Jehovah's Witnesses: Encyclopedia II - Jehovah's Witnesses - Membership

Jehovah's Witnesses - Membership

As of August 2005, Jehovah's Witnesses have a practicing membership of more than 6.6 million, according to data reported in the Annual Worldwide Statistics at the Authorized Site of the Office of Public Information of Jehovah's Witnesses. The site states: "While other religious groups count their membership by occasional or annual attendance, this figure reflects only those who are actively involved in the public Bible educational work." Jehovah's Witnesses have a custom of counting their membership by 'Lands' rather than by countries, indicating separate statistics for regions administered by other countries, such as Alaska, Hawaii, and Taiwan. A comparison of the 2004 and 2005 statistics indicates a decline in the number of Bible studies, baptisms, Memorial attendance and time spent in the preaching work, but an overall increase in the peak membership of 1.3 percent. Over time, these numbers can be seen to fluctuate slightly, rather than steadily increase from one year to the next.

These statistics are based on the number of "active members". To be classed as an active member (or publisher), an individual who has first been approved as a publisher must serve at least one hour per month in the preaching work, or 15 minutes per month for elderly members and those otherwise physically restricted. Figures for time spent per month are reported by each publisher and submitted monthly to the Society. In 2005, these reports indicated a total of nearly 1.3 billion hours. ^[6]

In the United States, an academic study at CUNY based on a telephone survey (American Religious Identification Survey) was conducted in 2001 and estimated there to be 1.331 million adults in the U.S. who self-identify as Jehovah's Witnesses.^[7] Jehovah's Witnesses report over 1 million active publishers in the United States, but because this includes minors, it is not directly comparable to the ARIS numbers. In 1990, a larger but less detailed telephone survey based study (NSRI) at CUNY reported 1.38 million adults in the U.S. who self-identified as Jehovah's Witnesses. While this might indicate a slow decline in U.S. identification with the group, there was an increase in active U.S. publishers over this period. ARIS notes the survey did not cover non-English speakers and small groups with a high proportion of recent immigrant members were likely undercounted. Announced U.S. Witness convention schedules for 2005 include 75 non-English conventions of 227 total. Most increase in membership each year is due to an influx of non-English speaking individuals, with a rapid increase in foreign-language congregations being established throughout the country.

Jehovah's Witnesses have a small active presence in most countries and are the second or third largest religious group in many countries with a dominant religion. In no country are they a large part of the population, however. Brazil and Mexico are the only countries other than the U.S. where the number of active Witness publishers exceeds 0.5 million. The highest proportion of Witnesses in a country of substantial size is in Zambia, where 1% are active Witness publishers. Growth in most developed countries is slow or negative in recent years but is offset by rapid growth in less developed lands, particularly the former Communist bloc and Latin America.

Jehovah's Witnesses commemorate the Memorial of Christ's death (also known as the Lord's Evening Meal) annually. According to the February 1, 2006 Watchtower, worldwide attendance at the 2005 celebration of the Memorial was 16,383,333, slightly lower than the 2004 attendance of 16,760,607. This figure includes not only publishers, but inactive members, relatives, visitors and interested persons. In the U.S., 2.3 million people were present. In Zambia 570,000 attended, or 1 person for every 20 in the population. Of over 16 million in attendance worldwide, only 8,524 persons partook of the memorial emblems of unleavened bread and wine. These are those who profess to be anointed ones based on their interpretation of Revelation 14:1. ^[8]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Membership", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki