At the risk of causing Qcmbr to get "puffed up with pride", I would like to note the following caculation. You see, when I once noted to my mother that other religions do door-to-door peddling (and therefore, JWs are not unique) and mentioned the Mormons as the prime (and arguable, largest denomination) example, she said Yes, but they only do it for two years! (i.e. she felt the measure of their sacrifice was insufficient).
So....
Mormon: (assume 7.5 hour days, five days/week, and two weeks off for holidays)
(2 years) x (50 weeks) x (35 hours/wk) = 3500 hours
JW: (assume the average dub with 10 hours/month)
(3500 hours) / (10 hours/month) = 350 months = 29.16 years
IOW, it would take the average Dub almost 30 years to get in as many hours door-knocking as the average Mormon who does it for "only" two years.
Now, I think it is pointless to try and compare these apples and oranges, but if someone (like my mom) uses time as the yardstick, then turn it around and use that same yardstick back against them.
~Quotes, of the "Talking through my hat" class
P.S. I first saw this posted by someone else on this board, but forget who; credit to whoever you are!
Mormon myth: The belief that the church is the fastest-growing faith in the
by Dogpatch 14 Replies latest jw friends
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Quotes
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Qcmbr
The stats aren't as kind as that!
work was 9:30 till 9:30 with 2 hours for lunch and dinner - 10 hours - 6 days a week + 6 Hours on Sunday. 66 Hours. Minus about 6 in meetings we get 60 hours work a week. No holidays.
60 * 52 * 2years = 9360 hours (minus what ever time sick - I never was)
In my mission at the time we had an average of 180 missionaries and we baptised on average 200 a month so:
(180 * 4.2(weeks)*60hours)/200 = 226 hours per convert
To further very roughly split this up : in that 60 hours of work would be:
4 hour service project.
About 5 hours travelling.
About 5 hours visiting inactive members.
About 2 hours pastoral activities (running cottage meetings / administering to sick / preparing for lessons)
10 hours Teaching the people to be baptised.
So knocking doors / street contacting time would be roughly 60 - 26 = 34.
It cost therefore roughly (180 * 4.2 * 34)/200 = 128 hours to find a new convert - two weeks of solid door knocking / street contacting. Now since those hours are shared by a companionship if you divide that number by 2 it means on average we found a new convert every (128(total proselyting hours per convert)/2(missionary companions))/24(hours in a day) = 2.7 nothing but door knocking days (had we knocked doors 24 hours long!)
er .. I'm naff at maths so don't believe any hourly figures I give you. -
vitty
Qcmbr
I wasnt trying to be horrid to you So HOW did you baptize 74 ppl? I really, really want to know. What is the process you have to go through. From that first knock at the door to being dunked???
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Qcmbr
Hi Vitty, I could be glib and say God did it but that wouldn't satisfy I guess:)
OK how to baptise loads of people. Its fairly simple really - you have to believe you can do it. There isn't any greater 'worldy' secret than that. All these self help conferences / firewalking classes etc.. all work on one ultimate principle - if you believe you can do something then its possible.
To clarify its no good saying you can do something when really you don't believe it deep down (ie saying you'll be the best sprinter in the world when your 90 , have had a leg amputated and have a pacemaker isn't going to work!!)
OK so you have someone who is religious which if your really converted to something means you believe right down inside so that bit is solved. Now that's how I am - I hope Tetrapod and Terry etc.. can undertsand where I'm coming from. So now when you have one person feeling like that and then you pair them up with someone else who feels like that you get a sum greater than the parts.
So now you believe totally that God has prepared people to join the 'true' church, you sleep, pray, breathe, bath, discuss and work with that sole focus and belief.This gives you your authority to do what you do.
Now you add to the mix a belief that people actually want to be happy and want to be saved (the same principle as knowing a dam will burst and people will be happy to be woken from their sleep and persuaded to leave after the realise the predicament even if they don't understand and find it annoying right now. Non-believers are just sleepy heads who don't believe the dam even exists.)This gives you focus and urgency.
Now out in this wide world there most people (and here's the controversial bit) are following quite blindly routines, chores, habits, fashions, patterns of thinking etc.. laid down by their social surroundings. Very few people are really 'awake' and aware of what they are doing - most are like zombies - watch people going to work day after day! There are very few genuine moments of real clarity and thought in most of our lives. So when someone comes to the door and gives you a zen moment sometimes people will respond.
Therefore finding people to accept discussions is fairly easy - you just have to ask the right question to stop the automatic 'not interested' responses (let's face it most people are really interested in the purpose of life, supernatural stuff, chewing over philosophy, doctrine, belief etc.. most people want to know the answers even if to them God isn't it.)
That was one of my skills, asking questions that stopped people in their tracks and made them think a bit ( I was quite successful with direct questions such as, Would you like to be baptised? Which of all the churches do you think has the truth? Do you believe in evolution? etc etc..)
Now I guess the nub of your question what is the process - in my day it involved 6 discussions, two interviews, a vist to church and then any time after that baptism by full immersion and the laying on of hands to give the gift of the Holy Ghost. Teaching styles would vary depending on who you were teaching but we'd start with a discussion on God and the plan (why we are here and where we are going) and a challenge to pray to find out whether what we said was true (especially Book of Mormon), in the next lesson we would discuss Jesus and the atonement and then challenge for baptism. Third discussion was First Vision of Joseph Smith and restoration of the Church. Fourth was Word of Wisdom (health Law) and challenge to live it. Fifth was law of chastity (no sex outside marriage) and Tithing (10% income to church), Sixth was enduring to teh end, committment to live a Christlike life and be fully changed to a new way of living. We porabably got 10% of people go through from initial discussion to baptism. It was really fast and then we'd be onto the next family.
As a final bit - apols about preachy bit - we witnessed a lot of very spiritual things were we all felt the same thing so strongly we'd be in tears, we'd leave people a little bit blown away because the experience was so different to eveything they knew before - I'll blow the missionaries trumpet a bit here - no one teaches like a fired up and sincere lds elder. I certainly don't anymore! I'm more focused on earning a wage and looking after my family now than converting anyone!
Finally I actually loved what I did and you can't fake that - if you hate going door to door that is what shows (see point 1 about deceiving yourself and how that doesn't work.) I loved seeing people wake up and thinkspiritually, to question why, how and what they could do - even if the didn't get all religious about it. Most of all though I loved to see peoples lives change for the better - every thing I tried to do was to spread a smile, lift up and improve and that in itself is utterly rewarding - you don't even have to be religious to do it. -
IronGland
At what stage is a new mormon given their 1st pair of sacred underwear?