Posts by Dreamerdude

27

More congregations? One of the strategies they used to inflate the numbers in my city.

by Tempest in a Teacup in

jw
friends

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.

Dreamerdude

I appreciate the desire for specific data to back up theories. I really don't know if there is really a strategy to inflate the number of congregations. I have not seen enough proof. But a post from Germany not long ago piqued my interest. It was an analysis of the number of German language congregations compared to foreign. The numbers seemed to indicate the drop in German congregations was masked by formation of foreign congregations. I'm not good with the search function, so I can't pull it up.

My observation involves only two kingdom halls. Both are in the western US, in separate states. I can confirm that each of these small congregations are full fledged congregations with their own bodies of elders, separate from the English congregations. But that is only 2 congregations out of 119,000 worldwide.

My opinion is that most people in foreign language and ASL are honestly deluded and sincerely want to help disadvantaged foreigners in their communities. If there are ulterior motives, it could be to make busy work for the more zealous drones, and to massage the egos of some who enjoy bragging rights of working where the need is greater. Each additional congregation opens up positions of perceived power, at least on the Service Committee. Three more elders, three more Elderettes.

27

More congregations? One of the strategies they used to inflate the numbers in my city.

by Tempest in a Teacup in

jw
friends

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.

Dreamerdude

The two examples I mentioned are full-fledge foreign language congregations, who get their own circuit visits. They are only about 20-30 publishers each, involving a lot of busy work by very few brothers. They also have high proportions of pioneers. Again, I don't know how common this is. But I have seen two.

27

More congregations? One of the strategies they used to inflate the numbers in my city.

by Tempest in a Teacup in

jw
friends

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.

Dreamerdude

Richard, the two trends can both happen at the same time. I have seen a KH where the second school was converted to a small auditorium with 15cm stage, for small foreign language congregations. At the same time a larger combined English congregation meets in the main hall. I have only seen two of these, but it does indeed happen.

117

2017 Yearbook released

by bohm in

jw
friends

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?).

Dreamerdude

The data presented here is amazing. While the overall totals are largely driven by countries with larger populations, its interesting to look at some of the smallest countries, some that have only one or a few congregations.

One example is tiny Tuvalu, the least populous of the 196 members of the UN. They have only one congregation, so we get a clear picture of what is going on in a single congregation. This congregation had no baptisms at all in 2016. They had an average of 64 publishers in 2015 and only 52 in 2016. Interestingly they had a peak of 73 publishers during 2016. I suppose they might have peaked at the beginning of the service year, or maybe had visitors working where the need is funner.

it occurred to me that Geoffrey Jackson might have been instrumental in stumbling a dozen or so publishers in Tuvalu by his testimony at ARC, right at the end of the 2015 service year. As I recall he was a missionary there when he was younger. He published a dictionary in their language, with financial aid from the Australian government, and has made sure they have many "Bible study aids" published in their language. We can also assume he has done some damage to the Watchtower work in Australia, as reflected in their poor results this past year.

Yay for tiny Tuvalu! We might be seeing a whole country waking up.

21

54 year old Jw pedophile molests 14yr old jw girl.

by notjustyet in

need someone to correct the article to let the readers know "it's not a church,.. it's a kingdom hall!!".

please share and comment on their fb page to get some info out there.

https://www.facebook.com/sunherald/posts/10157904826940532.

Dreamerdude

I am glad to see the mother did the right thing to protect her child. It is sad to see this disgusting creep use the Kingdom Hall to groom his victim.

15

Beth-Shan - Digital Reconstruction - IMAGES & DRAWINGS WANTED

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

(just posted this over on exjw reddit as well).

as part of my masters in architecture degree (a treat to myself after leaving jws about 4 years ago), i'm attempting to digitally reconstruct some of watchtower's significant early buildings.

my goal is to produce accurate architectural drawings and images based on solid evidence.

Dreamerdude

Apparently it was one big 75 acre property, with a small canyon in the middle. The houses were perched on cliffs on opposing sides of the canyon. A nice way to slip undetected from one part of town to another, in case the Japanese bombed one side. Or in case the FBI came to arrest the Judge. So much for relying on Jehovah. The bunker mentality of is not new.

15

Beth-Shan - Digital Reconstruction - IMAGES & DRAWINGS WANTED

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

(just posted this over on exjw reddit as well).

as part of my masters in architecture degree (a treat to myself after leaving jws about 4 years ago), i'm attempting to digitally reconstruct some of watchtower's significant early buildings.

my goal is to produce accurate architectural drawings and images based on solid evidence.

Dreamerdude

Fascinating work, Bloody Hotdogs!

I didn't realize part of Beth Shan was still standing, until very recently. Beth Sarim is quite well known by the local JWs and they are eager to show it to visitors who read about it in the Proclaimers book. Beth Shan needs some publicity too.

47

AND STILL NO RELEASE OF THE 2017 JW YEARBOOK

by steve2 in

here we are on the cusp of the new year, and the 2017 yearbook of jws has still not been released.

jw.org continues to feature the 2016 yearbook in its list of main publications.

in previous years, the upcoming yearbook's annual report on jws was released in november for the january 1st then the feb 1st watchtower, then earlier in december when it was only featured in the yearbook, then more recently with a couple of days of december 25th.

Dreamerdude

Orphan Crow's point about the par takers being based on an actual Biblical number is interesting. WT insists this a finite number.

There were 12 people who claimed to be anointed in my congregation 50 years ago. They all "died faithful" many years ago, of old age, of old age.

I am also pretty sure that all the 52,000 people counted as partakers in the 1935 yearbook are dead. It is quite possible that more than 144,000 have already been counted as JW partakers in the past 140 years. That would not even leave enough room for the 12 apostles, much less the 1 million Christians estimated in the Roman Empire in the first century.

15

LONDON Kingdom Hall for sale - well, kinda!

by darkspilver in

jw
friends

the sell-off of kingdom hall's in the uk is continuing unabated as we are about to enter 2017....in addition to the thirty-five kingdom halls highlighted by the search a couple of months back.....it seems the cry has gone out to: "sell them faster!

faster!

Dreamerdude

The GB must have given up on any further growth in London. Once these expensive properties are sold, it will be impossible to buy land for new ones in the future. The same goes for Los Angeles. I suppose those who want to waste time in KHs will have to move to Ecuador or Africa.

22

Is it just for social reasons you remain?

by UnshackleTheChains in

as someone who has tried to fade on various occasions, i always end up attending meetings!

why is this the case you may ask?.

if i was single, i would have kissed this high control american religion goodbye many years ago.

Dreamerdude

UTC, thank you for your OP. It really struck a chord with me. If I can get my wife to wake up, I will be gone in an instant. I know we can build better friendships, and rebuild some friendships with good people who have preceded us out the door.