Jehovah's Witness preaching. Increasing or fading away?

[CeelosDeznos]

In the 1980’s when they knocked on our doors they would stick their foot in the door the moment you opened it and were very aggressive. (Not sure if it was one particular group or not). They seem to be completely different today and I have enjoyed a debate or two with them.

While I was not among them too long, I can promise you that such is definitely not the average JW. In fact if ever any Witnesses did that and I know one who did they received counsel and further discipline if they continued such behavior.

Whatever people might think of them (and even though some bad examples walk among them like everywhere else), they are generally taught to be very courteous and respectful. In fact if you ever encounter one who isn’t or who is even snarky or unmannerly I think that would be a quick giveaway to identifying them as a bad example, and you wouldn’t want to hear anything a bad example from the JWs would have to say. Practically everyone I ever met was exceptionally nice.

 

[Nelka]

I haven’t seen them stick their foot in the door in this area.

While I was not among them too long, I can promise you that such is definitely not the average JW. In fact if ever any Witnesses did that and I know one who did they received counsel and further discipline if they continued such behavior.

Whatever people might think of them (and even though some bad examples walk among them like everywhere else), they are generally taught to be very courteous and respectful. In fact if you ever encounter one who isn’t or who is even snarky or unmannerly I think that would be a quick giveaway to identifying them as a bad example, and you wouldn’t want to hear anything a bad example from the JWs would have to say. Practically everyone I ever met was exceptionally nice.

I feel it must have been the local kingdom hall that acted that way as I had never encountered that afterwards, maybe an over-zealous elder or something.

The last JW was very pleasant although I didn’t manage to convert him.

 

[commenter]

I think one reason the JW’s had such a huge emphasis on door to door evangelism is that it is very labor intensive; they wanted to keep their members busy in church work, to lessen straying.

I notice a lot fewer JWs going door to door in recent years, now that people mention it. I wonder if that is partly because so many women are working now; both the JWs themselves, and also fewer women are home during the day. But then my neighborhood is mostly elderly, don’t know if JWs profile neighborhoods.

Another possibility is that towns now have ordinances against “soliciting”. In my neighborhood people called the police a few years ago; I doubt the police would do anything except ask the people to move on? Or can the municipality require a permit? I hope this right is still defended under freedom of religion, but don’t know.

I see fewer copies of literature left around in public reception areas, etc, but do see some of them.
I wonder if there are demographic changes in the JWs?

 

[jlhargus]

Our local JWs have stopped going door-to-door like Mormons, and started just standing near a cardboard stand with pamphlets on it in the middle of town, like a less proactive version of what the Baptists do. Whenever anyone approaches looking like they might talk to them, the JWs by the stand start engaging each other in deep conversation that it would be rude for someone to interrupt, so they seem to have completely disengaged from speaking to people.

That sounds like a tactic to me. When someone approaches on their own one can assume they are well versed in scripture and JW teachings. Therefore capable of pointing out errors of the Watchtower and not a candidate for conversion to the WT. I would simply walk up to the stand and stand there till they took a breath. They are probably reciting a variation of a script they have practiced at the hall.

 

[jlhargus]

I can’t answer the question from a general view point but from a personal perspective it has dwindled quite a bit. I have almost had to beg my JW family members to come visit or even travel to the next town myself to visit and talk, and when they can’t answer the hard questions they leave with the understanding they will do more research and get back to me never to hear from them again about the subject unless I bring it up again. I have a strong urge to go knock on their door just kidding.
Peace!!!

I think you have come close to why they don’t go door to door so much. There is so much more knowledge and apologetic sources available today than twenty years ago. More people asking hard questions they can’t answer. They used to lead the conversation and subject matter and had all the answers for those talking points that month. Now they are challenged with questions that don’t fit the script. Questions that their elders can’t give good answers to otherwise they would gleefully come back.

 

[ChosenOne7]

I think what you are saying is only based on your own opinion or own assumption… The preaching work has never stopped… The only time it will stop is when Matthew 24:14 is fulfilled… No human can stop that from being fulfilled.

 

[Kevin_Keith]

I get pamphlets left in the door pretty often but haven’t had one knock on the door in a while. The last pamphlet was inviting us to attend their annual communion service. We did not attend.

