the numbers don't lie... definitely slowing down!!.
in the 40´s the average growth per year was 20%in the 50´s it was about 10%they had four decades of solid 5% per yearnow the average for the past 16 years has been 2%.
maybe in the future it will be 1% or 0 or even negative????.
The only place it gets close to relating it to Witnesses is in the Insight book under "Love":
One’s Love Can Cool Off. Jesus Christ, in telling his disciples of the things ahead, indicated that the love (a·gaʹpe) of many who professed belief in God would cool off.
Yup, written completely ambiguously.
Many who professed belief in God - could be "weak" JW's, "Christians" "theists," etc. etc.
watchtower study edition nov 16 pg 19. classic............................ .
"and to see how such resources are used"
Actually, it would be thrilling to see how these resources are being used.
How about publishing third-party audited financial statements with full and complete disclosure?
look at this graph:.
it has the % difference between the peak number of publishers and the average number of publishers for that year.
this number can only be positive.. what the graph tells us is that there is a clear trend towards hunting down inactive and/or irregular publishers.
I think that it is more a case of secretaries fudging the average numbers to not show irregular / inactive numbers.
The Peak number is the nuttiest number-generator that could only be dreamed up by David Miscaviage.
(There was a family of 12 that moved from one city to our congo in a different city. Those 12 publishers would be counted in each city in the Peak publishers for that year.)
i looked at the 2017 yearbook figures this morning, and it reminded me of something which happened in my former congregation 2 years ago.
it was a tiny foreign language congregation with at most 25-30 publishers.
comes and splits a 30 member congregation into....three.
"That's why I am not keen on using the number of congregations as a measure of growth or stagnation in jw organization. Worldwide - and even nationally - numbers that comprise congregations vary enormously."
I had thought similarly.
However, I added the congo numbers to the Western country spreadsheet, and they have generally dipped proportionately to the publisher dip (Canada and Britain increased - probably foreign language)
( 87 fewer total congos in the Western countries listed - 32499 in 2016, 32586 in 2015 )
i saw this on reddit:.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/5mlgsm/2017_yearbook_of_jehovahs_witnesses/.
overall the numbers are better than last year (1.8% growth compared to 1.5% last year -- as i predicted ;-) ) with an increase in all major figures including 1300 more congregations (i assume this is not physical kingdom halls?).
"You seem to be comparing peak and average"
2016 Average to 2015 Average
(Peak numbers are meaningless)
i saw this on reddit:.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/5mlgsm/2017_yearbook_of_jehovahs_witnesses/.
overall the numbers are better than last year (1.8% growth compared to 1.5% last year -- as i predicted ;-) ) with an increase in all major figures including 1300 more congregations (i assume this is not physical kingdom halls?).
Western country stats:
| Country | . . . | 2016 | . . . . | 2015 | . . . . | Increase / | . . . . | % | |
| Decrease | |||||||||
| Australia | 66689 | 66753 | -64 | -0.0959% | |||||
| Austria | 21353 | 21216 | 137 | 0.6457% | |||||
| Barbados | 2513 | 2506 | 7 | 0.2793% | |||||
| Belgium | 24818 | 24661 | 157 | 0.6366% | |||||
| Bermuda | 444 | 448 | -4 | -0.8929% | |||||
| Britain | 134517 | 134491 | 26 | 0.0193% | |||||
| Canada | 113954 | 114123 | -169 | -0.1481% | |||||
| Denmark | 14622 | 14564 | 58 | 0.3982% | |||||
| Finland | 18397 | 18496 | -99 | -0.5353% | |||||
| France | 127087 | 125519 | 1568 | 1.2492% | |||||
| Germany | 164243 | 163871 | 372 | 0.2270% | |||||
| Ireland | 6407 | 6281 | 126 | 2.0060% | |||||
| Italy | 250249 | 250277 | -28 | -0.0112% | |||||
| Japan | 214173 | 213818 | 355 | 0.1660% | |||||
| Netherlands | 29490 | 29508 | -18 | -0.0610% | |||||
| New Zealand | 13895 | 13929 | -34 | -0.2441% | |||||
| Norway | 11535 | 11472 | 63 | 0.5492% | |||||
| Spain | 110393 | 109457 | 936 | 0.8551% | |||||
| Sweden | 22238 | 22236 | 2 | 0.0090% | |||||
| Switzerland | 18838 | 18611 | 227 | 1.2197% | |||||
| USA | 1198026 | 1195081 | 2945 | 0.2464% | |||||
| Total | 2563881 | 2557318 | 6563 | 0.2566% | |||||
i saw this on reddit:.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/5mlgsm/2017_yearbook_of_jehovahs_witnesses/.
overall the numbers are better than last year (1.8% growth compared to 1.5% last year -- as i predicted ;-) ) with an increase in all major figures including 1300 more congregations (i assume this is not physical kingdom halls?).
Sorry - link inoperative.
dates (ad) of events once taught by watchtower as significant but no longer supported since nothing happened.. .
"but bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble.
zion's watch tower 1894 jul 15 p.226 incredibly, today’s jw’s dishonestly prefer to rewrite history, claiming "jehovah's witnesses pointed to the year 1914, decades in advance, as marking the start of "the conclusion of the system of things.
Exhaustive list here:
the un has banned religion.
what are you're thoughts?.
also changes to it seem to be on the way.... http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/trump-vows-israel-vote-161224040133216.html.
I used to chase that WT carrot.
http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-do/maintain-international-peace-and-security/index.html
randall watters presents the fascinating backstory of the "aid book", and the brouhaha surrounding it, in this article:.
"the watchtower bible and tract society: the critical years 1975-1997".
so far it seems the project to research and write the "aid to bible understanding" revealed serious doctrinal and institutional flaws that the gb wanted to preserve nonetheless.. it seems what ray franz and his team were learning, and were largely blocked from presenting:.
Eve created in the same year as Adam:
page 538
At the age of 130 another son was born
to her. Eve called his name Seth,
SETH [appointed, substituted] . The son of Adam
and Eve born when Adam was 130 years old.
