Then the turn-of-the-century came, and suddenly there was no further need to build kingdom halls. The thought of dissolving 53 congregations and moving their members into other congregations was unthinkable in those days. The existing halls were filled to capacity every Sunday. We were trying to find plots not yet listed because we needed new Kingdom halls desperately. I was part of a group that spent their evenings travelling around industrial areas looking for empty plots of land for sale. Pretty much every hall had four congregations in it-some even had five. In the decade of the 1990s, the kingdom halls in the Toronto area were bursting at the seams. Let me give you some background to put this into perspective. So, I believe that what is happening here now with these congregation closures will give us some insight into what is going on worldwide.
JW PUBLIC TALK CATEGORY SOFTWARE
(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. 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. The Hospital Liaison Committee arrangement began here as did the old Two-Day Kingdom Hall Builds, later called, Quick Builds. I am going to concentrate on Canada because it is kind of a test market for many things that the Organization goes through. 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? Of course, these are not figures which the organization wishes to make public.
I’ve heard about congregation closures in other regions, but this is the first official confirmation as to numbers. Extrapolating, 53 congregations in the GTA equates to around 250 congregations closing down across the Canada.
The population of the Greater Toronto Area equates to about 18% of the population of the country. The prophecy cannot be wrong, so it must be that the Governing Body’s application of those words to Jehovah’s Witnesses is wrong. “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. How are we personally reacting to that acceleration?” (w16 August p. “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. As recently as the August 2016 issue of The Watchtower, we read: Throughout my lifetime, I have been told that Isaiah 60:22 was a prophecy that applied to Jehovah’s Witnesses. 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. It is so big that at first the mind can miss some of the more significant implications. They were told that 53 congregations in the GTA would be closed down and their members merged with other local congregations. A few weeks back, all the elders in the GTA were summoned to a meeting at a local Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 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. 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.