by Roger Kirkpatrick 69 Replies latest jw friends
Crazyguy -
Theres less then 4 million baptized jws world wide and their getting smaller by the minute imo
Were in the world are you getting that number?
240—Lands where Jehovah’s Witnesses worship
8,579,909—Jehovah’s Witnesses
10,079,709—Free home Bible courses conducted
20,329,317—Attendance at the annual Memorial of Christ’s death
119,954—Congregations
10,079,709—Free home Bible courses conducted
This stat is excessively exaggerated & is a crock of shit! WT wants JWs to count as a study someone you call back on and have a 5 minute or less conversation (about the family dog, the weather, how many times you crap a day...etc) on the front door step.
Actual one hour home Bible studies...where a JW sits down with an outsider to discuss the Bible has got to be extremely low. Not to mention that the above number includes make-believe studies JW parents have with their children.
20,329,317—Attendance at the annual Memorial of Christ’s death
This number includes disfellowshipped & their families, disassociated & their families, inactive & their families, return visits & their families, low-hour publishers & their families...last but not least your jarhead, staunch fully indoctrinated JW...of which there are around 4 million. 🤣
Slimboyfat,
But closing branches or bethels is not necessarily the same as selling the property. The one in Ireland ceased as a Bethel Home but is now used as a translation centre and a location for their new Kingdom Evangelisers training hub. The Bethelites have been thrown out onto the streets and the Bethel might have finished its role as the Ireland branch office but the building is still in use. Just saying.
I think you're pulling that figure of "4 million" out of your arse. No back up. No documentation. Just speculation. It's much more reasonable to accept their stated membership of 8 million. They do appeal to the downtrodden and they are making babies just as fast as everyone else these days.
More important in my mind is how many of the 8 million are "fictitious"? By that I mean, HOW MANY ARE NOT REALLY PUBLISHERS!
When the CO comes through, the Secretary calls Joe Irregular and gets Joe's field service time "up to date". Joe says he probably had 4-6 hours every month but just forgot to report it. SIX reports go in as six different publishers in that Cong record and not Joe is a regular publisher, in good standing. Bullshit. Joe maybe shows up one Saturday per month, says he has "his own group", and they go to McDonalds for a couple hours and have breakfast after making one "Not At Home" call and making one more as they leave McDonalds.
It includes all the PIMO's who turn in a token Field Circus report. It includes all the kids that just "ride along" all day, as well as all the adults who just ride around all day.
So in reality, there might only be 4 million WITNESSES who are really attempting to accomplish anything. Or less.
Like I said in my post the 4 million number is just my opinion but I base it on observation. It pretty common that cults inflate their numbers. But just look at the year books the only real thing we have to go on. Every year they show publishers and now just count the peek number which we know is bullshit. Also the Baptisted number looks as though it’s added to the publisher number the year they get baptized but the newly baptized one has already been counted as a publisher.
Then consider how many leave, 60 to 70 % of the young ones leave many never even getting baptized. That’s what happen in my hall with my peers and again with my sisters group 15 years younger. So the numbers are smoke and mirrors , more proof is the 3000 + halls their selling off more proof they don’t have the numbers.
So with that said that’s how I come up with the roughly 4 million mark. Just remember we can’t trust watchtower on their biblical teachings and we know they lie about what’s scholars have said also lie about other things so why would we not think their lying about their membership numbers ?!
ROGER KIRKPATRICK:
Even if it’s not a demise it is surely smaller and worse. Maybe all this bad publicity and tidal wave of lawsuits will accomplish is that the general public will become aware of what the JW religion is really all about! Their ‘holy mystique’ and facade will be gone...But, I think the diehards are there for life and not going anywhere. Fine with me because I’m just glad I’m NOT there anymore!
DESIROUSOFCHANGE:
I also tend to agree with you that whatever the remaining number of Jehovah’s Witnesses is claimed to be...it is doubtful they are all zealous..In fact, I’m sure most are doing as little as they can and are there because they are trapped because of family and job/business entanglements with other JWs.
Though I left the JWs 35 years ago, I doubt that things in the local congregations have improved much since then. But when I was Service Overseer, I noted that in our congregation of 95 publishers, only 10% were turning in 10 or more hours per month. 20% were reporting 5 to 9 hours each month. 70% were reporting 1 to 4 hours.
The hardcore 10% were actually reporting 60% of the congregations hours. Of the 12 teens in the congregation, 10 were just putting in an hour or two until they were able to leave home and leave the religion. So if this is typical of JW congregations today, I'd say that of the 8 million JWs reported by the Watchtower, less than one million are hardcore. Five million are just coasting, and of that 5 mil, over 800,000 are just putting in time until they can leave home and leave the JWs.
Again my observations are based on my experiences serving as an elder in the 1980s. Perhaps things are different in the Borg these days.
