by LostintheFog1999 3 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Most churches in the USA are in decline according to Pew research.
I wonder what the real JW attendance percentages would be? Mind you from what I hear there's still a lot of them attending meetings on Zoom.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/22/us-churches-closing-religion-covid-christianity?
I’m my local area, when I was doing the meeting attendance. There were at least 25% who were not there. Bearing in mind this was almost a decade ago. So it would have to be a lot less than that now. My father came home from the meeting the other day and told me the physical attendance was 50%. There would have had to of been some on zoom.
I recall when we were busting at the seams and many hours were spent discussiong whether we could alleviate the over-crowding by adding a 5th cong. We also had 2 groups - it was just out of the question. We decided to organize a new build with nearby congs. That never happened. We started losing attendees and soon the Branch took all our collective money. Attendance dropped off dramatically and now 3 congs occupy the KH with no groups. Attendance is so low that they could consolidate all into one cong and still have empty seats.
Does anyone actually buy the lie that JWs are having growth?
Some point to secular surveys. I find that those surveys cannot accurately measure the state of WTC because:
1. Inactive JWs often report that their affiliation is still JW, even if they have not attended in many years
2. The way surveys are conducted, even if they are quantitative with >20,000 participants, these only include a small number of JWs, who represent a miniscule percentage of the total population. These surveys might be more accurate larger religions (Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterian, Islam etc) and for geographically centeralized faiths (Mormons), but they have a HUGE marging of error for smaller religions.
It is a considerable challenge to count members of a faith unless you are the leaders of the religion and report honestly. Does that sound like WTC?
Anecdotally, when I see photos from Cong meetings, there are very few seats with warm bodies. Common sense tells us that JWs are in steep decline. Photos, closures, sold KHs, closed branches, canceled construction projects, down-scaled projects also reflect the shrinkage of the org.
With JW's, common sense takes a back seat and believe whatever the Borg tells them.
They check their brains at the door and are under the impression that people are flocking to their borganization when the evidence 100% proves otherwise.
