Drastic Upcoming Changes? (accelerated by the pandemic)

JWTom

Hello All! Good to see you again! Much discussion now about the fallout that is coming due to impacts of the pandemic combined with the long-term downward spiral of JW.org. I am active as a PIMO and my wife is PIMI....much of our personal conversation and conversation with others in JW Land focuses on how things will play out for JW.org in the next 12-24 months. A few thoughts of mine and interested to see what you think. Some of these have been mentioned by others on here already and are spot on. Enjoy!

1. Permanent Ending of In-person Meetings

2. Sale of all (or most) Kingdom Halls

3. Massive consolidation of circuits: Current circuit size based on ability for a CO to visit twice a year and for the group to fit in a local auditorium facility - you no longer need all these crazy circuits and boundaries.

4. Massive elimination of COs: Remaining COs become fully remote and operating from a branch location via Zoom only. With an adjusted schedule using virtual meetings only, a CO could cover 2-4 congregations per week easily by having meetings on different days of week.

5. Permanent Ending of Door-to-Door Ministry: To be replaced by phone, letter writing and limited cart witnessing where possible. Note: Here in the middle of the U.S. cart witnessing is very limited - not something that would be a major focus.

6. Disfellowshipping/Shunning Ends Permanently: This would be replaced by something similar to the Public Reproof concept from days gone by.

7. Your thoughts?

St George of England

Very interesting. However, I think they need to keep Assembly Halls at least. If the members never meet in person due to having no KH's then the youngsters will leave en masse.

Assemblies and/or conventions is the place to meet up with other young available and possibly future marriage mates.

George

road to nowhere

6. Disagree they will ever tone down the threats. More likely to harden sanctions against " family business"

john.prestor

They'll go right back to what they were doing when this thing ends, as sure as they're sure they won't be sued. It's too difficult to keep people connected and motivated if they aren't interacting with each other.

FFGhost

They'll never stop in-person meetings (too much loss of control, thus while they will continue to sell some KHs, many will still be needed (so no. 2 won't happen). That also means 3 & 4 won't happen, at least not on the scale you wish for.

5. Nope. Not happening. Too valuable a tool to keep the drones hamster-wheeling

6. Nope. Not in a million billion quadrillion years. Fear of DFing is the primary weapon to keep control

7. Sounds like a wish list of things you'd like to see happen, but which won't happen

That said, I could - maybe - MAYBE - see them eliminate one in-person meeting per week. I.e., the "midweek meeting" remains as a zoom item, while weekend meetings are always at the KH. But even that I'd rate at less than 50% chance of happening. Other than that, back to "normal" as soon as practicable. Imaginative and creative these guys ain't.

iXav

They are already consolidating congregations and selling KHs. Circuit overseers (costing $$$$) will be reduced as the number of circuits is also reduced.

Mid week meeting will likely be online and a lot of JWs will thank Jay for such fine thoughtful blessing

D2D preaching will remain but as someone posted a few years back that the monthly ministry report will be abandoned. That means less pressure to preach and there will be no shame of reporting 1 or 2 hours per month. Another blessing from Jehovah. This is likely a possibility since they have reduced the magazines to only 3 per year. How are you going to preach(make your hours) without magazines?

Pioneering will continue but the hours are between you are Jah. This is already happening with pioneers told to abandon their monthly hourly requirement because of the pandemic.

More people will be kicked out of bethel and translation offices as they move from paper to video. There is also a good chance that public WT will be abandoned.

DFing will stay.

asp59

They not going back to before pandemic. Organization has been going downhill from abouth the middle 90s. This is there opportunity to make drastic changes. They lost control of elders and going online will give GB more control over congregation. They can sidestep the elders that way. Plus they been complaining for years abouth DFing people for small things. If they go online basically congregation arrangements will stop to exist, no need to DFing people anymore. CO arrangement haven't improved anything in congregations. They most likely remove it. Who knows what will happened if they go online. If it's gonna be good or bad. Continuing like they have before pandemic will destroy them.

iXav

They can sidestep the elders that way. Plus they been complaining for years abouth DFing people for small things. If they go online basically congregation arrangements will stop to exist, no need to DFing people anymore. CO arrangement haven't improved anything in congregations.

if you look at the JW as a business corporation that it is, there is no way to control that many people without middle management that the Elders/COs and Branches committees are.

nowwhat?

The only way they will eliminate df ing and shunning is if the courts make them!

iXav

They will not eliminate the DFing. In Belgium and France, some years back, they changed the wording for DFing from "Exclure" to Excommunication to match what the Catholic church uses as there were legal reasons not to "Exclude" someone. If the courts are going to go after the JWs, they will scream discrimination and say that the Catholic church does the same.

Notice the language use in the following question from readers. The basically said not we don't reject or exclude ex-JW we just want them to come back to their former faith...

Drastic Upcoming Changes? (accelerated by the pandemic)

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