I have ambivalent feelings about the interesting and wide-ranging statistics provided by Nigel Tomes, not that I question them; in fact, I would like to see it compared to other criteria, as well. I am just not convinced that they necessarily prove a decline in membership or interest in Nee, Lee and/or the Local Church. Fact is, current membership only consume and digest the sanitized fare of Nee/Lee, nothing else. Why would they then have a need to do internet searches?
("Sanitized fare" means Paul Kerr's famous questions have been deleted as well as possibly the names and contributions of other "rebels". This is LSM's "spiritual" version of the paleo diet.)
For instance, I left fifteen years ago so I have no frame of reference to the turmoil of 2004–2006; I know very little about that but I assume that was the cutting off of Dong Yu Lan and Titus Chu.
I just believe you cannot confidently compare searches for Watchman Nee or Witness Lee with those of modern-day preachers who use the internet extensively to further their ministries and come to a conclusion whether the membership of the Local Church is shrinking or not; LSM does not use the internet extensively to promote the Local Churches. Sure, they maintain an internet presence but that is mainly as a library reference.
And the Local Church has changed: it has become more structured than fifteen or twenty years ago. It now has several permanent full-time training centers globally so the lecturers travel from Anaheim or wherever to the different training centers. They spend two weeks completing their own curriculum before leaving again. They do this every semester. I suppose many of the trainees have never even been to La Palma in Anaheim or Taipei but they would possibly be more familiar with London, Hamilton or Pretoria.
We could actually describe it as a decentralization of staff and assets. This could possibly be classified as effective measures, yet not reflect in statistics.
What would really interest me is numbers. How many are members of the Local Church in the US, in Europe, in Africa, in Australasia as well as countries in the Far East. How does today's statistics compare with that of 1985?
Perhaps Nigel can provide some input on that.
By the way, I tested the Lee Harvey Oswald blemishes on searches for Witness Lee. So I Googled "John Ingalls" and got two hits on the first two pages for the John Ingalls we know, with one hit linking to this forum. It certainly doesn't help that there was famous politician more than a century ago by the name of John James Ingalls.