 

[jlhargus]

I think what you are saying is only based on your own opinion or own assumption… The preaching work has never stopped… The only time it will stop is when Matthew 24:14 is fulfilled… No human can stop that from being fulfilled.

I don’t know if you are referring to my post but I will guess you are since I made the last 2 posts. Yes what I posted was based on my own opinion just like your post is based on your own opinion or assumption. I totally agree with [Mt24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.] and your remark… No human can stop that from being fulfilled. I would also add no human knows the hour it will be fulfilled.

 

[ChosenOne7]

That’s true what you saying no human knows the hour, that’s exactly why they preach… They will only stop until God has said the hour has arrived… Our focus shouldn’t be on when the hour is arriving but rather on doing the task which God has commanded. How else would that verse be fulfilled if no one preaches?

 

[jlhargus]

I get pamphlets left in the door pretty often but haven’t had one knock on the door in a while. The last pamphlet was inviting us to attend their annual communion service. We did not attend.

I have lived at my address 12 years I have had a couple, one sheet, leaflets left on the door and once a JW handed me a leaflet to attend their communion service and left. Which is strange considering the 144,000.00 who alone could receive communion was filled in 1935 or 36. That was the year when heaven was supposed to be closed. That revelation was a flash of light given to the then President of the WT Judge Rutherford.

I would welcome talking to JWs.

 

[jlhargus]

That’s true what you saying no human knows the hour, that’s exactly why they preach… They will only stop until God has said the hour has arrived… Our focus shouldn’t be on when the hour is arriving but rather on doing the task which God has commanded. How else would that verse be fulfilled if no one preaches?

Evidently you have never read any WT magazines from the late 1960’s through 1975 or older WTs that go back to the early 1900. I have a sister in law who has always been JW. She expected the end of this system in 1975 along with all door to door JWs. Many left their jobs in 1974 and sold their homes so they could preach the end in 1975. In 75 one of the WT magazines even admitted some sold their homes. yet they didn’t offer them any help. Thousands left the WT after 1975. When I questioned my sister in law after 1975 her face turned red as it could get. I felt sorrow for her and dropped the subject because I love my sister in law. I often think I should have pushed the subject maybe she would have come out of them.

 

[adf417]

I think you have come close to why they don’t go door to door so much. There is so much more knowledge and apologetic sources available today than twenty years ago. More people asking hard questions they can’t answer. They used to lead the conversation and subject matter and had all the answers for those talking points that month. Now they are challenged with questions that don’t fit the script. Questions that their elders can’t give good answers to otherwise they would gleefully come back.

Agreed!
I often try to put myself in the shoes of the JW and learn things myself from their resources but in some cases it is simply void of the issue. Take for example the early christian heresies, they have few and very vague references to them and do not address many by name or precise condition. It makes it very difficult to even discuss say, “Adoptionism” or “Docetism”. Many of the early heresies searched on their website return “Sorry, the search returned no results”. Its like the only “heresy” they have heard of and care to fight it “Trinitarism”. If they would only look at the actual history of all the heresies they would have to ask themselves - what JW was fighting that fight back then?

Peace!!!

 

[XuDan]

to the original post: I live less than a half a mile from a Kingdom Hall, and never see any JW in my neighborhood going door to door. No one has left literature, nor have I seen literature left. I remember a time when they would set up a booth in the Mall at least once a month, in recent years even this is not the case.

Yet statistics from Pew seem for show an increase of membership for the JW, so obviously they are preaching. Perhaps they are just not doing so in the same manner as times past or are not doing so in my neighborhood.

 

[commenter]

to the original post: I live less than a half a mile from a Kingdom Hall, and never see any JW in my neighborhood going door to door. No one has left literature, nor have I seen literature left. I remember a time when they would set up a booth in the Mall at least once a month, in recent years even this is not the case.

Yet statistics from Pew seem for show an increase of membership for the JW, so obviously they are preaching. Perhaps they are just not doing so in the same manner as times past or are not doing so in my neighborhood.

