making sense of report (page 2)

Mulan

Back in the 50's, and maybe 60's, they actually included disfellowshippings on the annual report.

I had to amend my figures a little but the results are the same. If we assume that only 33% of of those who became inactive were DFd or DAd the change is minimal. The number of thoe who return after DF and DA has been suggested to be more like 40% not 90% as I used in my calculations. I was told that this was arrived at by taking those who were DFd at LEAST once and who presently arereinstated. If so then the fact that many DFd people haved been DFd 2 or more times would create the disparity. If however the figure 40% reflected the simple number of new disfellowshippings compared with reinstatements in one given year then it does not consider the widly fluctuatingy number of inactive publishers into account. The 90% number and the two year average time to reinstatement was what I was told and it works when I do the numbers. If it is wrong then the 15 minute provision must have been more successful than I guessed above. Perhaps each congregation averaged 1.5 or 2 old/sick ones who resumed reporting now that they can hand a nurse tract and be considered active. Any way you look at it the 3% are largely not actual new JWs. If you take the average percentage of growth over the past 5 years or so you find that it amounts to about 1%. This is about the percentage of growth in population for the population of the U.S. and therefore there is no growth at all, it is merely holding it's ground through baby making. In fact as compared to previous years a larger portion of the increase is from unbaptised children of JWs, this implies more baby making than previously yet fewer of those children becoming baptised.

Edited by - peacefulpete on 10 February 2003 14:4:24

Edited by - peacefulpete on 10 February 2003 17:3:22

Edited by - peacefulpete on 10 February 2003 17:10:10

Edited by - peacefulpete on 11 February 2003 0:11:55

NameWithheld

. Arguements otherwise are welcome but I think this explains why they show a 3% growth this year when the number of baptised actually greatly fell as it has been doing each year for years now.

Bingo - the hit on the 'real' stat that JWs should be, but aren't, concerned with. I think we have seen that a fear of world events combined with a huge push to 'force' inactive JWs hands (15 min rule, stress on elders trying to reactivate people, etc) has served to temporarily create a blip in the JW stat machine. But they are drawing on an mostly empty well, I mean, they are 'reactivating' the 'weak' ones, who are the most likely to return to an inactive state. The real force behind an increase would drawing in outside people, which would be evidenced by baptism #'s. Much like the great stock bubble I think that this 'increase' can only tap out a very exhuastable resource.

Of course, I say all this from a pure marketing standpoint, which suits what the WTBTS is doing perfectly.

onacruse

http://www.jwic.com/stat.htm has some interesting stats for the last 14 years. A quick summary:

Year	Avg Publishers	Baptized	Expected Publishers	Difference
1987	3,300,000
1988	3,500,000	280000	3508400	-8,400
1989	3,700,000	310000	3742032	-42,032
1990	3,900,000	350000	4010191	-110,191
1991	4,100,000	350000	4272988	-172,988
1992	4,300,000	350000	4530528	-230,528
1993	4,500,000	340000	4773117	-273,117
1994	4,700,000	370000	5040255	-340,255
1995	5,000,000	390000	5321650	-321,650
1996	5,200,000	420000	5626817	-426,817
1997	5,400,000	440000	5945480	-545,480
1998	5,600,000	370000	6189171	-589,171
1999	5,700,000	380000	6437787	-737,787
2000	5,800,000	340000	6642232	-842,232
2001	5,900,000	310000	6813187	-913,187
2002	6,000,000	310000	6980723	-980,723

I rounded off the numbers for "publishers" and "baptized" to my best guess of the chart scale. Also, for the "expected publishers" I assumed a 2% annual mortality rate.

Unless I'm totally missing something here, these stats indicate that close to 1,000,000 baptized JWs are out just over the last 14 years. The blood-letting of post-1975 adds several hundred thousand. Add those from the 50s, 60s, early 70s and early 80s...comes close to the 1.8 million I mentioned in the other thread.

