2023-2024 World Report

[Parale]

4 hours ago, retroHelen said:

Statistics can be a bit misleading

 

Absolutely, hence Darrell Huff's (in)famous 1954 book "How to Lie with Statistics" 😮🤔

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics

 

 

4 hours ago, retroHelen said:

We read of decreases and these get put against increases and seem to bring down overall averages to a small increase over all. Yet, when you look at the countries with large decreases, they are war zones. Therefore, it is likely that the faithful ones are still in existance, not left the faith, just left the country and gone elsewhere

 

FWIW here's the ten biggest ups and downs:

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 07:01 PM by Parale

[Brandon]

On 1/19/2025 at 5:36 PM, Eejay said:

was surprised that most of the Carribean islands show 0 or a decrease.

We just came back from our first trip to Cuba. Their population has actually experienced a nearly 1 million people per year decline, partly due to the fact that until 2013 there was no legal way for Cubans to leave even if they wanted to, could afford to, and found a country willing to accept their passport.

 

Even so they have a very small ratio of publisher to population (1:120) coupled with basically no one immigrating, you might almost think the preaching work is done.

 

Kingdom Halls don’t technically exist due to the fact that religious organizations cannot own land (yet the bethel is visible on our website and you can book a tour). Meeting locations are in homes with 60-80 people and witnessing is done both door to door and in public. Meeting times are not listed on our website though (perhaps just out of an abundance of caution, not wanting to list the personal homes of witnesses in case there’s a regime change which doesn’t tolerate us any more).

[TheKid23]

Just noticed the 22 & 23 service year reports have updates in the app

[Jwanon]

3 hours ago, Parale said:

 

Absolutely, hence Darrell Huff's (in)famous 1954 book "How to Lie with Statistics" 😮🤔

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics

 

 

 

FWIW here's the ten biggest ups and downs:

 

 

 

what happened in poland?

[BruceD]

Just wondering, has anyone converted the world report table to Excel? Would they like to share it?
Thanks
Bruce

[SteveAus]

1 hour ago, BruceD said:

Just wondering, has anyone converted the world report table to Excel? Would they like to share it?
Thanks
Bruce

Just copy 'n paste into Excel?

2024 Country and Territory Reports.xlsx

Edited 22 hours ago by SteveAus

[Parale]

12 hours ago, Jwanon said:

what happened in poland?

 

The Polish diaspora?

 

"There are roughly 20,000,000 people of Polish ancestry living outside Poland, making the Polish diaspora one of the largest in the world and one of the most widely dispersed. Reasons for displacement include border shifts, forced expulsions, resettlement by voluntary and forced exile, and political or economic emigration."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_diaspora

 

(average publisher data not available for 1952 to 1987, and 2017 and 2018)

 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Parale

[BruceD]

52 minutes ago, SteveAus said:

Just copy 'n paste into Excel?

2024 Country and Territory Reports.xlsx 24.86 kB · 1 download

Thanks Steve.  I tried that but it did not work for me.  But thanks for the file.

[Parale]

14 hours ago, Brandon said:

We just came back from our first trip to Cuba. Their population has actually experienced a nearly 1 million people per year decline, partly due to the fact that until 2013 there was no legal way for Cubans to leave even if they wanted to, could afford to, and found a country willing to accept their passport.

 

Even so they have a very small ratio of publisher to population (1:120) coupled with basically no one immigrating, you might almost think the preaching work is done.

 

Kingdom Halls don’t technically exist due to the fact that religious organizations cannot own land (yet the bethel is visible on our website and you can book a tour). Meeting locations are in homes with 60-80 people and witnessing is done both door to door and in public. Meeting times are not listed on our website though (perhaps just out of an abundance of caution, not wanting to list the personal homes of witnesses in case there’s a regime change which doesn’t tolerate us any more).

 

Interesting, thanks for some background.... yes we see last year a significant drop in population, which means that although the number of average publishers also dropped by nearly 2,500, the actual "ratio-to-population" improved, also nice increases in regular pioneers and Bible studies...

 

 

[carlos]

On 1/19/2025 at 11:36 PM, Eejay said:

 

Although it doesn't mount up to large numbers, I was surprised that most of the Carribean islands show 0 or a decrease.

 

That often happens in places where there are only a handful of Christians. Any small change shows a big percentage. For example, imagine an island where there are 20 publishers and a couple of them move to a different assignment. That would throw a decrease of 10% but actually it's only two people.

 

Yesterday the brother who said the opening prayer at our meeting mentioned the friends in Russia and Eritrea. So when we got to the World Report, it linked well with saying that those brothers who are constantly praying for in Russia, Eritrea, China and other places are not hidden and doing nothing, they are including in the figure at the end of 214,313 publishers in other 33 countries. They had a 1.4% increase and a Memorial attendance of ove 300,000. So they are very active despite the harsh persecution.

[Parale]

On 2/9/2025 at 5:42 PM, Kristian said:

It's amazing to see our brothers in Central African Republic despite being one of the poorest countries and a country with various instabilities, our 3352 brothers and sisters have been such an encouraging example for us. In 5.9million of people, our brothers there had an 11% increase from last year, 269 were baptized. There were 400 pioneers. 9,000 Bible studies were conducted, and 26,000 had attended the memorial...

 

Thanks for the highlight/s.

 

What is also significant in the Central African Republic is the number of Bible studies - it is an 11.7% increase over 2016 - thus it is one of the very, very few countries where Bible studies have actually increased over 2016.... on average worldwide Bible studies have decreased by 26% compared to 2016.

 

 

[Parale]

On 2/11/2025 at 5:13 AM, jwzhang said:

In the letter we received, it stated our local branch territory (Thailand) had an average of 3087 regular and auxiliary pioneers for the 2024 service year, which is 55 percent of our total publishers. I thought that statistic was amazing!

 

Nice. We are not told the average number of auxiliary pioneers in each country, only the number of regular pioneers.

 

On average worldwide 19% of publishers are regular pioneers - but there is one country where over half the publishers are regular pioneers....

 

 

[Parale]

1 hour ago, Parale said:

What is also significant in the Central African Republic is the number of Bible studies - it is an 11.7% increase over 2016 - thus it is one of the very, very few countries where Bible studies have actually increased over 2016.... on average worldwide Bible studies have decreased by 26% compared to 2016.

 

Here is the list of the 23 countries or territories where the number of Bible studies have increased in 2024, compared to 2016 - all others are either the same, or a decrease.

 

 

[jwzhang]

1 hour ago, Parale said:

 

Nice. We are not told the average number of auxiliary pioneers in each country, only the number of regular pioneers.

 

On average worldwide 19% of publishers are regular pioneers - but there is one country where over half the publishers are regular pioneers....

 

 

Thanks for sharing, Paul.
This is my first time hearing some of these countries! Including Rota, where 1 out of 2 publishers is RP