I'm surprised that some are mentioning attendance rates of (nearly) 100 %.
Here in Europe, 20 years ago most congregations had little bit more than 100 % on weekend, and some 90 % midweek.
Today, quite a lot of the congregations I know are glad if they reach 80 % on weekend, and 70 % midweek. Some congregations reach 100 % only three times a year: memorial (much more than 100 % for that meeting, of course), and CO visits' weekend-congregations.
the book of daniel was almost certainly written in the 2nd century bce, probably based on some historical accounts mixed with jewish folklore.
with that in mind, and given that there isn't any evidence that nebuchadnezzar went insane for seven 'times', is there any other period from which the reference to "seven times" at daniel 4:13-17 may be derived?.
i continued beholding in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, look!
It seems, Jeffro is still influenced by "Studies in the Scriptures" ;-)
For "seven times" in Leviticus 26 another hebrew word (meaning: sevenfold) is used than for "seven times" in Daniel. See footnote in NWT, Lev 26,18.
according to the recent 2010 mexico census, people 5 and older who identified themselves as jehovah's witness grew by 42%.. .
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year 20002010% total 1,057,7361,500,98441.9% population 84,794,454106,427,63625.5% ratio, one jw to:8071 .
the figures given by joker10 are absolutely correct. I don't understand those attacks. Why are you so close-minded? You could easily check those numbers! Set aside your prejudices and "Face the Facts!"
see: www.inegi.org.mx
i'm trying to put together a comprehensive master list of watch tower society branch offices that corresponds roughly with the figure published in the worldwide report.. i feel it would be useful to monitor the number and location of existing branch offices, because i believe the distribution of branch offices worldwide is a good indicator of the society's financial wellbeing.
we now seem to be entering a period of branch office closures, with last year seeing an unprecendented 16% reduction in branch office numbers over the year before.
it will be interesting to see how things develop moving forward, but i'm hoping that by keeping a list of the offices we will be better placed to keep track of the "retreat" if branch office numbers continue to dwindle.. here we go.... .
closed in 2011: Switzerland
closed in 2011 (or 2010?): Luxemburg
German Branch takes care for those countries now (as well as for Austria, already mentioned above)
Generally, closing/merging branches is nowadays a reasonable measure, especially for countries sharing same language (as with Greece-Cyprus; Mexico etc.; Germany-Switzerland-Luxemburg-Austria; NSL-Australia), or for provinces/states belonging to the same political nation (Hawaii-Alaska-USA).
As far as I see, great majority of active witnesses have no problem with this. No disadvantage at all; just saving some money.
Italy branch shall not be closed. Maybe printing will be stopped (has already been stopped?) in Italy?
Changing number of branches is no proof for changing condition of WTS. Real evidences for worsening condition of society are, for instance, change in age distribution of elders (young ones are not willed anymore to get involved), and merging congregations in urban areas of industrial countries on a large scale (no growth expected anymore!).
i'm trying to put together a comprehensive master list of watch tower society branch offices that corresponds roughly with the figure published in the worldwide report.. i feel it would be useful to monitor the number and location of existing branch offices, because i believe the distribution of branch offices worldwide is a good indicator of the society's financial wellbeing.
we now seem to be entering a period of branch office closures, with last year seeing an unprecendented 16% reduction in branch office numbers over the year before.
it will be interesting to see how things develop moving forward, but i'm hoping that by keeping a list of the offices we will be better placed to keep track of the "retreat" if branch office numbers continue to dwindle.. here we go.... .
Guyana bethel: there were just 8 members in bethel family; so reducing that branch is no big deal. Merged with Suriname?
are there any active elders/ms or higher out there who can advise if one of the requirements for appointment is that the person's fs time is equal to or greater than either the congregation's average or the national average?
this used to be the case, but may have been relaxed.
also is the branch still approving appointments?
No, it is not in force anymore.
Circumstances are different. Of course, it is possible that a brother expresses love to Jehovah and to the preaching work in word and deed and that he is well-respected by the congregation, although his hours are below national or congregation's average.
Think of a hard-working head of a family, maybe engaging several weekends per year in some kinds of "holy service" like KH construction work. Maybe he is serving in a congregation where there are several healthy retirees, wealthy part-time workers and childless house wifes, all contributing to quite a high congregation's average. No CO I know would expect such a brother anymore to do more field service than any "average" before you could recommend him as MS or elder. And most COs I know do not even expect a national average as a compulsory requirement.
Usually, texts like Matthew 22,37 ("all YOUR heart, all YOUR soul, all YOUR mind"; Not: "more than national average") are used to convince any hardliners in such cases.
i don't think the society can afford to drop this appeal.
1. if they loose their appeal it opens them up to huge amounts of liability.
they need the courts to come down on their side of the clergy-penitent confidentiality issue.
"3. ... If they make WTS of NY insolvent... "
This is impossible for them. See QFR W Sept 15, 1994, last three paragraphs.
in yearbook - 1998 we can read:.
*** yb98 p. 46 ***.
a study guide and a 28-minute classroom version of the video jehovahs witnesses stand firm against nazi assault have been produced to assist educators in teaching about the events surrounding the holocaust.. anyone knows what is this?.
The classroom-version video is a well-balanced short version of the regular Stand-firm-video.
As far as I can see, the video does not contain any lie. In some European countries there are a lot of prejudices against religious minorities. Removing anything that could be called religious propaganda and abstaining from denunciation of churches in that short version made it possible that even in some of those countries that video can officially be used in history lesson at public schools.
Script in German language can be read here:
http://www.jwhistory.net/archiv/wrobel/standhaftscript-28MIN.htm
for 2011, jws in mexico had the lowest baptism number in years, a critical 26.9% decrease from 2010. something is going there!?.
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Have you checked: Where there any International Conventions in service year 2009/2010 in Mexico or/and in Peru?
Such events boost the number of baptisms for that one service year (especially for the born-ins). Therefore, it would not make sense to compare baptism numbers of two years if there was an International Convention in one of those years.
these are the countries with 80 to 89.99% internet penetration:.
these are the countries with 70 to 79.99% internet penetration:.
these are the countries with 60 to 69.99% internet penetration:.
Hi Cedars,
I used your country categories, according to internet penetration.
Kindly see country-by-country-analysis for the first category: (It was done the same way for all 10 categories)
country (>90% internet) | publishers 2010 | population growth ratio (p.g.r.) | target figure for publ. 2011, based on p.g.r. | publishers 2011 (year book) | nominal growth rate, % (as in year book, but not rounded) | real growth rate, based on p.g.r. |
| Iceland | 339 | 0.69 % | 341 | 342 | 0.88 % | 0.19 % |
| Norway | 10,517 | 0.33 % | 10,552 | 10,740 | 2.12 % | 1.78 % |
| Sweden | 21,967 | 0.16 % | 22,002 | 22,052 | 0.39 % | 0.23 % |
| Greenland | 166 | 0.05 % | 166 | 155 | -6.63 % | -6.67 % |
| Totals | 32,989 | 33,061 | 33,289 | 0.91 % | 0.69 % |
Your statistics was much better than a lot of amateurish maths presented in such boards. But, of course, it is necessary to consider general population growth rate. For example: In Estonia, population growth rate is negative (minus 0.64 % in 2011), therefore the decrease of 0.57 % in publishers is still a real growth of plus 0.07 %! On the other side, as the above example of Nigeria has shown, an increase in publishers may prove to be a real loss, if total population has grown faster than the number of publishers.
In lower developed countries, less people have internet access. In the very same countries, the total population growth is higher than in high developed countries. Therefore, the effect of including population growth rate is much stronger for the countries with low internet penetration.
