{"id":6168,"date":"2022-03-19T14:06:17","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T11:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=6168"},"modified":"2022-03-19T14:06:17","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T11:06:17","slug":"jehovahs-witnesses-to-resume-in-person-gatherings-door-knocking-still-on-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/jehovahs-witnesses-to-resume-in-person-gatherings-door-knocking-still-on-hold\/","title":{"rendered":"Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses to resume in-person gatherings, door knocking still on hold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses will begin to meet in person starting April 1, two years after closing their worship buildings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Door-to-door preaching, however, will not yet resume.<\/p>\n

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Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses kingdom hall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kingdom Halls \u2014 where congregants would typically meet twice a week \u2014 will, as of April 1, reopen for in-person worship as long as there are no pandemic-related government restrictions forbidding them from doing so. Virtual services will still be available.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is historic for us because it will be the first time, globally, we\u2019ll be holding hybrid meetings,\u201d said Robert Hendriks, U.S. spokesman for Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses.<\/p>\n

These new guidelines come just in time for two global events to be held at Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses\u2019 120,000 congregations. A special lecture \u2014 dubbed \u201cWhere Can You Find Real Hope\u201d \u2014 is scheduled April 10, and the annual commemoration of the death of Jesus Christ will be held April 15. Both gatherings will be held in person at local Kingdom Halls with live speakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing to a Kingdom Hall is a personal choice. Our congregants are eager to get back. Some may not. They\u2019ll have the option to stay home,\u201d Hendriks said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses \u2014 a global denomination of 8.6 million \u2014 are not yet ready to begin their public ministries, including going door to door and setting up witnessing carts across cities. Letter writing and phone calls, which replaced door-to-door knocking, will continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we start knocking on doors again, we\u2019re not giving our neighbors a choice. Some won\u2019t be comfortable with that right now, and we\u2019re OK with that,\u201d Hendriks said. \u201cWe want to make sure that our neighbors are not only safe, but also feel secure, and it\u2019s going to take some time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hendriks said cart witnessing may be the first of their public ministries to resume.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to take one step at a time,\u201d Hendriks said.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the pandemic, Witnesses not only\u00a0shut their Kingdom Halls, but also hundreds of\u00a0summer worship conventions\u00a0in cities across the U.S. When they canceled close to 800 conventions in 2020, it was the first time since 1897 that they had not held their in-person conventions.<\/p>\n

The year before the pandemic, in 2019, they held 5,752 worldwide conventions, including a meeting of 40,000 Witnesses in Phoenix that contributed an estimated $60 million to the local economy,\u00a0according to The Arizona Republic.<\/p>\n

In total, the 2019 conventions attracted more than 14.1 million attendees from across the globe, including millions who are not members of the Witnesses.<\/p>\n

For Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, the pandemic has meant putting principles ahead of personal preferences.<\/p>\n

Life is sacred, Hendriks said, and \u201cin-person ministry is not as important as a life \u2026 especially when we were able to be so productive virtually.\u201d But, also, Hendriks said, \u201cJehovah\u2019s Witnesses are in subjection to the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the governments say you can\u2019t do something, we don\u2019t fight it, not unless it\u2019s something that God has told us to do,\u201d Hendriks said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t go to the government and start complaining about laws. When the government says you need to mask up, we mask up. When the government says you need to get vaccinated, we get vaccinated. When the government says you need to stop meeting in public, we stop meeting in public,\u201d Hendriks added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses will begin to meet in person starting April 1, two years after closing their worship buildings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Door-to-door preaching, however, will not yet resume. Kingdom Halls \u2014 where congregants…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-jw-org"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6170,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168\/revisions\/6170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}