A Program For Jehovah's Witness Growth (page 5)

itsallgoodnow

Super JW, have you asked yourself what you can do to stop the slowdown in your area? I don't think you can really count your time out here... but I wouldn't be surprised... hey now that's an idea!!!

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FW,

Only a sadist would consider front row seating at the Kingdom Hall as an incentive.

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SpannerintheWorks

"ISJ"

Please identify yourself. Many of my compatriates seem to think that you are a bona-fide JW!!! Looking for a growth in the JW DECLINE!!

What nonesense!!!! Who are you???

Spanner

Nosferatu

Once again, we should not get rid of 1914 and blood stance. We need hese vital issues to distinguish ourselves from other religious groups and to give ordinary Witnesses a sense of belonging and seperation from the rest of soceity.

That's a very interesting statement Super JW, but I have a question for you. How can the Watchtower change to eliminate the accusations of it being a cult?

If you want to drive the numbers up even more,

- make a default 1 hour of preaching work for every inactive publisher. They must mention something about the JWs once in a while.
- make baptism mandatory at infancy
- give prizes for the most hours every month.
- have bake sales and include a tract with every packaged good.

Or, the ultimate: get rid of the field service reports altogether. No more pressure. Let people be moved to speak of Jehovah's love and stuff. If the numbers aren't visible, nobody worries about them. Besides, the hour system is stupid altogether. It doesn't represent how many people have heard the "good news". It should be based on how many people were preached to each month. Those would be better numbers to go by if the real reason for the preaching work was to spread the good news. You can't spread good news when you're stopped at Robin's Donuts, taking a shit. The reason for hours reported is to keep people's time filled with "Theocratic things". There's no love behind it whatsoever.

kls

SJW, gage. We have not fallen away as you say,we have become liberated and had our eyes opened. I take that comment as to say we are lazy in our thinking.It takes hard work and emotions to research and see this cult for what it is.

nobody told me

hi, SJW---thanks for giving me that nausating feeling again about the Jw's

itsallgoodnow

ok, I'm all confused now...

imallgrowedup

Super JW -

I missed one of your posts on this thread, and feel compelled to address some of the things you bring up. If you SINCERELY (and I am NOT using that word lightly), but SINCERELY want people back in the organization, or to recruit new followers, then I would take Mega Dude's suggestions seriously. If your mind is closed to what he has said, you are going to be hitting your head against the wall.

Bear in mind that the question I asked was how to promote growth, not how you would like to reform the Witnesses so as to make them so bland as to be virtually inditinguishable from other religious groups.

SJW - with all due respect, IMHO, Mega Dude answered you very straight-forwardly here. You asked, he answered. LISTEN.

You suggest less and shorter meetings. That would only decrease commitment to the organisation.

What this statement says to me is that you believe time = commitment. Personally, I think where your heart is = commitment. When your heart is there FIRST, then the time commitment follows. If you want to attract new members, you need to appeal to their hearts. After reading this board, there are so so so many here who complain about the lack of love in the organization. Why not start there?

Regular, long and trying meetings are essential for testing and maintaining loyalty to the movement.

I have to tell you, this statement blows my mind! I interpret this statement as you saying that the WT intentionally keeps their meetings long and trying? Are you speaking of testing the adults or the children? And do you condone the brutal spankings given to children who do not pass this "test"? Why must you test loyalty? IMO, loyalty only comes to those who earn it through gestures of love and gratitude. Again, the WT obviously doesn't show a lot of love, or there wouldn't be so many people complaining about the lack thereof. Additionally, with the "We need more More MORE" mentality, it shows that the WT has no sense of gratitude for what the members do do for them. It's kind of hard to beat a horse to death, and then expect it to rise with a vigor and ride off into the sunset! Again - why don't you guys start with the love?

As Rodney Stark said of the Christian Scientist (who are nearing extinction) "they asked little of their follower and received even less from them as a result". We need to ask more of ordinary publishers, not less. To ask less would spark terrible decline, I am sure.

Christian Scientists are a cult. Cults eventually die out. Perhaps this is an omen. The WT needs to abandon their cult-like ways. If you say the WT is not a cult, then you have your head in the sand.

Once again, we should not get rid of 1914 and blood stance. We need hese vital issues to distinguish ourselves from other religious groups and to give ordinary Witnesses a sense of belonging and seperation from the rest of soceity.

In other words, the WT needs to maintain an adherence to doctrines they KNOW are wrong, just to make them different? Would God really use an organization like that to be his faithful and discreet slave?

We cannot dump the governing body because continuity and spiritual credibility of the leaderhip is important in promoting loyalty and sense of organised purpose.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the credibility of the GB is already shot! Changing doctrine and an affiliation with the UN, as well as disfellowshipping any members who go or have gone outside the organization to report abuse have KILLED their credibility. And if their credibility is gone, then they are a liability to you - not an asset. Pay attention!

But we can hope that newer members of the governing body will be more open to radical innovation as in the Knorr presidency to stimulate further growth.

Sometimes, that is all you can do - hope. Members have no say in who becomes a member of the GB. Do you think they are going to choose people who think like them to join them, or people who oppose them? Again, I say you need to get rid of the GB.

Disfellowshipping is important for the same reasons highlighted above.

