World map showing net reduction in publisher numbers

by cedars 188 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  besty

  The following graph highlights the consequence of such a decrease on the number of Jehovah's Witnesses, and powerfully demonstrates the effect of compounding growth.

  The rate of growth of publishers has dropped from an average 5.64% per annum over the 15 years prior to 1995, to 2.55% in the 15 years after 1995.

  Had growth remained above 5%, the 4,950,344 Witnesses in 1995 would have exceeded 11 million in 2010.

  Instead, there were only 7 million in 2010 - a difference of 4 million people.

  Factors on conversion and retention, such as Internet education, resulted in growth of 2 million instead of 6 million, just one third of that expected in 1995.

  

  http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php
• 

  WTWizard

  Nice to see these negative numbers, especially in lands where they had been growing greatly. I might expect that in a country like the United Tyranny of Stupidity, Japan (a former showcase country), Brazil, and Italy. What is good is that even in countries like Nigeria, where Christian missionaries are drawn to like iron filings to a neodymium magnet, are showing big drops. It looks like the Washtowel Slaveholdery is dying.

  And I hope the other denominations of Christi-SCAM-ity are following. I would like to see the Cat Lick church fall, followed by all the major Protestant denominations. And, when they hound people to do missions in Nigeria, they are slowed way down with empty collection plates. (And big bills.) As for most of them going to Islam, if they don't quit their Sharia Law bullsxxx, they are next in line. And Judaism. It's the Age of Aquarius--we do not need religions that are going to stifle question-asking.

  Looks like Satan is winning that one!
• 

  mP

  @cedars

  kool :]
• 

  designs

  At least when someone joins the LDS cult you get pretty good business connections.
• 

  factfinder

  Cedars- thank you!

  I wonder what explanation the society gives for the fact that growth has slowed down to such a great degree?

  I remember we always were being told there would be bigger and bigger increases as we got closer to the end of this system.

  Yet as you have shown, there are constant decreases and the percentage of increase is nothing like it had been decades ago.

  I once heard that the number of unbaptized publishers was 25%.

  If more are putting off baptism that number would be higher.

  I don't know either why they do not provide information regarding how many non-baptized publishers there are each year.

  But this new GB is becoming ever more secrative. As you know the km no longer includes Theocratic News or the monthly FS report.

  I always looked forward to the monthly report in the km. I used those averages to compile a report of how many magazines were placed, the average Bible studies each month, baptisms, average publishers, total rvs, hours and regular, auxilary and special pioneers there were, and that was for every month. I could then see how many got baptized each year.

  I did this for every month for many many years.

  At times I'd even estimate the world total using these figures (for the US) and i was usually very close to the actual published figures that would come out in the yb each year.

  I could even use the magazine placement figures to estimate how many were printed that year.

  Now, the km does not give us that information.

  Do you remember when they used to tell us at meetings and assemblies to analyze the figures in the km each month, and try to at least match the national average each month?

  Up till 2005 the books, well, the ones for public distribution, always provided the latest edition and language figures, and it was updated each year. I used this information to figure out how many copies of each book were being printed each year. It was interesting,

  Then in 2005, figures disappeared. All you see now is 2011 printing, 2010 printing etc.

  I was surprised to see that the 8/15 w now online actually mentions that about 100 million books and Bibles are printed each year.

  This has been so since 2005, you'd think it would be something they'd be glad to mention-it is a huge amount.

  Instead, you rarely see any info published anymore about how many books they are printing.

  The new GB keeps making less information available.

  I wonder why?

  Thank you Cedars for the work you put into the world map.

  I'm sure most witnesses think there are increases continuing all over the world and never bother to actually read the statistics in the world report in the yb.
• 

  factfinder

  Thanks for the graph besty!

  It does seem the wts growth period is coming to an end.

  2014, 2015 and 2016 will no doubt see decreases in publishers as happened in 1977 and 1978- the fallout of the failed 1975 prophecy.

  But those decreases were rather small back then.

  It will be interesting to see what impact the 2014 period and the years right after that have on the zeal of the publishers.
• 

  exwhyzee

  I would be curious to know how many of the 263,131 baptized were raised as JW's . This would tell you how effective or ineffective the door to door work is compared to the "in house" indoctrination we have all been a part of.
• 

  MrFreeze

  Awesome.

  Is that just active publishers or is this counting inactive ones as well? I wasn't DF but I became inactive in 2011 so am I among the numbers of lost?
• 

  cedars

  Thanks factfinder - it is noteworthy how the Society has reduced the amount of information it is divulging, particularly in the KMs. It always used to make me laugh how the average hours for regular pioneers was always well below 70, and yet we pioneers were urged to get our full hours even under difficult circumstances. I believe things are even stricter now for those pioneering, and the Society's mantra seems to be "if you're finding it difficult to pioneer, then don't". This strikes me as counterproductive, because having loads of people TRYING to pioneer will always bring in more hours than a few people ACTUALLY pioneering. Nevertheless, it's their choice. As I said, I can see the yearbook report going the same way as the KM report, with a truncated version of the most flattering statistics produced on a single page, or maybe two. When this happens, you can bet your bottom dollar we've entered negative growth.

  Mr Freeze - as far as I can tell, the total publishers figure includes all reporting publishers regardless of whether they are baptized or unbaptized. It appears inactive ones or "faders" aren't included.

  exwhyzee - there is already an excellent indication of how effective (or ineffective!) the door-to-door work is, and this can be found in the "hours-per-baptism" figure, which you get by simply dividing the total number of hours by the total number of baptisms. The figure is an astounding 6,487 hours per baptism, which is equivalent to 9 months - the gestation period for a baby in its mother's womb. This means that, for every person baptized, it is taking 30 years of ministry hours according to the average monthly hours spent in the ministry per month, which is 18 hours. See my article below for a more detailed explanation...

  http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/under-the-microscope-the-watch-tower-societys-claims-to-divine-direction-part-1

  Cedars
• 

  yalbmert99

  Thanks a lot for this map!