for years the society has said that over 40,000 a year are disfellowshipped.
add to that the 10's of thousands who simply disassociate or fade.... so by that logic, would it be correct to assume there are actually more former witnesses on the earth than the number of current active witnesses ?
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I think it would depend on what you consider a former witness.
if you combine people who were baptized and publishers, just unbaptized publishers and people who were raised but left before ever becoming a publisher, yeah I think there are way over 8 million.
If your only talking about people who were baptized, and then faded, df, da..then no I don't think they outnumber active witnesses.
anyhow i got to thinking today about my days in the borg and the resolutions that would intermittently be made in the announcements for co visit expenses, sending a donation to society www fund etc.
my point is that while i was in (almost thirty two years) i never once saw anyone put up their hand to vote against a resolution that the body of elders proposed.
on a couple of occasions i heard a few hushed murmurs but i never saw one person vote against.
I saw two votes that were contested. The first was when I was a teenager. The KH was being totally renovated, we had windows, and the vote was wether to get rid of the windows. It was pretty much split down the middle, the congregation was small, about 30-35 publishers. The vote was taken suddenly on a midweek meeting night, when some of the pro-window people were absent. We voted to get rid of the windows. I remember this was used as an example as to why you should never miss meetings, you might get screwed on a vote!
The other time was several years back when we voted on changing the meeting times. A few of the older elders wanted to move the midweek meeting up from 730 to 7pm. That went over like a lead balloon. We voted and it wasn't that close. Still it was a strange sight to not see a unanimous vote in a KH.
i have looked around and i don't see this covered, so i am starting a thread.. 1) the new "blood card" goes beyond being just a "blood card".. 2) a new edict concerning compliance.. pay attention to the changes.. first, the new card is termed "advance decision to refuse specified medical treatment".
the big change with the card itself is that it includes an 'override' of your "power of attorney".
this is huge.
putting this out there for everybody.
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http://pathologicallyintellectual.blogspot.com/.
lately, in the february broadcast program, at the 46 minutes mark, the watchtower provides the story of felicity sneesby.
this report focuses on how, despite her serious illness, she, along with her family, has always placed her faith in jehovah and how happy she is for being part of jehovah’s family.. i am shocked by how this jw’s report completely ignores the help that this family has received from this system of things through the years.
for instance, they slept at the ronald mcdonald house on at least 6 separate occasions and for long periods of time.
Just thought I'd pass this along, via a a guy from bethel who is a cinematographer for JWB-
Phelicity, the Australian sister from this month's JW Broadcast, has passed away. Hope to meet her in paradise to thank her for her faith! 😭
are jw's heading for the exit?
after lurking on this site for a year or so i have noticed a number of new poster's including me.
but does this indicate a massive departure for the exit?
Interesting post. I believe we're never going to see a mass exodus. Why? The cost of leaving, for most, is to high. You lose your "friends" and for many your family.
what I do see though, especially amongst the 25 and younger crowd, is they aren't becoming as mentally invested in the religion as previous generations. Sure, they still pioneer, help with construction projects, and many still reach out to become servants or elders. Ask them anything related to doctrine? 607bc what? Jesus isn't my mediator? What's a mediator? They aren't invested in the doctrine anymore. They don't follow the rules as strictly as older ones did. Yeah they'll follow some rules, but if rules inconvenience them, well then not so much.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29 realestate/jehovahs-witnesses-brooklyn-headquarters-for-sale.html?_r=0.
another new york times article again,,.
hope jws can see this and acknowledge that the org.
Love this quote from Richard Devine, watchtower spokesman-
For their part, the Witnesses do not view themselves as being in the real estate business. “Real estate is incidental to our mission,” Mr. Devine said. “We’ve never bought properties on speculation. When we no longer need them, we sell them.”
if anyone had to guess, what do you think the average age of the community actually is?.
are more millennials actually waking up or is it pretty even amongst previous generations as well?
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i propose that we make pintrest accounts and start openly challenging this crap.. .
seriously.... any suggestions?
this crap cannot be left unchallenged.
whenever the new yearbooks come out, we all look at the figures and see the publisher increase never really matches up with the baptism figures.
it never should match up as all newly baptized ones are already publishers, and may have been for many years.
i, as an example, became an unbaptized publisher at age 11. i didn't get baptized until i was 17. .
