Kids continue to leave in droves - so what is the organization's grand plan? This

by sir82 43 Replies latest jw friends

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  OUTLAW

  Kids continue to leave in droves - so what is the organization's grand plan?

  The Same As It`s Always Been..

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  Barrold Bonds

  They've definitely double downed on stuff for kids. Every week they have new stuff for them on JW.org.

  unfortunately it's still too early to tell the effect it will have. It will take a few years to see if kids who are exposed to this stuff will leave the org or not.
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  ToesUp

  This newer generation is learning to be more tolerant of others.They are learning critical thinking. They are internet and computer literate. I get help with my computer from my teenager. lol

  It's a different generation than ours...you want a tatoo....get one. You love someone of the same sex...it's ok. WT is still in the June and Ward Clever era. These kids WILL NOT tolerate you telling them what to do and when to do it.
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  FayeDunaway

  Yes I totally agree with you, toes. The whole Caleb and Sophia thing might work on little kids, but when the preteen years hit this happens: exposure by media and in school to loveable gay people. Homophobia is the new racism. It's embarrassing and backwards and wrong. My raised witness (but left with me) kids are extremely ethically sensitive to this subject, even tho they are straight. I can't imagine what youths think who are sitting in the halls, listening to the vitriol towards gays that we heard when we were in.
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  Dagney

  Good discussion.

  I'm amazed at the time and effort the WBTS has put forth in their pixar-like videos for kids. As has been mentioned, as cute and fluffy as they are, the message is divisive, scary and mean. If kids watch any secular programs, the message is tolerance and love which I think is the message we are instinctively attracted to. The WBTS is a master at doublespeak and mixed messages and I think kids will feel it just like we all did. I haven't met one born-in exJW that got behind the destruction depicted by all those scary pictures we were raised with. Kids, bicycles, dogs falling down crevices at god's great war...scary ladies sitting on scarlet red dragons...it didn't seem "right."

  If they wanted to retention, HQ would have to care more about the flock than the corporation. They never have and they never will.
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  StarryNight9

  Within the last month, the oldest two under-18s in the local KH are basically out. One was disfellowshipped and the other is "no longer an unbaptized publisher". I hope the dominoes continue to fall to the next oldest, then the next oldest, and so on. Our KH has always seemed to breed like rabbits - way more kids than adults, but most leave as teens or early adults. It's always a wave of little kids and then a wave of "bye-bye JWs" as teens. The few left over continue to crank our kids for another cycle.
  
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  karter

  Were will tomorrow's leaders come from??

  Simple just lower the bar they have been doing it for sometime.

  Karter.
  
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  littlerockguy

  Back when I was in the Borg in the mid 80s it wasn't that easy to get appointed an elder or MS. They waited a long time and observed your actions all during that time before they would recommend or appointment you to such a sacred position back then.

  LRG
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  Spiral

  They seem to think if they get the kids to get baptised at, say, 8 years old that will keep them in. But this generation is smarter than to think that they are obligated to stay in something they made a promise about as a teen or pre-teen. The GB is so full of themselves they still think they can guilt people into staying, but I had a conversation just today that proves that people are getting resentful of all the guilt. The elderly local elders keep pushing (they don't know anything else, it's all they've ever done) but this congregation is shrinking fast. Few kids and teenagers. Almost all of their adult children haven't been in a KH for years. (Amazing how they can't see the significance of that, and keep spewing the bad family advice.)

  Alot of resentment expressed today about the convention and its message..... when someone feels comfortable to drop the JW act you see that coming out.
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  freddo

  Good news round my way and there is a definite trend for teens to leave and it has really increased since about 2010.

  In 2013 we "lost" two young girls - daughters of an elder who resigned when they both were announced as no longer unbaptised publishers. The eldest aged about 19 jumped as the elders were closing in on some "serious sin" and the younger aged about 17 said "I don't want this crap" and left about a month later. They are now respectable young women with good jobs and worldly boyfriends in their early twenties.

  In 2014 a 16 year old got baptised at the hoopla special convention in August and stopped attending meetings about six months later.

  In 2015 a 17 year old decided she didn't want to be a jw anymore and has gone inactive and a 15 year old unbaptised publisher stopped attending meetings about the same time too.

  This year (2016) another unbaptised publisher aged 16 hasn't been seen for about two months.

  All the above are girls/young women. There is just one uber pioneer teen left and one rather disturbed girl from a difficult background who is not even an unbaptised publisher despite being 14 years old.

  It's going "to hell in a handcart" and I believe is down to the factors mentioned by the posters above. Internet/tolerance of gays/apathy/don't believe it.

  There are literally no teenage boys in the congregation. There are a few early twenties and then a gap to about ten or below.