Talk was about appreciating Jehovah's provisions, something like that...
The PO gave the talk. Apparently, after the last CO visit, our congo got a letter from headquarters, informing us that our numbers are wayyyy down. Several inactive publishers, several more irregular, poor meeting attendance, and our hourly average is less than the national average (8.3 compared to 9.9). He said that to his recollection, he has never seen a letter of this type ever come from headquarters in his years as an elder.
He then proceeds to give an illustration of someone hiring workers for a project. They get all these provisions and such from the job, but after a while, they start to slack off, but still expect to get the same provisions as before.
I had to laugh at that one. How about an illustration from the point of view of the workers, who sign up for a job with promises of a fantastic paycheck at the end, complete with a brand new home, perfect health, and eternal life. Except the foreman keeps reporting that the check has been delayed again, and again, and again; who says that we should be grateful we have such a job anyway; that he's surprised that we would be so crass as to hiring on simply for the goal of the paycheck; who keeps "simplifying" the benefits so that whatever the workers used to get, the tools that they use, the conditions they work under, keep getting worse every year; oh, and some overseers from the company have been sexually attacking the children of the workers. Gee, I wonder what the morale, work ethic, and absentee rate would be for a work crew dealing with all this?....
I was surprised at the statistics(don't have exact numbers, didn't have a pen). Sounded like about over 20% missing at any meeting. Tardiness was a big issue too. Over 20 people showed up late last Sunday alone! (Except for me. I wasn't there. I was watching PBS and getting a better education than the Awake has to offer...)
This used to be one of the most gung-ho congos in the area. Always seemed to be the host congregation at the Circuit Assemblies, the CO would bring the DO to our hall when he came down from the mountain to speak with us mere mortals. The PO has got to be feeling the weight of the shame for this happening "on his watch". (I don't have any particular hard feelings toward him. He seems decent enough, has been a Witness since he was a kid back in the 50's. I understand he's hard to deal with as a PO for other elders. One elder stepped down, and quit going altogether a while back, because he was getting all the $hit assigments and being sent to Bumf*** Egypt as a visting speaker all the time, instead of it being fairly distributed. But that's another story).
Anyway, I think it's another showing of the cracking and peeling of the facade. But until the ones running the show actually show an real understanding of the underlying reasons why enthusiasm is dimming, it's not going to improve.