U.S. Branch Letter in September KM

by TheListener 35 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  truthseeker

  From looking at the US service reports in the KM, there has been NO increase so far this year.

  They may be simply keeping the numbers stagnant, with number of immigrants balancing out those leaving.
• 

  Forscher

  "Mistakenly they're seduced by the "big is better" doggerel.
  
  They forget that the christian isn't called upon to be great but to be holy."
  
  Good thought Ozzie!
  
  Forscher
• 

  confusedjw

  You guys were all awesome commenting on this letter.

  Thanks for making my lunch an enjoyable one.
• 

  XBEHERE

  I find it amazing that they make things seem so positive when in actuality growth has slowed or even stagnated in most major areas. People are spending less time going out in service and more time reading sites like this I am afraid.
• 

  AK - Jeff

  To the Ephesians

  1

  Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through God’s will, to the holy ones who are [in Eph´e·sus] and faithful ones in union with Christ Jesus:

  2

  May YOU have undeserved kindness and peace from God our Father and [the] Lord Jesus Christ.

  3

  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in union with Christ, 4 just as he chose us in union with him before the founding of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love. 5 For he foreordained us to the adoption through Jesus Christ as sons to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 in praise of his glorious undeserved kindness which he kindly conferred upon us by means of [his] loved one. 7 By means of him we have the release by ransom through the blood of that one, yes, the forgiveness of [our] trespasses, according to the riches of his undeserved kindness.

  8

  This he caused to abound toward us in all wisdom and good sense, 9 in that he made known to us the sacred secret of his will. It is according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself 10 for an administration at the full limit of the appointed times, namely, to gather all things together again in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth. [Yes,] in him, 11 in union with whom we were also assigned as heirs, in that we were foreordained according to the purpose of him who operates all things according to the way his will counsels, 12 that we should serve for the praise of his glory, we who have been first to hope in the Christ. Ephesians 1:1-12

  They cite Eph 1:12 in the final paragragh. Above are the NWT verses 1-12 of that chapter. Seems to me that the entire theme has nothing to do with printing facilities, financial or labor contribution to a building project, or even some so called 'disaster relief'. For that matter the whole of the good news spoken about here is Christ Jesus, as shown in the red. I will have to go back and review, but I don't think Jesus was even mentioned in the article was he?

  Another scripture missaplied - who would have thought it?

  Jeff
• 

  GetBusyLiving

  :"This tour was awe-inspiring! I have so much to tell the brothers back home. If Jehovah is willing I plan to come back every year."

  Who TALKS like this?! Id have to drop a hit of acid and freebase crack cocaine to even consider using the term "awe-inspiring"! What the f*ck???!

  GBL
• 

  Elsewhere

  I wonder how they managed to get 41 new circuits in the past year with 0% growth in the past year.
• 

  Odrade

  Smaller congregations. Used to be they wouldn't split one if it had less than 200 attendance. Now I hear frequently of "splitting" where they pull a bookstudy worth of people from about four different congregations and start a new one. I told my mom "well that seems kind of dumb..." She was not amused.
• 

  Odrade

  :::awe-inspiring
  
  Well, those 2 ton bolts of paper, you know...
• 

  sir82

  Interesting...

  41 new circuits in 5 years, 30 of them foreign language circuits.

  There is still slight positive growth in the US, so new circuits are not surprising.

  But, 73% of new circuits formed are non-English speaking.

  If we assume 2000 publishers per circuit, there was a net gain of 22,000 English speaking publishers in 5 years.

  Given anecdotal evidence of English language circuit assembly & district convention baptisms, it is safe to say that at the very least one-half of those are JW kids, most likely very many more.

  Being conservative, that's 11,000 new English speaking JW converts in 5 years, about 2200 per year.

  Going from memory, there are about 220,000 Spanish-speaking JWs in the US. Let's say there are 80,000 speaking other languages, leaving about 700,000 English-speaking JWs here.

  So, in non-immigrant-heavy territories, the rate of growth (excluding JW kids) in the US is about 2200 / 700,000 = about 3/10 of 1% (maximum, as we are making very conservative assumptions).

  What was that scripture about "her waters are drying up"?