according to the latest statistics published by the ncc in its yearbook of american and canadian churches, the jehovah's witnesess had the highest growth rate, in 2010 growing 4.37%.
this is, i believe, is the 4th year in a row, that the witnesses had the highest growth rate.
roman catholics grew by less than 1%, as did most of the other churches listed.
I am a little confused here. The Watchtower has recently published it's worldwide report, and the figure they gave for USA was 2%
In fact the actual figure was 1.7% but they rounded the figure up.
David could you explain how they get to the 4.37% figure.
i keep hearing of more and more jws that are celebrating their birthdays or, doing "special days" for their children on the day of their birth.
i'm sure this has always been done but what interests me is that many people aren't ashamed to admit it since they have used their own fully functioning minds to figure out that the society's birthday ban doesn't hold up.
one young couple with two kids (he's an ms, she's an ex-pioneer who dropped off the list to tend to the kids) explained it to me this way.... "the happiest days of our lives include the births of our children.
One witness I know had a special day for her grand daughter in the summer. Not her birthday you understand just a special day for her.
When I asked her if it was her birthday she proudly said Oh no we do not celebrate birthdays.
She could not see it was the same thing.
does anyone know anything about the gb member guy pierce?.
what is his background?.
what sort of personality does he have?.
I think all of them believe in what they are doing. It's just that they put the organisation first all the time.
i mentioned rutherford's cadillacs to my study conductor, and he said maybe rutherford was able to purchase them because he was independently wealthy.
were they purchased from his own personal wealth or with the wt funds?.
There seems to be proof that the houses were donated to him from a rich friend. Maybe the same was true about the cars.
i am noticing here and there that the wt literature will say things like "one bible dictionary says ..." or "one scholar says ..." and then proceed with a quotation.
my immediate reaction is to ask myself why they didn't provide the specific source of the quote - author, publication, page #, etc.
so i am wondering, do other magazines do this?
Ray Franz had the right idea. He new that many would not takehis word for it if he said something contraversial, so he made sure he told readers where they could go to check what he told them in his two books.
watching this video left me wandering a bit iif a person is wrongly disfellowshipped for whatever reason and they appeal against it and are then reinstated, would the elders actually announce in the hall that so and so has been reinstated.
if that was so it would be pretty obvious to most people that the disfellowshipping decision was wrong, ie the elders made a mistake.
has anyone here ever had that happen at their kingdom hall in the past.
Thanks onthewayout. That's real inside imformation. It's something I had never thought of before, but something I read just made me wonder about it.
watching this video left me wandering a bit iif a person is wrongly disfellowshipped for whatever reason and they appeal against it and are then reinstated, would the elders actually announce in the hall that so and so has been reinstated.
if that was so it would be pretty obvious to most people that the disfellowshipping decision was wrong, ie the elders made a mistake.
has anyone here ever had that happen at their kingdom hall in the past.
Thanks for that Boyzone. Did you mean they would not announce the original disfellowship decision, if the person concerned said they will appeal against it?
watching this video left me wandering a bit iif a person is wrongly disfellowshipped for whatever reason and they appeal against it and are then reinstated, would the elders actually announce in the hall that so and so has been reinstated.
if that was so it would be pretty obvious to most people that the disfellowshipping decision was wrong, ie the elders made a mistake.
has anyone here ever had that happen at their kingdom hall in the past.
Watching this video left me wandering a bit Iif a person is wrongly disfellowshipped for whatever reason and they appeal against it and are then reinstated, would the elders actually announce in the hall that so and so has been reinstated. If that was so it would be pretty obvious to most people that the disfellowshipping decision was wrong, ie the elders made a mistake. Has anyone here ever had that happen at their kingdom hall in the past
i knew an elder who would help and support those in the cong, but in return he expected some kind of compensation such as: goods brought for him or his family, services given for free etc.. this elder had a working class job but lived a very middle class life style because of this unspoken arrangement.
great holidays, new cars and his wife was very much the queen bee of the cong.
hardly wore the same thing twice and delighted in patronising the other sisters who she considered beaneath her.
Most elders really believe that they are doing what is required of them, so I think it would be very rare for one of them to want some reward
2011 yearbook, singing praise to jehovah, p.17-21:.
singing songs of praise to jehovah is an integral part of our worship.
at the 2009 conventions, therefore, god's servants were overjoyed when they were told of a new songbook, sing to jehovah.
Can you believe it. Even their songs apparantly come from the gov. body. At least that is what they tell the sheep. I think in reality other ordinary JWs would do all the work and the old men would have given their blessing to it when it was finished.
They like to show that everything comes from the gov body, when in fact most time it comes from editorial staff
