifts.

seattleniceguy

Regarding Joker's claim that there are always more in attendance than the number of publishers, I have to say that this is not true of any congregation I've ever been a member of, either here or in Japan. My last congregation had something like 115 publishers, but we rarely broke that number for Sunday meetings. Weekday meetings were typically around 80-90, which is only 70-80% attendance. I'm sure of the numbers, because I was in Sound and I very often either relayed the info to the brother who was closing, or I closed myself.

In spite of these numbers, when the CO recently announced a goal of 75 people for Saturday morning service, we actually met the goal. I think there were more people present for service than were there for the Thursday night meeting. Of course, the next week it was back to normal.

SNG

LDH

Add to that the 'faithful'--are mostly the elderly, who are now dying without ever having seen that promised land.

Can you imagine being told in 1930 that you would never grow old? And today you can't go anywhere without your friend Ben-Gay? How could you possibly be inspired to continue attend?

Lisa

1 less in attendance Class

Valis

Hey LDH...where have you been woman?

Sincerely,

District Overbeer

got my forty homey?

The SS Watchtower is sinking fast!

The Watchtower Attendance Crisis

Share this