Craig

Revised/corrected:

Year	Avg Publishers	Baptized	Expected Publishers	Difference
1987	3,300,000
1988	3,500,000	250000	3514500	-14,500
1989	3,700,000	260000	3736755	-36,755
1990	3,900,000	300000	3996387	-96,387
1991	4,100,000	300000	4253424	-153,424
1992	4,300,000	300000	4507889	-207,889
1993	4,500,000	300000	4759810	-259,810
1994	4,700,000	310000	5019112	-319,112
1995	5,000,000	330000	5295621	-295,621
1996	5,200,000	360000	5599065	-399,065
1997	5,400,000	370000	5909374	-509,374
1998	5,600,000	300000	6147281	-547,281
1999	5,700,000	310000	6392708	-692,708
2000	5,800,000	290000	6615881	-815,881
2001	5,900,000	270000	6817022	-917,022
2002	6,000,000	270000	7016152	-1,016,152

Edited by - onacruse on 11 February 2003 9:52:35

peacefulpete

Well it was necessary to amend my numbers again. I'm sorry if I confused anyone. I had switced 2 years around but the actual calculations remain the same. But I do believe that the numbers reveal that ultimately the increase was not do to the number of baptised as much as the number of reinstated and reactivated.

peacefulpete

I know my post was confusing but Idon't get yours at all onacruse. The baptism figures for the last few yearws are way off. The trend tward lower baptism numbers is evidenced by the last few years About 29,000 were baptised in U.S in 2002, 27,000 in 2001, 30,000 in 2000, 32,000 in 1999 and 37,000 in 1998. Thing are slowing not "speeding up".

Edited by - peacefulpete on 11 February 2003 2:12:45

Utopian_Raindrops

One thing I know they are doing is allowing young children to be baptized!!

I personally know children as young as 11 who have been baptized.

So if every family gets their young children to take the plunge can you imagine how high their numbers could appear!!!

When I was a convert one thing I liked about JWs was no child baptisms.

Seems in the name of keeping numbers rising theyve thrown good sense out the window!!

Can you imagine Jesus at 12 having the responsibility to preach and teach?

He was a good child I am sure but still he once got separated from his parents and worried them!

Such underhanded tactics will cause the WT too have to lighten up on their oh so rigged rules. Otherwise they will have mass disfellowshippings someday!

My 2 cents.......

Ciao 4 now

U_R

Edited by - Utopian_raindrops on 11 February 2003 1:11:44

TheOldHippie

onacruse, your figures on persons baptized are false, they are way too high! For example, in 2002 there were some 265,000 - and not "your" 310,000. So it is throughout your tabulation. A mortality rate of 2 % is strangely high - in the Western world it is 1 %, and although there are quite a few Witnesses in Zambia and Botswana, they wouldn't disturb that number that much as to need to souble it.

larc

A question for Utopian Raindrops, when did they only baptize adults? I was baptized at the age of 10, on my own volition back in 1950. My mother thought I was too young, but in my heart I believed. Most kids were baptized by the age of 15 back then. Edited to add: Old Hippie is right on this one. The world wide death rate of .9%. I think a better figure to work with is the growth rate, which is .4% for developed countries and 1.9% for developing countries. In both types of countries they are growing about as fast as the population, and that with millions of hours in their recruiting efforts.

Edited by - larc on 11 February 2003 1:47:28

Utopian_Raindrops

Larc,

When I was a study back in 1985 the Sister studying with me assured me no child baptisms like Christendom did.

She told me only grown ups like Jesus.

Was not until I was actually in did I witness earlier ones. Usually 14 or 15 like you said was common in the 50s.

I do know in the 50s it was not uncommon for girls to marry as young as 16 so I can see why they may have considered it ok to take the plunge.

One night while watching old Spin And Marty reruns Annette Funacello and Spin were sitting under a tree discussing how boys must wait till they are older to marry. So as to have gone to collage and be able to support a family, where as girls as young as 16 could wed since they did not need collage!

My father was 16 and my mother 18 when they married.

So being 15 and baptized in the 50s is no problem in my mind.

Still Larc even for the 50s You Were Too Young!!!

Ty for the query!

Ciao 4 now,

U_R

making sense of report

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