Greetings, Meleti Vivlon here.
Has the Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses reached a tipping point? A recent event in my locale has caused me to think this is the case. I live only a five-minute drive from the Canada branch office of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Georgetown, Ontario, which is just outside of the GTA or Greater Toronto Area which has a population of close to 6 million. A few weeks back, all the elders in the GTA were summoned to a meeting at a local Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were told that 53 congregations in the GTA would be closed down and their members merged with other local congregations. This is huge. It is so big that at first the mind can miss some of the more significant implications. So, let’s try to break it down.
I’m coming at this with the mindset of the Jehovah’s Witness trained to believe that the blessing of God is manifest by the growth of the organization.
Throughout my lifetime, I have been told that Isaiah 60:22 was a prophecy that applied to Jehovah’s Witnesses. As recently as the August 2016 issue of The Watchtower, we read:
“The last part of that prophecy should affect all Christians personally, for our heavenly Father says: “I myself, Jehovah, will speed it up in its own time.” Like passengers in a vehicle gaining speed, we sense the increased momentum in the disciple-making work. How are we personally reacting to that acceleration?” (w16 August p. 20 par. 1)
“Gaining speed”, “increased momentum”, “acceleration.” How do those words tally with the loss of 53 congregations in just one urban area? What happened? Did the prophecy fail? After all, we are losing speed, decreasing momentum, decelerating.
The prophecy cannot be wrong, so it must be that the Governing Body’s application of those words to Jehovah’s Witnesses is wrong.
The population of the Greater Toronto Area equates to about 18% of the population of the country. Extrapolating, 53 congregations in the GTA equates to around 250 congregations closing down across the Canada. I’ve heard about congregation closures in other regions, but this is the first official confirmation as to numbers. Of course, these are not figures which the organization wishes to make public.
What does all this mean? Why am I suggesting that this may be the start of a tipping point, and what does that imply with regards to JW.org?
I am going to concentrate on Canada because it is kind of a test market for many things that the Organization goes through. The Hospital Liaison Committee arrangement began here as did the old Two-Day Kingdom Hall Builds, later called, Quick Builds. Even the standardized Kingdom Hall plans touted so positively back in 2016 and now all but forgotten began here in the mid-1990s with what the Branch called the Regional Design Office initiative. (They called me in to write software for that – but that’s long, sad story for another day.) Even when persecution broke out during the war, it started here in Canada before going to the States.
So, I believe that what is happening here now with these congregation closures will give us some insight into what is going on worldwide.
Let me give you some background to put this into perspective. In the decade of the 1990s, the kingdom halls in the Toronto area were bursting at the seams. Pretty much every hall had four congregations in it—some even had five. I was part of a group that spent their evenings travelling around industrial areas looking for empty plots of land for sale. Land in Toronto is very expensive. We were trying to find plots not yet listed because we needed new Kingdom halls desperately. The existing halls were filled to capacity every Sunday. The thought of dissolving 53 congregations and moving their members into other congregations was unthinkable in those days. There simply was no room to do that. Then the turn-of-the-century came, and suddenly there was no further need to build kingdom halls. What happened? Perhaps a better question is, what didn’t happen?
If you build much of your theology on the basis of a prediction that the end is coming imminently, what happens when the end doesn’t come within the predicted timeframe? Proverbs 13:12 says “expectation postponed makes the heart sick…”
In my lifetime, I saw their interpretation of the generation of Matthew 24:34 change every decade. Then they came up with the absurd super generation known as the “overlapping generation”. “You cannot fool all of the people, all of the time”, as P.T. Barnum said. Add to that, the advent of the internet which gave us instant access to knowledge that was previously hidden. You can now actually sit in a public talk or Watchtower study and fact check anything being taught on your phone!
So, here is what the dissolving of 53 congregations means.
I attended three different congregations from 1992 until 2004 in the Toronto area. The first one was Rexdale which divided to form the Mount Olive congregation. Within five years we were bursting, and needed to divide again to form the Rowntree Mills congregation. When I left in 2004 for the town of Alliston about an hour’s drive north of Toronto, Rowntree Mills was filled every Sunday, as was my new congregation in Alliston.
