Jeffro - They just can’t be directly compared with datasets that count membership differently.
This is simply not true:
I've broken the video into time slots to give a more definitive and direct answer. The video is fascinating, and may force us to rethink our position on JW statistics. I would hope that MR JWFACTS will read this as well. The real discusion on statistics is from the 21min - 1:45 mark.
21-31min A similar observation is made, to Slim, with regard to church attendance. The exception is that he was a Mormon Bishop covering two Australian states.
i have argued many times that number of congregations is the best statistic for comparison for number reasons.
50min - 1hour They support slims argument on counting congregations.
1:33 - 1:44 Activity rates in the UK at around 14.7% of the 188,000 members claimed by the LDS. Interestingly he makes the statement that there could be 30,000 active members in Australia. Considering that the Australian JW figure is 67,000, could reflect JW membership is considerably higher at an international level.
1:03 - 1:07 If it wasn't for Africa the LDS would of been in decline 4-5 years ago. In recent times the LDS has only just managed to grow by 1%. I think the JWs have grown by just over 1%. Lets just say their growth is comparable.
1:30 - 1:32 Units opening and closing around the world. Europe in decline. Growth in Africa. Mixed bag in north America perhaps indicating inaccurate counting by the church. South America not looking good. Asia in decline.
00:42 - 00:47 Phantom LDS members in Polynesia. Tonga could end up having more LDS than what live on the island due to inaccurate counting methods.
00:36 - 00:39 unnecessary buildings been built that cant be supported by the local members.
1:45 - 1:50 Its wealth. It has annual income of $US400 billion that it generates off its assets. WT is nothing compared to wealth of the LDS.