by Isambard Crater 31 Replies latest jw friends
I guess the key question is how many are genuinely interested people compared to those inactive and pressured to attend like us faders?
I dont have the motivation, but it would be interesting to compare memorial attendance with attendance for the 'special' talk that follows to see how many are really interested.
The one I attended seemed up as well. There may be reasons in that it was their turn to have the K/Hall rather then go out to a hired location. I know of some from the other congo. That helped. It still seemed up though.
I never set much store on Memorial attendance. It just means that they worked hard to drag in relatives who would rather be at home
I don't think the governing body care about memorial attendance as much as they care about the amount of money they are putting in the contribution box.
They were up round my way too. Whacky bible studies and submariners surfacing and some faded "go for family" types too.
Funny how 148 (I think they were counting those listening in as I couldn't see more than about 130) turned up for a cong. of 75 on Tuesday Memorial and then on Thursday CLAM meeting they had 49!
I think it was down slightly in my hall. Maybe about 90 or so down from over 100. They didn't announce the local attendance as they sometimes do. But it was somewhat amusing that the speaker stated worldwide attendance last year was 200,000,000 instead of 20,000,000. He said it twice and said it was impressive. Two hundred million would be pretty impressive indeed!
Since I posted this originally, I contacted friends in 5 other congregations and all their attendances were 15-20% higher than last year, too.
I asked if anyone came off the public invitations and the responses were all no. The numbers were made up of extended family, submarines, inactive and DF ones.
It's a shame they're all believing the crap about Russia and Trump meaning the Big A is so near, when the attack on false religion looks much less likely than North Korea, America and Syria all being at war soon.
As you've said, though, the real gauge is how many of the ones who came to the memorial attend the special talk, and even more importantly, the weekly CLAM and Sunday meetings after that. My reckoning is hardly any.
The notion that extended family and submarine people will still be saved by attending the memorial once a year enrages me so much, as it's so easy for them if this is true, compared to the dubs who are either mentally still in or PIMO like me but pretend for family reasons, which is doubly hard. I'd much rather just go to the memorial once a year if I knew Jehovah will love me like they tell all the studies and relatives.
Many of the people at my hall moved in during the last 10 years. Many I don't recognise. Lots of the old ones I knew have died off or stopped going. And I'm not old. I was active in the 1990s.
There were some young people there, but mostly submarine Memorial attenders as far as I could make out. The congregation itself consists mainly of people over 60.
I heard the biggest ever Memorial attendance at our hall was around 170 in the mid 1980s. It used to be around 120 when I was active in the 1990s. And my guess is about 90 were there this year.
I do fear that we apostates are not doing our job well.
We have not got over the message that human sacrifice is a somewhat outdated method of restoring equilibrium in society. Then to symbolically drink blood and eat the flesh, well quite honestly, it's not in very good taste!
submarines--?? can someone explain that one ?
They surface very occasionally and then disappear again.