I was a public speaker very much in demand in those days and often gave two or three talks outside of my own congregation every month during that decade. Because of that, I got to visit pretty much every Kingdom Hall in the area and became familiar with all of them. Rarely did I go to meeting that wasn’t packed.
Okay, let’s do a little math. Let’s be conservative and say that the average congregation attendance in Toronto at that time was 100. I know many had far more than that, but 100 is a reasonable number to start with.
If the average attendance in the 90s was 100 per congregation, then 53 congregations represents over 5,000 attendees. How is it possible to dissolve 53 congregations and find accommodation for over 5,000 new attendees in halls that are already filled to capacity? The short answer is, it is not possible. Thus, we are led to the inexorable conclusion that attendance has dropped dramatically, possibly by 5,000 across the Greater Toronto Area. I just got an email from a brother in New Zealand telling me that he went back to his old hall after three years absence. He remembered that the attendance formerly was around 120 and so was shocked to find only 44 people in attendance. (If you are finding a similar situation in your area, please use the comment section to share that with all of us.)
A drop in attendance that would allow 53 congregations to be dissolved also implies that anywhere from 12 to 15 Kingdom halls are now free to be sold. (Halls in Toronto were usually used to capacity with four congregations each.) These are all halls that were built with free labour and are fully paid for by local donations. Of course, the funds from the sales will not go back to the local congregation members.
If 5,000 represents the attendance drop in Toronto, and Toronto represents about 1/5 of the population of Canada, then it would appear that attendance nationwide may have dropped by as much is 25,000. But wait a minute, but does not seem to jive with the 2019 Service Year report.
I think it was Mark Twain that said famously, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
For decades, we were provided with the “average publishers” number, so that we could compare the growth with previous years. In 2014, the average publisher count for Canada was 113,617. The next year, it was 114,123, for a very modest growth of 506. Then they stopped releasing average publisher figures. Why? No explanation was given. Instead, they used the peak publisher number. Possibly that provided a more appealing figure.
This year, they have again released the average publisher count for Canada which now stands at 114,591. Again, it looks like they’re going with whatever number yields the best results.
So, the growth from 2014 to 2015 was just over 500, but over the next four years the figure didn’t even reach that. It stands at 468. Or perhaps it did reach that and even surpass it, but then there began a diminishment; a negative growth. We can’t know because those figures have been denied us, but for an organization claiming divine endorsement based on growth figures, negative growth is something to be dreaded. It implies a withdrawing of God’s spirit by their own standard. I mean, you can’t have it one way and not the other. You can’t say, “Jehovah is blessing us! Look at our growth.” Then turn around and say, “Our numbers are going down. Jehovah is blessing us!”
Interestingly, you can see the real negative growth or the shrinkage in Canada over the last 10 years by looking at the publisher to population ratios. In 2009, the ratio was 1 in 298, but 10 years later it stands at 1 in 326.That’s a drop of about 10%.
But I think it is worse than that. After all, statistics can be manipulated, but it is hard to deny reality when it hits you in the face. Let me demonstrate how statistics are being used to artificially bolster the numbers.
Back when I was fully committed to the Organization, I used to discount the growth numbers of churches like the Mormons or Seventh-day Adventists because they counted attendees, while we counted only active witnesses, those willing to brave the door-to-door field ministry. I now realize that was not an accurate measure at all. To illustrate, let me give you an experience from my own family.
My sister was not what you’d call a zealous Jehovah’s Witness, but she did believe Witnesses had the truth. Some years back, while still regularly attending all the meetings, she stopped going in the field service. She found it difficult to do especially since she was completely unsupported. After six months, she was considered inactive. Remember, she’s still going to all the meetings regularly, but she hasn’t turned in time for six months. Then comes the day she approaches her Field Service Group Overseer to get a copy of the Kingdom Ministry.
