Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat 169 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  TonusOH

  It may take a few years to see the effect that the pandemic is having. Will the GB decide to stand pat and hope things fix themselves? Will they take any action to try to either accommodate or intimidate the rank and file, in the hopes of stabilizing the numbers or promoting growth? Past history indicates that they're not very good at judging things (ironically enough), since they are usually a group of old men who are insulated from the real world to a considerable extent.

  In the past, it has been their own arrogance and poor decisions that caused the numbers to drop, sometimes drastically. This time, it has mostly been a circumstance that has reduced the effectiveness of their primary recruiting tool. Can they get back to door-to-door preaching in sufficient numbers and dedicate enough hours to recover? Ten years, fifteen years... that's a long time (though at my age, it doesn't feel like a lot!). Lots of things can happen in that amount of time.
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  Reservations

  The problem the org faces, is that it takes sooooo long to make any noticeable changes. They need to revamp doctrine and practices quickly in order to stay relevant.

  But by doing that you are going to alienate huge swathes of the membership. But will they take a short term loss to stay relevant for the future?

  And what can they REALLY change?

  They can’t touch blood - Law Suits

  They can’t touch disfellowshipping - mass exodus / law suits

  They can’t touch 1914 without having a major overhaul of all doctrine - That will disillusion millions.

  Basically the 3 main areas that they need to overhaul in order to grow properly and become mainstream, are untouchable IMHO.
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  peacefulpete

  In the US, and most places, churches cannot be sued over internal matters of doctrine. Changes in doctrine do not change that. It's been tested many times.
• 

  Disillusioned JW

  Reservations, what if the WT continues having a disassociation policy but removes the shunning of the disassociated ones, and instead says that such ones are to treated the same way as worldly people are to be treated (instead of saying as disfellowshipped ones are treated), with the exception of still requiring JWs to avoid discussing spiritual matters with disassociated ones? Would that avoid extensive lawsuits? The change would likely result in many people (especially those with an inactive status) officially leaving the religion (by declaring themselves disassociated), but the WT might like that since it would mean that most of the unbelievers would be out of the congregations/organization. That would increase the percentage of people in the congregations/organization who are true believers and it would dramatically reduce the number of those classified as inactive.
  

  The exodus of numerous nonbelievers from the congregations/organization would not likely hurt the WT financially since the nonbelievers probably are not making financial contributions to the WT anyway.
  
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  peacefulpete

  A church is well protected and shielded from challenges to truthfulness or social value. A very recent case brought forth by new exMormon tried to bring a very well documented and argued case that church leadership were engaging in fraud through insincere misrepresentation of church history and the development of doctrine. She had straight-up confessions of withholding facts and burying inconvenient history but the court said it was out of their jurisdiction. Even the use of church funds that were collected under one pretense were spent on another were documented.
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  ThomasMore

  Unlike the years of growth that are now far behind them in the rearview mirror, WTC faces a near impossible uphill slog to recover - THE INTERNET.

  Like a child who builds sandcastles at low tide, WTC faced no formidable criticism in the pre-internet era. Some disputed but it was hard to find their criticism and WTC had the bully pulpit to counteract anything that "wicked apostates" brewed up in their caldron. But the high tide of the internet arrived and now eveything WTC builds get wave after wave of exposure from a vast assortment of scholars, exJWs, and human advocates who expose the nonsense, washing it away as fast as they can spew it out.

  The gig is up for WTC. They may not completely dissentegrate soon, but the writing is on the wall - Mene, Mene, Tekel and Parsin. Their Kingdom has been weighed in the balance and found deficient. Slaves are now leaving in droves as the shackles are broken. Sound familiar?
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  ThomasMore

  Gorb said "It's a fake report so in reality it is far more down."

  Gorb, I think we would all be shocked at the "REAL" numbers if they actually published them unvarnished. WTC has a poker face but the sweat beads are showing.
• 

  Gorb

  A rank and file, like me before PoMo, counts 8 hours a month preaching.

  So I would preach aprox 104 years to get in a new member.

  That's not good, the local rarety society's like stamp collectors, cats and dogs and honkey tonk piano society does better.

  So the weekly training / brainwash in KH and broadcasting are proved a useless tool.

  The Awake university is significant time wasting, but we knew that already.

  G.
• 

  Reservations

  Even if the organisation can not be sued for changes in doctrine and policies, they will never change the doctrine and policies that NEED changing.

  Blood

  Disfellowshipping

  1914

  All 3 of those need revising to make this religion more palatable for new prospects. On top of that younger people are less likely to join or stick around due to the hard stance on LGBT, which is another thing that will not change.

  But, you make a major change on any of those and you’ve got more than a leaky ship.

  The GB are in between a rock and a hard place. Their average age is 72/73 so my guess is they will continue to patch up the leaks, and leave the mess to the next generation of GB to clean up.
• 

  slimboyfat

  Unlike the years of growth that are now far behind them in the rearview mirror, WTC faces a near impossible uphill slog to recover - THE INTERNET.

  ThomasMore I can’t understand that. How can you say: “the years of growth that are now far behind them” when they literally grew by 0.4% this year. They have grown every single year, except from one pandemic year, of the last 40 years.

  Since the Internet became widely used around the year 2000, they have grown from 6 million to over 8 and a half million. Even in the United States and Europe they have grown in the Internet era.

  To talk about JWs being in decline when they are practically the only church that is still growing is bordering on delusional. Maybe in people’s minds “decline” means “lower growth than in the past”, or else it means “decline that is certain to begin any day now” (a bit like Armageddon). In the plain meaning of the word, other churches are declining, JWs are not.

  I don’t know why stating facts seems to upset some people here, while inaccurate statements about JW “decline” are wildly popular. Growth or decline doesn’t correlate with “truth”, and it doesn’t make your decision to leave or join any group right or wrong.