My First Visit to a Kingdom Hall

My First Visit to a Kingdom Hall

I had always been very leery of places with no windows.  The only places that I saw in my community with no windows were porno shops and Kingdom Halls.  As you know, I have been participating in a bible study with Jehovah Witnesses for several months now and have been trying to develop a relationship with the guys that come by each week - a relationship outside of just debating whether Jesus rose bodily or not.  I recognize that I'm getting real close to where I'm going to have to preach a message of faith in Jesus Christ and the real good news to my brothers and how the WBTS has become a God to them rather than the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but right now, I'm just enjoying the ride and learning and preparing a little more.  I decided that it would be good to go with them to the KH to 1) learn a little more about them and how and why they do what they do, 2) gain a level of trust and openness with them that I wouldn't have otherwise, and 3) have something to stand on when I invited them to attend one of our church services at the church we attend.

I try to approach every aspect of my interaction with JW's from the standpoint of love and not to quickly condemn as most Christians would.  In other words, I should be going to the Kingdom Hall in Jesus' name to condemn the JW's, but through the Christ in my the JW's might be delivered.  Interestingly enough, our bible study last night centered around Christ's ransom sacrifice.  I used the opportunity to explain to Frank and Dank about how the ransom sacrifice is much more than and opportunity for people to have hope in a paradise earth.  I was able to show them that while I'm in Christ, I can do what Christ did and live how Christ lived.  I have a confidence about my salvation, eternal life, ability to stay free from sin, that the WBTS doesn't teach.

I also approach this visit to the Kingdom Hall from the standpoint of 1Thes 5:2:

“But examine all things; hold fast to what is good.” —1 Thessalonians 5:21 NET

So in that, here are my observations:

I could go on for pages about how many erroneous doctrines and misstatements I heard during the course of my visit, but there were some good aspects of what I saw in this congregation.  Now most people don't want to admit that there are any good aspects to a "cult", but the truth of the matter is, there are a lot of bad things that we don't admit about the modern Christian church.  The other thing that you have to understand is that Satan is not a creator, so he only is able to pervert truth.  So in perverting truth, we have to understand that there is a truth that can be found in each of the things that we see Satan perverting, thus there are truths that can be found in the JW's worship and church services.

1.  Multi-cultural

Most of us in America have no concept of a truly multicultural church.  This was not the case at the meeting I went to.  I saw blacks, whites, a few Hispanics, and a few other nationalities there.  The only way I knew of the other nationalities, is because they were actively involved in  the service and I heard their heavy accents.

2.  Active Participation

One thing that the JW's pride themselves on is teaching and education.  Thus, the service contains elements of that teaching and education.  For instance, after they sing a song (a very dry song for my taste), they go over the week's watchtower and people raise their hands to share what they got out of the watchtower.  Then you have some JW's that will come up to the front to do role plays of how to use the current watchtower to witness to people in their local community.  This type of thing is what impresses the impressionable as they don't experience this level of interaction in any other Christian church that I've ever seen.  In fact, I dare say that the majority of Christian churches don't inspire any crowd participation aside from the initial singing.

3.  Accountability

One thing that I've learned from Frank and Dank is how they were impressed with the "organization" as it relates to what I would call accountability, while most everyone else would call mind control, and of course the JW's call structure and discipline.  The reason they can keep people in line is because they keep smaller "contact" groups.  This is a growing concept with a lot of modern Christian churches and church becomes a larger meeting of people from all walks of life where no one really has any real interaction with people in the congregation outside of church.  While this concept doesn't impress me when it comes to the JW's, I can see how appealing it would be for someone who had seen most Christian churches where you simply go and do the "Sunday" thing and probably go to a midweek service every now and then.  Most churches I've ever attended or visited didn't really make it a point to have contact outside of the four walls of the church.  We simply all meetup on Sunday, sing a few songs, hear a sermon, take up an offering and go home.  Of course the early Christian churches operated in a much more community based way as opposed to the way we are accustomed to church in America.

Now as for the things I didn't like, it alls boils down to the stuffy, almost plastic "Stepford Wives" kind of service and interaction.  Sure, everybody had a smile on their face and greeted you with love and acceptance, but I was the only male there without a suit, I didn't have words to the songs (not that I wanted to even sing the songs), and it was an overall creepy feeling.  Beyond the obvious mind-control messaging that goes on during each service, there's really nothing else to the service from my standpoint, but I'm sure that a true JW or ex-JW can shed more light on the inner workings.