He refuses to give her one because “she is no longer a member of the congregation”. Back then, and likely still, the Organization directed the elders to remove the names of all inactive ones from the field service group lists, because those lists were only for congregation members. Only those who report time in the field service are considered Jehovah’s Witnesses by the Organization.
I knew this mentality from my days as an elder, but came face to face with it in 2014 when I told the elders I would no longer be turning in a monthly field service report. Bear in mind that I was still attending meetings then and still going out in the house-to-house ministry. The only thing I wasn’t doing was reporting my time to the elders. I was told—I have it recorded—that I would not be considered a member of the congregation after six months of not turning in a monthly report.
I think nothing demonstrates the organization’s warped sense of sacred service then their penchant for reporting time. Here I was, a baptized witness, attending meetings, and preaching from house-to-house, yet the absence of that monthly slip of paper nullified everything else.
Time went by and my sister stopped going to meetings entirely. Did the elders call to find out why one of their sheep was “lost”? Did they even call by phone to make inquiry? There was a time we would have. I lived through those times. But not anymore, it seems. However, they did call once a month for—you guessed it—her time. Not wanting to be counted as non-member—she still believed the Organization had some validity at that time—she gave them a meager report of an hour or two. After all, she regularly discussed the Bible with co-workers and friends.
So, you can be a member of the Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses even if you never attend a meeting as long as you turn in a monthly report. Some do so by reporting as little as 15 minutes of time a month.
It is interesting that even with all this numeric manipulation and the massaging of the statistics, 44 countries are still showing declines this service year.
The Governing Body and its branches equate spirituality with works, specifically time spent promoting JW.org to the public.
I remember many an elder meeting where one of the elders would put forward the name of some ministerial servant for consideration as an elder. As the coordinator, I learned not to waste time by looking at his scriptural qualifications. I knew that the Circuit Overseer’s first interest would be the number of hours the brother spent every month in the ministry. If they were below the congregation average, there was little chance of his appointment going through. Even if he were the most spiritual man in the entire congregation, it would not matter a hoot unless his hours were up. Not only did his hours count, but also those of his wife and children. If their hours were poor, he wouldn’t make it through the vetting process.
This is part of the reason we hear so many complaints about uncaring elders treating the flock with harshness. While some attention is given to the requirements laid out in 1 Timothy and in Titus, the main focus is on loyalty to the Organization which is primarily exemplified in the field service report. The Bible makes no mention of this, yet it is the primary element under consideration by the Circuit Overseer. Placing emphasis on organizational works rather than gifts of the spirit and faith is a sure way to allow men to disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. (2 Co 11:15)
Well, what goes around, comes around, as they say. Or as the Bible says, “you reap what you sow.” The organization’s reliance on manipulated statistics and its equating spirituality with service time is really starting to cost them. It has blinded them and the brothers in general to the spiritual vacuum that is being revealed by the current reality.
I wonder, if I were still a full-fledged member of the organization, how I would take this recent news of the loss of 53 congregations. Imagine how the elders in these 53 congregations are feeling. There are 53 brothers who achieved the esteemed rank of Coordinator of the Body of Elders. Now, they’re just another elder in a much larger body. Those appointed to the service committee positions are now out of those roles as well.
This all started a few years ago. It began when District Overseers who thought they were set for life were sent back to the field and are now eking out a meager existence. Circuit overseers who thought they’d be cared for in their old age are now dropped when they reach 70 and have to fend for themselves. Many old-time bethelites have also experienced the harsh reality of being ousted from the home and career and are now struggling to make a living on the outside. About 25% of worldwide staff was cut back in 2016, but now the cuts have reached the congregation level.
If attendance is down by so much, you can be sure that donations are down as well. Cutting your donations as a Witness benefits you and costs you nothing. It becomes a sort of silent protest of the strongest kind.
Clearly, it is proof that Jehovah is not speeding up the work as we have been told for so many years he would. I heard tell that some are justifying these cuts as just making efficient use of the kingdom halls. That the organization is tightening things up in preparation for the end. This is like the old joke about a Catholic priest seen furtively entering a brothel by a couple of ditch diggers, where one turns to the other and says, “My, but one of those girls must be awfully sick”.
