I have been all over the map with "What is Watchtower doing?" After reading and contemplating, I am pretty sure they are not just hiding assets. It won't work, first of all. They can see that it won't work, so it's too much trouble to try to hide money from governments and lawyers representing victims.
I am pretty sure they are spending too much money on Warwick.
From past JW history, I know that members don't tend to donate money hand-over-fist. If you get a big donation in one place, it reduces a donation in another place. Example: Congregations hear that they are sending a monthly amount and need a few hundred more bucks this month, and next month at the assembly the same dubs give 5 dollars because they gave so much back at the congregation box.
I am positive from their laid back cart work that Headquarters doesn't care for the members to "place" high numbers of magazines. But I also know that dubs have been trained that spirituality is tied to high placements and they have to be untrained about that.
All the operations problems have got to be getting noticed even by the average members who know only to "OBEY OBEY OBEY." The organization took all their local money and talked about a great building program then kept saying they don't have enough money. Magazine production keeps getting less and less and members are expected to use the internet to get their meeting supplies of literature.
Watchtower is definitely buckling under all of this. Australia's Royal Commission, pedophile lawsuits, negative numbers on money, the need to sell Brooklyn at lower numbers than they expect, whispers among the members, and top it all off with apostates knowing everything they do before they announce it.
What does it mean? If they can't dazzle members with brilliance, they will have to baffle them with more bullcrap. A totally changed midweek meeting is not really totally changed. It seems like a repackage of standards with an opportunity to give members more Q&A and video and makes it easier on all the members, be they speakers or just attenders, because they don't have to open a bunch of study materials but just download the meeting materials. The time of this just makes for a huge distraction. Instead of whispering about problems, they are talking out-loud about exciting changes. Expect more things like this. C.O.'s might be getting the axe soon, expect it to be some exciting new program. When Kingdom Halls are sold off, I doubt they will just move congregations over to the next hall. Expect some heavy rumors about how great it is to rearrange congregations and territories and to widen out and meet more JW's including new potential mates in larger congregations while doing this small sacrifice to support the building work in some "other" part of the world. Expect negative growth numbers to be spun into how the great tribulation must be starting soon.
Will all this work? To some degree, many will be baffled enough by bullcrap. But more and more are waking up.
