2018-Annual Service Report!

by Atlantis 42 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Solzhenitsyn
    Solzhenitsyn

    7-8000 hours in the ministry = 1 baptized. Ridiculous.

  • LV101
    LV101
    How can WT be one of Forbes' successful 10 (whatever) cos in NY (were/are) not know precisely how many stores they have and accurate production records. No one runs a business in that manner.
  • LV101
    LV101

    WTWizard - LOL but I like your analogy/reasoning/comparison. It is interesting and secretive.

  • Gorbatchov
    Gorbatchov

    Elders and MS are under a lot of pressure to pioneer. You need to have a good reason to go against it. In the month of the CO visit it is a must.

    So those pioneer numbers are going up and not because of free choise.

    G.

  • respectful_observer
    respectful_observer

    Knowing that more than 50% of baptisms are born-ins, one can safely double (at least) the hour estimate needed to covert one person.

    If you double the actual number (7k - 8k hours per baptism) to account for born-ins to 16,000 hours, it would take the average 10 hr / month publisher 133 YEARS to convert ONE person. (That number seems implausibly high, but I’m drinking a strong beer right now, so feel free to challenge my maths)

    Super effective. “Stones crying out” would definitely be more effective .

  • Wonderment
    Wonderment

    slimboyfat: "After all the cutbacks, closures, aging membership, scandals, payouts, bans, media exposure, JWs are still growing 1.4%? I don’t know whether to be surprised or skeptical, to be honest. I really expected growth to be zero or negative."

    Slim, As time passes by, I question often made claims more and more, from whatever the source. I have gotten to the point that I am getting closer to feeling just as skeptical from religious claims made, as I am from political statements made by their leaders. They both seem to use similar tricks in fooling people to believe their outlandish claims.

    The Insight publication stated: "While malicious lying is definitely condemned in the Bible, this does not mean that a person is under obligation to divulge truthful information to people who are not entitled to it."

    Also: "...persons who are momentarily overreached in telling a lie do not automatically become guilty of an unforgivable sin."

    And this: "Especially serious have been the religious lies, as they have endangered the future life of persons deceived by them."

    Thus, we are told by this religious group who claim to hold "the truth," that religious lies are "specially serious" and ‘dangerous.’ At the same time, we are told that lying is justified in some cases (when it suits them really), and that ‘overreaching in telling a lie do not automatically become guilty of an unforgivable sin.’

    The question is: Since the WT Society is going through all the negative things you mentioned, could it be that they are (or, would be) willing to lie to us (statistics among other things) in order to keep followers thinking that they are as strong as ever? Did not a lawyer of theirs (Covington) once said in a court room that WT leaders stood by this motto, "unity at all costs"?

    Is this what we are seeing?

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    That’s why I think the congregation numbers are so important. They can be checked and so are less likely to be fabricated in the official figures. If the number of congregations starts going down while the other numbers keep going up then it raises questions. We have already seen the number of congregations stagnate or fall in Japan, Germany, even the United States, and elsewhere.

  • Wonderment
    Wonderment

    Yeah Slim, It is odd that congregation stats are missing, which are important. The less transparency on the annual stats, the more people will question it.

  • zeb
    zeb

    attributed to a British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli:

    "There three types of lies, lies, damn lies and statistics."

    hm of us ever went with car groups and all logged hours for the same actual time spent by request of the wt.

    Thus a five hour run by six people becomes 30 hours of witnessing and a highly corrupt way of recording anything.

  • Slidin Fast
    Slidin Fast

    So at say $20 per hour for publishers time the cost per baptism is $147,000. If though we said two out of three baptised were family members then the cost per convert becomes $441,820.

    If any of these figures are unreasonable please feel feel to correct them. How much is your time worth? It would also be worth considering how much in actual "charitable spending" or outlay in building, printing, making cartoons, propaganda films etc. each baptismal candidate cost.

    Woah! What a waste of time and resources the whole thing is.

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