-0:6 negative growth 2020 service year (page 5)

slimboyfat

If they have lost nearly 650 congregations in two years just in the US imagine how many they have lost worldwide?!

The number of congregations is up slightly worldwide. The fact that number of congregations has been declining faster in the United States than almost anywhere else is probably a good indication that the consolidation of congregations and the sell-off of Kingdom Halls is motivated by a need to liquidate assets in the country where those funds are most easily sent to headquarters and where property values are highest.

In other words, to state the obvious, reducing the number of congregations, and Kingdom Halls, in the United States has more to do with generating money, than it does rational or considerate organisation of local congregations.

This was pretty much borne out in the instructional videos that told publishers not to complain about congregation reorganisation that didn’t make sense or that made things difficult. Just accept it, or else be labelled a troublemaker.

road to nowhere

Shphherdess

They have a letter stating that if you can get in 15 minutes (imagined?) to contact the elders to mark you as active.

shepherdless

Thanks road to nowhere.

Jeffro

Several months of the ‘service year’ (started September 2019) were unaffected by COVID, so ‘peak publishers’ can be used as a relative comparison to the previous year. (However, ‘peak publishers’ is not a reliable indicator for absolute numbers as their method allows for people who submit late reports to be counted twice in a given month.)

Drearyweather

basically, you do confirm that the rapid growth of the congregations amount in India doesn't reflect the correspondent growth of publishers, don't you?

An increase or decrease in congregations doesn't necessarily mean an increase or decrease in publishers. In India, the increase in congregations was due to the reorganization done by the new branch committee. My own congregation of 201 publishers got split into 6 congregations last year.

Funky

Wow, punishing, brutal numbers for the WTS.

Obviously, everything must be measured in the context of the pandemic, but still...

To me the most telling number is the precipitous drop in Memorial attendance. Nearly a 15% decrease from 2019 to 2020.

Of course it was not possible to meet in person for the Memorial last year, and the protocols for using Zoom for meetings were still pretty new (and thus some technophobe JWs might have had issues signing on), and Zoom wouldn't be an option in certain 3rd world areas.

But still....15%!

The 2021 Memorial will also be virtual. Nearly all western-world JWs are used to signing onto Zoom now, and the WTS has had a full year to plan out how to do [something] for areas where the technology infrastructure is not set up for virtual meetings.

Attendance ought to be much higher in 2021 compared to 2020. Will it be?

closed

For SBF and Blues Brothers on the UK situation.

I think that the growth has been inflated by emigrants from EU. A CO told me that almost all of it has been JW from Poland moving in. The foreign field produced some newly baptised (mostly children, some relatives but proselytes as well). Now, many of them are moving back to their countries or other EU destinations because of Brexit and uncertain economics. I know couple of people waiting to be baptised. However, the young once do not want to take any responsibilities even if they are baptised. Many publishers are happy that they have more free time. It is more social group and it's hard to leave it. So, they decide to stay for friends and family, trying to do as little as possible.

-0:6 negative growth 2020 service year

slimboyfat

road to nowhere

shepherdless

Jeffro

Drearyweather

Funky

closed

nowwhat?

Achille

slimboyfat

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