Poignant Statistics Summary for Comment at This Sunday WT Study! (Aug. 3, 2014)

by SAHS 39 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  factfinder

  A lot of people seem to have gone missing over ten years.

  But yes, you MUST be an active pubnlisher each month for at least 6 months before you can be baptized.

  The report in the yearbook gives:

  The TOTAL number of publishers who reported FS that SY whether baptized or not.

  Then, the break down, of the TOTAL number the number who:

  got baptized that SY

  were serving as reg pioneers (average month)

  were serving as aux pioneers (average month)

  All of these are already INCLUDED in the total pub figure (average & Peak pubs)

  Thats why you can't ADD the number baptized to the publisher figure. The number reported as publishers is already including all who got baptized that SY and who were pioneering that SY.

  The breakdown just shows OF the pub figure how many just got baptized during that SY. They were ALREADY counted as publishers before their baptism!
• 

  jwfacts

  Sorry, the second line should have listed the 2012 publisher figure. 2003 - 2012 is the 10 year period that the Watchtower quote refers to.

  2003 6,184,046 average publishers

  2012 7,538,994 average publishers

  Increase 1,354,948

  Baptisms 2,707,710

  Increase is only 50.04% of baptisms
• 

  stuckinarut2

  So, hang on...am I getting this right?

  They are boasting about the increase in numbers, but the numbers did not actually increase?

  Did these figures come from the wt or yearbook...ie official statistics from the org?
• 

  dropoffyourkeylee

  The difficulty with these statistics is that the ' number baptized' and the increase in number of 'publishers' do not measure the same thing. However, over time you would expect the two figures to move in the same direction and at a similar magnitude, after accounting for natural deaths. What is apparent is that there are a lot of people who 1) start publishing, 2) get baptized, 3) quit publishing. Since the time period between 2) and 3) varies a lot (over ten years in my case) it requires a lot of years data to support a trend.

  The percent of baptized / publishers has dropped to about a quarter of what it used to be back in the heydays of 70's thru early 90's. This is even more indicative of decline.
• 

  Xanthippe

  Sure it was 5 or 6 million when I left in 1989. Only 7.9 million now. WTF have they been doing in 25 years? Wasting peoples' lives that's what. Don't let them waste yours.
• 

  factfinder

  As time goes on the increases in Publishers become smaller. Yet the wt says Jehovah will speed it up as we get closer to the end.

  We must not be close to the end based on the increases! LOl !
• 

  SAHS

  UPDATE: I MADE MY COMMENT THIS MORNING.

  (Our congregation recently voted to actually try switching the Public Talk and Watchtower Study meeting to Saturday instead of Sunday, apparently to facilitate better success in the field ministry on Sunday morning rather than Saturday.)

  In my comment, I included all the statistics in my original post herein, plus the additional information kindly provided by “jwfacts” near the top of this page. And after the meeting, the few people I talked to actually just congratulated me on my in-depth statistical research – but nobody connected the dots with anything! I couldn’t believe it. I just publically summarized the fact that the actual “increase” is only 50.04% of the number baptized, and that the number baptized who stop publishing (baptism minus increase) was about 80,000 per year from 1981 to 2013, etc. – and people were still just, “Praise Jehovah”! I don’t get it. I mentioned every detail in my comment, and they just ate it up and didn’t seem to skip a beat at all. I think if I would have said that the Kingdom Hall was on fire, they would still have just been all, “Wonderful! Praise Jehovah.”

  It seems that people just will not connect the dots in there. I keep looking for an AC power cord coming out of their bodies, because I think the people are all manufactured by Walt Disney or something. (You know, those audio-animatronic show robots.)

  Anyway, my JW mom just told me regarding the people who stop publishing that it shows Satan is trying to turn people away. I gave her the little summary I composed and printed on my color laser printer after the meeting to see for herself. I haven’t spoken to my longtime, well-known elder dad yet today since the meeting. (He actually did the reading of the paragraphs during the Watchtower Study.) I hope that he will at least connect the dots, even if just in his own mind. Not really much hope, though. You know: God’s specially-selected organization, light gets brighter, who else is preaching the good news of the kingdom, where else would we go to get the truth, blah, blah, blah. Like talking to a dead chimpanzee, really. Oh well. At least I still have a good, and ultimately-economical, place to stay right now, even if it is under their roof. What can you do.
• 

  jwfacts

  Thanks for the update.

  And after the meeting, the few people I talked to actually just congratulated me on my in-depth statistical research – but nobody connected the dots with anything! I couldn’t believe it

  That is an important lesson. They want to believe, so look for the positives. They assume whatever it was you said must be positive, because no one ever is brave enough to express otherwise. It went over their heads so you must be deep. Your mother on the other hand realised what the statistics said, but had to come up with another explanation about Satan.

  I had the same with my parents. I discussed a lot of what was on jwfacts.com. My mother came up with illogical, circular reasoning to get around it. At other times she just simply refused to connect that dots as to the point being made. All that happened is that it destroyed my relationship. Instead of leaving and being a weak person, I became hated for being an apostate.

  Keep that in mind when dealing with your parents. They will be unlikely to allow themselves to draw the same conclusions that you have. But as your mother showed in her comment, she will begin to class you as being on the side of Satan.

  Stuckinarut - So, hang on...am I getting this right? They are boasting about the increase in numbers, but the numbers did not actually increase?

  Not quite right. They are Watchtower statistics, and the number of publishers did increase from 6 million to 7.5 million. However, the Watchtower article was boasting about the number of baptisms, when the actual increase in publishers was only half that number, so the growth is nowhere near what they are saying.
• 

  Listener

  The reaction you had SAHS is not surprising and demonstrates the idea that most JWs are not thinkers.

  Looking at all these statistics it never occured to me before that there is something very strange about the numbers they are printing. They don't appear to be stating the actual number of baptized JWs at any given point in time. That is, even though they state the number of baptized people in any given year, they do not give the total number of JWs who have been baptized and in that year are considered active.

  Rather they just provide the number of publishers at any given time, which includes people who are unbaptized. This would suggest that they are not really interested in acknowledging the number of people who have dedicated their lives to God but they are interested in knowing the numbers of those people that are working for their organization.

  They are basically saying that an unbaptized publisher is recognized as a Jehovah's Witness.
• 

  SAHS

  “jwfacts”: “They want to believe, so look for the positives. They assume whatever it was you said must be positive, because no one ever is brave enough to express otherwise.”

  “Listener”: “. . . they just provide the number of publishers at any given time, which includes people who are unbaptized. This would suggest that they are not really interested in acknowledging the number of people who have dedicated their lives to God but they are interested in knowing the numbers of those people that are working for their organization.”

  Very astute and insightful comments, guys! It only goes to show the organization’s true motives, and that its membership wants to believe in it at all costs.