Why JWs Arn't Growing Like Some Other Faiths

by Undecided 15 Replies latest jw friends

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  Undecided

  I was reading in the news about some churches don't have enough space to hold the members, as they are growing so fast here. One reason I noticed was this:

  Kara Ruffin, along with husband Mark and their two young children, will begin worshiping at the Lawndale Drive location Sunday. "About four years ago, my husband's father fell and broke his neck, and my husband had to leave and move to Atlanta for five months," said Ruffin, who was pregnant and had a young child at the time. "Just the number of calls I got, the amount of people who brought meals for my daughter and me, the people who came and mowed our grass -- they were all members, but about 80 percent of them were people I didn't know. They had just heard my asking for prayers in the service. ... That's what Westminster is all about."

  Would this have been the case at the KH?

  Ken P.
• 

  freedom96

  The bottom line is that the WTS religion is very self centered, and more focused on everyone obeying the WTS than anything else.

  They would rather kick someone out, than to bring the family together.
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  minimus

  Preaching the good news is more important than acting "Christian".
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  Country Girl

  Because their religious culture permits them to be selfish, self-righteous, and self-serving. It's really no wonder that most Christian faiths don't recognize them as Christians. Sheesh.. I can't even recognize them as Christians.

  Country Girl
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  XQsThaiPoes

  The reason is control. If tomarrow 30 million people became JWs the leadership would implode. I heard a member of the GB say that they could make JWs grow easily but it is not about numbers. Infact he said if JWs grew they would become just like the churches (now reflecting on this I wonder why is that a bad thing).
  
  Also any hall that gets too big is broken apart instead of actually expanding like normal religions. THe leader ship is doing its darnedest to inhibit the potiential explosive growth in developed lands while expanding in more dependant developing nations. It is a really counter intuitive situation.
  
  SO the reason JWs is not growing is basically there is a power struggle between people that want a small cult vs people that want a mainstream religion, vs people that want a holding company. I forsee a schism, but when is anyones guess.
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  upside/down

  I remember Brother Harffman (CO) stating it was a FACT that the bOrg could increase 4X overnight by doing just one thing-

  Eliminating the need of mandatory door to door preaching (which I was told was "voluntary"). Imagine that, can you see Jesus saying, "well I could make it easy for all of you to be my follower, but I'm gonna make it repulsive and difficult"? The biggest difficulty Jesus taught we would face would be our own imperfect tendencies which we could never master, only control. And people who outright opposed our trying to control those tendencies.

  The nature of the "beast", will never allow for it to be very large- You can fools SOME of the people some of the time, but you can't fool ALL of the people..."

  u/d
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  XQsThaiPoes

  Actually he was quoting a member of the governing body Sam Herd.
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  Mulan

  Their recruiting system is antiquated...................it simply is ineffective and waste of time.

  They are losing their young people by the hundreds, and thousands.

  They need to get into the 21st Century. Maybe when some of those old men die, they will finally modernize a bit.
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  coldfish

  I had never been in a church before 4 months ago other than a kingdom hall and the only image of 'christendom' was the image from the watchtower.

  Anyway i went for the first time, didn't know a soul, and mentioned to the pastor's wife i was going to have major surgery next week. First thing she wanted to do was arrange the church to bring around meals etc. I was totally awed, they had never met me and i wasn't part of their faith, but they were willing to put in the effort.

  I told my brother, another ex-JW, he said it gave him goosebumps the thought of true christian love being shown.

  Whether my church has 'the truth' or not, it's a great resource for the community.
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  Billygoat

  Mozz and I go to a local church in Richardson, TX. It's amazing how loving people are when you don't even know them too! We have a lot of young couples having their first babies right now. There is always a sign up sheet to bring food to those couples for several weeks, so they don't have to cook while learning to care for their baby. The sign up sheets are always full and there are always more people than things to do. It really amazes me. I'm sure my JW parents would be disappointed to hear that I experience more love at my church (which we've only been to for 18 months) than all the years at the KH.