Bible Study

One thing I've observed about the organization is that a bible study with your child is given less importance to a bible study with a random person you meet at the door. It's not so much an official stance as it is the attitude of some people.

Like when they throw out a statistic like "x amount of people come into the organization each day". I get the feeling most folks view that x as people outside the congregation. But it seems to me that a good portion of those "coming in" were already in as children of JW's. All organization figures that are given only take into account active publishers (baptized or unbaptized, they don't differentiate). The majority of children of JW's become publishers, maybe around age 10 or so. They may not go on to get baptized and make a commitment but they usually become publishers. I speculate the bulk of statistical growth is being provide by the progeny of Witnesses.

When asked to give a reason why "the end" hasn't come yet, some will point out all the growth that is still taking place. But if the growth is underage children of Jehovah's Witnesses wouldn't these skirt by destruction any way under the merits of their Witness parents? There is still tremendous growth but it may not be quite how people picture it.

So I'm not trying to dimish the importance of making return visits and conducting bible studies with outsiders. We conduct studies with people we meet in the ministry and maybe one a year become a publisher in our congregation. It still works and is necessary. I just think that bible studies with your children should be held in the same esteem. Perhaps they are viewed as easier so it's not as impressive or something. Or maybe they are so common that they lose there perceived value.

I guess the whole thing was brought on by the service overseer who visited our book study last night and pointed out that our bible study rate was "technically" with the national average. But he went on to say that if we didn't count the bible studies with our children then as a group we wouldn't have any studies. Why compare apples to oranges? The national average takes into account bible studies with children of JW's so it would seem right on target.