David said:
Well in the average attendance in the NY congregation that I attend was a 225 in 2010 and the average number of publishers is 91. That number of course, does not count the children who are preach but are still in training and are not counted...nor the new ones that are studying the Bible with the Witnesses, some of which are now preaching to the relatives. When I was in Dallas, I visited a congregation there. The attendance that Sunday was 389. My friend said attendance is usually averages about 330, and they have an 120 publishers.
OMG - please stop, stop, if I laugh any harder I'll wake the neighbors. [Panting for about 10 minutes .. catches breath.. breaks out into hysterical laughter again for another 15 minutes ... ok, ok, I'm good, I've got it under control ... nope ... holding it - holding it - Bwahahaha - breaks out again into more uncontrollable laughter... for another 30 minutes ... laughing so hard I'm crying now - wife wants to know what's wrong... Finally eases - and definitely stopped now. ok good for the time being as long as I don't read the post again]
Seriously - you are a joke. One thing for sure, if your #s are off even off by 50% it's still too high - but if the avg. attendence is higher than pubs I know one thing for absolute certain, especially in Dallas, here is the fact: wait for it, wait for it: these are not English congregations. Probably spanish and you're leaving that out.
Let's do some quick math here: for the congregation you attend, you say you have near 250% attendence. Now lets look at 2010 US memorial attendance: the meeting where the attendants count all the neighbors and DFd children's babies who only go that meeting, and that meeting alone; hell they even count the picketing apostates like Rick Koolaid Man... let's see - I haven't looked yet - looking now ... right at, not 250% not 230% not even 220% but just eked out at 210%! This is from the website www.watchtower.org for 2010. So you say - your cong averages 250% when the rest of the country's memorial attendance isn't even near what your congregation averages???? Then you go on to say that you visit US congregations that are similar or greater than yours in average attendance - but the watchtower claims that they don't even get those numbers in the US for their biggest meeting of the year - the memorial???
Look I still am in contact with multiple COs and bethelites. They all say the same thing - English attendance in the US is down - even after cutting bookstudy. There are several active elders on here that will confirm. Spanish is up though, but that just confirms my point doesn't it? Without the immigrant population, particulary hispanics in the US, JWs growth would be negative - just like Japan. Japan's growth has stopped and will never get bigger, which is interesting because you would think a religion in all countries could at least keep up with population growth. Thanks to immigration growth in the US, and the JWs push to jump on them like fish in a barrel, the JWs have continued to grow. But the quality of their members is not the same. You can't even get the average Spanish JW to explain some basic JW teachings like how 1914 is calculated. I know, because a spanish CO recently said to me how he enjoyed having some deep discussions with me, because he just can't really do that with the friends in the Spanish. They haven't "spiritually matured" enough were his words.
But I'm glad you posted what you did. You seem to like pulling numbers out of your butt. Your last comment about attendance in the US shows you don't even think the watchtower numbers are right.
Oh and as for your college professors that became a JW - that's not really that impressive - there will always be those on the extreme side of things, even in college. Here are a few examples of college professors who do not impress me:
Ted Kaczynski
and
Amy Bishop
What we know as a fact - with the exception of a few extreme "I'm-acedemically-capable-but-still-need-to-be-in-a-cult" individuals, the vast majority of growth comes from those immigrants unable to access and process information that otherwise competent people do when they are asked at the door to look into JWs.
Anyway, glad I was able to help you get your facts straight. I gotta stop now, cause I feel another laugh attack coming on the more I try not to think about your ridiculous post. [Holding it ... Walking away .. thinking of Margaret Thatcher ... I'm walking. I'm walking]