The printing press brought about a revolution in religious freedom and awareness. A new revolution has happened as a consequence of the freedom of information available through the Internet. The fact that any Tom, Dick, or Meleti can now become a publishing house and reach the world with information, levels the playing field and takes power away from the large, well-funded religious entities. In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 140 years of failed expectations have dovetailed with this technological revolution to assist many in waking up. I think that just maybe—just maybe—we are at that tipping point. Perhaps in the very near future we are going to see a flood of witnesses exiting the organization. Many who are physically in but mentally out will be freed from the fear of shunning when this exodus reaches a kind of saturation point.
Am I rejoicing over this? No. Not at all. Rather, I am in fearful expectation of the damage it will do. Already, I see that the majority of those leaving the organization are also leaving God, becoming agnostic or even atheist. No Christian wants that. How do you feel about it?
I am often asked who the faithful and discreet slave is. I’m going to be doing a video on that very soon, but here is some food for thought. Look at every illustration or parable that Jesus gave involving slaves. Do you think that in any of them he’s talking about a particular individual or small group of individuals? Or is he giving a general principle to guide all his disciples? All his disciples are his slaves.
If you feel the latter is the case, then why would the parable of the faithful and discreet slave be any different? When he comes to judge each of us individually, what will he find? If we had the opportunity to feed a fellow slave who was suffering spiritually, or emotionally, or even physically, and failed to do so, will he consider us – you and me – to be faithful and discreet with what he has given us. Jesus has fed us. He gives us food. But like the loaves and the fishes that Jesus used to feed the multitude, the spiritual food we receive can also be multiplied by faith. We eat that food ourselves, but some is left over to be shared with others.
As we see our brothers and sisters going through the cognitive dissonance that we ourselves likely went through – as we see them awakening to the reality of the Organization and the full extent of the deception that has been perpetrated for so long – will we be courageous enough and willing enough to help them so that they do not lose their faith in God? Can we be a strengthening force? Will each of us be willing to give them the food at the proper time?
Did you not experience a wonderful sense of freedom once you eliminated the Governing Body as God’s channel of communication and started relating to Him as a child does to his father. With Christ as our only mediator, we are now able to experience the type of relationship we had always desired as Witnesses, but which always seemed beyond our grasp.
Don’t we want the same for our Witness brothers and sisters?
That is the truth which we need to communicate to all those who are or will soon start to wake up as a consequence of these radical changes in the Organization. It is likely that their awakening will be harder than our own, because it will be forced upon many unwillingly due to the force of circumstances, of a reality that can no longer be denied or explained away with shallow reasoning.
We can be there for them. It is a group effort.
We are the children of God. Our ultimate role is the reconciliation of mankind back into the family of God. Consider this a training session.
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Comment by Chet on 2020-02-08 11:19:18
I have watched this video with great interest. IMHO, because the social order of JWs relies upon peer pressure and the fear of being shunned, their Achilles Heel is what will happen when they, the Organization, overplay their hand and the rank and file begin to quietly disobey them. I am certain that this is already happening with regard to disfellowshipping and probably to a degree that would be surprising.
But now there is a new wrinkle, the seizure of property and dissolution of congregations. The breach of morality strikes me as particularly egregious. I, and innumerable other members, volunteered to build meeting places so that JWs in a given locale would have a place to gather. Some people made this building work a central part of their lives, buying motor homes and going to great lengths to equip themselves to participate in this activity, far and wide. But quite suddenly, the “need” for thousands of Kingdom Halls all but evaporated and it was explained that construction efforts would be concentrated in developing nations.
I can’t help but wonder how the more eager participants of the building work feel when they see the properties they worked on voluntarily being sold. Are some of these people leaving in disgust, and quite likely taking friends and family with them? Are such people disgusted with the watered down version of “the Truth” which has come to be practiced of late, with Witnesses standing next to literature carts instead of engaging others in deeper conversations about the Bible?
