20. Why do Jehovah’s witnesses meet more often than others, and how does their meeting attendance compare with that of other churches in general?

²⁰ It is evident that with every member a public teacher, the demand for instruction and meetings is much larger than where this is not the case. Therefore, Jehovah’s witnesses have five regular, weekly congregational meetings of an hour each, with an average attendance worldwide of about 75 percent of all associated members, as contrasted with the one-time-a-week churchgoers and the generally low meeting attendance complained about in most other churches.

21. Why are the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses different from those of other churches?

²¹ Most of the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses are different from the so-called divine services and meetings held in Christendom’s church buildings, because they must meet the demand of a general priesthood. Besides the Sunday sermon, to which the public is also specially invited, and two weekly Bible studies, the Witnesses conduct two meetings a week with the special purpose of educating and training themselves for their ministerial services to one another and to the public.

22. What meetings are specially designed to assist in practicing the general priesthood?

²² One of them is the Service Meeting. Here Jehovah’s witnesses discuss ways and means by which the congregation can most efficiently shoulder the obligation of preaching regularly to every household in its assigned territory and studying the Bible with interested persons. The other meeting is the Theocratic Ministry School, which provides the individual Witness with his personal training as a public minister of the good news. Men, women and children are enrolled. The school program includes instruction lectures, student assignments of public Bible reading, sermons and house-to-house ministry, followed by instructive counsel by a school servant. All meetings are free, and the public is welcome.

23. What conclusions can be drawn from the fact that Jehovah’s witnesses are able to practice the general priesthood worldwide?

²³ Making every member of a religious organization, by count 989,192 in 189 countries, public praisers of God is something to take note of. They were not social workers or literal singers in the streets, but ministers following in the footsteps of Christ Jesus, preaching and teaching from house to house and in the homes in apostolic style, regardless of age, sex, language, race and worldly education; and this is an achievement no man or organization may take credit for. Worldwide Jehovah’s witnesses spent 142,046,679 hours in house-to-house preaching in the year 1962. Christendom’s fruitless attempts to do the same in spite of great desire and effort testify to that. It is the result of the power of God’s spirit and is evidence of the fact, not only that we are living in the “last days” referred to by Joel, but also that the congregation practicing the much-desired general priesthood has received God’s spirit and is the one he uses on earth to represent him among the nations. Why not get better acquainted with Jehovah’s witnesses? You can find them in all parts of the world. You are welcome to attend their Bible study meetings at their Kingdom Halls.

“Lost Its Faith”

“Protestantism,” The Church Herald says, “has lost its faith—not all Protestants, to be sure, but so many of them that the gasoline in the tank is half water. You can’t run a car that way. You can’t run a church that way.”—The Reader’s Digest, September, 1962, p. 50.