by kneehighmiah 27 Replies latest jw friends
7,965,954—Jehovah’s Witnesses
Just be glad WT hasn't rounded this up to "9 million".
Since WT is no doubt fudging the real numbers anyway, statements placing the number of JWs anywhere between 7.5 million and 8 million is perfectly acceptable. No point in arguing fictitious statistics.
The Memorial attendance is from 2013 - which is less than for 2011 (19,374,737). I don't think they've yet "released" the 2014 Memorial attendance.
Of course, the "Fast Facts" do not include the yearly increase in those taking the emblems who allegedly have the heavenly hope. Some increases are a tad uncomfortable to publicize. Moving right along...
BTW, that JW.org has a blurb called "Fast Facts" is unintentionally revealing: There's a common journalisitc expression that reads something like, 'playing loose and fast with facts' which describes something that is deceitful. Oops
It's possible the WT study article was based on a convention talk from 2013. The WT is notorious for not updating talk-based WT study articles, leaving them with outdated information.
*** yb79 p. 23 1979 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses ***
There has been an overall 1.4-percent decrease in the number of Kingdom publishers.
*** yb78 p. 32 1978 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses ***
Kingdom preaching activity from 216 countries under the supervision of 96 branches reached a peak of 2,223,538 publishers. This was a decrease when compared with the year 1976.
I can't believe that there are 8 million people. It is growing and I really don't know what the appeal is now that I am out-it totally lacks appeal-I can't justify any reason to go into it if you start on the outside.
Kids-they are stuck, but grownups? Please.
I think the growth, if that's what it is, is coming from young family members- I mean really young. When I would go to the conventions I would point out to the friends that went with me that the baptismal candidates were so young they had to be children of Witnesses, and not converts found in the door-to-door work.
Actually the growth rate has slowed. They should be over 10 million if they had the growth rate of the early 90s. Baptism numbers I've been receiving indicate a growth rate of under 2%. Nothing to brag about. Also remember they count unbaptized publishers, many of whom are kids who never get baptized and eventually leave.
blondie-
I remember how discouraged I was when those decreases took place in 1977 and 78. In the US it dropped by 3% both years.
They don't fudge the numbers, if they did they would not report decreases.
But the writers always get the size of the Wallkill printery wrong in the km and w.
Like everything else, the growth has been outsourced.
It's a lot cheaper and more effective to recruit starving Africans than affluent people.
Growth coming from poorer nations works against them since there are no donations coming from those witnesses. The society has to keep subsidizing the cost to send them literature and build khs for them.
Meanwhile less growth in affluent nations means fewer donations coming in.