Some years ago, I moved into a congregation and went out in service for the first time with a Pioneer who was soon to be leaving for Bethel. He had never spoken to anyone at the door and wanted me to do all the talking. I didn’t mind one bit, but I was quite surprised that someone could be considered a Pioneer, even though they had never actually done anything more than stand next to someone else that did all the talking. At the time, I shrugged it off as an oddity, peculiar to that one situation, but from my current perspective, this was probably an early indicator that things were changing drastically within the Witness Organization.
Whereas in the ‘60s and ‘70s, there was an emphasis on teaching the Bible, since roughly 1980, the emphasis has shifted and seems to be focused on consolidating the authority of the Organization. The wording used at meetings, references to the “Faithful and Discreet Slave” becoming evermore common in the literature and more recently, the presentation of GB members as Media figures has shifted the focus away from the Bible and centered it upon compliance with the Organization’s will in all matters. This cannot work over the long term.
I recall a (secular) magazine article written by a man that had visited the Soviet Union during the later part of the Brezhnev years. He reported that subtle defiance of authority was everywhere. When it became virtually impossible to meet all of the legal requirements and still be able to function in everyday life, citizens began to simply go through the motions of compliance, while the underground economy grew. The Soviet leadership had overplayed its hand and it’s demands for loyalty were answered with meaningless gestures of compliance, while the heart of the people was elsewhere. The average Soviet citizen was like that Pioneer that had never actually made a presentation at the door, yet was promoted to greater “privileges” of service because he outwardly appeared to be the perfect example.
Once the participants have lost heart, with regard to any matter, their minds and bodies will soon follow their heart and they will make their retreat. Quite recently, I spoke with a Witness who had been active for 50 years, but privately admitted that field service was a waste of time. This same person has privately admitted to doubts and I suspect that they remain visibly active only to keep up appearances for the rest of the family. But what about the rest of his family? I can’t help but wonder how many other people in that man’s family are also just going through the motions, themselves.
It is my personal opinion that the current JW Organization has a lot of people that started out as devoted and serious Bible Students, but are now essentially pantomiming their activity because the “Truth” has been watered down to a mere shadow of its former substance. Very recent converts have not been exposed to the rigor demanded in former times and may well be rooted only in the shallow soil of an Organization that has concentrated its efforts on demanding compliance with their authority, instead of teaching Bible principles, as they endeavored to do in the past.
So it’s no surprise that growth has stagnated and I suspect that the numbers we see in the annual report are not based upon the same criteria they were based upon in the past. The level of skill required to be considered an active Witness is not nearly what it used to be and this, alone, inflates the numbers.
When I was leaving, I would get a phone call every month asking if I had service time to report and usually I’d claim an hour or two, rationalizing this as “informal witnessing”. By that point, my heart was no longer in it and I had seen enough questionable content in the literature that I no longer was willing to distribute the magazines. I simply couldn’t endorse the content, any longer.
Now, they are closing Kingdom Halls and consolidating congregations. People are being asked to drive farther than they used to in order to attend meetings. Persons, such as the 50 year brother I mentioned above, will probably not attend as regularly as before and may well take a long, slow slip into inactivity. The Witness Organization will not care, because they would rather have persons with little depth of knowledge standing next to literature carts. They are easier to manage. They don’t tend to ask troubling questions and they don’t possess the tribal knowledge of old-school JWs. Such tribal knowledge is dangerous to the new model of the Organization. They are moving, wholesale, to distance themselves from former writings and people that have been around 50 years or more are a threat to this process.
This is not the religion of my grandparents, or even of my parents. The brand name of Jehovah’s Witnesses has even taken a back seat to the new branding; JW.org. Examples of old are still used, but carefully chosen. The back catalog of JW literature has been excised from the current Organization and Witnesses have been encouraged to get rid of their legacy libraries.
