JW presence

by Laika 8 Replies latest jw friends

  • Laika
    Laika

    The underground station I live next to in London is usually relatively quiet, however it is also the local station closest to the Wimbledon tennis courts, so for about 2 weeks a year it really comes to life, starting today. (Yay Wimbledon!)

    I saw no JWs last year, but they seemed to have cottoned on to this opportunity and were out in force today. I think they must have started planning ahead.

    Also as I was stood outside the station queueing to get in, the JW on the cart approached to offer me a magazine, I declined and told him he wasn't supposed to approach people, he ignored me and moved on to the next target. There was competition from the Jews for Jesus, who seemed to have no hesitation in handing out their tracts and I wondered if this had inspired the JWs.

    Meanwhile the underground station for my work has always been a busy area for proselytising, it's right on Oxford Street, the main high street in London and one of the busiest stations. I've seen everything from evangelicals to muslims and even scientologists outside. JWs have caught up to this as well and are now outside every day! It's a major frustration that I have to see JWs nearly every day of the week now, I can't get away from these people! Bizarrely JWs are the only proselytising group that never approach anyone, but they're also there more frequently than anyone else. I'm told they're at all the busy London stations daily.

    My point is that while you guys in smaller towns might not see the point in these carts, they're heavily targeting busy areas in major cities and increasing their presence. I don't know if this will be effective for them but I think I can see the logic behind this approach.

  • leaving_quietly
    leaving_quietly

    There's a reason it's called "Metropolitan Witnessing". The goal is to reach people they could not normally reach, and where people are. The weird thing about it is that only "qualified publishers" can participate. These are usually regular pioneers or elders. The rest of the JW publishers should count their blessings they aren't so "qualified".

  • Laika
    Laika

    I wonder if they'll start encouraging JWs to approach people soon. How qualified do you need to be to just stand in one spot?

  • sir82
    sir82

    If you have time, I'd be curious to know how successful their efforts are.

    I.e., if you have 15 or 30 spare minutes to observe them, how many people actually come up and take literature and/or converse with them?

    The WTS is constantly raving about how "successful" these carts are.

    Yet I have seen consistent reports on this site that the carts are by and large utterly ignored.

  • Laika
    Laika

    I will get up early one time and check it out sir, maybe even speak to one. What I'd really like to see is the JWs and the Jews for Jesus duking it out!

  • kramer
    kramer

    in a four hour session today, in a relatively busy area in a European capital , 450 magazines and 25 books were shifted. This is pretty representative, it may be quieter in smaller towns but in major metropolitan areas it gets the publications out there

  • Listener
    Listener

    That's really strange Kramer, they must actively shove the literature into people's hands.

  • Billy the Ex-Bethelite
    Billy the Ex-Bethelite

    "I've seen everything from evangelicals to muslims and even scientologists outside. JWs have caught up to this as well and are now outside every day!"

    The last time I saw JWs with a litteratrash cart, they were surrounded by other religious wackos. They blended in like just another flavor of crazy.

  • kramer
    kramer

    @listner - no following the usual rules of not approaching people. Another one I know of shifted 40 books on a Saturday afternoon, again in a central location in the capital city. I heard figures for a months placements recently, it averaged out something like 10 magazines per hour per publisher,17,000 hours worked, 170,000 magazines. Having said that I have also seen carts in provincial towns and the attendees looked pretty much asleep.

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