So you condone ripping families apart? You condone loving people only when they live up to the standards of the WT, but if they don't, then they should be discarded with yesterday's trash? When people are treated this way, their anger burns. And pretty soon enough of them will get together and try to expose the entity that oppresses them in this way. And because of the reality of mass communications, especially in regards to the media, the WT will be exposed again and again for NOT living up to the gospel message of forgiveness. The WT already distinguishes itself as being different than any other Christian religion - by making their own rules.

It is well known even among Evangelicals that strict churches do better whereas the liberal churches are everywhere in retreat.

I invite you to use mass media to verify this statement. I can tell you that you have been fed false information as to the "decline" of church numbers. In fact, church numbers have risen dramatically, especially in places where "church" was not previously embraced. You are being told a bald-faced lie to further the belief that the world is falling away from Christ. The only churches I see with dwindling numbers are those known for their totalitarianism rule - such as the WT.

We need hese vital issues to distinguish ourselves from other religious groups and to give ordinary Witnesses a sense of belonging and seperation from the rest of soceity.

I hate to bring this up again, but this statement just chaps my hide! In thinking about how a church can be different and distiguish themselves from others, why not try the exact opposite you've been doing when it comes to showing Christ's love IN YOU! All the rest of the world sees in JW's are that they are self-righteous, judgemental, closed-minded, and unwilling to do anything to make their community or their world a better place to live.

Let me give you a perfect example.

The church I attend definitely stands out in my community. And it is not just because it is in a huge building on the highest hill in our area. No, it is in the big building on the highest hill because of the LOVE we show and positive impact our church has made on our community. This with a church that started with 30 members 9 years ago. We are up to 6,000 now - after we planted three other churches in our area. It's never occured to our pastor to think about ways to increase growth! Heck, he has a population explosion going on! Until we moved into our new building, we had 11 services a weekend, so this guy is doing something right! And what he is doing is focusing on Christ only - not scaring the heck out of people about Armageddon. But he also encourages us to show Christ's love in our community. As a result, our church runs a homeless shelter with long-term living facilities where the entire family can live together while the parents learn marketable skills to go out into the job market and have a decent chance of making a living - as well as a life. We charterted two buses on two different occasions and brought children who did not have shoes for school to the shopping mall to buy shoes for them. We bought them shoes - not gave them used shoes. And we didn't buy them something from Wal-Mart. We let them buy good quality shoes - so they might have just one thing in their poverty-stricken homes that they could own and feel good about. And it felt SOOOOOOO good to be able to do this for them. When the local high school needed to re-landscape a part of the campus that had been destroyed in a storm, our church went out and did it for them - on our own nickle. Someday I should ask our youth pastor how many young people were impressed enough by this showing of self-less love to want to be a part of our huge growth that we don't even TRY for! And we don't just reach out in our own little community! We gathered enough money to build a hospital in Africa which caters to AIDS victims. We are one of several churches that supports the staff and buys the medicines they so urgently need. And these are just a few examples of what we continually do for our community and our world - and are the reason people want to be a part of our church. They see Christ's LOVE and they want to be a part of it.

What is my point in spending 45 minutes just pontificating on my church?! To show you that churches can be different - by doing positive things - not negative things. And people are attracted to the positive. By focusing on NO blood transfusions, NO fellowshipping with people who are disfellowshipped, NO celebrating holidays, NO staying home on Saturday and sleeping in, NO college for children, NO voting, NO flag salute, and NO doctrinal changes that could transform your religion, the WT is a very negative place to be. Why would anyone want to be there?

Rather than blast you a new one then bow out, I have provided a couple of suggestions to get you moving in the right direction.

1. The WT needs to fess up that they do not mediate for God. They need to realize that altough they would love to, it is obvious they don't, otherwise there would not be so much "mistaken" doctrine. God is not someone who deceives his followers nor does he withhold the "light". He IS light - and we all know who the father of deception is. God can not be both. So, the WT needs to take a long hard look at the God they claim to worship. Deception and light which dims and/or goes out spell S-A-T-A-N to me. The WT needs to 'fess up to the mistakes they've made, and take steps to make sure they don't happen again. A very good place to start would to get rid of the GB - just as Mega Dude has suggested.

2. The WT needs to accept that mass communication is here to stay, and that if they don't make changes, their organization will be snuffed out. The fact that more information is available (especially via the internet) to independently verify statements made by the WT to be true or false, they are in an increasingly vulnerable position - especially when they are wrong! The media is NOT going to go away - at least in this country, or until someone gets in office and abolishes the US Constitution. Therefore, the WT needs to learn to live in a world where they will be exposed as a false prophet, if they engage in activities only a false prophet would engage in - such as adhering to the blood doctrine, the 1914 doctrine, or shunning. Affiliating themselves with the UN, being members of politcal lobbies, and teaming up with the Mormon church on several ventures sure don't make the WT look very good when they proclaim to not be involved in politics or to affiliate with any other religious entities, either. In other words, they need to walk the walk, and talk the talk. It is the hypocrisy that is causing so many to fall away. Get a clue! You guys are permanently on candid camera!

I hope you have read not just my words, but the words of others who have posted in this thread. If you truly want change, you need to seriously consider what we have to say.

growedup

undercover

The idea about counting how many actual people publishers talk to each month is brilliant. Perhaps we will take that one up.

It's Dan Sydlik!

A Program For Jehovah's Witness Growth

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