I would be among the first to state that the old school Witnesses were in need of reform, but the current Organization has thrown out the baby and kept the bath water. Everything I took exception to, from my earliest years has remained, while the things I loved, such as a sincere desire to please God, has been buried under ever increasing layers of demands for loyalty to the Organization. Loyalty to God is now measured by how loyal one is to the Organization. To many current Witnesses, Jehovah has become all but indistinguishable from JW.org.
As to what happens next, I wouldn’t claim to know to a certainty, but there are some leading indicators. I suspect that the sell off of Kingdom Halls will continue. Now that these properties have been effectively seized by the Organization, they have no motive to keep them open, unless the donations are high enough to make that particular location profitable. In place of Kingdom Halls, there will be more and more online activity.
As local congregations cease to function, the concept of good standing within the Organization will have to change. From the business perspective of the Organization, this will simplify matters considerably. If they eliminate congregation discipline, they will also eliminate responsibility in child abuse cases and there will be no more need to keep an eye out for wayward behavior, of any sort, among the membership. So long as they don’t facilitate communication among members, no chats, forums, etc. they will have no responsibility. While I don’t, for one moment, believe that they are motivated by anything beyond covering their own hides, they are inadvertently moving more closely to the model of very early Christianity, which was not highly organized.
The business model of JWs is no longer sustainable. They can’t afford to keep buildings operational and the fact that ownership is now consolidated all but guarantees that they will continue to close Kingdom Halls. They can no longer withstand the liabilities inherent in sanctioning a local body of elders. The ability to produce and distribute literature electronically has made printing a luxury instead of a necessity. Amazingly, and ironically, the consolidation of power to a central Organization has pretty much doomed them from continuing in their current form. If I could point to one thing which will sound the death knell of the current arrangement (local Kingdom Halls and local bodies of elders) it would be the transfer of title of Kingdom Halls to a central Organization. This makes them a deep pocket target of choice for lawsuits.
In the meantime, having forgiven loans to congregations, yet expecting donations to continue at the same level as those loan payments is unrealistic. When aging Witnesses find themselves driving much further to attend meetings they will attend less often and will adjust their donations downward in order to compensate for the longer drive. So each remaining location will probably yield less revenue over the long haul. Longtime members may realize that they can worship without the formal meeting arrangement and I suspect that many of these folks will wake up. People that wake up tend not to donate.
As they are forced to migrate to an online business model everything about them will change drastically. The metrics of the past will lose all meaning and they could even claim growth, because they will be counting something far different. The rhetoric might have a few familiar phrases; Jehovah this and Jehovah that, but the bar will be set very low and pretty much anyone could claim membership. The only thing that will matter to the GB will be the ability to maintain their residences and keep their media centers afloat.
They may continue to exist in the same sense that you can still buy an RCA product. An RCA TV of fifty years ago was made in a factory owned by RCA and serviced by RCA factory techs. These days, there are devices sold under the RCA name, but they are built by third parties and simply branded as RCA. The brand still has a degree of prestige and significant name recognition, but it has no meaning in the sense of what it would have meant 50 years ago.
So I would opine that the tipping point is here and that change will accelerate. It’s quite possible that the leadership of the JWs will be among the last to know just how drastic this change will become. I believe wholeheartedly that they have dug their own grave.Reply by Meleti Vivlon on 2020-02-08 11:47:42
Thank you, Chet, for a very insightful comment.
Reply by Chet on 2020-02-08 14:16:39
I wonder if the method used to gain title to the Kingdom Halls would stand up to legal scrutiny. As I understand it, once the loans were forgiven, the COs were tasked with getting local congregations to sign over the deeds. If there was resistance to this, the congregation would not be recognized as part of the Organization. (This is second-hand knowledge, but seems credible in the context of the Organization’s way of dealing with matters.) If indeed these properties were signed over under coercion, one might argue that they were, essentially, practicing racketeering.
Imagine the ramifications of a congregation being de-certified by the Organization. Anyone that continued to attend would be subject to charges of apostasy. One could argue that refusing to turn over the property upon demand would result in shunning. I’m no legal expert, but I’d love to see this approach investigated, because I suspect that they have overstepped their authority.
