New Yearbook stats for 2007 now out! (page 10)

Mary

The ministry has changed. Instead of the Society printing material for the public with the Witnesses distributing it, now the Society's focus is on printing material for the Witnesses. They're one small step from discontinuing door to door soliciting. I expect in time they'll just have a membership list like most other churches and then watch the numbers go up.

Excellent post Gary........however, I would be stunned beyond belief if they ever stopped the door to door soliciting, even though it's a useless method of recruitment. That would give Witnesses a free day of the week and more time to themselves. The only reason it's still being done is to keep control of the R&F, even though the Governing Body must realize they're not getting any new recruits by using this ancient method.

If they ever did discontinue the door to door sales, I'm betting that they would almost certainly replace it with yet another Meeting or useless activity.

Thanks for posting these figures Randy!

steve2

No growth except in poor countries like Mongolia Madagascar, Azabizan etc.

Hey 007, that's not quite accurate.

Contrary to recent trends of zero and even negative growth, average publishers in several Western countries had increases - albeit small - in the 2007 report:

My country, New Zealand, for example, increased 2% after several years of negative growth or at most 1% growth. It may not be a big deal - and we might have all sorts of excellent reasons for doubting the accuracy of these reported increases - but let's not gloss over what the report does show.

BTW, despite New Zealand having a 2% increase in average numbers of publishers, the total number of hours (2,221,000) is way down on what it was back in 1992 when it was over 2,500,000 and there were fewer JWs.

steve2

The cow's in the barn, now they just have to milk it. Think these guys are smart enough to make money off of over 100,000 offices and seven million customers? I'd have to think yes to that. The doctrinal change stuff is just an excuse to keep printing up new product. The changes create the market.

Excellent points, Gary. The metaphor of milking the cow that's in the barn is apt. The basic weakness in the Watchtower Society, however, remains the very high turnover in active members - especially among those who were born and raised in the religion. It's the familar story of what happens to the zeal when a religion starts to become old and irrelevant.

The significant loss of young ones raised in the religion is well documented. Locally, it is not unusual for elders (now literally older men) in good standing in the congregation to have "lost" all their children to the "world". It really is the exception when an elder can boast - and boy, they do! - when their children remain "in the truth".

MissingLink

Ireland had a 6% increase, but I can tell you this is definitly due to massive immigration from Poland, Brazil, and Nigeria.

PoppyR

I cant get away from the fact I'm very disappointed with this report!! I KNOW the figures are probably cooked etc etc, but ultimately the JWs will use it to crow over for the next year. And I may be naive, but I dont think they're cooked any more than normal, it's just been a good year for them.

Looking back on my statistics chart it's a similar year to 1998, even right up to the average hours being up on the previous years. No doubt we will have a downslide next year, I'll put money on it.

The point that has stuck with me and I will use mercilessly? Is the one about how many more people were born this year, and how many more witnesses, translate that to each year so many more million will have to die because God 'waited' as he wanted to allow enough time for more to be saved..

Poppy

sir82

Yep, absolutely, it is immigration that explains the vast majority of the increase.

Who is it that immigrates? The poorest of the poor, the desperate ones that would be dead from starvation or execution by gangs/guerillas within 5 years anyway. These were not the ones being converted in their home countries - when you have to work 14-18 hours a day, 7 days a week just to feed your family, there is no time to "study", attend meetings, go out in field servce, etc.

So, they go to their new country. They can work a "mere" 8-12 hours a day and earn a year's salary (by their country of origin's standards) in a few weeks. For the first time ever in their lives, they have free time on the weekends, maybe even a few free weeknights.

Now here come Joe and Suzy Need-Greater offering them magazines in their own language - the first printed things in their own language they've seen since arriving. Joe and Suzy offer to take them to this Sunday's meeting, where they are "love-bombed" into an instant community of dozens of people exactly like themselves.

It's a highly appealing offer, and quite successful. It is why the WTS is empahsizing over and over for publishers to learn another language and change to a foreign-language congregation. Witnessing to recent immigrants is the one and only perfect setup for the Witness model of door-to-door preaching.

So long as there are economic imbalances in the world and lax enforcement of immigration policies, expect to see similar increases in the years to come.

Of course, there will soon be new, different problems. All these recent converts lack "spiritual maturity" so there will not be enough elders to govern the flock. Many are "illegal immigrants", and so can't serve as elders or MS. Watch for a spate of "Brothers, you should be reaching out" articles over the next 5 years.

But for now, the WTS will crow contentedly about "Jah's rich blessings" and the rest of their usual claptrap.

steve2

Yep, absolutely, it is immigration that explains the vast majority of the increase.

I agree. Here in New Zealand, the congregations growing the fastest in our largest city Auckland are comprised of Asian immigrants, many whose second language is English. Subtract from the figures iimmigrants from 3rd world countries and you'd be hard pressed to see any meaningful increase.

To me it is very telling that these days we just don't see the JWs out door knocking as much as they once did. Sure, I spotted them in our neighbourhood just over one year ago, but nothing since - and certainly no assiduous follow-up of the not-at-homes that witnesses of yesteryear would pursue like crazy.

bennyk

The U.S. posted a 3% increase -- no doubt due to massive increase in the illegal alien congregations.

I am not so very certain that will play well in the numerous englisch-speaking congregations that have suffered significant losses in the past few years. Perhaps this report will actually be bad for morale in those congregations where for years they've seen little or no positive response in the Field Ministry and have watched as an entire generation of "raised-in" JW youths has evaporated.

nelly136

i was trying to remember how many jws there were back when i was a dub

so i borrowed this off of jwfacts site

http://www.jwfacts.com/index_files/1975.htm

year publishers % growth 5yeargrowth

1970 1,155,826 9%
1971 1,256,784 27%
1972 1,592,793 4%
1973 1,658,990 6%
1974 1,758,429 15%
1975 2,021,432 8% 75%
1976 2,179,256 3%*
1977 2,248,390 - 1%
1978 2,223,538 - 2%
1979 2,182,341 0%
1980 2,186,075 4% 8%

2007 Average Publishers Preaching Each Month: 6,691,790
Average Home Bible Studies Each Month: 6,561,426

its taken them 37 years from 1970 to add a measly 5 million ish?

http://www.lovemytown.co.uk/Populations/TownsTable1.htm

so if you took every jw in the world and put them in one place they'd be about the equivalent of glasgow

but smaller than london?

2112

Someting that I havent seen mentioned - the $121,000,000

During the 2007 service year, Jehovah's Witnesses spent over $121 mil-
lion in caring for special pioneers, missionaries, and traveling overseers
in their field service assignments. ¦ Worldwide, a total of 19,581 or-
dained ministers staff the branch facilities. All are members of the
Worldwide Order of Special Full-Time Servants of Jehovah's Witnesses

Where can we get the numbers of these ranks to see how much money is really "supporting" them? Do the 19,581 branch workers get part of the $121 million? Or are they on a seperate payrole? Does it include Patterson, Bethel and the GB? If not how much is spent on them. If we could "follow the money" it would have a lot of impact on the r&f I believe. If we could show folks from the WT own numbers that they are being riped off it may shake quite a few of them up. It's easier for the WT to "steal" someone's conscience on religous matters but if we could show/prove that the WT is taking money from them and misusing it, that could be invaluable.

New Yearbook stats for 2007 now out!

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