by zed is dead 5 Replies latest jw friends
I just thought of another reason that they try to combine congregations at larger facilities than Kingdom Halls. We all know that the organization will lie when it suits them. I have a suspicion that they fudge the attendance numbers, and make up the growth. If you met in your own hall, you could visibly see that attendance at the Memorial is down, so combine the congregations so it is not as obvious.
Any others agree with me?
zed
We had our Memorial at an elementary school one time because our Hall was being remodeled. We were told to arrive on time and to leave promptly as there was another civic group scheduled to use the auditorium after we were done with it. The brothers showed up at the school about twenty minutes beforehand to set up the emblems on the stage. The school custodian was this hefty no nonsense bull of a woman and when she saw them carrying the bottles of wine into her school,she put the kibosh on everything. Apparently it's illegal to have alcohol on school property and no one had thought to check into that. The 3 congregations that meet at our Hall were arriving by the carloads. The brothers turned on the Christian charm and tried to explain that nobody would likely be drinking the wine. I'm sure they were expecting Jehovah's spirit to direct her to see the importance of the occasion but she wasn't having any of it. No alcohol on school property meant no alcohol whether it was being consumed or not. She gave them a few minutes to get it off the premises or she was calling the police. She was obviously being blinded by Satan so one by one the cars were directed away and told to head to the Hall. They had no choice. Panic...the sun was going down and there was nowhere else to go at such short notice. The Memorial was held Tribulation style, in the shell of the Kingdom Hall which was unsafe and illegal because we didn't have an occupancy permit, clearance from the fire dept. or proper lighting, not to mention there was building materials everywhere. This was a case where Cesar's law conflicted with a direct command from Jesus to observe the Memorial without fail. We felt extra virtuous and martyrish that year as we passed around the emblems and didn't partake of them.
No, I don't think so. Our cong. shares with two other congs. It's simply easier to have it elsewhere. The attendance for just our single cong. has been up significantly for the past two years, and we would not have had room in the KH for everyone. Some have come because of the invitation (but then you never see them again), some are family members of cong. members, and some come because their own cong. has it later and ours is more convenient.
The numbers are a total attendance, regardless of how many meet in a single cong. Like I said, ours has had a significant boost in the last two years, but a huge margin over years previous to that. It does not, however, account for organizational growth. Most who attend only come on that one night, and you never see them again.
Memorial attendance is quite good at many Halls, so I'm not inclined to see a need for this particular conspiracy theory. Using offsite locations is just a matter of logistics so some cong.s don't get stuck with a 10:30 Memorial. If anything, this simply points to how many Kingdom Halls are over-saturated with congregations, which is no doubt due to an attempt to save money on new Halls.
Great story, Exwhyzee.
I was in a congregation that met at a school auditorium. I don't think the thought of "no alcohol" was ever brought up.
The auditorium was huge. We typically had 4 or 5 congregations there. Often, we had 600 people there. Parking was really the hardest part. That number seemed huge, but it actually included only a small percentage of non-members. By the huge number, people tended to think it was a huge success for inviting newbies.
Yeah, don't go reading conspiracy theories into everything.
As noted, many congregations go offsite because of 3, 4, or even 5 congregations meeting at a single Kingdom Hall. If they all used the Kingdom Hall you'd have Memorials lasting until past midnight.
