Batting averages: WTS vs apostle Peter

by Defender 7 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Defender

  The Society publishes an average of 22,000,000 WT and 19,000,000 number of Awake magazines every two weeks. If we assume that 6,000,000 of each go toward the number of active publishers as their personal copies. That leaves 16,000,000 issues of WT + 13,000,000 for Awake = 29,000,000 that are to be used for “disciple” making.

  Multiply 29,000,000 by 26 = 754,000,000 average yearly printing.

  Divide 754,000,000 by 288,907 (number of baptized in 2000) = 2609

  Yes, 2609 number of magazines (not counting books, brochures and tracts) must be distributed in order to recruit ONE new member.

  Now for the number of hours;

  Divide 1,200,000,000 (Yr 2000 stats) by 288,907 = 4154 hrs to recruit ONE new member (That is 80 YEARS worth of a one hour a week “Bible” study.)

  In order to recruit 3000 new members (as Peter did after one speech and without handing out a single tract) it would take 4154 * 3000 = 12,462,000 hours. This means that Peter was 12462000 times more efficient than the WTS.

  Now, I am not a baseball fan but if we want to compute batting averages for the WTS and that of apostle Peter, we get;

  Peter

  Number of Hits: 3000
  Number of Plate appearance: 1
  Batting average= 3000

  WTS

  Number of hits: 3000
  Number of Plate appearance: 12,462,000
  Batting average = 0.000241

  Perhaps that could explain why the first century Christians, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, were able to spread the Good News at the rate that they did without ever publishing a single magazine.
• 

  Cautious

  Hi Defender, and welcome to the board

  Maybe you could go to the GB with those figures so they can work on a Plan B for getting converts. You see, because they don't really believe in attending college, except for a select few studing law, they obviously can't do the maths for themselves [8>].

  Hope to hear more from you
  Cautious
• 

  ozziepost

  If they adopted it, they'd call it "simplification" !

  Cheers,
  Ozzie

  "Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading."
  TERTULLIAN, Adversus Valentinianos
• 

  Gozz

  Defender,

  well, things aren't that bad. Actually about half of all printed material remains with JWs. Six million's only the number of publishers. Add the copies for the children and all that, plus all the copies that remain unplaced. that should improve "fine tune" your figures by some nice number. We aren't doing as badly as you think.
• 

  AngelofMuZiC

  I agree with Defender. I cannot tell you how many Wt's & Ak's I have seen go straight into the garbage after my mother gave them out to neighbors and family friends. Then we have hundreds of mags, ranging from 1987-2001 lying around the house collecting dust. If the WTS is so interested in helping people, they should spend some of that money for hiring scholars who can actually interpret the bible correctly, and they should follow the advice given about caring for orphans and widows.
  My Regards, Joanne
• 

  joelbear

  Defender,

  Another excellent post. I appreciate your efforts greatly.

  Makes it pretty clear that the magazines and books are basically irrelevant to people. Its the message not the medium that turns heads. A message that reaches the heart creates change.

  hugs

  Joel
• 

  Defender

  Gozz

  Thanks for your reply, but I beg to differ.

  Add the copies for the children and all that, plus all the copies that remain unplaced.

  Unbaptized JW children are potential new recruits, so placing literature with them goes towards the main effort in "disciple' making.

  The Society, from time to time, prods the publishers, (not too much though) to clear their ever increasing inventory to no avail. There are several reasons for having excess stock. First, publishers are having difficult time placing more literature. Second and most important, is that the Society CANNOT ease the publishing pump. They have to keep the presses rolling, because that is their main line of revenue.

  If the Society is really interested in having the publishers clear their inventory, what is preventing it from stopping the presses for two or three months and ask all publishers to return the excess inventory back to the KH for redistribution. There is enough stock to cover this period and there are many WT and Awake articles that repeat themselves anyway?

  Though there are a lot of literature that remain unplaced, it would still have to count toward the main effort of "disciple" making and alas, cannot "fine tune" the averages as you stipulated.
• 

  DB

  Interesting post. In my years of attending Circuit Assemblies, I have noticed that, besides JW kids, hardly anyone gets baptized. At one assembly a few years back, one person got baptized. Normally, the number is about 5 or 6, and again, most are children of JWs, not new disciples.

  Now, in my circuit there are about 900 publishers. Let's say that they average about 10 hours per month in field service (the "national average"). That means that over a six-month period (the approximate time between scheduled assemblies), those 900 pubs spent a total of 9,000 hours each month, or 54,000 hours total, in the ministry. And yet, the result of all that time spent speaks for itself.

  No wonder many Witnesses are just biding their time in service. Many that I have worked with have hardly read the magazines that the pretend to be so enthused about. Very few really have any inclination to make Return Visits (and no wonder...so few are even home and if so they rarely show any genuine interest). Very few Witnesses really even WANT to start a Bible Study with someone. And, after spending two nights a week, plus Sunday, at meetings, plus studying with their families, plus meeting preparation, plus field service, is it any wonder?