The “forgiving” of mortgages is also suspect. If my home mortgage holder offered to forgive my loan, then insisted that I deed the entire value of my property to them, all they would have accomplished is to buy my home at a steep discount. That’s exactly what I see as having happened with regard to the Kingdom Halls.
These buildings were built with volunteer labor and frequently benefitted from donated materials or even donated land. Loans were taken out to complete the construction and keeping in mind the cost savings of having little, if any, labor costs, many of the loans were probably for a fraction of the market value of the property. The Organization ends up with outright ownership of these properties having only to absorb the balance of the loans and then sells the Kingdom Hall out from under the very congregation(s) which built it.
Sounds like a plot from a crime novel. :)Reply by a watcher on 2020-02-08 16:37:28
The org will play hardball. Look up "Menlo Park".
Reply by Chet on 2020-02-08 17:34:41
Indeed. They played hardball to a degree that is hard to believe.
Reply by Meleti Vivlon on 2020-02-08 17:23:34
I'm quite sure that this would be a preach of RICO law, but being a religion, the authorities would likely back off.
Reply by Chet on 2020-02-08 17:34:03
Sadly, that’s probably the case. My hope, likely in vain, is that some of the active JWs will cry foul and that could interest the authorities. However, that which seems obvious from the outside might not seem so obvious for those trapped inside. Of course, that is the whole point; these people are being held hostage by fear of shunning and have extraordinary reasons to just dummy up and go with the flow.
Reply by Ad_Lang on 2021-06-17 09:00:22
Considering developments in the past year and a half, I would expect that the authorities are quite capable of making a complete turnaround practically overnight, just as Rev 18:7,8 tells us will happen to religion.
Comment by Leonardo Josephus on 2020-02-08 16:39:48
Hi Eric.
Excellent article. So true about the C/O and new appointments.
I calculated that in Canada the average congregation has a little over 80 publishers. Someone somewhere has probably calculated that there is a target figure of 100 per congregation, and they are going to start in the area you mention. The fact that some of those congregations serve foreign fields, and are therefore small, has been ignored. Probably they will try the same thing elsewhere. Mind you, they know exactly how many seats each hall has. They have their spies.
It is obviously a money making exercise, but it will be presented as making best use of resources.
The Organisation is rapidly becoming one which will rely on internal growth to maintain itself, just like some other religious organisations.
It offers little real spiritual food. Nothing anymore in depth. Just repeat the same old same old. We must be Jehovah's channel - look at the growth (but never the recent growth where we live) - Keep the emphasis on pioneering and rallying round the brothers and sisters in the congregation for protection.
But offer nothing deep, and don't go near the long standing teachings just in case the R& F spot the flaws.
When was the last decent Watchtower study article which didn't just bang a gong. What did Paul say about a clashing cymbal ? As for the Clam meeting - a few minutes extra for publishers comments on the Bible reading - but dare anyone say what they have really found interesting ?
As for standing by the cart...how many sharing could cope with a real question ?
Just one word of caution, as I have already discovered. Be gentle with those asking questions. For some it is a depressing and very devastating blow to discover they have been cheated. Do not push them.. The Organisation will be doing that job quite well enough. Be there for them, but be careful what you throw.
Mind you, Eric, I think that is just about what you were saying at the end.
Love to all here, and you my friend (I hope you do not mind me calling you my friend)..Reply by Meleti Vivlon on 2020-02-08 17:22:32
Not at all, Leonardo; not at all.
Comment by swaffi on 2020-04-13 18:54:11
Hi, Brothers (by brothers, it means sisters as well) I came across one of the latest videos on the JW app this morning. This is probably the biggest reason I left the org. The brother (Robert) tells us not to trust men and in the same breath, he says otherwise. You can see how he tries to link obedience in regards Hezekiah's, Moses, etc time to the "channel"
I have to say, it is sickening for me now as an outsider looking in.
God bless anyway