If statistics show an increase, but posters including me see less activity in the neighborhood, that could reflect:

• Growth is maybe coming from countries very different from the countries where the posters live;
• A high birth rate (almost any birth rate is “high” compared to most churches today)
• Statistical anomaly - for instance, maybe before they were only counting “members” over a certain age - those old enough to understand and join the church - but now they maybe are counting all, or more, children in JW families
• Maybe they are counting adult members differently; for instance, maybe they used to drop members from the rolls after a few months of no contact, but now they don’t.
• JWs are doing other forms of evangelism - mainly internet (this begets the question why would internet evangelism help them grow, but not other churches that also use it)
• Prayer
• Some other reason we aren’t thinking of

 

[XuDan]

If statistics show an increase, but posters including me see less activity in the neighborhood, that could reflect:

• Growth is maybe coming from countries very different from the countries where the posters live;
• A high birth rate (almost any birth rate is “high” compared to most churches today)
• Statistical anomaly - for instance, maybe before they were only counting “members” over a certain age - those old enough to understand and join the church - but now they maybe are counting all, or more, children in JW families
• JWs are doing other forms of evangelism - mainly internet
• Some other reason we aren’t thinking of

All very possible! It’s hard to say!

 

[jlhargus]

If statistics show an increase, but posters including me see less activity in the neighborhood, that could reflect:

• Growth is maybe coming from countries very different from the countries where the posters live; *

I would guess this to be the case . Probably third world countries or remote areas.

 

[jlhargus]

Agreed!
I often try to put myself in the shoes of the JW and learn things myself from their resources but in some cases it is simply void of the issue. Take for example the early christian heresies, they have few and very vague references to them and do not address many by name or precise condition. It makes it very difficult to even discuss say, “Adoptionism” or “Docetism”. Many of the early heresies searched on their website return “Sorry, the search returned no results”. Its like the only “heresy” they have heard of and care to fight it “Trinitarism”. If they would only look at the actual history of all the heresies they would have to ask themselves - what JW was fighting that fight back then? Peace!!!

Unless things have changed and WT doctrine does with the change of the wind. JWs are not allowed to do research on their own. Reading apostate writings which is all things not printed by the WT. They aren’t even allowed to study scripture apart from the WT magazine. They can be disfellowshiped for doing so.

 

[retire_early]

I think it depends on what you see as increasing or fading and that there is no precise answer. I do believe things are different from my perspective that might be an odd one.

You see, I come from a religiously diverse household. Mainly Catholic and a family that was large and that often included cousins and friends who are still treated like relatives. We had Pentecostals, Mormons, and even Jehovah’s Witnesses. Imagine being in a Catholic school and church during the week, Mormon family nights on Monday, Kingdom Hall twice during the week, Pentecostal Sunday school and Mormon sacrament meetings on Sunday. We had it all!

While I did not choose to enter the JW religion as an adult, I do remember that when I was a kid in the 1970s and 80s it seemed like the Witnesses were everywhere. At least in my town. Before the 1975 debacle happened there was great excitement. I remember how proud, close-knit and happy my JW friends Ann, Robert, and Leshaun were before then. Witnesses were always going down each and every street, dressed so neatly, with their two-colored magazines called Watchtower and Awake. There were these bumper stickers on cars and placed on most of the newspaper stands around town that read: “Jehovah is coming!” I know that a lot of people say it never happened but it did. It was in the Witness books, meetings, and reported on in the news. It was official stuff but you can’t find a trace of anything anymore because most of it was destroyed after 75 disappointed so many of us. Everybody really believed the world was going to end in 1975, except for my Pentecostal and LDS family members of course and my Catholic ones who thought we were just crazy.

But things changed after 1975 came and went. Overnight my JW friends changed and we started drifting away. The Witnesses were seen on the streets less and less. The books they gave us were different too, more colorful but fewer. I remember that a 1985 convention held in the Astrodome in Houston, Texas holding some 40,000 people was to be the last of its kind in our area. And when some problems behind closed doors of our Kingdom Hall and an argument happened over whether or not Armageddon was going to come before the year 2000 and whether our family would die for having Catholics in it became an issue, well that was the end of the Kingdom Hall meetings for our family.

I never went back to a Kingdom Hall or heard from the Witnesses again for a long time. I never saw them come down my street again or even when I moved I heard or saw nothing of them. I forgot about them almost until finally, maybe after 15 years or so after I had grown and moved to another town that some came to my door. The man with his child stumbled a lot through his presentation and promised to return, but after a year of waiting for him I gave up. Before moving again a young lady had a colored sheet of paper with Jesus on it inviting me to their yearly communion meeting, but she was so nervous that with a smile and a few words explaining I was attending my own church on the same date was all it took for her to almost run away.

