Governing Body: The growth we have is a sign of Jehovah’s blessing.

RULES & REGULATIONS

This looks like your typical Watchtower Study meeting. Lots of empty seats.

Twenty-five years ago my old congregation had around 180 congregation members. The elders decided to split the congregation in two. One north of the city and one further south.

In the last twenty-five years, with some members moving to different States, some disfellowshipped and many deaths, I was told that both congregations will regroup, and become one again due to lack of elders.

The Watchtower Society talk about growth. But out on the street, many congregations are being sold due to lack of members and not enough contributions to keep some congregations running. ( Don't forget some are being sold to settle pedophile lawsuits)

Indoubtbigtime

Some congregations in London now have sisters doing microphones as there are only twenty in person at the hall

LostintheFog1999

If there are so many people coming in, why are they merging congregations and selling kingdom halls?

joe134cd

I have cut and pasted this from another thread that I commented on…

I saw a similar thing in my local area, with regard to the aging population of JWs. I have been physically gone from the JW religion, for just over a decade. Prior to this I spent about 18-24 months as a PIMO. During this time I was assigned the task of counting the meeting attendance. 4 things really stood out to me.
(1) at any given meeting there was an average of 20-25% of publishers who weren’t there.
(2)If you had the Sunday afternoon meeting there were virtually no under 25 year olds present. Guess they had better things to do.
(3)I too noticed a similar thing to the previous poster. At least 2/3 of the congregation were 50 years or older. I also noticed particularly at conventions the absence of those in the 18-30 year old bracket.
(4)The were no elders in my congregation who didn’t have a full head of grey hair.
Generally speaking I found it an aging religion. Where by a quarter of that membership was absent. Bearing in mind that this is ten years ago. I’d hate to think what it looks like now. I’m just so glad I got out when I did.

ThomasMore

That cong looks to be having amazing growth! They may be ready to split soon. Time to build a new KH to accomodate them - who can give something for the cause?

Years ago, I extrapolated the age of our BOE and brought it up several times - no one cared at all. Since then, they have struggled to find qualified men, the COBE is immature, and pubs won't share pics of meeting because attendance is so bad. I wonder how they function at all.

They are a reflection of the majority of congs in the US - ready to collapse. For WTC to claim -1% shrinkage in the US is laughable. Since I left, the numbers are surely 60% what they used to be. As for attendance in person, somewhere closer to 20%.

If someone tries to tell you something different, offer to sell them beachfront property in Florida 1000 ft from shore (out in the water).

Hellothere

Speaker in congregation said people were throwing themselves to get into organisation 😂 I looked around and hall was more then half empty. Wonder what substance they use will writing speeches and articles. It's becoming real redundant.

jhine

Sisters doing microphones !!! Who heard of such a thing ?

Any other Christian group have women ministers or lay readers. Or just women doing readings and prayers .

To be fair most churches have falling numbers or no increase . My own local church has kept steady numbers , but no growth .

Jan