Things have really changed. I recently discovered that the Witnesses mainly distribute their message on the Internet and that now they do it on Internet tv like Roku. In the 70s and 80s we were taught that television evangelism cheapened the message of the Bible and that the Witnesses would never do such a thing ever. And I remember a traveling overseer coming to the Kingdom Hall and telling us that we could not stand on street corners displaying Watchtowers and Bibles on tables and expect to remain good Jehovah’s Witnesses. But I understand that is what a lot do today some 30 years after some faithful Witnesses were punished in my area for doing so.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that they have changed. I am saying it looks good and impressive. And while I am sure the message is not the same because we are now living in a year they said would never ever come, it does look like they have finally accepted to be like the other churches they use to criticize and condemn. Their website is flashy and sleek but it looks like stuff the Mormons have been putting out for some time on the worldwide web and the new JW logo looks like the one the White House has been using called WH.org.

But even though we don’t see them like we used to, it interesting to see they are open to change and even do so by making 360s in the process. I don’t think we will ever see them regularly going door to door like we did before 1975 but then I also understand they are a kinder and less aggressive people today too or so I hope. It is strange that no one from the Witnesses ever came to see me after we stopped going because the Mormons still stop by to see hello even though everyone is Catholic now in my family.

Come to think of it the Pentecostals have never came by to say HI once uncle Joe and aunt Marie stopped going there too.

I love your narrative! You are a talented story-teller. Hopefully, you have written other things for publication. Sounds like you would have many other interesting stories from your past.

 

[Porknpie]

Unless things have changed and WT doctrine does with the change of the wind. JWs are not allowed to do research on their own. Reading apostate writings which is all things not printed by the WT. They aren’t even allowed to study scripture apart from the WT magazine. They can be disfellowshiped for doing so.

Yep. And this is a sign of a cult, to restrict the ability of its members to reason.

You would think that if they contained the fullness of truth that researching would only strengthen their faith and sharpen their apologetic skills.

But when one does research, and for example, reads the writings of the early Church, one finds Catholic doctrine, including the belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

And a question that no JW has ever been able to answer: how can a Church that went into apostasy shortly after the death of the last apostle, discern 300 years later the canon of scripture, including 27 books of the NT out of several hundred writings?

Saying that they “harmonize” is a the poorest of answers because they for one 1) don’t harmonize … The Book of Revelation for example in now way harmonizes with the Book of Hebrews or the Epistle of 1 Peter. and for two 2) it excludes the possibility that books outside of the bible should be included in it but are not.

That they trust that those Catholic Bishops got it right…and apostate Church got it right is most,

Contradictory.

 

[jlhargus]

Yep. And this is a sign of a cult, to restrict the ability of its members to reason.

You would think that if they contained the fullness of truth that researching would only strengthen their faith and sharpen their apologetic skills.

But when one does research, and for example, reads the writings of the early Church, one finds Catholic doctrine, including the belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Exactly that’s why the WT headquarters in NYC does the research for them. So the local elder and door to door JW will not see the truth in the original. A JW will quote (misquote is more correct) an original source (page, name etc.) and claim to do their own research and they do in the sense they must research only within Watch Tower publications not from the original sources.

[Heavy research is not nec essary. The Watch Tower has done it for you. The most beneficial study you can do is to read the Watchtower or Awake! or a new book by the organization.] WT 6/1/1967, p. 338. taken from the book, “The Index of Watch Tower Errors”. David A Reed, editor. Compiled by Steve Huntoon & John Cornell.

And a question that no JW has ever been able to answer: how can a Church that went into apostasy shortly after the death of the last apostle, discern 300 years later the canon of scripture, including 27 books of the NT out of several hundred writings?

Saying that they “harmonize” is a the poorest of answers because they for one 1) don’t harmonize … The Book of Revelation for example in now way harmonizes with the Book of Hebrews or the Epistle of 1 Peter. and for two 2) it excludes the possibility that books outside of the bible should be included in it but are not.

That they trust that those Catholic Bishops got it right…and apostate Church got it right is most, Contradictory.

That’s a pure diversion because they have no answer. Lots of writings “harmonize” with the scriptures but they were not considered inspired. For instance Clement’s letter to the Corinthians, Hermas and others I can’t recall right now.